Chapter Thirty-Four

Lucas dragged the bottle of whiskey closer to his elbow. His throat felt dry and the alcohol made it worse, but he couldn’t really care at that moment. It had been a long, dull day at the office and he’d hardly gotten anything done, his mind consumed by guilt and thoughts of Kara’s leaving the previous day. Raphaël and Isabelle actually refused to tell him where Kara was. They said he needed to feel her absence in his life and truly regret his actions.
His jaw clenched with the memory. God, he’d wanted to shake the truth out of them, but at the same time he was grateful because he knew that since they put Kara on that plane, they’d taken care of everything else too. Wherever she was, she was safe. If she’d hopped on that plane alone, with nobody to back her arrival in the States, he would have gone sick from worry. But, she was safe.
And Markov getting two decades in jail really eased his mind too.
So Kara was safe, but she was still far from him. God, she was so far. He couldn’t touch her soft skin, couldn’t watch her complain and argue with him over some injustice she thought he’d done to her. He couldn’t hold her and let himself believe she was his.
He couldn’t bring himself to understand how he’d managed to fuck up so royally. What in the hell was wrong with him? Just how…? Flipped hell, he needed to get her back. She was angry with him, yes… hell, she hated his guts. But, he’d have to get her back. If he had to crawl and beg at Kara’s feet for her to come back to him, then that was exactly what he was going to do.
An annoyed sigh escaped him and he lifted his gaze from the shiny wooden table to find Rayan’s intense blue ones glaring into his.
Lucas wasn’t surprised. Everyone was more than a little pissed with him at the moment. He glanced at Isabelle who sat at the table, typing away on her laptop.
“She left because of you, didn’t she?” asked Rayan calmly as he leaned an elbow against a chair. The kid always managed to maintain a calmness in his voice and facial expression even when he was splitting angry. The only way you’d know there was chaos inside him was if you took a look into his eyes.
Luc ran a hand down his beard. “I don’t think you know much about that, big guy,” responded Lucas wearily.
“You made her sad and she yelled at you and left…”
The words, so simple, held a mammoth sized truth in them and Luc felt his heart wither and die in his chest. He sighed and shook his head at Rayan.
“I really fucked up, kid, I know.”
“Language,” cautioned Isabelle.
“Sorry,” Lucas murmured before turning back to Rayan. “I messed up. But, I do love her…”
“Bullshit,” stated Rayan calmly.”
Isabelle gasped before ducking her head behind the laptop.
“Everyone hide!” she whispered loudly. Lucas thought she was crazy until Raphaël strolled into the room with a raised eyebrow.
“I did not just hear you curse, Rayan, did I?” he questioned. Isabelle sunk deeper into her chair.
Rayan pursed his lips and slowly raised his shoulders in a shrug that could have meant anything.
“I heard… did I hear him… I just heard you curse.” Raphaël raised his brows at everyone in the room as if to confirm that he wasn’t going nuts.
His gaze found Isabelle skulking behind her laptop and he gave her a firm poke in the butt, making her yelp and straighten with a giggle.
“Don’t laugh, you’re teaching him to curse!” accused Raphaël.
“Me?!” asked Isabelle with wide eyes of innocence. “How come it’s me when Luc’s the one he’s talking to?”
“Hey, keep me out of your bad parenting skills, Isabella,” stated Luc dryly as he replaced the cap on the whiskey bottle.
“It’s both of you!” Raphaël concluded pointing a finger at his wife and best friend. “You’re teaching Rayan to curse,” he said to Isabelle, before turning to Luc. “And you’re teaching him how to give up on life. Bravo, you’re both excellent role models!”
Lucas raised a brow. “What the h… what do you mean, I’m teaching him to give up on life? That’s a load of crap.”
“If it was, you’d be on the next plane to the US, getting your woman back, but are you?!”
“She’s not his woman,” interjected Rayan pointedly. “He made her cry! If you make a woman cry or you hurt her, then you don’t love her.”
“Says the eleven year old boy, who wouldn’t know love if it slapped him in the face,” retorted Lucas.
Rayan pushed his curly brown hair back with one hand as he regarded Lucas, challenge in his eyes.
“I,” he said. “…have seen what is not love and what is love enough times to know when it isn’t…”
Isabelle whistled at Rayan’s words.
