Of course, it was too much for Cara and Rosie to expect their father to show them the same support the Kingston men did. No doubt Richard was keeping his distance and hoping to avoid adding to the impact the scandal of yet another high-profile court case might have on his political career.

  Cara dismissed thoughts of her father. He had always been selfish, so why should she expect him to change now?

  “Shouldn’t I call the police and take Adam to the hospital?” She was feeling nowhere near as calm as Sinclair sounded. “Or maybe the other way round?” she added hurriedly when Adam, having slowed the car to park it at the side of the road, now gave a pained groan as he twisted round to release his seat belt.

  “You need to follow the sequence of events exactly as I described them,” Sinclair stated flatly. “Just that, nothing more.”

  “But surely Adam having been shot is proof that—”

  “Do exactly as I said, Cara.”

  She pushed the passenger door open angrily. “One day, I’m going to explain to you Kingston men exactly why you can’t all go around ordering people about as if they’re your lowly minions.”

  “I’ll look forward to that,” Sinclair murmured without concern.

  “I’ll just bet you will,” Cara muttered.

  “But not now,” he added briskly. “Now you need to do exactly as I requested.”

  Cara gave a derisive snort at that description as she climbed out of the car, but she quickly sobered again once she was outside. Helping Adam was her only priority now.

  Which wasn’t in the least easy to do.

  For one thing, Adam was so large, the seat he was strapped into barely seemed big enough for his bulk, let alone giving Cara the room to help maneuver him so that he could stand up.

  For another, she could tell by his intense concentration as he tried to help her in getting him out of the car that his body wasn’t quite doing what he wanted it to.

  He also weighed enough that Cara’s knees almost buckled once he was standing and leaning against her with one of his arms over her shoulders.

  Adrenaline pumped hotly through her veins at the thought of James Langley’s men catching up with them when Adam was so out of it. That knowledge gave her a strength she might otherwise not have had.

  Adam flinched when she slid her arm about his back and her hand touched his right side, telling her that was exactly where he’d been shot, a suspicion confirmed by the fact that by the time she’d gotten him round the car and started to help him inside, her hand was slippery and covered in blood.

  “Sinclair, I think Adam’s bleeding too much for me to be able to make it back to Kingston Manor,” she muttered as she bent down to strap Adam into the seat. “He needs help now,” she added emotionally when she saw how deathly white his face was, his slightly unfocused eyes dark and piercing against that pallor.

  “Help is already on its way. Malachi took off in the helo seconds after I brought him in on Adam’s call,” Sinclair assured.

  “I still think I need to get Adam to hospital and then inform the police of what’s happened,” Cara maintained stubbornly.

  “And as I’ve already told you, I decided otherwise,” Sinclair bit out, causing Cara to gasp audibly at his harshness. “Don’t worry.” He gentled his voice slightly. “Malachi is meeting you along the way and will do whatever first aid is necessary before flying you both back to the estate. I’ll make sure there’s a doctor waiting for you there. The Lamborghini can be collected later.”

  Cara didn’t give a damn what happened to the car. Her only concern was Adam.

  Although quite what Sinclair meant by Malachi “meeting them along the way and doing whatever first aid is necessary,” she had no idea.

  “Dear God,” she muttered when she moved round to the driver’s side and saw how much blood was smeared on the seat. The leather might be black, but some of the blood had literally pooled at the base of the seat.

  Cara quickly took off her jacket to soak up most of the blood, then pushed it behind the seat and climbed inside. Her red T-shirt was going to soak up the rest. Besides, she knew better than to try to reason with Sinclair.

  She also very quickly learned that driving the Lamborghini was nothing like her old Mini!

  It took her a couple of jerky starts away from junctions and a few gratings of the gears, but she eventually managed to maneuver her way out of London and was able to turn onto the smaller roads toward Kingston Manor without mishap. She knew the way because she’d been there a couple of times this past week while helping Rosie plan her wedding.

