“Have I ever hurt you?” he demanded tightly, then swore and looked away, seeming to realize as he said it that he was inviting the vitriol that climbed like bile into her throat. “I meant physically. Look, I’ve been waiting for the right time to resurface. I need to know you’re safe when word gets out that I’m alive. As of today’s debacle, it’s out. Please come with me and let me explain.”
She realized the ache in her other hand was from gripping her phone this whole time. All those people inside this tiny rectangle, all those “friends” who’d been so sympathetic, eating up her grief like bitter chocolate bonbons. Where were they now, when she was in real trouble? Not here.
She fingered her pendant, thinking of Nels. He was a reliable friend, but they weren’t exactly soul mates.
She didn’t have anyone. That’s what she’d come to terms with since Giovanni’s disappearance. For a few short months, Giovanni had encouraged her to believe they were a unit. The kernels of a small and growing family.
That fantasy had vanished as quickly as it had formed.
“I’ll go if you promise you’ll divorce me. I’m not staying married to you.”
A pause, then, “If that’s what you want, but we might have to wait a few weeks.”
“I’m not sleeping with you,” she blurted.
“I don’t expect you to.”
As his flat response struck like an anvil, splitting her down the middle like a chunk of redwood, she realized she had been hoping for more of a fight. Apparently, that’s not what this was.
The void of sorrow that had consumed her since his “death” closed in like a fog. Probably for the best. Giovanni had caused her too much emotional upheaval as it was. They needed closure and a clean break. Then she would finally stop crying over him. She would be able to speak without powdered glass in her throat. To breathe one breath that wasn’t so heavy with loss it nearly crushed her flat.
“Take your money back, too,” she said distantly. “I don’t need it and it’s just one more headache I don’t want to deal with.”
“Anything else?”
Oh, he thought he could take that sardonic tone with her? She blinked fast to see him through her matted lashes.
“Take off that ring. It’s a mockery that you’re wearing it.”
“You want to talk about mocking our marriage with what we’re wearing?” His pithy tone disparaged the meringue confection piled around her. “I promised you I would put it back on and never remove it again. I won’t break that vow. So no, I will not take it off.” He rapped a knuckle on the window and the locks were released. “Let’s go.”
Giovanni felt the familiar tink of metal to metal, his wedding ring grazing his hand rim as he rolled his wheelchair aboard the customized, unmarked, military-grade helicopter. He anchored his chair into its spot next to her seat.
He had insisted Everett retrieve the ring the minute he was conscious enough to comprehend all that had happened. He’d promised Freja he would put it back on his finger and never remove when she’d caught him without it. That had been minutes—twenty or thirty at most—before the explosion that had “killed” him.
Freja was watching Everett come in behind them and start to take the seat across from her. Her stiff profile was unnaturally ashen, not a version of her typical ivory skin tone, and not the clean, snowy white of her gown. She looked like bone china—delicate and translucent.
“Everett.” Giovanni jerked his head toward the door.
Everett’s face tightened, but Giovanni didn’t relent. Get me that ring and I’ll do everything you ask. He had. For three months he’d played dead, allowing Everett to identify the mole who’d set him up. That was over now. Giovanni had bought his freedom fair and square.
His promise to stay off grid had been a small bluff in the first place since he couldn’t exactly hike out of the mountains on his nonexistent feet, but he would have turned himself into the most intractable asset anyone could have imagined if Everett hadn’t done as he asked.
If I steal that ring and only that ring, she could become suspicious and deduce that you’re alive.
That had been Giovanni’s goal.
“I’ll catch the next one, then,” Everett said with caustic mockery.
“Collect Freja’s things from her hotel,” Giovanni suggested. “Settle up at the wedding shop. I’m sure they’ll have questions.”
Everett muttered something as he rose, but Giovanni had higher priorities than to worry about Everett’s disgruntled cleanup of the mess his wife had made.
The doors closed and they were alone in the small cabin.
Freja nervously turned the flashy engagement ring she wore.
The dress, the diamond ring, the heart emojis beneath the professional engagement photos... Giovanni had seen all of her effusive posts as the acts of war she intended them to be. Every single one had landed like mortar shells in the middle of his angry, aching heart.
They’d both been wildly happy and gut-wrenchingly miserable in those weeks between their quickie wedding and their final confrontation. He had thought those strained days had been the limits of hell he could endure. He’d been proven so wrong.
“I should have come with you that day,” Giovanni said gravely. Humbly.
Around and around the ring was going, faster and faster. “You sent me to your room to wait like a child.”
He’d been in unstoppable agony over how badly he’d handled that day. Impatience had been driving him. He hadn’t wanted to wait for Everett’s latest reports on the contacts he’d made. He’d wanted all of this over so he could properly devote himself to his marriage.
He’d taken a stupid risk and paid the price.
“I was coming after you. That’s why I survived. I was supposed to meet someone, but it was a setup. The café was completely empty except for explosives, not that I knew it. After our argument, I suspected you wouldn’t wait for me. I started back to the hotel instead of going in. When I turn to leave, they panicked and hit the detonator. Since I wasn’t in the center of the blast, I only suffered a few broken bones and a concussion.”
“And a coma.” She kept her chin tucked as she sent him an appalled look, the first sign of concern he’d seen.
“Induced. They were worried about my spine. Once the swelling went down, they brought me out. By then, Everett had pronounced me dead.”
He waited for her to say she was glad he’d survived, but he had a grim sense he would wait a long time to hear those words, if he ever did.
She folded her hands in her lap, very much the contained, enigmatic Freja he knew so well. She’d been kidnapped by her resurrected husband and she only wore a pinched thoughtfulness around her white lips and had her brow furrowed in thought.