by Brynn Kelly
Rafe risked opening his eyes. His sight was fuzzy but improving. He dug his fingernails into his palms. He must stay anchored against the pull of the blackness growing inside, find the kill switch. He yearned to make Gabriel shut up, but the longer he talked, the longer they all stayed alive.
“And this?” said Rafe, darkly. “This is your revenge?”
“I will take revenge if I must, but I have moved beyond this need. I want more. I want to know if you are my brother in deed as well as in blood. You must prove your loyalty to me once more—your loyalty to your family, to your people. Otherwise, yes, I will settle for revenge. There is much comfort in revenge.”
“I will not kill my son, if that’s what you want.”
“Why would I want that? Theo is precious to me, more so than you are, because he I can train. I can mold him into someone who can be trusted, who can follow orders, who can lead this militia into the future. A line of succession. Having said that, my earlier promise still stands—if you kill me, he, too, will die. Or, if you simply do not wish to join your brothers here, you will die and I will take him, anyway. Your choice.”
“Don’t do this.”
“I want to show you that you belong somewhere, Raphael. I want you to know you have a family—is that not what any of us always wanted? It is too late for you to go back to your other life. These people you fooled—the French military, your wife’s family—they have received evidence of the truth about you.”
Rafe stiffened. “What have you done?”
“The people who turned you back into a human, as you say, they kept records. These things are supposed to be destroyed, but their systems were lax. My men found them, remarkably easily—our first step to finding you. All the evidence is there—interviews with you, in which you catalog every atrocity you committed. These are now in the hands of your colonel and the mother of your wife. I have several more copies, in case your girlfriend would also like to have a read. It is very enjoyable. Better than Hitchcock. In fact, maybe I will send a copy to Hollywood. Our Raphael will be famous. Or is infamous the right word, in English? I get confused with these two. Such a needlessly complex language.”
Rafe clamped his mouth shut. The life he’d built from scraps had collapsed. He concentrated on filling his lungs, emptying them, filling, emptying. Nothing mattered now but getting Theo and Holly out alive.
“Do not worry, my brother. You do not need to return to that false existence—you do not belong with those people, with whom you must always pretend. You belong with me, with your many other brothers. But you have let me down before. You need to show me you will not do it again. We had an agreement of what you had to do to get your son back.”
“I fulfilled it. Let her go.” Rafe switched languages. “She’s a mongrel, like us.”
“She is a mongrel, yes?” Gabriel stuck with English. “This is what you think of your girlfriend? You kidnapped the wrong woman, and you failed to kill her when I ordered you to. You still have a little time to fix one of those errors.”
“Never.”
“Interesting. I thought Theo meant more to you than that. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps he is better off here, with someone who will take proper care of him. How can you care for him when you are not there in the night to protect him? Is that not the job of a father? This mission, to capture Theo—I carried it out personally, while my men restrained the old woman. He woke when I entered his room, and he ran to me, willingly, calling out in the darkness for his papa. He thought you had come home for him. I do not speak his language, but I heard in that voice his desperation to be loved by a man who cannot love. I felt his anguish at being abandoned by his father, just as I felt the anguish of being abandoned by my brother. At first, he embraced me. It was beautiful, to feel his young, thin arms around my neck, squeezing tight.”
The scene felt as real to Rafe as if he was there right now, in the little room plastered with Captain America posters—Theo’s voice calling out for him with all the delight of Christmas morning, those trusting arms flung around a man he thought was his father. And then the terror and panic... Rafe swallowed.
“He did not know his own father from a stranger,” Gabriel said. “Or maybe he just sensed he was better off with me.” He shouted at his soldiers to check if the brand was hot. “Join me, or you will die and I will make your son one of us, forever.”
Either way, Theo lost. Rafe flinched at the sickly stench of burning hair and flesh. Was it coming from his memory, or was it real? Put your brain in charge. Theo wasn’t screaming, and Gabriel wouldn’t play his trump card yet. He was building to something Rafe was powerless to stop. Stay present.
