Chapter 36: Liam
It’s been six days since that morning with Isabelle. What a wonderful morning it was. Since then nothing like that has happened again other than a few stolen kisses. But she does have me stay every night. It’s like she doesn’t want to be alone. Even in our waking hours she seems to panic when I try to leave her. I don’t understand why she has that reaction, but I can’t stand the panic in her eyes. Most men would consider her as clingy. I don’t. I don’t mind having her close by, I enjoy that she seems to take comfort with me. At the same time, I know it’s not healthy so every day I leave her for some amount of time. It’s hard to do. One of the hardest things to do, actually. But I have to. I can’t stay wrapped up in the bubble that is Isabelle right now. It isn’t safe for her or anyone else right now. Alessandro has been trying to tear apart my community, wrecking shops under my protection, stealing even more of my shipments. We have a plan but we can’t find him to take action. My guys are being pulled every which way and we are getting swept up in the chaos that he is causing. I have a feeling he is causing controlled chaos. Trying to pull us one way while he lays a trap to pull us right into his hands. A feeling of dread in my stomach that only grows with each passing day.
I am proved right that afternoon while sitting in my office, when Declan comes storming in. His usually calm relaxed deminer replaces with a fierce anger, fear and sorrow. His face holding stains where some tears have escaped from his eyes. It instantly sends me on high alert and a jump from my chair.
“What’s happened?”
“He took her!” He roars and throws an envelope down on the desk in front of me. it makes a clink as it hits the desk. I freeze for a minute, frozen with fear. When I get my wits together, I reach for it. Opening it I reach in and pull out the contents. I start to pull out a piece of paper, what follows it chills me to the bone. A wedding ring and a lock of red hair. More specifically Cara’s , my sister, wedding ring and hair. I open the letter that came with it
“You have taken something that belongs to me, I want it back. Since you will not see reason any other way, I have taken the liberty of taking something of yours. You have one week to return her. After the week is out I will send your sister in law back. Piece by piece.”
He didn’t sign it. He didn’t need to. It was clear who it was. My blood boils anger takes over I look back to my brother. The man standing before me no longer looks like him, instead he looks like the little boy we pulled out of Ireland, the boy who was broken to the core, it took years to rebuild him again. Cara got him back to himself. She brought him back to us after over a decade of us trying to bring him back. And now she was taken. I would get her back. I had to or lose him too. That’s when it hit me. I would lose Isabelle if I couldn’t find out how to get her back before the week. I had to find away.
“What are we going to do Dearthair?” He hadn’t used the Irish for brother since we were teens and as much as I miss hearing it, it shows how truly scared he is. All I can do is walk around the desk and grab him, wrapping my arms around him and comfort him in only the way I can.
“I will get her back. I will make this right.” He is silently crying, he is trying to be strong but I know he is slowly dying.
“But Isabelle… we cant lose her either.” He is breaking my heart for him and because of him. He may be a ruthless man, one who when he needed to be could cut off all emotions and became the coldest person you would ever see. On the other side, his true side he was a man with more emotion than can be contained and the only people who get that side is his family. For him to make that comment shows me that he feels she is a member of the family and would be heartbroken for her to not be here with me. And that makes me ten times more heartbroken than I was five minutes ago. Because there is no real winning in this situation.
“We will figure it out.” He pulls back and gives me a look that I haven’t seen since before Cara.
“I can’t lose her.”
“You wont.” I tell him adamantly. I say it and I meant it with everything I am. We cant lose Cara and I cant lose Isabelle.
“You can’t lose Isabelle either. She is your anam cara. Just like Cara is mine. She is family.”
“Dec. We will figure it out. We will get her back and keep Isabelle. I swear it to you.” He seems to take the first real breath since he walked into the office. His body relaxed against me. I move us over to the couch.
“Do you want a drink?” He just nods his head. I walk over to the cart and pour him and myself a drink. Bringing it over to him sitting next to him. We sit in silent just sitting with ourselves feeding each other the little strength we have left. The situation is dire. I know this, he knows this.
“Should we tell Isabelle?” He asks me. I take a minute to actually think about it. She is finally getting comfortable here. I have seen much of the void in her eyes less and less. And honestly I don’t know how she will react to this.
“ I think we need a plan before we tell her.” Declan just nods his head in agreement. After we finish our drinks, we spend the next few hours trying to come up with some kind of plan.