by Skye Warren
Her eyes widened. “I’m not leaving you here.”
“No, Della. You don’t get to call the shots. After what you did, the least you can do is listen to me.”
She tried to stand…and stumbled. She finally made it to her feet, swaying in the sunset. “I’ve spent my whole life doing what men told me to do. Including tying you up and bringing you here, which was the biggest mistake of my life. I’m done with that.”
“Yeah, you picked a real inconvenient time to start being independent.”
She flinched, and her shame resounded deep in my belly. I knew she deserved my bitterness, my cruelty. And she’d take it all too. I read the guilt in every harsh line of her body. She’d probably let me beat her just like Dmitri had. She’d let me pound her into the ground as if I could take my revenge out on her flesh.
Didn’t want to hurt her, though. But I did want to take the revenge out on her flesh in a different way.
Yeah, you picked a real inconvenient girl to lust after.
“Take the truck,” she said softly. “Keys are in the ignition.”
I barked a laugh. “That’s not how this works. I’m a soldier in the US Army, do you understand? Do you know what that means to me? It means I have to protect everyone. I don’t get to pick and choose.”
She shuddered, and I felt her pain roll all the way down her body. It rose to the surface as a deep flush she tried to hide by looking down.
“I’m done arguing, sweetheart. You wanna come get shot to hell? Be my guest. We’ll both go in and look for your sister. Just do me one favor. Stay behind me. The last thing I need is you getting us both killed.”
Of course it wouldn’t happen that way. If anyone was waiting behind a corner ready to spray us with bullets, I would be the first one hit. It wouldn’t give Della enough time to get away or defend herself, but it was all I had.
Turned out we didn’t have long to test out my theory.
Standing in the middle of the atrium was a blonde woman. Pale blonde hair, creamy skin. A nose that turned up, and a certain bearing. Regal. Elegant. She was shorter than Della, her expression harder, but I could see the family resemblance. And she was holding an automatic pistol with a comfortable grip, pointing directly at us.
Her gaze focused on me. “Arms up. No funny business.”
I raised my hands into the air. No trouble here. Only took a second to figure out what had happened. We’d gotten played. Della had gotten played.
She stepped forward, a stunned look on her face. “Caro?”
Caro smiled like a hostess would, welcoming but distant. “I wondered when you’d get here.”
I took advantage of their conversation, edging farther away. I moved silently—and slowly enough not to be noticed. If I could get a clean shot without attracting her attention, I’d do it. Or if the woman started shooting, I’d draw her fire away from Della so she could escape.
I just had to hope Della took the opportunity when it presented itself. Get to the truck. Get safe. I tried to will her the orders, but she was staring at her sister in shock.
Della shook her head, not understanding. Not believing. “What are you doing? You were hurt. I saw the picture.”
Her sister smiled indulgently. “You saw what you wanted to see.”
“You sent me your…your nails,” Della cried, and disgust panged in my gut. This woman was a piece of work. And Della was related to her? No wonder she had a hard time trusting people.
Caro showed us her nails, painted a shiny purple. “You mean these? Pretty, aren’t they?”
Piece of work.
Della made a disgusted sound. “You beat up a woman so I’d think you were hurt. And you…you…”
“Tore off her fingernails? Not me personally, but that’s the general idea. If it makes you feel any better, the girl was dead by the time that happened. Stone-cold.”
Della clapped a hand over her mouth. She got herself under control with visible effort. “No, that doesn’t make me feel better. You’re sick. I can’t believe I was worried about you.”
“I can. The little martyr girl always running to save me. You kept doing it over and over again when no one asked you to. I knew you’d do it if we did ask.”
“We?” Della asked.
“Me and Dmitri. Well, I suppose it’s just me now. You did kill him out there, right?”
“Yeah.” Della’s voice was hollow. “I think you’re all caught up.”
