Retribution (34 page)

Con was more than concerned about Sasha, but her breathing was slow and measured and her pulse was strong. He hoped she stayed out until they were rescued.
Goddamn it.
If something had happened to Dray, Sasha would be devastated.

He finally located his phone beneath the love seat and punched in Surrey’s number. It took fifteen minutes to connect, and Surrey immediately said, “We’re on our way.”

“I think the entire block may be gone, Surrey. Sasha, Bleak, and I are in the bunker. Get here as soon as you can. I can’t raise Dray or Dare. I don’t know what’s going on up there, but it must be bad. Sasha’s down, and I can’t get her help until you get us out of this box.”

“I can’t raise either of them, but I’ll be there in about six hours. Can she hang on until then? Is she hurt?” Surrey asked, worry threading his tone.

“She’s been tranq’d, so I don’t know how long she’ll be out. Hell, I don’t even know what Bleak shot her with,” Con replied in frustration.

“Bleak?” Surrey said in a cold voice.

“Yeah, man, we’ll talk when you get here, but come prepared for a prisoner.”

“Hang on. Itchy and I are on the way.” Surrey disconnected.

Con moved to Sasha and sat down. He held her head in his lap and leaned back, prepared to wait until help arrived.

* * * *

“She’ll come around. There are no visible signs of trauma. The tranquilizer used hasn’t been identified, but we do know it’s synthetic.”

Someone was whispering above her. Sasha tried to capture the voice, but it floated away, overpowered by the buzz in her head. Slowly, she began to recognize certain things about her surroundings—the beep of monitors, the smell of antiseptic. Was she in a hospital?

Her mouth tasted like the ass-end of a horse had ridden through it. She tried to vocalize a need for water, only to realize she had a tube stuck down her throat. She instinctively reached to pull it out. It hurt and she felt like she was suffocating.

Hands gently pulled hers away from her mouth. “It’s okay, Sasha, we’ll get the tube out, hold on.”

Her limbs were mired in quicksand, and she couldn’t lift her eyelids, but she recognized his voice.
Dray
. She wanted the tube out so she could tell him she loved him. They must have made it through everything okay. His big hand was warm on her head, and his soft crooning lulled her to safety. She gave up the need to wake and fell back into sleep.

* * * *

Sasha woke confused and dying for some water. She pried her eyes open and tried to figure out where she was. She inventoried all her body parts and found herself intact, if a bit sore everywhere.

She glanced around but saw no sign of Dray.
Where’s the damn button?
She located it, and was relieved when a nurse walked in followed by Surrey, Con, and Itchy.

The nurse gave her a small sip of water and told her she would be back with the doctor. Sasha didn’t care; she only wanted Dray.

“Where’s Dray? I heard him earlier,” she croaked out.

Itchy met her gaze, but his shifted away.

Not again.

“Sasha, we were worried about you, little bitty. How you feeling?” Itchy asked.

Fear slithered through her. She looked at each of them, trying to discern what was going on. “Like a bear took a crap in my mouth, and that’s the best part. Where’s Dray?”

“Listen, Dare’s coming by in a few minutes to talk to you,” Surrey contributed.

“I don’t want
Dare.
I want Dray. Where is Dray, Surrey?”

“Sasha,” Con’s voice was soothing. “Some things went down yesterday, and we all need to be here to fill you in, okay? Just wait until Dare gets here.”

“Well, now,” a new voice boomed out as a physician walked in.

It effectively cut off her brewing tirade.

The doctor walked to her side, looking over her chart. “It seems as if you’re doing better. Let me check you out. Gentlemen, if you’ll step out so I can have a moment with my patient?”

The men filed out quietly, and the doctor examined her. How many more hospitals would she have to deal with? How many more physicians? When would this end?

“So, you’ve had quite a time of it, I understand. You appear to be suffering no ill effects from whatever you were knocked out with. Does anything hurt?”

The doctor interrogated her for what seemed like hours, and when he left, she could do nothing but fume. Where was Dray? The doctor would be back later with the results of some specialized tests, but she wanted to see Dray. She needed him to hold her, tell her everything would be okay, that nothing could hurt her when she was in his arms.

She laid there for another eternity and thought of all the ways she needed him.