  Presumably, James Langley, and consequently his men, would also know where the Kingston family estate was. Which was why Cara continued to give glances in the rearview mirror to check if they were being followed.

  They weren’t, not yet, but she was nevertheless becoming less and less happy with Sinclair’s instructions. A glance at Adam told her he was still conscious, but his jaw was tightly clenched with the effort it took to remain that way. His gaze looked even more glassy and unfocused.

  All signs to Cara that he needed to go to the hospital and have his bullet wound treated by professionals.

  She was seriously thinking of turning the car around and heading for the nearest hospital—Sinclair be damned—when she heard the sound of a loud engine overhead and a red-and-white helicopter dipped down in front of them. It then shot forward before turning and hovering above the road a quarter of a mile ahead of them. As they approached, it tilted to the right, then rose high enough to go over the roadside hedge and disappear into the field behind it.

  It seemed, as Sinclair had said would happen, Malachi had arrived in the helo.

  At least Cara presumed the man sitting behind the machine’s controls, dark sunglasses shielding his eyes, was Malachi Kingston.

  She had to hope that’s exactly who it was, mainly because she really didn’t know what else to do.

  She slowed the car down and turned it through the open gateway and onto the track into the field. “Sorry.” She winced when she heard the bottom of the car scraping over the hard mud down the middle of the ruts, probably placed there by the wheels of a tractor.

  Her tension lifted slightly when she looked ahead and recognized Malachi climbing calmly out of the helicopter. He no longer wore the sunglasses, but instead of walking toward her, as she’d expected, he leaned against the side of the machine and folded his arms across his T-shirt-covered chest, waiting for her to drive over to him.

  Cara had met Malachi Kingston a week ago when he’d flown several members of his family and Rosie to the Scottish island owned by James Langley.

  She’d realized within minutes of that first meeting that Malachi was…different from his brothers and cousin. He was just as tall and ruggedly handsome, with beautiful dark, long-lashed eyes, but there was something slightly off about him. His emotions seemed stilted, logical, rather than…well…emotional.

  An impression confirmed by the way he now continued to stand there, leaning casually against the helicopter as if they were all going to enjoy a picnic together rather than deal with the urgency of his cousin having been shot.

  “Damn it!” Cara swore as she didn’t so much stop the sleek Italian car, but it parked itself on a particularly high furrow of the hard mounds of dry earth, the front wheels no longer making contact with the ground.

  “I think she dinged your suspension,” Malachi told his cousin as he opened the passenger door and crouched down on his haunches beside Adam.

  Make that slightly different and as light on his feet as a predator, because Cara hadn’t even been aware Malachi had left the side of the helicopter.

  “I heard,” Adam confirmed, and then drew in a sharp breath. Malachi had leaned forward to push his jacket aside so that he could look for where he’d been shot.

  “Fuck the damned suspension.” Cara included both men in her frustrated glare. “Adam needs medical attention, and Sinclair said you would know what to do when you arrived,” she snapped at Malachi. She gave a hunted glance back toward the road. “We also need to get out of here before whoever shot Adam realizes we’re here and catches up with us.”

  Malachi’s brows rose. “Did you really just say fuck the suspension on a Lamborghini?”

  “I did,” she bit out. “Because Adam is more important than the damage to any car, even an expensive one like this.” Her hands clenched into fists on her thighs when she heard Adam’s low groan of pain. “A car is an inanimate object and can be fixed. Adam might not be so lucky if you don’t do something to stop the bleeding!” She glared her frustration.

  Malachi frowned. “The car is an inanimate object now because you probably wrecked the suspension when you—”

  “Will you stop going on about the fucking suspension and do something to stop Adam from bleeding to death?” Cara’s voice rose even higher. “Otherwise, you might just find yourself with a gaping wound where your balls used to be!”

  “If you’d bother to look, you’d see I’ve already done something.” Malachi’s voice remained infuriatingly calm as he nodded toward where both his hands were now beneath Adam’s leather jacket.

