by Anna Zaires
This time, it’s different. My loss is his loss. More his loss, in fact, since he wanted this child from the very beginning. The tiny life that was growing within me—the one he guarded so fiercely—is gone, and I can’t even imagine how Julian must feel.
How much he must hate me for what I’ve done.
The thought shatters me again, but this time, I manage to hold the agony in. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but for now, he’s comforting me, and I’m selfish enough to accept it, to rely on his strength to get me through this.
Letting out a shuddering sigh, I burrow closer to my husband, listening to the strong, steady beating of his heart.
Even if Julian hates me now, I need him.
I need him too much to ever let him go.
Chapter 38
Julian
As Nora’s breathing slows and evens out, her body relaxes against mine. An occasional shudder still ripples through her, but even that stops as she sinks deeper into sleep.
I should sleep too. I haven’t closed my eyes since the night before Nora’s birthday—which means I’ve been awake for over forty-eight hours.
Forty-eight hours that count among the worst of my life.
We survived. Everything will be all right. We’ll soon go back to normal. My reassurances to Nora ring hollow in my ears. I want to believe my own words, but the loss is too fresh, the agony too sharp.
A child. A baby that was part me and part Nora. It should’ve been nothing, just a bundle of cells with potential, but even at ten weeks, the tiny creature had made my chest overflow with emotion, twisting me around its minuscule, barely formed finger.
I would’ve done anything for it, and it hadn’t even been born.
It died before it had a chance to live.
Dark, bitter fury chokes me again, this time directed solely at myself. There are so many things I could’ve—should’ve—done to prevent this outcome. I know it’s pointless to dwell on it, but my exhausted brain refuses to let it go. The useless what-ifs keep spinning round and round, until I feel like a hamster in a wheel, running in place and getting nowhere. What if I’d kept Nora on the estate? What if I’d gotten to the bathroom faster? What if, what if . . . My mind spins faster, the void looming underneath me once more, and I know if I didn’t have Nora with me, I’d tumble into madness, the emptiness swallowing me whole.
Tightening my grip on her small, warm body, I stare into the darkness, desperately wishing for something unattainable, for an absolution I don’t deserve and will never find.
Nora sighs in her sleep and rubs her cheek on my chest, her soft lips pressing against my skin. On a different night, the unconscious gesture would’ve turned me on, awakening the lust that always torments me in her presence. Tonight, however, the tender touch only intensifies the pressure building in my chest.
My child is dead.
The stark finality of it hits me, smashing through the shields numbing me since childhood. There’s nothing I can do, nothing anyone can do. I could annihilate all of Chicago, and it wouldn’t change a thing.
My child is dead.
The pain rushes up uncontrollably, like a river cresting over a dam. I try to fight it, to hold it back, but it just makes it worse. The memories come at me in a tidal wave, the faces of everyone I’ve lost swimming through my mind. The baby, Maria, Beth, my mother, my father as he had been during those rare moments when I loved him . . . The surge of grief is overwhelming, crowding out everything but awareness of this new loss.
My child is dead.
The anguish sears through me, excruciating but somehow purifying too.
My child is dead.
Shaking, I hold on to Nora as I stop fighting and let the pain in.
Part IV: The Aftermath
Chapter 39
Nora
Two weeks after our arrival home, Julian deems it safe for my parents to return to Oak Lawn.
“I’ll have extra security around them for a few months,” he explains as we walk toward the training area. “They’ll need to put up with some restrictions when it comes to malls and other crowded places, but they should be able to return to work and resume most of their usual activities.”
I nod, not particularly surprised to hear that. Julian has been keeping me informed of his efforts in this area, and I know the Sullivans are no longer a threat. Utilizing the same ruthless tactics he employed with Al-Quadar, my husband accomplished what the authorities have been unsuccessfully trying to do for decades: he rid Chicago of its most prominent crime family.
“What about Frank?” I ask as we pass two guards wrestling on the grass. “I thought the CIA didn’t want any of us coming back to the country.”
“They relented yesterday. It took some convincing, but your parents should be able to return without anyone standing in their way.”
“Ah.” I can only imagine what kind of “convincing” Julian had to do in light of the devastation we left behind. Even the cover-up crew dispatched by the CIA hadn’t been able to keep the story of our high-speed battle under wraps. The area around the private airport might not have been densely populated, but the explosions and gunfire hadn’t gone unnoticed. For the past couple of weeks, the clandestine Chicago operation to “apprehend the deadly arms dealer” has been all anyone’s talked about on the news.
As Julian speculated in the car, the Sullivans had indeed called in some serious favors to organize that attack. The police chief—formerly a Sullivan mole and currently bloody goo swimming in lye—took the information the Sullivans dug up about us and used the “arms dealer smuggling explosives into the city” pretext to hurriedly assemble a team of SWAT operatives. The Sullivan men joining them were explained away as “reinforcements from another area,” and the entire rushed operation was kept secret from the other law enforcement agencies—which is how they were able to catch us off-guard.