I hated the defeated look on her face. It was worse than her quiet acceptance when I’d walked up to her. I could have killed her then. Someone like Dmitri, the kind of man she was used to, would have done just that. But she hadn’t protected herself. She hadn’t even cowered. She’d accepted her death as her due, but this was even worse—like she’d just realized she was all alone in the world.
“Took you long enough, little sister. For a second I thought you might not come through.”
Della hesitated, looking lost. “I didn’t—I couldn’t—”
Her gaze flitted to me, and I fell into the broken look in her eyes. I tasted her sadness and breathed in her regret. It didn’t matter in that moment that she’d bring Caro’s attention to my new position. It didn’t matter that we’d both probably die here. All that mattered was that she know I forgave her.
I’d spent most of my life wishing like hell I had a family, wanting one so bad I had to enlist just to make one for myself. Now I had brothers in arms, and I would sacrifice anything to save them. It’s okay, I tried to tell her without words. I would have taken a bullet for you. I would have died for you.
Her expression didn’t change, and I had no way of knowing if I got through. But then Caro was there, shouting, “Hey, you, get back over there. What are you trying to do? Hands in the fucking air.”
So maybe I’d let them drop a little, as if they were tired, as if they’d sagged naturally. But in reality, I knew it would come down to this. Down to a duel.
Caro raised her gun at me. I watched the angles of our guns shift in slow motion, hers and mine—whoever pointed first, whoever pulled first, would win.
I pulled the trigger and braced myself for the impact of a bullet.
“No, Caro. No.” Della’s voice sounded agonized, as if she was already mourning one of us. I didn’t know which one she meant. No, Caro, don’t shoot him. Or No, don’t shoot Caro. But she was closer to Caro than me, since I had been shifting away. She launched herself at her sister, falling short because of a glass-and-gold table in the middle. They fell like dominoes: Della, the table, and Caro last of all.
I watched in shock, in absolute terror, as Della filled the space where her sister had been. “Della!”
In those fractured moments, I did something I’d never done before. Not in my foster home when we bowed our heads before dinner. Not in the hellholes overseas.
I prayed.
Let her be okay. Let her be safe. I’ll do anything you want if she’s safe.
I had spent my whole life searching for a place to belong. For a family, for religion. For an army. But I had never felt that deep peace, that all-encompassing comfort, until Della had looked at me and known exactly what I was. She’d known exactly how to deal with me.
She’d given me every damn thing and I couldn’t even keep her safe. The fact that she hadn’t confided in me, that she’d tried to use me, wasn’t an excuse. I should have known. I should have protected her.
It felt like digging through the wreckage. There was glass and pieces of a vase and pieces of a table. Water mixed with blood. There was a woman choking on her own breath, dying on the floor. Blonde, slender.
For a heart stopping moment, I grabbed her arm. But as soon as I touched her, I knew. Not Della. This was her sister, and Della was already kneeling at her sister’s side, pressing a piece of cloth to the wound.
Too late. It was too late to save Della’s sister. That was what she’d set out to do, save Caro. But the woman sucking in her last breath on the floor, with her sparkly purple nail po
lish, had been gone way before now.
Chapter Fifteen
Della
I used to cry after we went to the strip club. Not just because someone was hurting me or touching me. I would cry all the time. It drove Dmitri crazy. It drove Caro crazy too. I think it reminded her to be sad about what had happened to us. It made it harder for her to move on.
We just have to play along, she told me.
For my birthday, she got me a plant. I was so happy. I think I cried again, which pissed her off, but they were happy tears. I thought the plant was like the ones I’d had back at home. I thought it meant she wasn’t going to forget, like me. We wouldn’t forget.
Then I found out she had done things with Dmitri to get the plant.
I turned the pot upside down over the toilet and let the plant and soil fall in. I flushed it all down the drain and threw the pot away, because I didn’t want any part of that. Caro said I was stupid, that I refused to play along, and for a long time, I believed that. Even when I stopped stripping and left Dmitri, I still believed it was stupid. I just knew that if I kept going that way, I would die. I wasn’t the scientist in this world; I was the plant, and without enough water or sunlight, I was dying.