Luc’s jaw clenched and he resisted the urge to rip open the whiskey bottle again.
“I love her. And if you don’t believe that, then you are yet to see all forms of love. It’s not always pretty, son, sometimes it sharp and jagged and fucking painful! Okay? You’ll learn that soon, when you do give me a fucking call. In the meantime…” Luc got up with great force sending his chair skidding back. “I’m going to go and do what I’ve got to do!”
Rayan hid his triumphant grin as Lucas started stalking out. “Might want to clean the hell up.” he called after him. “You look like shit.”
The victorious smile on his face froze when his gaze returned to his uncle’s to find Raphaël watching him with crossed arms.
Isabelle tutted. “Now you’ve done it.”
“Uhm…Dad, I…”
“No. Not a word. I want all your video game collections on my desk. Also I’m stopping your software development until you learn to control your tongue.”
He couldn’t believe it. Rayan, cursing like a drunk sailor. Having the guys and their x-rated language around the house was beginning to affect his children, thought Raphaël with worry.
Rayan’s eyes went wide. “Wha…? But… I can’t…” A weary sigh had his shoulders slumping. “Yes, sir.”
Isabelle watched with a drooping mouth.
“Good,” said Raphaël. “The next thing we know, your younger brother and sisters will be using those words. Do you want that, Rayan?”
He shook his head. “But, I was trying to get Lucas to go after Kara.”
“And you succeeded, but I still want all your games.”
Raphaël turned to leave the room and caught the puppy dog eyes Isabelle was giving him and firmly shook his head. “No, no. You’re the one encouraging all this, Isabelle. Now, I’m going after Lucas, when I return I want everything I asked for.”
He walked out of the room, grabbing his keys on the way.
The front door closed and the house was filled with silence for a few moments.
Isabelle looked at Rayan. “Too smart for your own good,” she stated and he gave her a grin that was so Raphaël, it warmed her heart.
“And now I lost my games for it.”
A twinkle filled her eyes. “Unless someone convinces Raphaël to let you keep them.”
Hope filled his eyes, then faded with a sigh. “What do you want?”
“Nothing! Just tell me this. How come you never defend me like that when your father and I argue?”
Rayan shrugged and sat beside her. “Because I know he does love you and all that romancy stuff. Besides, you guys like to argue.”
“Don’t we!” Isabelle laughed heartily, hoping that her husband was truly on Luc’s tail and would tell him where Kara was, because as much wanted Kara to find her freedom, the girl had been through enough hell to have Isabelle’s throat closing at the thought of her alone, miles away from them.

************
Kara groaned at the stiffness in her legs. What on earth was wrong with those pilots that allowed them to fly for nine hours straight from France to New York? They weren’t human, she was sure of it.
She’d tried to shuffle her way out of the plane without pulling a muscle in her stiff legs, while the business men stalked out, briefcases in hand, phones at their ears, like they hadn’t just been coffined into those seats for nine hours.
They were probably used to it. Kara held her back pack tightly as she walked into the airport. Her wide eyes looked at everything and everyone. This was it. She was in America, the land of the free and the home of the great. She stood in the crazy bustle of travellers and luggage and waited to feel it… the peace and the overwhelming joy.
None came.
Someone bumped roughly into her shoulder in their hurry to get past and she started, her heart jostled into a rapid beat against her ribcage.
Her gaze ran aimlessly around. It was the John F Kennedy International airport, it was written everywhere, like they had been determined to not let people forget the man.
What was she supposed to do now? Suddenly, something caught Kara’s eye, but she didn’t look in its direction, having well trained herself to pretend to not have seen things or people.
With an inch to the left, she got a clearer sight of the blue-eyed businessman waving an arm at her, trying to get her attention. Kara swore under her breath.
What did he want from her? He’d tried to speak to her multiple times on the plane, abandoning his own luxury seat to cram hers, but she’d ignored him, edging as closely to the window as possible.
Clearly, he hadn’t gotten the message.
Not leaving a second to spare, Kara cut through the heavy masses of people to get away from the approaching man.
“Hey!” barked some man when she accidentally nudged him.
“S-sorry!”