  “What…?” She leaned forward, gasping in disbelief. “Do you have your fingers stuck inside the bullet holes?” That was exactly what it looked like to her.

  Malachi nodded. “Back and front,” he confirmed evenly.

  Cara managed to open the door beside her just in time so she could lean out and throw up on the hard ground.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Well done,” Adam told his cousin dryly as Cara continued throwing up until it sounded as if there was nothing left in her stomach and she was dry heaving instead.

  Malachi gave a puzzled shake of his head. “What did I do?”

  Adam knew that his cousin really didn’t understand what the problem was. That to Mal, it seemed perfectly logical to stem the blood flow from Adam’s wounds by pushing his fingers into the two visible holes.

  It had hurt like a bitch when Malachi did it too. But the blood flow was definitely less than it had been. If this had been a war zone, Adam would also have used glue to seal the wounds closed until they could be stitched by a professional. He’d done that more than once when he was in the military.

  God knows how Cara would have reacted to him doing that.

  “Never mind,” he dismissed. “Take Cara to the helo and then bring back some gauze swabs for me to press against my side.”

  Adam would have preferred to help Cara himself, but knew he was incapable of doing much more right now than staying on his feet once he was out of the car.

  He was pretty sure that the bullet had missed his vital organs; otherwise, he would be in a lot more pain than he was. Mal could have stitched the wound too, but there simply wasn’t time to deal with that right now, not when there was a possibility of Bortkov junior’s men arriving at any moment.

  Cara was right about that. Those men had probably taken a few minutes to regroup prior to getting into their own cars and following them. The Lamborghini was definitely a faster vehicle than a town car when Adam was driving it, but Cara, understandably, had needed to drive slowly and carefully in the unfamiliar car. Adam doubted the shooters were that far behind them now.

  Not that he intended saying that in front of her. She was so pale already, with an almost green tinge to her skin, that any more discussion about blood and bullet holes, let alone the men shooting the guns that had caused that injury, was only going to alarm her even more.

  He managed to get himself out of the car and lean back against it, slightly bent over so as not to restart the bleeding. Malachi helped Cara to stand and then put an arm about her waist to half carry her over to the idling helo. He threw open the back door and then literally pushed her inside.

  Adam shook his head. Mal really didn’t have an ounce of empathy in his body.

  Mal brought back the gauze pads Adam had asked for, then put a strong arm about his waist and helped him across to the helo with the same efficiency and lack of consideration he had Cara.

  “She’s a little territorial on your behalf,” he observed as Cara watched the two of them from inside the vehicle, her expression fierce.

  Adam gave a weak chuckle. “I think you mean concerned.”

  Malachi considered the statement for a couple of seconds. “Nah, I had the right word. She’s definitely behaving territorially over you right now.”

  Adam shrugged. “If so, I’m not taking it personally.” To do so would only lead to a painful rejection when Cara told him she would feel the same concern for anyone who was in pain.

  Well…having seen her reaction to Mal, his cousin might be the exception to that rule, but then Mal was something else. Special, in a way that had caused Adam’s aunt and uncle to be highly protective of him when he was younger. Mal had shaken off that protection after he’d completed his A levels by the age of sixteen and then gone on to university.

  By the age of twenty, Malachi had attained a first-class degree and a masters in engineering.

  A part of Malachi being different was that he had a photographic memory and a thirst and capacity for knowledge that made him an expert on any subject he turned his mind to. The only reason he hadn’t gone on to do a PhD was because he’d announced he was leaving formal education to concentrate on what he loved most, which was anything with an engine.

  There wasn’t a vehicle Mal couldn’t drive or fly or a machine he couldn’t take apart and put back together again or fix. To him, those inanimate objects were equally as in need of being repaired as a human being might be in need of medical attention. Sometimes more so, in his opinion.

  Hence his concern just now for the Lamborghini’s suspension.

