My phone wakes me up. Linc's phone is ringing. Jesse's phone is ringing.

Something bad has happened.

* * *

I sit on the private plane in silence. No one is saying a word. We're all too fucking scared out of our minds.

Dad called. "Tera's in surgery." A red haze is circling my vision. "She's been assaulted, Xan." I struggle to breathe and fist my hands on the armrests. "It's bad. Really bad." I pound my fists on the armrests twice, then press my fists to my eyes.

"Motherfucker!" I shout. I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm fucking devastated for her. "I should have fucking been there!"

"Xan," Ben says.

"No. Don't. You know this isn't right. This isn't right." Tears well in my eyes and I just let them fall. "She's our family. She's my wife. I should have been there to protect her. I don't give a fuck about Good Morning America or the fucking Today show. All I care about is her. How is she ever going to be able to forgive me? How will I be able to forgive myself?" I pause, then my breath hitches. "What if she doesn't make it? Oh, God, what if she doesn't make it."

"Breathe, Xan," Jesse coaxes, handing me a paper bag. Apparently, I'm hyperventilating as I sob out my grief. The anger will come later. It's simmering right now. I'll keep it there until the time is right.

"Fuck! I need to get this out now before I get there. She's going to need me to be strong. For her, I have to be strong. Linc," I call out. He looks at me, his face white and devoid of emotion. "She's going to need us to be strong for her. Like she's always been for us."

He nods once then turns to face forward again. Ethan's sitting next to him, murmuring softly.

Ben's stiff as a board in his seat. Kennedy's slumped forward, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands.

I look to Jesse sitting next to me. "I'm going to kill someone."

He nods. "I'm there with you, brother."

"We all are," Ben tells me.

I look over to him across the aisle and nod.

Someone's going to pay for what they did to her.

* * *

I hit the hospital doors at a run. The elevator is slow as fuck.

"Fourth floor," Jesse reminds me.

I nod. Like I'd forget. Fourth floor, room 406, third door on the right.

The elevator doors open and my dad is standing there waiting. I look at him, searching for something good, but it's all bad. He looks bleak, distraught, worried. He's been crying.

I rush forward and hug him. "Dad."

He crushes me to him, holding me so tight. "She's still in surgery. It's been four hours, Xander. Four hours," he whispers.

I nod. Even I know that's not good. "She'll make it. She has to."

Dad lets go and wipes tears from his cheeks. He walks over to Linc and hugs him just as tightly as he hugged me. Fuck. This is so fucking bad and I'm helpless. There's absolutely nothing I can do to help fix this, fix her. Nothing.

"Why are we on the fourth floor if she's still in surgery?" Jesse asks.

Dad sighs. "Rosa needed to be sedated." He pauses and no one even asks why. Dad just needs a minute. We can see it as he swallows—hard. "When we got here, Jose was immediately pulled to the desk to fill out paperwork. We were trying to find out what was going on. They wouldn't let us back to see her, but the door to the ER opened and we caught a glimpse just as Tera was being wheeled to surgery." He pauses again, looking down at the worn carpet beneath our feet. My stomach is tied up in knots, dread fills my chest, and I'm about to lose my shit. Dad looks up. His expression. It guts me further. It's filled with despair, fear, and panic. "There was so much blood. So much blood everywhere."

"Jesus," Linc whispers, a tear falling from his eye. This closed off, tough, hardened guy who tries so hard to not feel anything, is feeling so much he doesn't even realize he's crying.

Dad nods.

"How… who found her?" Ethan asks, his voice shaky.

"She must have just hit whatever button she could on her phone because she called Carter." Dad looks at me.

"Oh fuck. No. Tell me he didn't have to listen…" I trail off, fear seeping into every one of my pores. "He loves her. Loves her. Loves her like I love her."

Dad nods. "He, uh, at first he thought she butt dialed him because she was talking. He was curious so he listened. She put up a good front, but Carter could hear how scared she was. He woke his dad. It was after three in the morning. They started recording the call and Mr. Winters called 911. They knew where she'd been but not where she was. Then someone brought up art. They told the 911 operator about the gallery."

He looks down again, head hanging, hands on his hips, his lips pressed together. When he looks up, I know.

"Fuck," I growl. "He heard it all."

Dad nods.

"Jesus. Is he okay?" Jesse asks.

"No. He's not. He's getting on the first available flight here. He wants to turn over the recording to the police," Dad explains.