That was what I told Clint while we waited for the ambulance to take my sister away. He didn’t say anything in return. He just kept his hand on my shoulder. He had done that ever since my sister stopped breathing. He had touched my shoulder or stroked my hair or held my hand, as if he knew I needed that anchor. As if he knew I’d float away without it.
There were a bunch of people in suits milling around outside. Some came inside and started taking pictures. Katie came and stood in front of us. I blinked slowly, not understanding. Katie, my neighbor. Blink. Katie was wearing a suit and looking right in my eyes, directly, which she’d never done before.
“Not right now,” I heard Clint say, his tone almost vicious. “You can talk to her later.”
Katie argued, saying it was important, that things were fresh.
“She’s in shock,” Clint said. “The last thing she needs is to find out about you.”
I already figured it out, I wanted to say. I figured everything out, but that didn’t seem to matter. Knowing wasn’t the problem. Playing along, that was the problem.
The ambulance arrived, but they didn’t take Caro. I told them to take her. “She needs help.”
But they just shook their heads. Clint steered me out the door, away from Caro’s unmoving body, past my neighbor Katie who was no longer blind, and into the back of the ambulance. They stung me a thousand times, finding the places I had been cut and then making them deeper.
“Digging out the glass,” they said, but I wasn’t sure about that. Couldn’t believe what people told you. Couldn’t believe pictures of beaten women or real-life nails torn off. Couldn’t even believe Clint when he said, “Everything will be fine.”
One of the paramedics held up a needle. “This isn’t going to hurt.”
Liar. But I offered him my arm and didn’t flinch as it went in. Clint held my hand, murmuring, “I’m here. I’ll watch over you. Just relax.”
I remembered soothing him while he went under. Just go to sleep. Just rest. And I realized that only made it worse. Because in those moments before the drug dragged you down, when the last bit of pain whispered through your body, what you wanted most was not to sleep. I wanted to finally wake up.
Chapter Sixteen
Clint
“They’re going to give you another medal for this,” James said.
I groaned. “Don’t even joke about that.”
“Who’s joking? You did a good thing.”
I would definitely not be getting a metal. The only reason they weren’t filing charges against either Della or myself was because they didn’t want the scandal. Definitely didn’t want it getting out that the FBI didn’t even know about an international crime leader rising in the ranks. It was an embarrassment. Suddenly the damned list was in high demand. At first I thought it had been lost, but then I’d found it in Della’s dresser drawer, tucked under the purple and gold medal.
Agent Katherine Porter was thrilled to take it off my hands. She was a hero in the FBI now.
Good for her.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “All I’m looking forward to is a very quiet, very uneventful rest of my leave.”
“I hear that.”
Almost getting killed was not a great way to spend my leave. Almost getting Della killed…fuck, I still had nightmares. I felt the kick of the gun and saw her body falling, catching the bullet, bleeding. It hadn’t happened that way, but my mind was content to replay the horrifying alternate ending on repeat.
I prayed now—not just at night. All the time. But it didn’t come out like the words I had read so many times. It ran through my head in a soulful litany: Della and be safe and come back to me. Praying wasn’t enough to stop the nightmares. I had even shouted enough at night to scare the nurses. They got a doctor to prescribe me some sleep meds, but then I couldn’t sit next to Della while she slept. Then I wouldn’t be alert if she woke up and needed me.
I accepted the cup of lukewarm coffee James had bought from the machine. He ordered another drink for himself, something fancier, with chocolate or caramel or some shit. I wanted my coffee black. It was utilitarian, designed to keep me awake with minimal disruptions.
James raised an eyebrow. “Slow down there. What did that drink say about your mama?”
