“It’s not over,” she said, her sad gaze slipping to me. “Two people were shot today, two others were killed, and it’s still not over.”
There were actually three bodies, but it was hardly the time to pile on.
“No,” I agreed, squatting down in front of her. “I don’t think it is.”
“He’s not going to give up.”
“Probably not. Until I force him to. And as soon as we get some sleep, love, I’m going to work out a plan to make that happen. This needs to be done. We need to be able to move forward.”
“You’ve done enough already.”
“No.”
“It’s too much.”
“Okay, listen to me. We’re not doing this,” I told her, watching as her gaze found mine.
“Doing what?”
“The whole ‘I can’t ask you to do this, I’m too much of a burden’ bullshit. So I’m shutting that shit down right now. This is not too much. You’re not asking me to do anything, I’m offering. There is a difference. And, yes, you are worth it. Case closed.”
“Cary…”
“It’s not open for discussion, love. That is just how it is. I get that you’ve been beaten down for so long—your whole fucking life, really—and it is hard for you to accept that someone will not only do this for you, but believe you are worthy of all of this and more. But I’m not the kind of man who blows smoke. I’m not saying it just because you’re hurt and scared and need comfort. I mean it.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she told me, voice cracking.
I wanted to promise her that it wouldn’t. But that wasn’t the kind of life I lived. My job was risky. Handling her situation was risky.
“I’ve been in this life for a long fucking time, love. Longer than you’ve been alive, in fact. And I’ve managed that because I’m careful. I can’t promise you nothing is ever going to happen to me. But I can promise I will do fucking everything in my power to come home to you.”
“Hey, Cary?”
“Yeah?”
“I know this might be too much or too soon. But I think today really… it showed me how easily I could lose this. And you. And I don’t want anything to happen without saying it. Because I need you to know,” she said, her voice gaining strength as she went on. She reached out, placing her gauze-covered hand gently over mine. “I love you. And I think a part of me always has. All the way back to our letter writing days.”
“You know what, baby? I think I fell for you after your third letter. Just took me this long to realize it.”
Leaning up, I pressed my lips to hers. Soft. No expectation. Because she needed food and rest, not sex.
“But we are going to have plenty of opportunities to say that to each other in the future, okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed, but sounded dubious.
She wasn’t wrong to have her doubts.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Abigail
Okay.
I loved Cary.
And I truly, genuinely appreciated the way he was determined to take care of me.
But I swear the man was treating me like I was on death’s door instead of a little banged and scratched up.
I mean, did I totally lean into it for a day or two? Absolutely. I felt crummy. He seemed to truly enjoy making me feel better.
Once all the cuts scabbed over and the bruises stopped being so tender, though, it was starting to drive me a little crazy.
The man wouldn’t even let me get up to get my own socks when my feet got cold.
To be fair, it probably wasn’t just the obsessive caretaking. It was a bit of cabin fever from being locked in the hotel room again.
You’d think that, after being locked in Raúl’s home for ninety-percent of my time the past several years that I would be used to having my world be very small, very enclosed, and more than a little suffocating.
Maybe it was simply because we’d moved on from the hotel already, and that forward motion had felt good, so being back felt like steps in the wrong direction.
It was temporary.
Cary promised me that several times a day.
For the time being, though, everyone thought the hotel with guards on the lower floor was the safest bet.
There was a reason you didn’t see people get kidnapped from a crowded restaurant or event. There were too many witnesses, too many possible Good Samaritans, too big of a chance of getting stopped.
Cary had floated the idea of Hailstorm to me. Which was, apparently, some paramilitary camp with electric fences, dogs, tons of ex-military people with guns, and an entire building made of shipping containers.
Objectively, it was probably the best bet. But it sounded loud and crowded and completely lacking any privacy.
So we’d gone with the hotel.
A choice I was regretting more and more as each hour passed. And then I went ahead and felt super guilty for feeling that way since it was a nice thing Cary was doing, and all the guards who didn’t have to go out of their way to help protect me.