by Amber Bardan
The footsteps reached the door. Haithem rolled the second person over his shoulder. A dark figure filled the doorway. The reflective surface of a handgun flashed in the moonlight.
Adrenaline spurted through my blood.
I lunged out of the door, gun pointed—and pulled the trigger.
The blast echoed through the room. The figure in the doorway dropped on the spot.
I’d got him in the head.
Shot him in the face.
Just killed a person.
My head swirled and my hands dropped to my sides.
Haithem’s foot came down on the skull of the person he’d thrown as he looked up at me. His expression shifted, but I glanced at what lay there—rage, blood lust, a twist of features sharp enough to turn a witness’s blood cold—before his face morphed. I squinted, my chest heaving, trying to process the terror Haithem wore now.
He sprinted, leaping over the bed that lay between us, towards me.
Pain crashed over me. A wave of agony with no true point of origin. Lights danced in front of me. Haithem dissolved into a dark lunging shadow.
My cheek smashed against carpet. My chest filled with agonizing pressure. I blinked, watching from what seemed outside my body. The blurry outline of a bull charged through the room, destroying things—ending people.
The bull was mine.
My fingers spread in the carpet. A dark trickle flowed down my arm. As though someone poured warm oil over my shoulder.
Then the bull leaned over me. A touch on my back drove pain hard enough into muscle to drag me back into the shell of my body.
I’d been stabbed in the back.
I couldn’t see the knife but knew with certainty that’s what’d happened. I tried to turn a little, look at him better, to see the shadow become a man again.
I blinked at him. He called my name. Squeezed my hand. Tapped my face.
Everything blurred. A haze of pain radiated through my being, yet my fear got lost somewhere deep in calm.
“It’s okay, Haithem.” The words didn’t make it to my mouth. Just as my arm wouldn’t reach for him. The most fearless man I’d ever met wept for me, and I couldn’t tell him what he needed to hear.
He rocked me, and yelled.
He knew I loved him.
I wanted him to know it’d all been worth it.
Chapter Fourteen
I expected to open my eyes to heaven. Or hell. Depending on how the wrong I’d done weighed out against the good. I’d expected to see my brother. To open my eyes in death and find him again. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t been afraid. He’d gone first, so it’d never be possible for me to die alone. If there was an afterlife, then that’s where you’d find me—cradled with my twin by the universe in another kind of womb. Maybe we’d be like stars, looking down at the world together. Or maybe we’d get born again. Find our way back to life and try it all over.
I didn’t get to find out. My eyes opened to the painful realities of the living.
Fire burned through my lungs with each breath. My entire upper body throbbed. There was a chance someone had beat me with a crow bar after I’d been stabbed.
Stabbed...
I blinked up at the roof.
How is this my life?
My gaze flittered around the room. Haithem sat in a chair beside the bed. His elbows on his knees, hands joined, and braced under his chin—as though lost in prayer. But he wouldn’t pray. His god was science, and his religion what he could make from it. Yet to my blurry gaze, I’d never seen anything so pious.
He opened his eyes.
His expression shattered in relief. He leaned out of the chair over me, and set his long strong fingers over my cheek. I stared at the face hovering over mine and it sank in—there was one thing in this world my brilliant man revered, but I didn’t know how it came to be me.
I’d take his devotion all the same.
He scanned my features. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been stabbed in the back.” I winced.
Fuck me, talking hurt. Breathing bloody well hurt too. My lips pressed together.
“Now you’re awake you can have something for the pain.” His fingers slid from my face and he hollered out the door.
Emilio charged into the room with his black bag. I watched him remove the vial and syringe. His knuckles were grazed, his left eye purple and closed over. He squinted with his right as he measured the dosage.
Haithem didn’t move, only held my hand while Emilio gave me the injection of painkillers. The truth was, though, I didn’t need my hand held for needles anymore.
That fear had been squished by bigger badder ones.
“Better?” Haithem asked.
“Yes,” I gritted out, even though the breath to lie pierced me with yet more agony.
Emilio packed up his things, gave Haithem a few Spanish words, then left.
“Is everyone else okay?”
Haithem’s expression didn’t change. “Karim was shot.”
I pushed off the pillows, but pain slammed me back down.
“Don’t try to move around yet—” He touched the back of his hand against my forehead. “Karim will be fine. Nothing major was hit.”
“Thank god.” My gaze sifted past him to the windows. “What about the people who boarded us?”
People.
One of whom I’d killed.
“Gone.” His tone went flat.
I didn’t question his meaning. Didn’t feel the guilt I should either. A kind of grief squeezed me though. That anyone would give their precious life for violence and a paycheck. I’d have given mine for love, still would. Noble as that might sound in my head, a darker truth lay underneath. I’d taken someone else’s life to save ours, and I would again.
“Who were they?”