“My brother, I understand you, like no one else does. I know the devil that lurks within you, constantly seeking a way out. You are too frightened to let your guard down, because that is when the demon takes control. It is always there, always threatening to split open your skin and slither out. Like now. Join me, join your brother. Let go of the struggle to keep the mask on. Shed it and be the man you really are. You will never need to leave your son again. He can be with his father and his uncle—with his family.”
Rafe chose silence. To react was to make him vulnerable to the monster within. Gabriel understood him better than he’d thought possible. Everything that’s inside your head is inside mine. Even after twenty-two years?
“Rafe,” whispered Holly urgently. “You are not one of them.”
He clenched his teeth. Oh, he was indeed one of them. He didn’t want her pity, didn’t want her making excuses for him. She knew now what she’d made love to.
“You don’t know me,” said Rafe, quietly. “What Gabriel says is true. I’ve killed more people than I can count. I still see their faces—every one of them, frozen in the terror of the last moments of their lives. I can run away from it—I did run away from it—but they follow me, these people, everywhere.”
“You were under someone else’s control. You were a victim, too.”
“There can be no excuse. Those memories are my price to pay.”
“You’ve already paid the price—you lost your childhood.”
“What price have I paid? I got to wipe away the past and start again like it never happened. Those people and their families paid the price, not me.” He hung his head, feeling every drop of weight in the humid air. “Only chance separated my path from Gabriel’s.”
“My brother, you are beginning to see the truth. Many, many people paid the price for your freedom. My dear American friend, do you want to see the price I paid?” Gabriel tore at the buttons on his shirt.
Rafe yearned to turn away, but he owed it to Gabriel to witness this. He owed it to his brother. His gut churned as Gabriel yanked off the shirt. Gouged white scars crisscrossed his chest and stomach, and trailed into his waistband. Rafe gagged. The ground seesawed. Gabriel turned, slowly, revealing the same pattern on his back. Rafe had seen many whippings, but none like this. There were more scars than skin. How was he still alive?
“I didn’t kn...” Rafe’s throat closed.
“It was a warning. No one ever left the militia again.”
Gabriel slowly pulled his arms into his shirt and buttoned it, smoothing the iron-flat fabric. That was why he appeared stiff—the scars restricted his movement. His every move must remind him of the torture he’d endured, because of Rafe.
“I would have come for you, if I’d known,” said Rafe, testing his voice. It was the truth he’d clung to all these years, but suddenly it felt like a lie. What truth ever existed for us? An ember deep in the recesses of his brain began to glow. Had he buried the truth, like he’d buried the monster?
“You knew.” Gabriel’s words were barely audible above the roaring in Rafe’s ears. “My dear, can you guess why they whip you front and back? Because then you have no way to lie down, no relief from the pain. They rub dirt and shit into th
e wounds to infect them. The agony and the illness last for months. You cannot sleep, you cannot eat, you can only long for the pain to get so bad you will pass out. When it does, you wake to find rats chewing on the wounds. This pain...you cannot see a way out of it. It drives you mad.”
Rafe’s breath came in ragged gasps. His brain screamed at him to block out Gabriel’s words, to protect himself from losing his sanity. But that was the coward’s way. This was what he’d caused. This was what he’d face.
“To start with, I kept myself alive by imagining that Raphael would come with his aid workers to rescue me, take me to a hospital where they would do their doctor magic and take away the pain and sickness. Sometimes I would hallucinate and believe he had come back for me. Then I would regain consciousness and find myself propped up on the same filthy mat on the same floor, chasing away the same rats. Always chasing the rats. One night I was too weak to scare a rat off—it kept coming back and feeding. I could hear its teeth tearing, feel it tugging at my flesh, and, oh, the agony—this is nothing you will ever know, no matter how much I hurt you. And I did not have the strength to lift my arms or legs to chase it away.
