by Toby Neal
Luca nodded but didn’t speak.
Nani closed the laptop and stored it under her seat again. It was a six-hour drive and Nani couldn’t stand to sit in the awkward silence with this man. “Luca, I...”
He cut her off. “Save your breath. I’m not interested.”
“You’re not interested?” Hurt quickly flared into anger. “You certainly were last night. You wanted to marry me just this morning!”
He hunched over the wheel as if she’d struck him.
“Now you’re dumping me? Because I was divorced? Because I didn’t immediately say yes to your proposal? We’ve only known each other a week, and we’ve been in life-or-death situations every single day!”
They hit a bump and Nani flew up, landing hard back into the seat. She groaned as her myriad of wounds all shouted at once. Nani fought to keep tears from spilling. Everything hurt, and she could not take any more.
“Fine, if that’s how you want to be, just give up on us. Great. That’s fine by me.” Nani jiggled the handle, imagining jumping out into the road. She just wanted to get out of the vehicle. Nani’d rather walk than sit next to this knucklehead one second longer, but of course that was insane.
As insane as having sex with Luca Luciano without a condom.
What an idiot. She crossed her arms over her chest, sank down into the seat, and closed her eyes, swamped in misery.
What was going on with her family? She’d been so overtaken by the mission—surviving, escaping, then Luca—that this was the first time she thought of her parents and her brothers in days. Nani had to try to reach them the minute she had access to a phone.
She must have drifted off because when she woke they were on blacktop, the heavy tires droning underneath them.
“Here. Something to eat.” Luca handed her an energy bar from their food supply stash.
Her hunger mostly satiated, a canteen of stale water drained, Nani grimaced as she scanned the area. Thick darkness surrounded them, the sky overcast. Their headlights sliced through the night, exposing the road and dirt shoulders on either side.
“We’re about twenty minutes out,” Luca’s voice was hoarse. He hadn’t used it in a while, the big silence-is-my-weapon lug.
Nani nodded and reached for her laptop again. Maybe now she could get through.
The little icon connected, and Nani couldn’t restrain a whoop.
“Oh, thank God! Pull over while I talk with Washington?”
Luca eased the Humvee off the road and onto the soft, sandy shoulder.
“Is this ‘need to know?’” His voice was reserved, flat.
Nani kept her eyes on the laptop as the icon pulsed, indicating a call signal going through. “At this point, anything they have to say to me, they can say to you.” Luca deserved that much. Nani wouldn’t be alive without his help. Hell, she wouldn’t have made it past the death of their men without Luca’s steady presence.
He grunted as the laptop’s microphone crackled; only audio was coming through, the video link remained black.
“Dr. Kagawa?” General Beauregard’s voice sounded raspy, and Nani’s skin prickled as he coughed.
“Yes, General, this is Dr. Kagawa. Where’s Vice President Pigeon?”
“Give me a sitrep.”
“Yes, sir. A lot has happened.” She recapped, beginning with the death of the men and ending with the destruction of the compound’s lab and Tanner Hillish’s death.
“Impressive, Dr. Kagawa. I didn’t dare hope you’d be able to do more than identify Hillish’s position. Excellent work.” He coughed, and Nani’s gut tightened. Was he infected?
“We wonder why the vaccine I gave the men and that Hillish’s followers were given didn’t work.” Nani hoped to finally get an answer.
“The virus mutated,” the General confirmed Nani’s theory. “It is more virulent than anyone expected, making the vaccine relatively useless. CDC was working on a second vaccine, but almost everyone has fallen ill.”
Luca’s big shoulder touched hers, getting closer to hear the General’s rasping voice. Just his nearness, his heat, tightened her nipples. If only she could turn off this crazy love.
“Everyone, sir? Including Vice President Pigeon?”
“That’s classified.”
Nani took a deep breath. “Well, sir, I’d just like to say that Captain Luciano deserves a medal. He was vital to completing the mission and the reason I’m alive right now. He went far beyond the call of duty.”
Nani wished she could gaze into Luca’s amber-brown eyes and that they’d be as melty as they were last night while making love, but that was over and done. She’d still do the best she could for him. Luca deserved that, for his service to the country, and to represent all his men who’d given their lives. But she didn’t dare look at him, even though she could hear his breath and feel his presence next to her like a live electric wire, sizzling and dangerous.
The general coughed for some time before his voice returned. “I wish I could give him that, but we are in a situation of extreme emergency. There are no medals, Doctor. The United States as we know it is over.” Nausea swamped Nani as he went on. “The centralized government is in a state of flux. How and by whom it will continue and be restructured, is unknown with so many of our legislators sick and dying. I won’t be alive much longer to be your liaison, so I hereby discharge you both from your service, and you have the thanks of a grateful nation. You should be proud that you took out Hillish, but I suggest you two make peace with anyone left alive that you love. You may survive this...” His voice wandered, and Nani remembered the wild ravings of their compatriots before they passed. “Maybe you’re part of the lucky ten percent who are immune.”
He coughed again, the wet sound of phlegm all too clear over the poor connection.
Luca leaned over her shoulder. “Sir, are you saying that the President has died?”