Then the door to her room opened and her dreams died.

* * * *

The truth beat at Sasha with wicked, slashing wings. Her world was broken. It went beyond her heart and soul. Everything she’d hoped and prayed for was gone; there wasn’t ever going to be any way for her to pick up all the pieces of herself. She was lost.

Dare had been the one to inform Sasha, in the same voice his brother had, that Dray was gone. It had been Dare she’d heard earlier when she’d woken, not Dray. They’d been unable to recover Dray’s body, supposedly due to the sheer amount of damage done by the grenades and explosives. While Dare looked to have survived relatively intact, he did have various cuts and bruises on his face. His voice broke on the word dead.

She’d heard nothing beyond that.

Darkness settled over her soul, and she was unable to muster the strength to care for anything or anyone anymore. There was safety in retreat, so that’s what she did. She retreated into the shell that had formed when she’d been held by el-Din. She withdrew to avoid the pain, sliding away from the devastation of losing what she’d begun living for.

Dray was dead. It was over.

*

Dare knew the truth. Sasha was as gone as Dray was. It would take a miracle to ever bring her back.

“Do you think she’ll survive this?” Con asked Dare quietly.

“We’ll have to make sure she survives it. Damn. They can’t find his body, which has me slightly worried. If he’s truly gone, there should at least be pieces of him in the rubble,” Dare bit out.

What Dare hadn’t told anyone was that he hadn’t felt the mind connection he and his brother shared, so he was positive something had happened to Dray. But the hole that should have been present in Dare’s soul wasn’t there; it was as if Dray was still alive.

Dare knew for a fact that if either of them died, the other would notice the separation of his twin. So their mind connection was gone, but their soul connection remained in place. He was afraid to test anything right now because he didn’t know how he’d handle finding out that, yes, his brother was dead. He’d told no one of his feelings and was eager to get back to the site to begin his own investigation.

“Her sisters are here, right? Let them in with her, and when she’s stable enough to move, get her home to Gainesville. I need you and Surrey back here in two days. I’m calling my team in. Something’s off here, and we need to find out what it is,” Dare told Con.

“We’ll leave Itchy with the Bennoits then, and Surrey and I will be back. You don’t think he’s dead, do you?” Con asked intuitively.

Dare shot him a look and then shrugged. “Nothing’s ever certain until you see the body. My brother deserves to have a proper burial.”

“She’s not going to be safe with that bounty still on her head.” Con reminded Dare.

“Then we’ll take care of it for her so she will be. That’s what Dray would want, and that’s what we’ll do.”

Sasha was his now. In a much different way, but the responsibility for his brother’s mate fell to him. Dare would make sure the woman Dray had given his heart to was always protected. He rubbed a hand down the back of his neck and squeezed his eyes closed. He already missed his brother.

“Meet me back here in two days. I’m going to find him, and then we’ll go hunting,” Dare said and walked out of the room.

Three weeks later

Gainesville, Georgia

“Sasha hasn’t been eating, and you know what the doctor said. She’s got to get some food in her quickly. Go talk to her, Daddy. Give her the news so she can try to begin picking up the pieces. Her sisters are worried sick, and Sadie’s even coming home early to be with her.”

Coleman Bennoit ran a trembling hand down his face and sighed deeply. He ached for his oldest daughter but had no idea how to fix her pain. His wife was right. But this news shouldn’t have to be given to his first baby by her parents. It should be a private thing.

The doctor had called them yesterday and informed the Bennoit matriarch of Sasha’s multiple and varied follow-up test results because he couldn’t reach Sasha. She’d been away from the house, and since she’d listed her parents as suitable information recipients for her medical records, the doctor had given Mama the news. It’d been too important to sit any longer.

“Maybe I should,” he said to his wife. “I had hoped for her to find happiness, Mama. Not this soul-shredding agony of losing the one she fell in love with. Hell, I never met the boy, but what I’ve heard from all my contacts, he was a hell of man, somebody I would have been proud to call son. He would have been a great husband for our girl.”

He hung his head and then glanced up at his wife of nearly forty years. “I’m going to go see our first baby, Mama. I’ll be back down in a while.”

“Take all the time she needs, Coleman.”

He winced at the shimmer of tears in her voice.