“Only a very small part of what I’ve brought on us.” He kept his voice even, but I heard everything he didn’t let in there. I heard it in the line of his jaw, and the droop of his mouth as he looked at me.
“It’s not your fault, Haithem.”
“Except it is.” He leaned back. “It really is.”
The pain in my back and shoulder radiated into my chest. I couldn’t let him blame himself. I knew how they’d tracked us down. I knew it the moment he’d woken me up and told me we’d been boarded.
“Haithem.” I licked my lips. I had to tell him. “I did something I shouldn’t have done.”
“What did you do?” He looked at me, his brow creasing.
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth, but it was dry too. “I called my dad.”
He went still. Not even his chest moved.
He didn’t berate me. He didn’t tell me how stupid I’d been.
Tears flooded my vision.
“I’m so sorry, Haithem.” The tears spilled. “It’s my fault.”
My chest shook. Waves of pain rolled through me. “I hung up without saying anything—I thought it’d be okay.”
“No.” He lunged forward and grabbed my jaw. “Not your fault.”
I sniffed.
He kissed me hard, then let me go, and scanned my gaze.
I didn’t need to ask but I did. “Can you forgive me?”
“Nothing to forgive.” He rubbed my cheek with his knuckles, then pulled the sheet up higher over me. “So long as you do one thing for me.”
I let my head rest against the pillows. “What?”
How’d I get so tired, I just woke up?
“Rest and heal.” He resumed his watchful position in the chair. “You do that and everything will be okay.”
My eyelids drooped. The painkiller must have done its job. I breathed in all the way, filled my lungs with only a nagging throb.
“Okay,” I said, and my eyes closed.
Haithem
I came awake with a gasp as though air were funneled down my lungs by a compressor. The hands resting on my knees were clean.
I checked my fingers for blood.
Angelina’s blood.
The scenes from my dream so vivid the tang of copper still tainted my nose. Blood spattered on white kitchen cupboards. Blood speckled across sunny curtains. Blood a dark creeping stain on carpet.
Blood—red and brown, sometimes even black.
Angelina’s blood.
I moved from the chair onto the edge of the bed. Her chest moved up and down. Pain pierced me with every movement—as though I were the one stabbed in the shoulder, the chest—in the lung—so every breath shot agony deeper and deeper through me until there were no place left that didn’t hurt.
When had I become so arrogant to assume I could protect her without sacrifice? That I could hide and sneak and win this fight without any losses?
Everything comes with a price.
I placed a hand on her stomach. Warm and moving. I hadn’t imagined her breaths.
I’d been fighting the inevitable. Resisting what I did not want to do. My other plan. The one she’d never forgive.
A cruel plan.
So cruel it chilled me. I couldn’t justify what I had to do other than to embrace the knowledge that I’d choose my own cost, rather than have what I refused to lose taken from me.
I lay down beside her, careful not to bump or disturb her.
This would never happen again.
She’d almost been killed.
Just because she chose this journey with me didn’t make it right. It wasn’t right to put her at risk. Wasn’t right to keep her from the people she loved. To take over her life for myself, for my cause, and most of all because I wanted her.
Her hip rested so close to mine, her heat brushed me without touch. But there was something else radiating through that space between us.
Guilt.
My guilt.
Malignant, building and spreading. Taking over me and taking over us. I’d already begun to waste and putrefy under the metastasis of regret. I hadn’t been perfect before, far from it, but fear and shame eroded me—I was no longer the man she deserved.
She moaned.
Her pain lanced me.
We were ruined anyway.
I no longer recognized myself. Not with this fear and paranoia. I couldn’t protect her while I fought this as well. She loved me, but the way she’d looked at me when she’d seen her parents on the news—we’d never recover from that.
Things must be put right.
It was too late for me, but not for her. I scooted closer, brushed my nose against her hair, inhaled that sweetness so deeply I hoped it’d tattoo on my senses.
So I’d never forget the scent of her.
My throat burned.
I love you, Angel.
She was strong. So much stronger than she’d ever given herself credit for. I had to focus on that. She’d fight me. That was a certainty. But I knew the buttons to push. The one thing that would get her to do what I needed her to do in order for the rest of my plan to work.
She’d do anything to protect me. I’d give anything to protect her.
The difference between us was only one—there were not limits to what I wouldn’t do.
There was only one way to be absolutely sure she’d no longer be a target.
I only wish I’d broken her heart earlier, because now I risked destroying it.
Chapter Fifteen
Haithem stepped into the cabin, a tray held loosely in one hand as though a tray would never dare tip on him.
I smiled and sat up in the armchair. I’d been out of bed since this morning. He’d have to find something compelling to get me back between the sheets.
He sat the tray down on the table next to me.
My shoulder itched.