“Weeks and weeks and weeks went by. Raphael did not come. My brother—as I know now he is—did not come. You see, my dear, he was trained to believe that caring about someone was a weakness. I thought our bond was proof we had won, we had retained a little of our true natures. I found I was wrong, just as I had been wrong about his will to kill me with the machete. I was a fool. His training had worked better than I thought—far better than mine. These injuries you see, these scars on my body—they don’t stop at my waist. They left me unable to father children. They robbed many futures.”
An anguished yowl surrounded Rafe, piercing his ears, his brain, his skin. His knees buckled and he slumped to the ground. The cry went on and on. Shut up. Shut up. He rocked, pinning his palms to his ears. Blackness circled his vision and closed in.
A voice echoed in his head—a voice he’d once known as well as his own. “Kill the woman and come home to your family, Raphael. Kill the woman and save your son. Kill the woman and show me you’re sorry for my scars. Undo the past and be with people who will not judge you for what you have done. Let go the tremendous effort of hiding who you really are.”
Cold metal touched Rafe’s palm. His fingers brushed over the scars and nicks in the pistol’s bodywork and settled into the firing position they knew so well. One shot, and he’d earn Gabriel’s forgiveness and give Theo a chance at a future. A flick of his finger, a microsecond. He’d done it before, so many times. He opened his eyes.
Chapter 29
Her blood racing, Holly turned to run. Rafe had morphed beyond her reach, just as he warned her he would. Two guards caught her, one either side. She thrashed, but others joined in, dragging her to the ground. They cable-tied her feet and her hands behind her, and stepped away to form a perimeter. She flipped and wriggled onto her back. Laid out like a sacrifice.
Rafe knelt on the ground a few feet away, his head bowed. His strength seemed to be seeping out, as if he was mortally wounded. And maybe he was, in his mind. She had to bring him back.
“Rafe! Remember Theo. Remember what kind of man you are, what kind of father you are. Don’t do this to him—don’t do this to yourself.”
He raised his head and eyeballed her, like some great beast. His eyes were dull and huge, just as they’d been when he’d tried to strangle her. He was right—she didn’t know him, not this version.
“I nearly gave in to death,” Gabriel continued, speaking for her benefit now—Rafe was beyond comprehension. “That would have been easy. But I survived by thinking of the many ways I could get revenge on Raphael, one day. In my head I’d measure each possibility, test it, visualize it. Each day my body and my will became stronger. By the time I recovered, after many months, I had been relieved of my one weakness—I no longer cared about anyone. I was truly alone. That’s a liberating moment. In a strange way, it completed my training.”
Rafe pulled himself up to standing, his gaze never leaving her, like a hunter tracking his prey. He began speaking, trancelike, in his native tongue. The same chant he’d used on the island.
“Rafe. Rafe! No!”
Nothing registered on his face. Nothing. The man she thought she knew was gone, replaced with this...robot. She wanted to leap at him and shake him until the good man returned, the one she’d been stupid enough to fall in love with.
He’d warned her not to get close. Love was the most dangerous thing in the world, he’d said. I’m the kind who’s not capable of loving a woman—and for her it could be dangerous. He’d given her a chance to escape. Why the hell hadn’t she taken it?
If she died now, at his hands, then maybe she deserved it. But Theo... And the women... If they fought back, with their sole weapon, they’d be mown down, or worse. So much of this was on her—she was the one who’d trusted Rafe, who’d brought him here, who’d given Amina the iPhone, who’d incited the women to rebel in a battle they couldn’t win. Now they would all die, for nothing.
Rafe closed in on her, his face twisted way past handsome. She wouldn’t shut her eyes. She would keep them focused on this unrecognizable creature, so he’d remember this, so she’d haunt him like all the others. How many faces were in the catalog of victims he carried in his brain?
“Rafe, don’t do it.”
Nothing.
“He is mine, my dear. He always has been.”
Rafe straightened his arms and aimed the gun. She recoiled. This was it. Her last moment. Click.