He knocked on Sasha’s bedroom door, took a deep breath, and walked in slowly to find her sitting in her chair beside the big bay window. She stared out that window as if trying to find her life. The sadness on her face almost brought him to his knees.

Blessed Lord above, he loved this little girl who’d stolen his heart the first time he’d seen her big, light-brown eyes and wild, honey hair. She’d looked at him and said, “He’ll do for a daddy, I guess,” and his heart had soared with light and love.

Her inner strength had gotten her through Irina Gorgosh, four little sisters, and a nightmare in Afghanistan. He hoped she had enough left for this next test. She deserved so much more. Anguish pierced his heart before he set his shoulders and walked to sit down beside her.

He picked up her hand, simply holding it for a while. She didn’t acknowledge his presence other than a squeeze. He didn’t know how to tell her what the doctor said, but he knew how to be a daddy.

“Come here, pumpkin.” He lifted her slight frame and placed her on his lap. She’d lost even more weight and wasn’t keeping food down the way she should. “You need to wake up from this, Sasha. I have news you need to be prepared for.”

“Nothing is all that important right now, Daddy.”

She spoke so low he almost couldn’t hear her.

“Well, this is. Now listen to me. You are our first baby. We couldn’t have any of our own, and when Lula Bell approached us about a tiny slip of girl she’d kept for a while, we determined that it was God’s will for us to adopt. When we caught up with you, we knew you were ours. My heart clicked into place when you first looked at me. Six years old with a mouth bigger than any grown woman’s should be. You took me in your palm and wrapped me around your fingers. I’ve watched you grow up. Your mama and me, well, we’ve watched you laugh and cry, be joyful and full of sorrow. But most of all, we’ve watched you grow into an incredible young woman, so full of promise and love that you take our breath away with how wonderful you are.”

He took another deep breath. Her pain was a tactile thing, hot and vicious.

“Now it’s time for you to meet that promise, baby girl. That doctor you went to follow up with in town called and gave me and your mama some medical news you need to hear. Are you listening to me, Sasha?”

“Yes, Daddy, I’m listening,” she replied woodenly, continuing to stare out the window.

“You’re not gonna be by yourself ever again,” he stated plainly.

“I know, Daddy, y’all are all here for me.”

“No, Sasha, what I mean is, you’re going to be having your own little family soon, baby girl.”

Ah, damn it. He had the words, but they weren’t coming out right.

“No, Daddy. I think I’m just going to be by myself. Dray was going to be my family.”

She was breaking his heart. Huge tears formed in her eyes, and he watched helplessly as they tracked their way down her cheeks.

“Sasha. Listen to me.” Gruffer now as pulled her face toward him. “You’re going to have your own family…in about nine months.”

It took her a good five minutes of sitting there staring at him blankly before the light dawned on her face.

“What?” she asked slowly.

“Darlin’ girl, you’re having your Mr. Bonner’s baby,” he affirmed quietly.

And still the truth hadn’t sunk in. Getting more forceful was the only answer.

“Sasha, come on now. You’re having a baby. Hell, the doctor’s office says your levels are so high you may be having twins. So you need to snap out of this soon and do whatever it is women do when they’re getting ready to have a baby.” He breathed out roughly. “Or two.”

She stood as if burned, shaking her head and holding a hand out. “No, Daddy. Don’t tell me this. Are you sure? I’m having a baby? Wait, twins?”

Her expression was a mixture of hope and the ultimate sadness. The heart that had broken in his chest crumbled at the sight.

“Yes, darlin’. You’re having a baby—possibly twins. So we need to get you up and about so you can go back to the doctor to be checked out, okay?” he asked, hopeful this would be the catalyst to bring her out of this gloom.

“Oh, Daddy, what am I going to do? A baby? Maybe twins?”

Before he knew it, she’d launched herself back into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably. He could do no more than pat her back before her mama was there, and then they were all three hugging and sobbing.

Well, the women were sobbing.

Coleman Bennoit
never
cried.

* * * *

Dray winced as he pulled himself up and over Sasha’s windowsill. He’d not seen in her three weeks, but it’d felt like a lifetime. After the warehouse had gone up in the explosion, he’d somehow ridden a wave of broken and burning lumber to the ground, hitting hard but alive.