  It wasn’t that Mal didn’t care about Adam being shot, only that logically, he had already dealt with the immediate problem of that by slowing the bleeding. Which, in turn, allowed him to turn his thoughts to the damage done to Adam’s car.

  He had no doubt that Malachi would bring the car back to the estate as soon as he was able to do so and fix whatever damage had been done.

  “Threatening to rip my balls off sounded pretty personal to me.” Malachi gave Cara a glance as he helped settle Adam into the second passenger seat inside the helo. He then turned his attention to taking out several things he was going to need from the first aid box to deal with Adam’s immediate bleeding.

  Adam turned to look out the window toward the road, careful not to stretch too much and pull on his side. “Er—Mal, you might want to leave that for later. There are a couple of SUVs heading our way.”

  His cousin glanced at them too before calmly closing the door beside Adam and then getting in and strapping himself behind the controls. “Hold on,” was his only warning as he lifted the helo straight up into the air and banked it sharply to the right.

  Cara decided, as her already emptied and aching stomach lurched precariously at the speed with which the helicopter rose and turned, that she didn’t care what allowances his family made for him, or why. Malachi Kingston was an arsehole.

  A glance at Adam sitting beside her with his head resting back against the seat and his eyes closed showed he didn’t share her concern.

  “Mal is taking whatever action he feels is necessary to remove us from a possibly dangerous situation,” Adam murmured without opening his eyes.

  “A little more warning than ‘hold on’ would have been helpful,” she muttered.

  Adam opened one eye and turned his head to look at her. “No amount of warning will help your internal organs compensate for a steep ascent in a helo followed by a sharp turn.”

  “I still— What’s he doing now?” Cara clutched Adam’s arm as the machine suddenly made an equally sharp descent.

  “I suspect he’s checking out the bad guys,” Adam dismissed with a complete lack of concern.

  Cara clung to the handrail beside her at hearing what she thought might be the sound of several bullets hitting the undercarriage of the helicopter.

  “I counted three men in each vehicle,” Malachi reported evenly as the helo rose again. “One driving, two shooting, one shooting from the open sunroof of each vehicle, the other from the side window. Shit shooters, the lot of them,” he dismissed as he once again maneuvered the controls and accelerated the helicopter in the direction of the Kingston estate.

  Cara breathed a sigh of relief once she was able to see Kingston Manor out the front window. Built of roughly hewn slabs of gray stone, it had once been a three-stories-high medieval stronghold, complete with a tower at one end. It didn’t have a moat, but the ten-foot-high wall around the perimeter was enough of a deterrent to what would once upon a time have been invaders.

  Rosie had told her that all the Kingston men had a suite of rooms inside the main part of the building, comprised of a sitting room, bedroom, and en suite bathroom. Only Sinclair preferred to live alone in the tower.

  At the opposite end of the house was a flat-roofed extension that Cara suspected had once been the armory, but upon which Malachi now landed the helicopter. She forgave him for some of his previous lack of consideration when he landed the helicopter with barely a jolt.

  Nor could she fault him for totally ignoring her and helping Adam out of the helo before half carrying him down the stone staircase to what Cara soon discovered, when she’d hurried after them, was a fully equipped hospital wing, complete with a waiting doctor and nurse.

  Both of them were middle-aged and concentrated their attention on Adam as soon as he had been settled on the examination table. Malachi stood to one side watching their every move with a hawklike gaze. Cara was pretty sure it wasn’t to ensure they treated Adam correctly, but because he wanted to observe how they did it.

  Feeling slightly superfluous, Cara decided to step outside for some fresh air.

  And, although she hadn’t been aware of it, an equally as necessary few minutes to cry.

  Because no sooner was she alone than the tears began to fall hotly down her cheeks in reaction to the tension and worry of the past hour. A worry that hadn’t lessened in the slightest, but at least they were now somewhere where Adam could receive the treatment he needed.