“Most of the people you saw on Air Force One....”
The connection abruptly went dead, and the microphone hissed with static. Nani stared at the screen, her mind incapable of processing the information. She shut down the laptop and swallowed the bile burning the back of her throat. She rubbed her eyes, sore from withholding tears all day. “I can’t believe this.”
Luca turned the Humvee back on and the big vehicle rumbled to life. He pulled the truck onto the road as Nani stowed the laptop beneath the seat.
Their lives lay before them, dark and unknown as the road ahead.
Luca reached for her as Nani sat back up. In all this ugliness, his big warm hand felt like the brightest, warmest spot in the world. She opened her mouth to say something, to connect with him somehow, but the wham! of a bullet hitting the windshield made Luca swerve the Humvee off the road, and Nani fell against the door with a cry.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Luca
Luca and Nani both dove down, shielding behind the dash, as the Humvee reverberated with bullets clanking against the armored vehicle.
Who was shooting at them? It was too dark to tell.
Luca palmed his Desert Eagle. The windshield broke, glass spraying into the cab and littering the seats and their bodies with shards.
Peaches, in the back seat, whined with agitation.
The shots stopped and Luca heard voices and footsteps approaching.
“Let’s try out the rocket launcher, Marcus,” an excited male voice suggested.
Marcus. Tannish Hillish’s right hand man must have led a small group here to search for more weapons after Luca handed over the rocket launcher.
Damn.
Luca had given the cult the actual location of the military outpost. Lies were more believable when peppered with the truth. He should have expected they would send out a contingent to gather more weapons.
Nani’s gaze found Luca’s, her eyes wide and bright with fear, but steely with determination. She didn’t know that this was his fault.
“How does it work?” Another voice asked. They needed to get out of the
Humvee. A rocket launcher would blow this thing sky high. They hadn’t survived The Center only to be killed on the road.
Luca peered over the steering wheel and saw three men in front of the Humvee, fiddling with the rocket launcher.
He whispered. “I’m going to open my door and distract them. You pop up and shoot as many of them as you can.”
Nani nodded once, her automatic weapon ready in her hands.
Luca kicked open his door. He couldn’t see the man’s reaction but he heard one of them give a shout. Luca’s left leg telegraphed a sharp pain when his feet landed on the pavement, but he ignored the old injury as he raised his pistol.
Nani fired, the sound of her weapon exploding into the night.
The three men scrambled for their guns. Two of them were too slow, their rifles still aimed at the ground, when Nani’s rounds killed them. Marcus fired at Luca, bullets thunking into the bulletproof driver side door. Luca returned fire.
His aim was true as it always had been, and the man went down.
The night throbbed with a silence that sounded loud to Luca’s ringing ears.
He scanned the area, searching for more threats. Three dirt bikes were parked just off the shoulder. They must have seen the Humvee coming, and approached from off-road.
The vehicle’s hood steamed and the controls flickered as the smell of gasoline filled the cool night. Luca turned to Nani. “This thing looks dead. We’re gonna have to hoof it.” The outpost, a dark shape in the gently rolling landscape, was a walkable distance.
Nani sat in the passenger seat, the dome light exposing her: face mottled with bruises, lips swollen, and hands that shook slightly, the AK-47 trembling in her grip.
“You okay?”
She didn’t look at him, just stared straight ahead.
“Nani!” She started, as if taken by surprise, and her head whipped toward him. “Are you hit?”
She looked down at herself and shook her head.
Luca released a tense breath as his eyes roamed over her. Nani still wore Tabitha’s dress. She’d scrubbed it in the cave, but the garment was stained with blotches from her wounds and Hillish’s blood.
They needed to get to the outpost, get cleaned up and put on fresh clothes. But Luca had no idea if more men were there, gathering additional supplies, or if these three were the only scouts sent out. Luca took a step toward the vehicle and rested his hand on the driver’s seat, leaning toward Nani. Her eyes found his. “I just can’t believe it. The government is a shambles, and everyone is dying. We failed.” Her voice was choked.
“We didn’t fail. We did what we were ordered to do.”
“But, what does it matter? The whole world, at least this country, is dying. Nothing is left.”
“We will rebuild, and it will be better next time.” Luca didn’t know where he got that confidence, but Nani was looking at him for an answer, and he wanted to comfort her in some way.
And he wanted to comfort her.
Dear God, did he want to comfort her.
The landscape was shrouded in darkness and Luca didn’t know what was hiding out there. This was not a safe place to sit and tell her how sorry he was, to provide the comfort they both so desperately needed.
“We’ve got to get moving. I don’t know if there are more men. We could just take their dirt bikes, go around, and skip the outpost. But I think we need clothing and supplies.”
“If any of Hillish’s men are left, I want to take them out,” Nani’s voice grew stronger and her mouth set into a firm line. “They should not get to live when so many are dying. They basically ruined the world.”
“Now that we agree on.”
Nani shuddered, pivoting away from him and opening her door.
Crap.
Really, Luca would agree to almost anything she wanted. But that was just him, a sinner, a man in love. What would his church say to Luca pledging himself to a woman who refused to marry him, refused to take the sacrament and be his wife?