“Don’t worry,” Julian says, misreading my tense expression. “Besides Frank and a few other high-level officials, nobody knows your parents were involved in what happened. The extra security is just a precaution, nothing more.”
“I know that.” I look up at him. “You wouldn’t let them return if it weren’t safe.”
“No,” Julian says softly, stopping at the entrance to the fighting gym. “I wouldn’t.” His forehead gleams with sweat from the humid heat, his sleeveless shirt clinging to his well-defined muscles. There are still a few half-healed scars from the shards of glass on his face and neck, but they do little to detract from his potent appeal.
Standing less than two feet away and watching me with his piercing blue gaze, my husband is the very picture of vibrant, healthy masculinity.
Swallowing, I look away, my skin crawling with heat at the memory of how I woke up this morning. We might not have had intercourse since the miscarriage, but that doesn’t mean Julian has been abstaining from sex with me. On my knees with his cock in my mouth, tied down with his tongue on my clit . . . The images in my mind make me burn even as the ever-present guilt presses down on me.
Why does Julian keep being so nice to me? Ever since our return, I’ve been waiting for him to punish me, to do something to express the anger he must feel, but so far, he’s done nothing. If anything, he’s been unusually tender with me, even more caring in some ways than during my pregnancy. It’s subtle, this shift in his behavior—a few extra kisses and touches during the day, full-body massages every evening, asking Ana to make more of my favorite foods . . . It’s nothing he hasn’t done before; it’s just that the frequency of these little gestures has gone up since we came back from America.
Since we lost our child.
My eyes prickle with sudden tears, and I duck my head to hide them as I slip past Julian into the gym. I don’t want him to see me crying again. He’s had plenty of that in the past couple of weeks. That’s probably why he’s holding off on punishing me: he thinks I’m not strong enough to take it, afraid I’ll turn back into the panic-attack-stricken wreck I was af
ter Tajikistan.
Except I won’t. I know that now. Something about this time is different.
Something within me is different.
Walking over to the mats, I bend over and stretch, using the time to compose myself. When I turn back to face Julian, my face shows nothing of the grief that ambushes me at random moments.
“I’m ready,” I say, positioning myself on the mat. “Let’s do this.”
And for the next hour, as Julian trains me how to take down a two-hundred-pound man in seven seconds, I succeed in pushing all thoughts of loss and guilt out of my mind.
* * *
After the training session, I return to the house to shower and then go down to the pool to tell my parents the news. My muscles are tired, but I’m humming with endorphins from the hard workout.
“So we can return?” My dad sits up in his lounge chair, distrust warring with relief on his face. “What about all those cops? And those gangsters’ connections?”
“I’m sure it’s fine, Tony,” my mom says before I can answer. “Julian wouldn’t send us back if it weren’t all taken care of.”
Dressed in a yellow one-piece swimsuit, she looks tan and rested, as though she’s spent the past couple of weeks on a resort—which, in a way, is not that far from the truth. Julian has gone out of his way to ensure my parents’ comfort and make them feel like they’re truly on vacation. Books, movies, delicious food, even fruity drinks by the pool—it’s all been provided for them, causing my dad to admit reluctantly that my life at an arms dealer’s compound is not as horrible as he’d imagined.
“That’s right, he wouldn’t,” I confirm, sitting down on a lounge chair next to my mom’s. “Julian says you’re free to leave whenever you want. He can have the plane ready for you tomorrow—though, obviously, we’d love it if you stayed longer.”
As expected, my mom shakes her head in refusal. “Thank you, honey, but I think we should head home. Your dad’s been anxious about his job, and my bosses have been asking daily when I’ll be able to return . . .” Her voice trailing off, she gives me an apologetic smile.
“Of course.” I smile back at her, ignoring the slight squeezing in my chest. I know what’s behind their desire to leave, and it’s not their jobs or their friends. Despite all the comforts here, my parents feel confined, hemmed in by the watch towers and the drones circling over the jungle. I can see it in the way they eye the armed guards, in the fear that crosses their faces when they pass by the training area and hear gunshots. To them, living here is like being in a luxurious jail, complete with dangerous criminals all over the place.
One of those criminals being their own daughter.
“We should go inside and pack,” my dad says, rising to his feet. “I think it’s best if we fly out first thing tomorrow morning.”
“All right.” I try not to let his words sting me. It’s silly to feel rejected because my parents want to return home. They don’t belong here, and I know it as well as they do. Their bodies might’ve healed from the bruises and scratches they sustained during the car chase, but their minds are a different matter.
It will take more than a few hours of therapy with Dr. Wessex for my suburban parents to get over seeing cars blow up and people die.
“Do you want me to help you pack?” I ask as my dad drapes a towel around my mom’s shoulders. “Julian’s talking to his accountant, and I don’t have anything to do before dinner.”
“It’s okay, honey,” my mom says gently. “We’ll manage. Why don’t you take a swim before dinner? The water’s nice and cool.”
And leaving me standing by the pool, they hurry into the air-conditioned comfort of the house.