I nod. I'd want to be here too if I were him. Whether she's married or not, he fucking loves her as much as I do. I won't fault him for coming.

"I'm going to hug that fucker when he gets here," Ben announces.

I nod. "This is going to take a long time for him to get past."

"Yeah," Dad agrees.

"Were…" Linc begins, then clears his throat. "Were there any surveillance cameras or anything? Did anyone see anything?"

"Yes. The gallery has two cameras at the back of the building. The tapes have been given to the police. Detective Jennings is handling the case. He's reviewing it as we speak," Dad tells us. "Let's go check on Rosa."

We follow behind, every one of us fearing the worst.

* * *

"Mr. Martinez. Has Mr. Mackenzie arrived?" a doctor asks from the doorway.

"That's me," I say frantically, standing and striding to him quickly. "How is she? Is she going to be okay?"

The doctor doesn't smile. Why would he? There's nothing to smile about here.

"Mr. Mackenzie. I'm Dr. Levine the Neurologist who operated on your wife."

We shake hands. "Call me Xander."

"All right. Xander, Tera was brought in with extensive injuries and she'd lost a lot of blood," he begins.

Oh, God.

Linc stands beside me, as tense as I am.

"Is she alive? Jesus, is my wife alive?" I implore, ready to drop to my knees.

He nods. "She is, but she's in critical condition. I'm not going to sugar coat it for you. It's touch and go right now. The injuries she sustained were some of the worst I have ever seen."

"What injuries? Tell us all of it," Linc demands.

"He's her brother. Give it to us straight, doc. We want to know everything."

He looks me straight in the eyes. "When Tera was brought in, she was barely hanging on. She coded but we were able to bring her back. She sustained a fracture to her skull which is the most critical of injuries because when she did, we can only assume they hit her head onto the concrete which caused her brain to do this," he explains, showing us with his hands. "When forcefully pushed forward, your brain doesn't automatically move with the body so it shifts backward as you would if you were in a car and someone hit the gas hard. And the opposite if they hit the brakes hard. The back and forward motion caused the brain to swell and there's an area that was also bleeding. We created what we call a skull flap."

My dad jerks upright, running his hands through his hair and pulling on it.

"We remove a piece of the skull in order to give the brain more room to accommodate the swelling. We stopped the bleeding but we don't know if she'll have more bleeding. We just don't know what to expect at this point."

"Jesus," Linc mutters.

"What about the rest?" I ask, wanting to know, yet wanting to just run and hide. Is this really happening?"

"We had six doctors operating on her at the same time. Me, for neurology. An orthopedic surgeon, a plastic surgeon, a general surgeon, a gynecologist," his eyes flick over to Linc then back to me, "and a proctologist."

"No," I whisper. I shake my head. "No. Dear God, no!" I bend over at the waist, the pain lancing through me, knowing now that my girl, my wife, my love, has been brutalized in the worst possible ways.

Dad rests his hand on my back.

"The general surgeon, gynecologist, and proctologist should be coming to talk to you shortly. They were finishing up as I scrubbed out," he informs us.

"And the others? She's still in surgery? Is she strong enough for that?" Dad asks.

"The plastic surgeon is doing what he can for now to repair the damage to her face. I'm not sure the extent of all of the damages and I'm not going to speculate. I can assure you, she's in the best hands possible. Our best doctors are working hard to help Tera."

Dad rubs my back and I straighten slowly, wanting to drop to my knees and shout at the world, scream from the top of my lungs, cry and wail until I no longer can. But I do none of that. I hold strong for her.

"Ah, here we are," Dr. Levine says when three other doctors walk in. Christ. Every one of them looks so bleak and that tells us everything before they say a word.

"Thank you, Dr. Levine," I say.

"You're welcome, Xander. I'll be monitoring her in ICU when she's out of surgery, as will the other surgeons. We'll take care of Tera for all of you," he says, looking at everyone in the room before making his exit.

A young doctor, maybe in his thirties, holds out his hand in greeting. "I'm Dr. Morris, general surgeon."

A woman close to my dad's age introduces herself as well. "I'm Dr. Leslie, OB/GYN surgery."

And, finally, a male, also close to my dad's age, holds out a hand. "Mr. Mackenzie. I'm Dr. Mitchell from Proctology. I can see you're all on edge, so I'm just going to cut to the chase."

I breathe out a sigh of relief. "Thank you."

"I'm Tera's brother," Linc says. "Give it to us straight, doc."

