“What?” I snap.
She looks up at me then. “There’s a secret door in your father’s office. It leads down to an underground hallway. That leads to cells, a torture chamber, and the room he kept me in. There’s another outside access door that’s somewhere behind our property, but I don’t know where it is,” she adds, helping to explain my question of how the hell Ricco could come and go from my house and I not know.
I’m turning for the exit before she finishes. “Show me,” I order.
“I can’t. I can’t go back there.” She shakes her head violently.
“My wife, who I love more than anything in this world, is being kept there. Being raped there. And all while we sit up here talking about it. You have to help me get to her.”
She nods and follows me to the office. “I’m sorry,” she says before pulling a book on the shelf that makes the whole shelf spin and open.
Drawing my gun, I walk through and keep going until I see two guards standing outside a closed door. Quickly, I aim and shoot both of them before they have time to react. Both instantly drop to the ground.
Reaching for the door, it’s, of course, locked. I look to the bodies on the ground and search to find a key, and when I finally do, I waste no more time. Turning the key in the lock, I push inside...and freeze.
My eyes adjusting to what they’re seeing. The smell in the room is horrendous and makes my eyes water as I walk farther inside. Both Ruby and Dez stay unmoved as lumped bodies on the bed in the middle of the room.
Slowly, I make my way to them, my face pulled in pain when I see them wrapped together, their bodies entangled and covered in blood and bruises and filth. I’m not even sure if they’re alive at first as my eyes scan them and try to take it all in. My hand covers my mouth to muffle the cry wanting to escape.
Ruby’s head turns to the side, and her eyes open to look at me. But they don’t see me; they look straight through me.
Rushing to her side, I kneel next to her, my shaky hand reaching up to stroke her hair back. “I’m here, Tink.”
Her eyes blink once. Twice. Then those ocean eyes focus in on me. “Sonny?”
“Yes, baby, I’m here. I’m so sorry it took me so long to find you, but I’m here now,” I cry, kissing her head.
Dez shifts on the bed with a groan then. “He’s not in good shape,” Ruby tells me.
I nod as I pull my cell from my pocket to call for help, but there’s no service. I’m going to have to do this on my own.
“I’m going to take the restraints off you, okay?”
“They’re locked. Do you have the keys?”
Running to get the keys still in the door, I return and try each one until I find the right ones, removing the locks and straps from each of her wrists and ankles before moving to Dez.
Ruby lets out a loud moan of pain when she tries to sit up. Taking off my shirt, I gently pull it over her before scooping her up in my arms and carrying her back the way I came. “I got you, Tink,” I whisper as she lies limp in my arms.
My mother is pacing in the office when we get there. “Sweet mother of god,” she whispers when she takes her in.
Gently, I lay her down on the couch that’s in the office. “Call Doc and Connor,” I order her before heading back for Dez. “I need them here. Now.”
When I get back to him, he hasn’t moved, but when I try to help him sit up, he tries to hit me. “Dez, it’s Sonny.”
“Sonny,” he mumbles.
“Can you stand?” I ask.
It’s then I look and see his feet are a bloody mess with at least two missing toes. Putting my arm around him, I help him stand. He lets out a loud yell as we take a step together.
“Scream all you want. I’m getting you out of this fucking room,” I tell him.
With much effort and my own body wanting to give up on me from carrying all of his weight most of the way, we finally make it to the office.
Mom already has blankets and pillows down for Dez to lay on, and Ruby is shaking and covered, still on the couch. I inhale a deep breath when I take them in.
They lived through hell. But right now, I’m questioning whether they can rise from it.
26
Ruby
My body won’t stop shaking. I’ve been balled up on my side on this couch for I don’t know how long. Roisin has sat next to me humming a soft tune, lulling me in and out of sleep. She’s run a warm cloth over my face and neck and hair as she does, the feeling of it like a warm hug I’ve been missing.
Dez is lying on the floor next to me. When I am awake, my eyes can’t help but search for him to make sure he’s still here. Not just here physically, but here as in alive. I didn’t think we were going to make it out of that cold room together or still breathing.
Everything hurts. The cramping in my stomach, my sore, tired muscles from not being able to move for so long, my dry throat, my eyes from crying, my heart from the way Sonny hasn’t looked at me much since he carried me out of that room.
I can hear him bustling around, in and out of the room where we are. He’s ordering everyone around as different people come and go. I don’t know who any of them are, but they’re all men and just the sight of them makes me feel uneasy.
A man is kneeled down by Dez, looking him over, cleaning his open wounds. When he inserts an IV into his arm, I assume he’s a doctor of some sort. I faintly hear him say that he needs a hospital before he and Sonny begin to argue.
I close my eyes to keep the sound of them away, instead focusing on Roisin’s soft humming again.
“My sweet child, it’s going to be alright,” I hear her say to me. Then I hear her speak to someone else. “You need to pull your head out of your arse and give these two, who you claim to love the most in the world, the medical care they need and deserve.” She sounds angry, and it’s so different from how I’ve ever heard her speak before.
Roisin is always a soft-spoken woman with a calm, serene demeanor. But right now, she sounds like she’s ready to rip someone apart.
“You know why I can’t take them to a hospital,” I hear Sonny’s tired voice tell her.
“That’s horse shit,” she says, standing up from where she’s been sitting with me. “You own the town. The police, the doctors, the hospitals, the merchants… You can do whatever you feckin’ want and no one will blink twice about it.”
He lets out a deep sigh, and I imagine him running his hands through his hair like he does when he’s frustrated. Then, I feel him, his heat as he sits where his mother has been next to me.
“I’m so sorry, Tink,” he says as he moves a hand over my arm.
“It hurts,” I tell him.
“What hurts, baby?”
“Everything,” I moan.
I feel his lips press to my temple before he says, “Call an ambulance.”
I hardly remember arriving at the hospital, barely able to keep my eyes open for long. When I do wake, feeling like I might actually be able to keep my eyes open, I look around to see if I’m alone or not. My eyes land on Roisin, who’s sitting next to me reading a book.