Kara swallowed through a dry throat as the man eyed her evilly before going on his way. She turned to keep running and was swamped by a wave of people. Some in tropical island shirts and flower garlands, others in suits, and still others in cargo shorts and hiking gear.
More ‘sorry’s and ‘Excuse me’s were said as she tried to navigate her way through the tidal wave. God, if the entire America was that flooded with people, she was going to have a very hard time getting around.
The French airport had many people too, but it was relatively easily to move around without smacking into each other like gas molecules in a jar.
A sigh escaped her. Well, at least she’d lost the blue-eyed businessman.
Just as Kara began to once more carefully squeeze through a large family of travellers, she saw something.
A few feet behind a type of bar, stood people with large cards. Some had names written on them, others had initials, a few strange ones even had drawings. She immediately assumed they’d come to welcome their loved ones.
She pursed her lips and nodded to herself. Well, no loved one for her. At least not in America. No board screaming ‘Kara Kingsley’ to show her where to go. She shrugged, deciding to just find her own way then. She made her way past the hugging and kissing families, trying to find the exit.
Suddenly a man appeared in her vision. Kara noticed him because he was looking directly at her. She froze for a split second as her blood chilled in her veins. He wore a black leather jacket, dark jeans and no smile. He was young, fairly rugged.
The look he wore was determined. Kara cursed shakily as she stared at him.
He squinted at her and in a split second, Kara darted through the crowd. There was no way… no way anybody was going to take her back to Markos Vilmont!
“Hey! Stop!” called the man.
Kara nearly snorted.
Not a chance!
Her bag clutched firmly in her arms, she weaved through the crowd, glad that people moved out of her way as she ran.
Kara threw a glance over her shoulder and there he was! The black leather jack guy was chasing her!
“Oh, God!” she muttered, picking up speed.
Cutting around a corner, she disappeared into a different crown and hoped the man wouldn’t see her, but when she threw back a glance, there he was, like a nasty cold that wouldn’t go away.
The rapid thumping in her chest made Kara worry that her heart would explode. Her lungs were already on fire and her legs jellied by a strange fatigue that had suddenly taken over her body.
Forcing herself to keep running, Kara soon emerged out into open air on shaky knees.
“Wait!” called the man behind her and Kara held back a scream, running in any direction that looked like it would take her to safety. Why would Vilmont send his men after her in the States? Did he want to kill her that much?!
Kara fought to clear the tears blurring her vision, but was unsuccessful and ended up darting into a small passageway near a parking lot. The breath raged in and out of her lungs as she tried to flatten as much of her body as possible, pressing herself against a wall.
Risking suffocation, Kara held her breath, torturing her starved lungs. She had to stop trembling, those people smelled fear.
She almost shrieked when she heard his voice.
“Fucking bolted!” he said and she pressed harder into the wall.
“I’m serious, she ran, I’m trying to find…yes, I was going to, but… shit. Okay. I understand. Yes, sir…”
He was speaking on the phone. Kara risked a peak around the wall behind which she’d been hiding and caught a glimpse of the man’s shoulders where he stood facing the parking lot.
This was it. Her only chance to get away. She would have to knock this one out and hope there weren’t more.
A quick glance around gave Kara sight of a few discarded wooden planks lying a little into the passage. With trembling, but confident hands, she picked up the smallest one and held it over her head. This was it.
Kara stepped out of the passage just as Vilmont’s goon looked up. A look of shock contorted his face and before she could wack him good, he’d disarmed her, shoving his phone into her face.
What was he doing? Did they have different techniques to use chloroform in America now?
Kara started screaming, jabbing her elbows into any part of him that she could get.
“Stop! Christ, will you listen?!” Her panic sent her aiming a punch for the man’s throat when a voice reached her from the cellphone.
“Kara?!”
Kara’s whole body stilled. “Uh… R-Raphaël?”
No fucking way.
The man looked at her like she was crazy and shoved the phone closer to her face.
“Yes, Kara. It’s Raphaël. I need you to calm down, okay? That man was sent by me to take you to your new place and ensure that you are safe. I assure you that he will cause you no harm at all.”
Her eyes widened to the size of coke bottle caps.
Oh, no.
She’d really just gone Bruce Lee on Raphaël’s employee.
Holy cow.