He approached the man who’d caused so much death and destruction, a bloody, flimsy body that housed a twisted and even flimsier soul. Molokai talked first. “How did you know?”
“About the remote-controlled detonation? You mean you don’t remember that you bragged, like the insecure nothing that you are? As for knowing that your men didn’t know how you were using them, that’s what small, sick creatures like you always do.”
“This isn’t the end, Guerriero,” Molokai rasped.
Dante shrugged. “It never is. But it is for you. I doubt you’ll make it out of prison. Your fellow Badovnans are on to you now. Good riddance, Molokai.”
Before the man said anything else, Dante had already deleted him from his mind, turned to Gulnar. Only she mattered.
She threw herself into his arms. He crushed her to him, every insupportable alternate scenario, all the things that could have gone wrong, polluting his soul, crushing down on his sanity.
But she was all right. She was alive and well and he’d make sure she was never in danger again. He had to get her out of here. Out of this region. Out of this lifestyle.
Eight hours later they were lying in bed in a hotel room in Zvetnia, Badovna’s new official capital. They’d stumbled into the shower as soon as they’d entered, made desperate, ferocious love there, then again in bed, longer, tender and far more devastating. They now caressed and murmured and moaned their relief and their love.
Then Gulnar was getting out of bed. Dante clung to her. With a lingering kiss, she disentangled herself gently and headed for the bathroom.
Dante waited for her to come back, his whole being throbbing in impatience. She finally came out—dressed.
He jackknifed in bed. “Gulnar, where do you think you’re going?”
She didn’t meet his eyes, bent to the backpack Emilio had gotten her, checked her papers, her money. “Back to GAO’s office in Srajna to reschedule my reassignment.”
He didn’t even feel himself move, just found himself in front of her, his arms hauling her to him. “You’re not staying here at all, Gulnar. You’re coming with me to the States.”
She looked at him now, eyes wide, startled. “You mean…you changed your mind?”
He enfolded her in a shuddering embrace. “When I thought I’d lost you, I would have sold my soul a hundred times over for one more breath, and damned myself to hell for the way I was going to throw away the time we could have together. You were right. May God forgive me, but I can’t end it now…”
Her shutters slammed down again, all her animation snuffed in a second. “You mean you will—later?”
“We have to be sensible about this, amore. I want you with me until…”
She pushed out of his arms, her emerald eyes, the windows of her rich soul, blank. “Until you relapse? Is that your plan? Then I’m supposed to desert you?”
He spread his arms, agitated. He had to make her agree to this. “You won’t be deserting me. It’s what I’d want you to do!”
She tilted her head at him. “Will you promise to leave me, too, if I get sick or crippled? This has to be a two-way deal, you know?”
“Don’t be ridiculous…”
“Don’t you! You’re alive and healthy six years after having cancer diagnosed. I’d say your chances aren’t any worse than mine of contracting a debilitating illness or getting maimed in an accident.”
“Don’t say that!”
Suddenly she shrugged and her eyes—What was that he saw there? He didn’t understand it, and it frightened him more than anything. “And, anyway, even if we settle this, I always realized I can’t be with you. Here we were just a man and a woman, but in your home I’ll be what I really am and you’ll be what you really are.”
This was what he’d instinctively dreaded. He saw where she was leading and he was damned if he’d let her go there. “You’re the woman I love, my woman. I’m nothing but your man.”
“We’re both so much more that just that, Dante. I’m the scarred refugee, the product of a lifetime in war zones. You’re the celebrated surgeon, the product of a stable life and society. You had a crisis, you fought your way out of it and now you’re ready to resume your life. I never wanted you to love me like I love you…”
“I love you more—more, Gulnar. I told you how I love you. I’ll dare death—and life—only if you let me love you.”
“Then love me, and come back whenever you can. I’ll be always here, waiting for you.”
“I’m taking you out of here. You’re never going to suffer or fear again.”
“What if I don’t know how to live in safety, in normality?”