Kaz rubbed his face but kept that scowl on it.
Dropping the gun to my side, I stared at the chained guy and yelled, “Max!”
He ducked his head in the room. “Yeah, Em?”
“Take this crazy looking motherfucker too.”
“Got you.” Max went to the masked man in the chair and helped him stand. “You’re angry, Em. Maybe, you should give me that gun.”
I handed it to him.
“Thanks.” Max guided the masked man out with the leash.
I pointed to the prisoner. “Kaz, who the hell is that?”
“That’s the Devil.”
“The one that kidnapped Jean-Pierre’s girlfriend?”
“Yes.”
Rage rose in my chest. “The one that was working for Misha and fucked everything up?”
“Yes.”
“Why is he here?”
“Because he used to work for Jean-Pierre and even grew up with him. He would know good places to bomb.”
I shifted from one foot to the other. “Would it kill you to just put your pride aside for the slightest second and think the bombing through?”
“No, but it could kill you, mysh. It would leave you open to further threats. Let the world know that the lion does nothing, when the mouse is kidnapped and harmed.”
“Bullshit!” I poked my finger at the air. “You just want to bomb things because you’re mad.”
He growled through clenched teeth, “That too.”
The door shut behind me.
I marched over to Kaz. “If you want to fight someone then fight me. I’m the reason our child is gone. Not France. Not the Corsican. Not Jean-Pierre.”
The rage on his face disappeared. “Is that what you think? That it was your fault.”
“Of course. I was the one carrying our baby
“You didn’t know.”
“No one knew, especially not Jean-Pierre.”
“That doesn’t save him.”
“We said that we would talk about this or at least—”
“That was before!” His voice came close to shaking the foundation of the room.
My heartbeats sped up. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does in my world.” He bared his teeth. “You think I’m going to let him live, when my little girl is gone? When I’ll never get to see her face. See her smile. Hold her hand. Hear her say daddy.”
I opened my mouth, but no words left me. My eyes watered. Sorrow replaced my disgust.
“You know what I imagined?” Kaz stomped over to me. “I thought about how I would hold her in my arms. And she would raise her little hand up and wrap it around my finger. I looked forward to that moment. Just that one moment. Very small. Very Simple. But. . .it would have changed my world. It would have warmed my heart.”
Tears spilled over my eyelids.
“I bet she looked like the both of us. Your beautiful brown eyes. Maybe my mouth. I’ve heard it’s a nice one. She was beautiful. That I know, even though I never got to see her and never will.” Rage blazed in his eyes as he stood right in front of me. “Jean-Pierre took that from me. Every moment. Every second of joy. He grabbed you without one ounce of proof that I kidnapped that stupid flute player. He ruined it all for nothing.”
“Kaz. . .” My voice went shaky. “Still. . .it wasn’t his fault.”
He stabbed the air with his finger. “Go back to bed!”
“I’m not so stop saying that. Listen to me, baby.” I tenderly grabbed his hand and placed it on my heart. “Even if it was Jean-Pierre’s fault. Even if the Corsican had something to do with the miscarriage. What does that have to do with Paris and the normal innocent people that live there? I don’t care how many people Max cleared from that mall. There were some casualties. Innocent people died. And for what?”
“It would not have been many.”
I wrenched his hand away and backed up. “One would be too many.”
Kaz walked over to the model of Paris, stopped near, and studied it. “No one was harmed.”
“You don’t believe that.”
He slammed his foot on the model’s table. “I don’t care!”
The Eiffel Tower fell on its side.
I trembled, scared that I wouldn’t be able to get through to him and terrified of the man that I had given my heart. “Listen to me. Move the bombs from the Eiffel tower and wherever else you have them. Stop this now!”
“I will not.” He leaned on the edge of table and placed his hands in his pockets. “Go back to sleep, mysh. There’s no stopping this. It’s war.”
“Fuck you, Kaz. It’s not war and I’m not going to sleep like a good little girl.”
“It’s war.”
I marched over to the table that he leaned on. Kaz moved away. I gripped the edge, put all of my weight on it, and flipped the model over. Everything crashed to the floor—Notre Dame and the blue glitter of the Seine. The Louvre fell on a pile of plastic trees.
I’ll have that model back up in seconds.” Kaz displayed a wicked smile. “And even if that model was gone, I know what I want bombed, and that’s all of Paris.”
“I won’t stand with you if you do this.” Pissed, I jabbed his chest with my finger. “I won’t be by your side.”
He caught my hand and yanked me to him. “You will be by my side because I will not let you leave me.”
The truth sounded bitter leaving his mouth.
I took my hand away and edged back.
Silence thickened within the violent air.
In this moment, a wall rose between us, separating everything that I had loved about us. And it was built by an army of pain. And it wouldn’t come down any time soon. And I was starting to forget how I loved him in the first place. With his need to bomb France, the wall would only grow in size. And I felt like I could do absolutely nothing to stop it.
His voice softened. “Go to sleep, mysh.”
“I won’t goddamn it. And I will not stand by your side, if you continue to do this. You think I’ll be fine with the bombing? I don’t care how sad you are about losing our child. You don’t get to do this!”
“Do you have any idea who you fell in love with?” He gave me an intense stare. “I thought you knew.”
I blinked. “Stop.”
“Go to bed. Get some rest.”
“You’re going to bomb some more?”
“I will. Fuck your friend.”
My head throbbed in pain as I whispered, “Then, we’re done.”
“Excuse me?” He tried to close the distance between us.
I stepped back. “We’re done.”
He leaned his head to the side. “You still think leaving me is an option? Do you not see the hole on the screen? Maybe, you should turn around and have a look.”
“Not another bomb and no war. You can go after Jean-Pierre and his men. I don’t care about them solely being your target, but I won’t stand next to you while you destroy a whole city.”
“We’re not done, and you don’t decide how I deal with this.”
I glared at him.
He met my angry stare.
A knock came.
I heard the door open. I didn’t even turn around.