Silence. He’d pulled the trigger but—nothing. She dragged in a breath. The men around her muttered. One laughed. How could that be? One of the goons had opened and checked the gun before he’d handed it to Rafe—she’d seen the bullets go back in, she’d heard him cock it. Rafe swore in French and tossed the gun onto the sand, striding to the veranda, rifle barrels trained on him. The guy who’d checked it picked it up, opened it, and shrugged, muttering to his friends. He cocked it, aimed it at the ground and pulled the trigger. Click.
Rafe picked up his rifle and slid something backwards, until it snapped. He strode back into position. Gabriel moved in beside him, smiling like he’d won.
He aimed. Here goes. The last seconds of her life and all she could think about was what a sucker she was. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. Obviously. She let her eyes close, too beaten to be brave anymore. The only mental image she could conjure was of Rafe’s face, of the intense look in his eyes in the seconds before he kissed her, in the moment he was at his least guarded, when she knew she was staring right into his beautiful, honorable soul. It had made her feel so wanted, so...loved. She would die a fool.
Gabriel laughed, and spoke to Rafe in their own language. Ick. So the last thing she’d hear would be the voice of that psycho. She tried to block out the sound, zeroing in on the crash of the nearby waves, ready to wash away her poor excuse for a life.
Click.
Really? What was this—Russian roulette? She opened her eyes to a squint. Gabriel had pushed the barrel aside, his hand still on it. He spoke quietly to Rafe, still smiling. Rafe’s dead gaze swung from her to Gabriel. So that click—it wasn’t the trigger, but Rafe disarming the gun, on Gabriel’s order? Rafe pressed a button and the magazine dropped out into his hands. He slid something backward and a round flicked up and landed on the ground.
So Rafe had tried to kill her, and Gabriel had spared her? Not how she thought this would go. She slumped, her muscles giving up the effort. Life equaled hope. She would survive this, goddammit, like she’d survived every other fucking mess in her life.
“I have a buyer for her and many costs to recuperate,” said Gabriel, switching focus to her. “I would have gladly given up three million dollars for the privilege of watching you kill this sorry pig of a woman, Raphael, but maybe this is
a sign I should take the money. Adaptability is the key to survival. We will take her with us and drop her at the transit point. She will be with her new owner in hours. This operation has become profitable after all, in many ways.”
Rafe spoke to Gabriel in his own language, his words mechanical. Gabriel gestured at one of his men and rattled off orders, which were relayed into the hut.
Two men pulled Holly to her bound feet and dragged her backward to the helicopter, as Theo stepped, blinking, through the doorway of the building.
“Papa!” He scrambled down the steps and ran. Rafe crouched, and Theo disappeared into his arms. Rafe’s voice rolled over her, in the same melodic, soothing French tone he’d murmured on the hammock. She’d thought it so beautiful. Not anymore.
Behind her back, she opened her fingers and dropped the four amulets. They hit sand with a series of thuds. Rafe had got Theo back. That was all he cared about—all he was capable of caring about. He’d warned her of that, from the outset.
An hour ago she’d have sworn the best place for Theo was with the father who loved him so desperately. But what was stronger—Rafe’s parental instinct, or his preinstalled flip switch? How long until Theo saw that side of his father, if he hadn’t already? She’d been so ready to believe the best of Rafe, despite all the evidence.
Theo’s slight body shuddered with sobs. Rafe rubbed his back, his hand splayed across the kid’s ribs, their heads bowed together. Tears pricked her eyes. At least the boy had found a place of comfort and security after all that turmoil, however temporary.
The goons slid open the helicopter door and threw her into the hollow shell at the back. Her elbow whacked a metal box, shooting pain up her shoulder. Awkwardly, she twisted herself into a sitting position on the floor, leaning back on the box. A man followed her in—the thug who’d held her back while Amina was killed. He sat by the open door, facing her, gun at the ready. She was out of options, out of ideas, alone.