I looked at my cup and saw it was mostly empty. I must have gulped it down. I snorted at his lame joke and tossed the Styrofoam cup across the room. It landed in the trash can. “Three points,” I said idly.
I left Della’s hospital room several times a day. Or more accurately, I got kicked out several times a day. The doctors and nurses stopped by to check on her or replace stitches or run more tests.
The day after, her face had swollen up and turned black-and-blue, bad enough to match the picture of that poor girl they’d sent her. But that part would heal on its own. The worst part had come toward the end, when she’d fallen on glass. Some of the shards had cut deep into her hand, piercing tendons and slicing nerves. She’d already had two surgeries to try to repair the damage, and she would probably need physical therapy to regain full motion in that hand.
“What did the doctor say this time?” James asked.
“They’re thinking two days now.”
He nodded. “Good. Good.”
We both knew the psychologist might not sign off on her discharge, though. Because she wasn’t talking. Hadn’t said a single word since we left Ozerov’s country house of mirrors. She wouldn’t talk to me or the doctors. Agent Katherine Porter had showed up to take her statement and left empty-handed.
This time they were changing her bedding and bathing her, so I knew it would be a few minutes until they let me back in.
“I’m going downstairs,” I told James. “You want anything?”
He shook his head and resettled on the thin plastic chairs that would never be comfortable.
James had been some pretty fucking awesome support throughout this whole thing, and even though I told him repeatedly to go home to Rachel, he told me she wanted him to be right here.
He had been worried when I hadn’t contacted him about searching Ozerov’s place. When I didn’t answer my phone, he came over to Della’s house looking for me. He found Agent Porter going through Della’s trash—again. The woman was relentless. And Agent Porter had found the fingernails, so they knew things had gone south. By the time I woke up in Della’s truck and called James, they were en route. Too late to save Caro, but no one would be crying over her.
Except Della. Tears fell down her cheeks like rain, one after the other, never ending. I didn’t know how her grief could match the skies. I didn’t know how to dry up the ocean.
I found myself in the gift shop, which had a lot of cheerful stuff, pink polka-dot balloons and cards that played music and a ceramic figurine of a hi
gh-heeled shoe. I thought about getting her something like this—bright and meaningless. But in the end I kept circling the tiny shop, making the clerk nervous, until my gaze landed on a group of little plants in pots.
They weren’t flowers. They were some kind of plant with green bulbous ends, flowers made out of cactus pieces. But not sharp. I read the tag. Succulents. They were nice, but I liked the one in the back with the green sticks. It reminded me of Della’s house, the lush lawn and climbing honeysuckle. So much green. I picked up the pot and wondered if Della would ever speak to me again.
“That’s a great choice,” the clerk said. At some point she had moved to stand beside me. “The bamboos generate more oxygen than other plants. And they’re highly adaptive. They can thrive in most situations, even without fertilizer.”
“Oh,” I said. I supposed that was good to know, although I’d mostly picked it because it looked pretty and earthy and elegant—like Della.
“It’s actually a type of grass,” the clerk continued. “With very strong stems.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You gotta learn all this to work here?”
She flushed. “No, but I’m a biochem major.”
“Good for you,” I said, and meant it.
“Did my junior thesis on these things. Anyway, do you want it? It’ll be $14.99.”
I sighed, wishing there was something bigger and nicer and more expensive. Of course I wished for that. I was always trying to give money, according to James. A bleeding heart. A fucking martyr. I shook my head, disgusted with myself.
But this was somehow worse, because I didn’t want to give her my money to help her. Didn’t want to give her a plant because she needed or wanted it.
I had to give her something, to stay by her side, to keep trying to talk with her—for myself. I wasn’t a martyr with her. No, my motives were purely selfish. I needed her to talk to me so I could hear her voice. I needed her to look at me so I could watch her expressive eyes, sweet and so alive. I needed her to forgive me, forgive herself, so that I’d have a chance at a real future with a woman I shouldn’t have fallen for. But I had, all the same.
