I wake up screaming, the force of it sharp in my throat. The sound abruptly ends, and then I’m just shivering in the bed, Elijah’s arms on my shoulders from where he shook me.
“There you are,” he says with those same green-gold eyes.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t apologize. You’ve just been through a trauma.”
A trauma. Yes, I suppose that’s what I’ve been through. A white van. A dark hood. Every woman’s worst nightmare. That’s what happened to me, but it was only the beginning. There was a prison in the basement of a church. Attempted escape. Injuries. Pain. Fear. The entire thing feels like a nightmare, but I can’t seem to wake up.
I sit up and settle the sheets around me, grateful for the small distraction. The window is cracked, letting in the faint sounds of the city at night. A car far away honks. Someone laughs. Music plays from some distant bistro.
“It’s hard to believe I’m really safe. That I’m really free.”
“You are. Adam will never touch you again.”
“I can’t stop thinking about Peter.”
“He’ll never touch you either.”
“Because he’s dead. We killed someone.”
He makes a rough sound. “I killed him. And the only thing I regret is not killing Adam, too. I shouldn’t have let you dissuade me. Now he’s a loose end we have to clean up.”
“How can I distance myself from what happened? I was there. I was in that cell, fighting him. I clawed his eyes. I keep remembering Peter’s weight on me, and he’ll never take another breath.”
“And he’ll never hurt anyone again. The world is a better place for it.”
“Who are we to make that call?”
“We are the people he hurt. We are the best people to make that call. You think some judge knows better than us? He would have hurt you if he could.” Elijah pulls his shirt over his head. In the dim light I can see the scars on his back, the whip marks and the burns. The bruises are too dark to see without light. “He hurt me, too. Remember? I didn’t only kill him for you.”
“But you would have stayed,” I remind him. “If it weren’t for me.”
“And probably died. I would have followed my mission to the grave if it weren’t for you.” He pulls me close to his body, wrapping me in his arms. The musk of him surrounds me. “So really, when you think about it, you saved my life.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious. I seem to recall that you wouldn’t let it go by a certain lake. You wouldn’t let me demur and not take credit for what I did. So you have to take credit, too. You saved me.”
“Stop.”
He dips his head and kisses me. It’s coaxing and soft. It tricks me into kissing him back before I realize what I’ve done. “You. Saved. Me.”
There’s no winning this argument, so I press myself into his arms, curling up like a small child. It’s the middle of the night, and we’re both awake. “Tell me a story.”
“You’re the writer.”
“I know, but I need a distraction from the monsters in my head.”
“Monsters?”
I nudge him. “Tell me something about you. Why did you join the military?”
“Same reason my brothers did, I assume. The only thing I knew how to do when I turned eighteen was fight. That’s the place where you fight.”
“But you got recruited to do the heist. That can’t be normal.”
“No, I was never normal. I scored off the charts on language processing, logical reasoning, spatial acuity, et cetera, et cetera.”
That makes me sit up. “I thought you said the only thing you could do was fight. If your IQ is off the charts, then you can do a lot more than that.”
He shrugs. “I always dumbed down my answers in school so that I would just get As and Bs. If you’re the valedictorian or that shit, they expect more from you. Honor roll and speeches and going to college.”
“What’s wrong with college? I bet you could have gotten a scholarship.”
“To do what? Become an accountant? Put money into a 401K? I never expected to live long enough to need a retirement. Joining the army was something I did to be useful. But no matter what shit they threw at me, I kept surviving.”
“Do you ever think about what you’ll do next?”
“I never thought there’d be a next. I never thought I’d live long enough to have one. If it happens, then I’m probably going to work for my brother.”
“Is that what you want to do?”
“Life has very little to do with what I want.”
What a different upbringing he had. So toxic and destructive. It made him feel like he can’t seek happiness. It made him think he wouldn’t even live very long. I wish I could go back and hit his father for doing this to him. I wish I could go back and save his mother. I can’t do anything to change the past, but I have the man here with me in the present. I wrap him in my arms and pull him close. He lets himself be drawn into my embrace.
“Give me one dream,” I murmur. “An impossible dream. Something you want.”
“That’s easy,” he says. “You.”
Confusion mars my brows. “I’m right here, Elijah. I’m here.”
“Don’t argue,” he says, mirroring the words he once told me when we were being held captive under the church. “Don’t fight. Understand? That will only make it worse.”
“You’re not still trapped. You’re not still there.”
“Aren’t I?” he asks, and I shiver in the cool night air.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Elijah
The safe house consists of three stories. The bottom one contains the traditional servants’ quarters, and it’s only accessible from the back of the house. The middle level is where the common areas are—the living room, the dining room, and a modest library. Modest in terms of size. It has original and signed editions from Balzac and Proust.
The top level has the bedroom. Bedroom, singular.
The entire place is designed for a single person or couple to use.
Unlike many of the flats in Paris, there’s no balcony. Presumably that made this place useful as a safe house. There’s also bulletproof glass and lead-filled walls to block signals passing through. Those things are easily disguised. As far as Holly knows, this house has an upgraded security system, but it’s otherwise normal.
The next morning I find her standing at the window, drinking a cup of espresso as she watches the Eiffel Tower. Her face is more slender than it was when she was young, more haunted.
Especially after her time in captivity.
I should be returning her to her regular life.
She could be on a plane to the United States with a security contingent from my brother’s company. So why isn’t she? The thought of being separated from her feels like a grate running across my internal organs. I’m not sure what to call my feelings for her—obsession?
Being held in that church changed the internal makeup of my cells.
In a way, Adam succeeded in his goal.
He wanted to bring us closer together so that I would share the location of the diamonds. Or barring that, use her as bait for her sister. He did manage to fuse me to her in an elemental way, but I’ll be damned if I let her be used as bait.