Avenging Laura (Special Forces: Operation Alpha)

Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Arrow is believed to be worth several hundred million by now,” Wolf read out loud from the notes he’d found.

“His father was worth several million at the time of his death. I admit I dropped the ball on this one, Dominick. I will never forgive myself for that. I have no excuses. I should have fought harder where you and Laura were concerned,” Jeannette admitted, the sadness being heard in her voice.

“You couldn’t have known, Grandma. Dad was good at hiding things and Mom didn’t care as long as he was focused on us and not her. Mom would have lied for him unless she had been paid by you to give us away.” Dominick admitted to his grandmother, sighing as he crouched down in front of her. “Dad would have exploited you after Grandpa died if he thought he could have gotten away with it. Mom never talked about a brother or sister, so Dad would have swooped in and tried to take you out. In a way, Mom protected you from him.”

“Pratt family?”

Everyone turned as a male in scrubs walked into the waiting room. Highlander, General McCoy, Dominick, and Jeannette stood up and walked over to the man standing at the entrance to the waiting room.

“I’m her husband. This is her father, brother, and grandmother,” Highlander answered the man.

“Your wife made it through surgery. Because of the extent of the injuries she’s suffered, we’ve put her in an induced coma for the next several days to give her body time to heal without stress. I’m sorry we couldn’t save the pregnancy, but we were able to save everything else so that if you two choose to, you can try again in the future.”

“S-s-she was pregnant?” Highlander stumbled at the news.

“I take it you didn’t know. To be honest, I don’t think she knew either. She was still in the early stages. With it being flu season, she probably thought she’d caught the bug,” the doctor advised, trying to calm Highlander down.

“Doctor, what were the extent of my granddaughter’s injuries? Will she recover fully?” Jeannette asked as she placed her hand on Highlander’s arm in comfort.

“Her left arm was broken in two places. Her right arm and shoulder were shattered. Her right leg was broken in three places. She had a broken pelvic bone. Her right cheekbone was shattered as well as the eye socket. She had brain bleeding and internal bleeding as well from whatever torture they inflicted on her. She was torn vaginally which tells me she was raped brutally. All in all, this woman is lucky as hell to even be alive. She’d lost a vast amount of blood due to the injuries she received. How the hell she managed to take out a man and shoot another is a miracle in itself.”

Dominick had to reach for Highlander when he started to buckle at the extensiveness of her injuries. He never heard the rest of what was being said. They had tortured and violated his wife.

“Mr. MacLeod. Mr. MacLeod?”

“A-aye,” Highlander stammered looking up at the doctor.

“I will take you to your wife. You can stay for a few minutes, but she is heavily sedated. I’m sorry but it’s immediate family only. Her husband, father, brother, and grandmother will be the only ones able to go in. If she has any other immediate family, that will be it. Tonight though, only her husband. I’m sorry.”

“Go. She needs you. I can see her another time. She doesn’t know me. At least not yet,” General McCoy advised Highlander who was looking at him as if he wasn’t sure what to do.

When Highlander nodded at Laura’s biological father after looking around the room for a few seconds, he turned to follow the doctor out of the room toward his wife. He was already plotting on how to kill every motherfucker involved in trying to destroy his wife. He didn’t believe in putting hands on a woman, but Maria was the only one he would ignore that rule for. He would personally end that bitch’s life if it was the last fucking thing he did.

Walking into the room they had assigned to Laura, it took everything for him to stay standing on his own two feet. He’d seen her when she was found in that hellhole of a bunker. But now that she was cleaned up, all the blood, dirt, and grime removed from her skin, he could see the extensiveness of the damage. He will burn this planet down to get to Cyrus and every other person who was involved in their quest to destroy the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

He will live up to the nickname “Beast” that she gave him. He will become a villainous beast to avenge his wife.

“We’ll find them, son. You have my word that I will stop at nothing to find the men who tried to take your wife, my d-d-daughter from you and from this world. I have yet to know her, other than the stories I’ve heard my men in the waiting room have shared about her and her team. I pray that when she’s ready, she’ll give me a chance to know her,” General McCoy choked up as he spoke of what he planned.

“She’s going to need all of us, sir. Ye included. I know my wife, once she finds out that David is not her biological father, that ye are, she will be relieved. When she finds out that ye were never told about her, that will be the final nail in Kathy’s coffin. That woman has treated my lass horribly,” Highlander said as he walked into Laura’s room completely.

“My grandmother will never forgive herself over that either,” Dominick quietly said as he walked into the room.

“She had to have known!” General McCoy replied with anger in his voice.

“She didn’t, sir. I know my mother better than anyone in this room. If Mom thought Laura was going to be better treated than she was, she would have lied for Dad. I don’t know why Mom hated Laura so much. She has never explained that to me. I believe my grandmother didn’t know. She has been beating herself up. Clifford, one of the bodyguards, has even let it slip that she’s been crying herself to sleep, talking to my grandfather’s ashes that are in her room, telling him she’s failed him and us because she didn’t know how badly Kathy had allowed us to be treated.”

“Kathy is on the run.”