Dr. Mitchell nods. "All right. When Tera was brought in, I was called in to repair some tearing in and around her rectum." He dips his head so his eyes are right on Linc's this time. "It was extensive, but everything has been repaired. It's going to be a little while before she's going to be comfortable using the restroom normally, so for now we have a colostomy bag attached."

I must make a noise, because he looks at me.

"It's just for comfort. She will have completely normal function once everything is healed properly," he reassures.

I nod. Thank God.

"I'll be monitoring her until she's ready to have the bag removed," he finishes, then steps back to let Dr. Leslie step up.

"There was much of the same type of damage to Tera's vagina, internally as well as externally. Initially, I was worried there would be damage deeper inside including her cervix and uterus, but fortunately, that wasn't the case."

Now I do blow out a breath of relief and a lone tear falls. Then another. And another.

"That doesn't mean she won't be without reproductive issues. Once everything heals, we'll need to do some testing to see if there was deeper damage done than is visible to the eye," she tells us.

I nod, unsure how to feel about that.

"My turn," Dr. Morris says, stepping forward. "I had to remove Tera's spleen, which was badly damaged and bleeding. I also repaired a laceration to her liver. She has severe bruising of her kidneys so we'll be monitoring that closely. If there are any problems, we'll bring in a nephrologist. Tera also had a punctured lung. One of the four ribs she has broken must have come in contact with the lung. It was repaired. She'll need to be on the respirator for that alone but more so for Neurology."

Dr. Levine speaks up again, "She'll be on the respirator for a while. We're going to keep her in a medically-induced coma until some of the brain swelling goes down, as well as letting some of her injuries heal a bit. The damage she has now would be too much for the body and brain to be able to handle."

"Jesus," Linc mutters.

I thought Dr. Levine left earlier. Guess I was wrong.

"The bruising of Tera's organs," Dr. Morris begins, "will be watched but should heal well with time and we're talking months rather than weeks. The repeated blows were traumatic. It's my hope she heals well and comes out of this without any permanent damage but, again, that will have to be monitored long-term to know for sure."

Dad steps forward. "Dr. Levine mentioned a plastic surgeon and orthopedic surgeon. What types of injuries are we dealing with there?"

Dr. Leslie answers. "I don't know the extent of her injuries, but I do know her face was repeatedly slammed into the pavement causing one of her cheek bones to shatter and the other to have damage as well—I'm not sure how much for that one. Her nose was broken. One of her eye sockets was fractured. Her jaw was broken and dislocated, so they'll be wiring her mouth closed around the ventilation tube for now, but when she's off the vent they'll wire it the rest of the way until her jaw heals. Those are the injuries I know of. I don't know if there are more than that, and that's the plastic surgery portion."

"I…" I trail off. "Jesus Christ. How many of them were there, Dad?"

He meets my gaze straight on. "Seven."

"No," I whisper, dropping to my knees. "God, no. How many… God, Dad, how many…?" raped her. I can't say the words aloud.

"One male and one female is what the detective told me."

I lean forward, my face buried in my bent legs.

"The other surgeons should be in soon. Then they'll be moving Tera to ICU," Dr. Levine assures us.

I don't even listen. Linc drops to his knees next to me. Then Jesse. Ben. Kennedy. Ethan, and finally Dad.

"She's strong," Ethan reminds us.

"All of that and we don't even know what bones are broken besides the ones in her face and ribs," Linc growls. "Who the fuck are these people?"

"I don't know, man, but they're going to be dead if the cops don't find them before we do," Ben says.

"Damn right," Kennedy agrees.

I lift my head from where my face was cocooned on my thighs and look at my dad.

"What can we do?"

"We're doing it," he tells me. "Maybe add in a prayer. I know we've never been very religious, but people say it helps."

"It sure can't hurt," Jesse mumbles.

I close my eyes, fold my hands as I've seen people do when they pray, and ask whatever God is up there listening for the impossible.

* * *

"They broke her fucking toes," Linc shouts. "Her fucking toes!"

In addition to the toes were lower legs, a couple fingers, and her left arm and wrist. Add in the ribs and face. The anger swirling inside me is massive. I have never been so angry, freaked out, or felt so helpless in my entire life and I pray I never feel this way again.

Mr. M comes walking out of the room, his entire body shaking.

"Jose," my dad calls out, striding toward him and wrapping an arm around him before guiding him to the sofa on the far side of the waiting room.

"Our girl, Matthew," Jose mutters brokenly.