* * *
“They’re leaving tomorrow morning?” Rosa looks surprised when I inform her of my parents’ upcoming departure. “Oh, that’s too bad. I didn’t even have a chance to show your mom that lake you were telling them about.”
“That’s okay,” I say, picking up a laundry basket to help her load the washer. “Hopefully, they’ll come visit us again.”
“Yes, hopefully,” Rosa echoes, then frowns as she sees what I’m doing. “Nora, put that down. You shouldn’t—” She abruptly stops.
“Shouldn’t lift heavy things?” I finish, giving her an ironic smile. “You and Ana keep forgetting that I’m no longer an invalid. I can lift weights again, and fight and shoot and eat whatever I want.”
“Of course.” Rosa looks contrite. “I’m sorry”—she reaches for my basket—“but you still shouldn’t do my job.”
Sighing, I relinquish it to her, knowing she’ll only get upset if I insist on helping. She’s been particularly touchy about that since our return, determined not to have anyone treat her any differently than before.
“I was raped; I didn’t have my arms amputated,” she snapped at Ana when the housekeeper tried to assign her lighter cleaning tasks. “Nothing will happen to me if I vacuum and use a mop.”
Of course that made Ana burst into tears, and Rosa and I had to spend the next twenty minutes trying to calm her down. The older woman has been very emotional since our return, openly grieving my miscarriage and Rosa’s assault.
“She’s taking it worse than my own mother,” Rosa told me last week, and I nodded, not surprised. Though I’d only met Mrs. Martinez a couple of times, the plump, stern woman had struck me as an older version of Beth, with the same tough shell and cynical outlook on life. How Rosa managed to remain so cheerful with a mother like that is something that will always be a mystery to me. Even now, after everything she’s been through, my friend’s smile is only a bit more brittle, the sparkle in her eyes just a shade less bright. With her bruises nearly healed, one would never know that Rosa survived something so traumatic—especially given her fierce insistence on being treated as normal.
Sighing again, I watch as she loads the washer with brisk efficiency, separating out the darker clothes and placing them into a neat pile on the floor. When she’s done, she turns to face me. “So did you hear?” she says. “Lucas located the interpreter girl. I think he’ll go after her after he flies your parents home.”
“He told you that?”
She nods. “I ran into him this morning and asked how that’s going. So yeah, he told me.”
“Oh, I see.” I don’t see, not in the least, but I decide against prying. Rosa’s been increasingly closemouthed about her strange non-relationship with Lucas, and I don’t want to press the issue. I figure she’ll tell me when she’s ready—if there’s anything to tell, that is.
She turns back to start the washer, and I debate whether I should share with her what I learned yesterday . . . what I still haven’t shared with Julian. Finally, I decide to go for it, since she already knows part of the story.
“Do you remember the pretty young doctor who treated me at the hospital?” I ask, leaning against the dryer.
Rosa turns back toward me, looking puzzled at the change of topic. “Yes, I think so. Why?”
“Her last name is Cobakis. I remember reading it on her name tag and thinking that it seemed familiar, like I’d come across it before.”
Now Rosa looks intrigued. “And did you? Come across it, that is?”
I nod. “Yes. I just couldn’t remember where—and then yesterday, it came to me. There was a man by the name of George Cobakis on the list I gave to Peter.”
Rosa’s eyes widen. “The list of people responsible for what happened to his family?”
“Yes.” I take a deep breath. “I wasn’t sure, so I checked my email last night, and sure enough, there it was. George Cobakis from Homer Glen, Illinois. I noticed that name originally because of the location.”
“Oh, wow.” Rosa stares at me, mouth open. “You think that nice doctor is somehow connected to this George?”
“I know she is. I looked up George Cobakis last night, and she came up in search results. She’s his wife. A local newspaper wrote about a fundraiser for veterans and their families, and they had their picture in there as
a couple who’s done a lot for that organization. He’s apparently a journalist, a foreign correspondent. I can’t imagine how his name ended up on that list.”
“Shit.” Rosa looks both horrified and fascinated. “So what are you going to do?”
“What can I do?” The question has been tormenting me ever since I learned of the connection. Before, the names on that list were just that: names. But now one of those names has a face attached to it. A photo of a smiling dark-haired man standing next to his smart, pretty wife.
A wife whom I’d met.
A woman who’ll be a widow if Julian’s former security consultant gets his revenge.
“Have you spoken to your husband about this?” Rosa asks. “Does he know?”
“No, not yet.” Nor am I sure that I want Julian to know. A few weeks ago, I told Rosa about the list I sent to Peter, but I didn’t tell her that I did it against Julian’s wishes. That part—and what happened after we learned of my pregnancy—is too private to share. “I’m guessing Julian will say there’s nothing to be done now that the list is in Peter’s hands,” I say, trying to imagine my husband’s reaction.
“And he’ll probably be right.” Rosa gives me a steady look. “It’s unfortunate that we met the woman and all, but if her husband was somehow involved in what happened to Peter’s family, I don’t see how we can interfere.”
“Right.” I take another deep breath, trying to let go of the anxiety I’ve been feeling since yesterday. “We can’t. We shouldn’t.”