He opened the back door for Peaches, who jumped out onto the pavement and shook herself. They gathered their supplies in silence and set out across the rolling plains, headed for the outpost.
Luca’s leg hurt with every step. He must’ve jammed something when he jumped out of the Humvee. He tried to hide it but Nani noticed. “Your leg is bothering you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Sure, you’re fine.” There was an edge to her voice, like she was the angry one now.
She just didn’t understand what marriage meant to him. Obviously, she didn’t take pledges as seriously as he did. Once he made his vows, Luca would never divorce. He would never break that trust and yet she had, which Luca was grateful for. The hypocrisy ate at him.
But even if she refused to become his wife, Nani had opened something in him. She had saved a part of him, made that lockbox feel lighter, chipped away at the stone of anger that weighed him down.
They stopped outside the entrance gate.
“Wait here, I’ll check it out.” Luca wanted to protect Nani from any further harm.
“Are you crazy? We’re going together.”
“That dress of yours. It’s white, totally visible in the dark.”
Nani pulled Luca’s knife off his belt and began to cut away at the skirt. She tore off a long length of it, leaving only enough to cover her thighs. It clung to her in a way that made Luca painfully hard. She reached down and grabbed handfuls of dirt, rubbing it all over the garment until she matched the landscape.
“Nice work.” Luca stared at Nani’s amazing ass. ‘Mine’ reverberated through him.
“Eyes up, soldier. We don’t know what we’ll find in there. Try to keep your concentration on the mission.”
He liked it when she ordered him around. “Yes, Doctor.” His voice was low and gravelly, and Nani’s neck flushed. His hands itched to touch her. Instead, he gripped his Desert Eagle with one hand and opened the other for the knife. She dropped it into his palm without their skin touching.
Nani was right. He needed to keep his eyes on his surroundings, not on her perfect, delectable butt. “I’ll go first. You follow, and stay behind me.”
Nani nodded, for a moment he’d worried she was going to argue, insist that she lead the mission. Then again, she had spoken of him so highly to the General. Luca didn’t need medals; they weren’t his thing. But the fact that Dr. High Expectations thought he earned one made him feel appreciated. He was a good soldier, and for Nani to acknowledge it and let him lead, took another chip out of that rock of pain in his chest.
Now was not the time to think about what she was doing to him.
With Peaches and Nani in his wake, Luca led them into the outpost. It appeared much as they’d left it—quiet, still, and haunted. Staying low, Luca zigzagged up and down the streets, checking windows as they made their way to the armory. It was the most likely place to find more of Hillish’s men.
They heard voices and the crackle of a walkie-talkie as they approached the low building. “Marcus is not responding. I think something happened.”
“They said a vehicle was coming. Maybe there were women to have some fun with.”
“Nah, I think something happened.”
Luca and Nani crouched by the entrance, Peaches behind them. Luca peeked around the edge of the open doorway and saw five men—he recognized them from The Center.
They had pulled a supply truck up to the garage door. Two were loading boxes onto it while the other three conferred in the center of the room. They didn’t appear concerned, maybe they didn’t know Hillish was dead and that The Center fell under attack. Their communications must be compromised.
Nani touched Luca’s shoulder and he turned to her. She motioned that she would go around to the supply truck, so that they could attack from both entrances. Luca nodded, but as she stood up he grabbed her wrist, stopping her. He had to let her know how he felt. He looked into her eyes. They were brown and hard, ready for action. He tried to convey that he was sorry
and that he loved her, by softening his gaze and lifting the corners of his mouth. Nani reached out and softly caressed his cheek.
Their pasts might make it impossible for them to share a future, but they loved each other. He leaned into her hand and his eyes closed shut as he breathed in her scent.
He could die now, a man who’d found his woman. To live, and find a way to make her his, to fight for her and forge a path forward together—that was the hard part. Luca prayed he would be strong enough for the challenge.
Nani’s hand left his cheek and his eyes opened. She threw him a smile over her shoulder as she ran barefoot along the side of the building. The shortened skirt exposed her long, shapely legs. Luca forced himself to turn back to the task at hand.
He counted to a hundred and told Peaches to stay, then slowly stood up, his back against the side of the building. He kicked the door and stepped into the opening, his weapon in ready position. He aimed at the leader and fired. The man’s head snapped back and he stumbled a step before his knees buckled and he crumpled to the ground.
Luca focused on the next man, sporting a shaved head and beady little eyes. He was aiming an AK at Luca, but as the first rounds left the barrel, Luca shot him in the chest. The man fell back with a loud cry, his finger still pressing the trigger of the AK. Luca felt a sharp pain in his left thigh as bullets thudded into the floor in front of him, shooting up wood chips. Luca fired again, hitting the man in the head, and the cultist joined his leader on the ground.
Luca shifted all his weight to his good leg and aimed at the next figure, but the skinhead was already falling, an exit wound in his chest.
The two remaining men swiveled their heads between the supply truck and Luca—Nani took them down.
She came out from behind the truck. Her shorn head, short dress and the confident way she carried her weapon made Luca lightheaded. She was so damn good at everything she did. He took a step toward her and collapsed.
