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“I believe it,” Kate answered, her blank stare still firmly in place. “I saw it in his eyes, the way he carried himself”—she turned her head toward me—“the way he looked at you …”
The smile she gave me was heartbreaking.
“I would know that look anywhere.” She sniffled, studying my face in the early morning light. “It’s you, isn’t it? It’s really you.”
I nodded with a lump in my throat as she pressed a wrinkled hand to my cheek.
“Oh, my sweet girl. Come here to me.” Her voice broke as she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “I missed ya so damn much,” she cried. “Thank you. Thank you for giving me my boy back … twice.”
I didn’t know if it was the validation of having someone finally believe me after a lifetime of being called crazy or if it was the years I’d spent craving the comfort of a mother’s touch, but Kate’s love broke me wide open.
I wept on her shoulder as all the fear and anxiety and gut-wrenching loss that had been leaking out of me since Damien’s disappearance finally came rushing to the surface.
Jack sat on the couch next to her wife, stiff-backed and uncomfortable with our outpouring of emotion. “You actually believe this load of bollocks?” Her words were harsh, but the smirk on her face and the tender hand she placed on Kate’s thigh betrayed her arsehole exterior.
Releasing me with one hand, Kate reached out and swatted her partner with a laugh and a sniffle. “Oh, shut up, ya old geezer.”
Jack smiled for the first time since I’d arrived before glancing over at me. “Real nice mother-in-law ya got there,” she scoffed. Then, giving my knee a firm squeeze, she added, “Come on. Let’s get ya some food. Ya can’t rescue yer reincarnated husband on an empty stomach.”
I hadn’t truly allowed myself to feel Damien’s absence until I found myself back at their kitchen table. Just forty-eight hours ago, Damien had been right there beside me, comforting me, reassuring me, then risking his life for me—for all of us—when we’d needed him. Now, his chair sat empty.
Now, he was the one who needed us.
And we didn’t have the first bleeding clue what to do.
Jack was streaming the news on her tablet again. That seemed to be their morning routine—tea and muffins and the news. I didn’t have an appetite, but I needed all the caffeine I could get. And the distraction of a glowing screen was welcome too. At least until I figured out how to find and rescue a man who was probably already being tortured in a secret prison cell in Siberia by then.
My hands began to shake so hard that I had to set down my mug.
“While the Irish military has not yet officially surrendered,” a female newscaster for the BBC announced as footage of the hell I’d seen the day before scrolled behind her on a green screen, “our sources report that as much as seventy-five percent of Dublin has been destroyed, and Taoiseach Séamus Rooney was seen boarding a private plane bound for Venezuela late last night.”
“Of course he was, the fuckin’ cunt,” Jack sneered.
“Because Irish President Sean MacSharry, a close UIB ally of Rooney, will neither confirm nor deny that the taoiseach has deserted his position, Russian President Alexi Abramov is declaring a preliminary victory in the war with Ireland. Let’s go live to Moscow where—”
“Turn that shite off,” Jack barked from the kitchen. She was gripping the edge of the counter with her head between her shoulders. “I can’t fuckin’ listen to this—”
“Wait. This just in.” The female newscaster pressed a finger to her ear and listened. “The press conference is not with President Abramov, but his newly appointed vice president—a position never before seen in the history of the Russian Federation—who I’m being told is President Abramov’s son, Lenin Abramov.”
If there had been tea in my mouth, I would have spit it out.
The man they cut to—standing behind a podium in a sunlit garden, freshly shaved and wearing a crisp black suit—was the same one I’d seen on his knees, surrounded by six Russian soldiers, just twelve hours before. They’d tried to clean him up, hide the beating I knew they’d given him, but his well-manicured surroundings and appearance did nothing to mask the muscle flexing in his clenched jaw or the deep V between his puffy eyes. Damien was in agony.
“Mother of fucking God,” Jack spat, marching over from the sink to get a better look. “That’s yer boy. That’s fuckin’ him!”
“Oh my God.” Kate pressed her fingertips to her gaping mouth. “Clover … is this true?”
All I could do was nod as I stared into the same steely eyes that had turned away from me the day before. They didn’t turn away now. They bored into my soul, as if his stare was meant for me and me alone.
“Ya didn’t fuckin’ mention that he’s the son of the goddamn enemy!”
“Jack …” Kate warned.
“He is the goddamn enemy! Look at ’im! Fuckin’ VP of Russia!”
“Jack, stop!”
“He has a black eye,” I muttered, my fingers hovering over the screen just above his beautiful face. “Under that makeup. Ya see it?”