"She'll heal," Dad replies.

"Outside much sooner than inside. This will damage our girl. I can't even imagine how much," Jose says, looking at me.

I nod. "She's got us, Mr. M. We'll get her through this."

He nods, but I’m not so sure he believes me. Rosa's still under observation and care, getting sedated when it gets to be too much—which is most of the time. I can't blame her. If I could, I'd take the same treatment. But Tera needs me.

"Mr. Mackenzie?" a tall man in a suit asks. It's then I notice the badge hanging from the waistband of his slacks.

"Yeah," I choke out.

"I'm Detective Jennings and this is my partner, Detective Solomon. I'm sorry we weren't here sooner, but we needed to go over the evidence so we could give you more information than 'we're still reviewing it'," he tells us.

"Good choice. There might've been a riot if you'd gone that route," I warn.

He nods, his lips pressed tightly together. "I don't blame you."

I've never liked cops, but this guy is pretty cool. I'd guess he's in his thirties, tall and lean, alert and, obviously, smart. His partner is a woman. I'd bet she's a few years younger than him. Blonde, thin, short, dressed in slacks and a blouse—not nearly as formal as her partner.

"Xan," I hear a shaky voice call out. I look up and Carter's standing in the doorway.

"Hey, man," I answer, walking to him and pulling him into a very unmanly hug. "Thank you," I whisper. "God. Thank you so fucking much, Carter."

He nods, a sob racking through him.

"I'm so sorry you had to…"

He nods, not wanting me to say any more.

I don't know how long I hold him while he cries and I don't care. He is, literally, Tera's hero—and mine.

"Jesus, Xan. The things they did. Hearing her plead with them to stop, to let her go. I thought it was the worst thing in the world until she stopped talking. All I could hear were whimpers and then nothing. I've never been so scared in my fucking life. I didn't know what to do." He waves a hand over to where his dad is standing. "My dad called 911. I don't know what went on. I just kept listening, hoping and praying to hear something—anything—from her," he tells me. He sniffles and wipes his eyes with his forearm.

"You did everything exactly right. Exactly right," Linc assures him.

Carter nods. "She's out of surgery?"

"Yeah. As soon as Ben comes out, you can go in. Only twenty minutes though," Dad tells him. "We're rotating, but I think you should go before the next person. Seeing her won't be easy, but you'll know she's alive. She's on a ventilator, but she can breathe on her own. They're keeping her in a coma until she heals a bit."

Carter's entire body shudders. "Fucking hell, I thought she was dead. I thought she was dead."

The detectives tell us what they found on the video footage as well as the audio Carter gave to them. "We know who they are. We're working on finding out where their usual hangouts are, and we're going to nail these fuckers. Every fucking one of them whether they did anything or not, because the ones who just stood by and watched it happen? They hurt her as much as the ones who were hitting and kicking her," Detective Solomon tells us.

"I want to watch the footage," I say.

"No, Xander," Dad says.

"I need to know, Dad. If I know what happened, then she doesn't have to ever tell me unless she wants to. If I know what happened, I can be there for her in every way she needs me to be," I tell him, begging him to understand.

"I would like to watch as well," Linc states.

Now that isn't such a great idea. The way he keeps it all bottled up inside, seeing that might break him. Hell, it's likely going to break me.

Detective Solomon looks at her partner and he nods his approval. "We can watch it in a private space. I have a copy of the disc with me."

"The audio?" Detective Jennings asks.

I shake my head. "I don't think I'll survive that." I look over at Carter, who is pale, so pale, and withdrawn. No. I wouldn't survive that. I'm not sure Carter will.

* * *

I can't breathe. I vomit violently into the trash can. What the fuck? What the fuck? What. The. Fuck?

"They laughed. They kept laughing. While she begged and pleaded for them to stop, they laughed," Carter says from where he's standing just inside the door at the back of the room.

"Jesus," Linc mutters.

"The girl," is all I can get out before I puke again. That girl'd taken Tera's shoe and violated her with the high heel in every way possible. I can only be thankful that Tera'd been unconscious by that point.

"I don't think she can handle knowing what that girl did," I choke out.

"We've got them dead to rights. Their faces are clear on the video and their voices are on audio as well. This won't come to trial, so unless she asks to see it for herself, she won't have to know," Detective Jennings answers.

I nod. I'm shaking everywhere. My heart—it's broken for my girl. So broken. Just as she's going to be for a long, long time.