“Why’d you do that?” I exclaimed. “I’m the injured one. It doesn’t make sense to weaken the stronger of us.”
He rolled his eyes, pressing at his skin until he managed to remove the grain-sized implant. “The day I get taken down by a tiny wound is the day I turn in my agent card.”
“It makes no sense—”
Dan tore a strip from his T-shirt and handed it to me. “Tie this for me.”
I gestured to his boot. “The kit.”
“Let’s save that for now.”
My brows pulled down. “We—”
“Fine,” he said, wrapping it with one hand and bending like he was going to hold it in place with his teeth. “I’ll do it myself.”
“Fucking stubborn,” I muttered, shifting toward him. My side screamed in pain, though it felt like the bleeding had stopped—maybe there was hope for me yet. Still, moving a foot to my right was a hell of a lot easier than when I’d had to bandage myself in the van. It wasn’t easy, of course, not with my ankle feeling more like a sausage stuck in its casing with each passing moment.
Part of me was aware that Dan didn’t actually need me to tie the strip of cotton. He’d most certainly managed many times over the years. This was his way of keeping me focused and moving and making sure that I continued looking forward.
Sometimes the only thing that got people out of a tough situation was to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Create a list of tasks.
Accomplish them.
Step 1: remove one of our GPS trackers. Check.
Step 2: get it outside, in case the one remaining in my arm couldn’t broadcast its signal through rocks.
I tied off the bandage, making sure it was tight enough that the bleeding would stop as quickly as possible then reclined flat onto the floor to conserve my energy.
“Thanks,” Dan murmured, moving to the opening. He shoved his fingers through.
Just as I heard footsteps on the floor.
“They’re coming back,” I hissed.
He nodded, pulling back and grabbing the sliver of stone and sticking it into place. The space immediately filled with darkness, and I felt my breath catch. Dark. Days in this cell. No one coming to help me. All alone.
His hand wrapped around mine.
And the tight feeling in my lungs eased.
Step 3: find a way to get out of this shithole.
Heart thudding, I handed Dan the small knife. “For when the time comes.”
His fingers squeezed mine, and he pocketed it. “We’ll get out of here. It’ll be fi—”
Optimistic wasn’t exactly what I was feeling at this moment, but I wasn’t going to waste any more time worrying about the past, about what might happen. I needed to focus on being strong and on thinking about the next step, and—
I needed to live in the fucking present.
Yanking his hand, I tugged him toward me. Dan came, rolling easily, supporting his weight on his elbows, his body poised over mine.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“Kiss me.”
Then, not bothering to wait for his response, I slanted my lips across his.
It was the wrong time. It was stupid and irresponsible behavior for an agent, especially when footsteps were barreling down upon us, when people who wanted to hurt us would be opening that cell door.
But . . . it was also the perfect time.
Because I might not have another opportunity to kiss Dan.
Because I was so fucking tired of not actually living my life.
Because I was terrified that if I remained this broken creature, I would never have anything good.
Only darkness. Forever alone.
There was a tumult inside me, fear driving me to pull back, but that same fear also pushed me to continue moving forward, to believe in his words, to grasp onto this one moment when it may very well be our last.
His mouth was soft, coaxing, his lips parting, his tongue slipping inside my mouth.
Then it was less fear and more need, more want, more feeling.
This man had always made me feel good. Just being in the same room with him, discussing mission parameters or actively working a case had always soothed part of the ragged edges inside me. But this—touching him, kissing him, feeling the heat of his body surrounding me, his lips on mine, his tongue in my mouth—and it didn’t even come close to good. It was nirvana. It was everything. It was—
The cell door creaked, and we pulled apart.
“Light,” I warned, shifting up into a crouch—my side burning, my ankle throbbing. But I shoved the pain down, focused on this next step.
Step 4—no, Step 5, because Step 4 had been kissing Dan.
Step 5 was to get out of here.
The door was yanked open, light flaring into the space, burning my eyes. I’d squinted, avoiding the bulk of the light, but it was still impossible for me to not be momentarily blinded.
I knew Dan was in the same boat.
Hands reached in, wrenching me out.
Since out was where I wanted, since out might get us out of this fucking hell hole, I didn’t fight the pull, even when the sharp movements made agony scorch through my body.
Biting my cheek until it bled, I held back the instinctive cry of pain.
The cell door slammed closed.
I looked to my right, my left.
No Dan.
He was alone in the dark.
And I was standing toe-to-toe with my father.
I was in the chair.
Metal cuffs wrapped around my wrists, rough wood against my bare skin, my legs hanging toward the ground, my ankle swelling more by the second.
And my father was going through his routine.
Peeling off his jacket, rolling up his shirt sleeves, turning to face me, and casually crossing his arms over his chest. “I didn’t expect us to be back in this place.”
I snorted. “Preaching to the choir,” I muttered.
Him closing the distance between us and getting in my face wasn’t a surprise, neither was the bruising grip on my jaw, the fingers tangling in my hair and yanking my head back.
“I didn’t say you could speak.”
“I stopped listening to your orders a long time ago.”
The fingers tightened, pinpricks of pain dotting my scalp. “Tell me why you are in Italy.”
“I was taking a vacation with my boyfriend.” I glared up at him. “Congrats for kidnapping two lovebirds on vacation.”
Dark brows drawing down, brown eyes sparking with fury.
I braced myself for the blow that was sure to come my way. Instead, he released me, a small smile curving his lips. “Always so much fire inside you, my Eva. Just like all the Toscalos before you. Fury and cruelty are your constant companions.”
“That’s not my name anymore.”
“You can try to deny your heritage, my daughter, but that’s all it will be. A denial.”
I didn’t bother answering. It wasn’t like anything I could say would change his mind or convince him to let us go. I’d been in this room before, often and long enough before my eye injury to have counted the stones forming each wall. So, I didn’t need my glasses—lost somewhere during the fight or my removal from the hotel—to see that there were two hundred and six rocks on the one directly in front of me, three hundred and eighty-seven on the one to my right, three hundred and twelve to my left, one hundred and ninety-two behind me. All flat chunks of gray stone joined together with mortar, but in a variety of sizes. Not the polished finish of the house above, but older construction from centuries before.