I didn’t scratch. I’d probably dislodge a stitch, knowing my luck. Besides, every time I so much as winced over the wound, Haithem looked as though he just might test the strength of the yacht’s wall paneling with his fists.
He wasn’t handling this well. Probably, he thought he hid it better than he actually did.
I took a shallow breath.
He sat opposite me, and whipped the lid off the tray. The aroma gave away the contents before I saw them. That buttery scent. I laughed, and reached for a croissant with my good side.
Haithem took another.
I tore open the pastry. Chocolate oozed out the middle. I moaned. I mean chocolate-filled croissants are enough on their own without the memories that now came with all French pastry.
Sex. Temptation. Lust.
I leaned over the plate, ignoring the tug in my shoulder. “You know I love you, right?”
There hadn’t been time for this lately. Not time or priority for indulgence and decadence. There were no more personal chefs or daily bakes. Our moments of pleasure were the ones we stole in bed. Those moments, that pleasure, was more vital than food anyway. Sex kept that cord from his heart to mine solid. And we hadn’t been together that way since I’d been injured. That hurt worse than the wound. I took a bite and got swept up in sugar heaven.
These frozen croissants might not compete with Haithem’s French chefs, but compared to toast with hazelnut spread, this was winning. This reminded me of when we’d lived in our own little bubble.
“I know you do.” The flatness of his voice yanked me back down to earth.
I chewed and swallowed.
“There’s been another change of plans.”
I set the pastry down and straightened. Got to love the way he said that. There’s been a change of plans—not I changed the freaking plans...
“Which one?”
“All of them.” He brought the croissant to his mouth and tore off the end with his teeth.
His jaw bulged with every chew.
“What do you mean?”
His mouth tightened, then he swallowed. “I mean, this isn’t working for me.”
My shoulder twitched. I needed to scratch. Put my nails over the stitches and scratch, scratch, scratch.
“What’s not working?”
He tossed the remaining croissant onto the table. It skidded past the plate.
“This—” He gestured between us. “You and me.”
I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand. The itch spread through my body, as though I couldn’t remain in my skin much longer.
“You don’t seem to understand how important what we are supposed to be doing is.” He finally looked at me. “You risked everything with your decision, Angelina.”
His eyes were on fire.
The itch turned to a burn. A burn deep in my organs.
“You said it wasn’t my fault.”
His gaze dropped but I’d already been scorched. “I was worried about your health—because I care about you—” His chin lowered. “But you’ve betrayed my trust.”
My chest constricted. He was right. I’d betrayed him. Let him down. Done what I promised not to. Placed us both in danger.
“I’m sorry, I know I should never have made that call.”
He made a sound, halfway between a snort and a growl. “You’re damn right you shouldn’t have.”
I thought he’d changed.
That I’d thawed him out so thoroughly, I’d made a puddle out of him. Now that puddle froze over, reforming into something hard again.
I rubbed my shoulder. The friction stung, a prick through all the other pain.
His gaze flicked to my hand and his lips pressed together. “My feelings have changed. I want you to go to Spain on your own.”
I breathed deep, giving myself enough air to make sure words would come. “You want me to go to Spain and wait for you?”
“I won’t be joining you. I’ll send you word when it’s safe for you to go back to Melbourne.”
I pushed to my feet, fingers on the chair for balance.
Like hell.
It’d taken a moment to get what he’d tried on me. His words hurt. He’d used just enough truth in his deception to make sure they did.
“Is this what you think of me?” I gripped the chair. “That I’m some vulnerable moron who’d let a few angry words convince me that one mistake would have you falling out of love with me?”
He said nothing, but stood.
Tears stung my ducts, but I blinked them back. “Liar.” I let go of the back of the chair. “You’re a liar.”
He didn’t move. He’d gone back to the impenetrable state I’d first met him in.
We’d already proven that was no match for me.
“You love me.” I stepped toward him. “You can’t send me away with a few cruel lies.” I aimed a finger at his chest. “There’s nothing I believe in more than us.” One more step and my finger hit the dip of his sternum. “So try again, Haithem.” I fixed my gaze on his face. I’d watch every flicker in those eyes.
I knew exactly what he was up to.
“Try. Again.”
His Adam’s apple twitched.
“Because you’d never let me go willingly.”
His chest rose against my finger, then flattened.
“It’s because I got hurt isn’t it?” I spread my hand against his chest, absorbed his unshakable strength, and his warmth. “You’re trying to protect me.”
He lifted my hand from his chest. I swallowed. Haithem doesn’t give up.
“I’ll always protect you. I promised you that.” He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed inside my palm. “I can’t help worrying about you.”
“You don’t need to. Let me worry about me, you worry about what you have to do.”
“That’s not how this works. As long as we’re together you’re all I care about.” He laid my hand over his heart. “I’m going to keep making mistakes.”
Those last words hit me harder than all the others, like bullets to the chest. The way he’d said them.