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After a long silence between them, he spoke softly. “You know I didn’t want you to come with me, Amara. I don’t think this is safe for you. He might hurt you if he gets the chance. He doesn’t know me, though, not personally. Even if he does know my name, he doesn’t know that I’m Hampton’s father.”
“You’re right. But you can’t expect me to sit at home,” Amara said. “I’d die of worry. I want my little boy back safe and sound.”
“We all do. He’s my son too, Amara. I honestly think he’ll be alright. No matter how deranged the man is, I don’t think he’d hurt a child. He’s using Hampton as a bargaining chip in whatever game Frederik thinks he’s playing, but Hampton isn’t in danger.”
Quint paused for a moment, lost in thought, before continuing. “It’s you he’s actually after. I don’t want to scare you, but you need to know what you risk and how important it is you stay alert and on guard at all times, even when I’m with you. But especially if we ever become separated.”
“I understand,” Amara said. “I’m not scared. I’m determined.”
“You’re a warrior.” He smiled gently. “A beautiful warrior.”
Amara glanced away and took another tiny sip of her drink. Her insides were growing warmer and she gave the drink the credit, though perhaps she shouldn’t have.
“Frederik must have known that you would look for him,” Quint said. “What was his plan going forward? Was he simply going to keep Hampton away from you and raise him on his own?”
“I have no idea,” Amara said.
“Frederik has had it in for you for a long time. For all we know, he’s been thinking of ways to hurt you ever since you won the Carrington Award. The firing was the catalyst that drove him into action. I just can’t pinpoint what he thought would happen afterward. What’s his end-game?”
Amara stared out of the window at what seemed to be an endless floor of blue textured with white wisps. “I don’t know. He knows I don’t have a lot of money, but he must’ve known I would go to the police, and the FBI would get involved. By going to Uruguay, the first place anyone would look for him … it’s like he wants to be found, you know?”
“Maybe so. But found by who?”
Amara’s mood shifted to a darker place. “I can’t imagine life without Hampton. He’s my world. Frederik has taken away the light of my life. If we don’t get him back … I don’t know what I’ll do.” Her voice wavered and faltered, eyes burning like fire, a common sensation these days. Today it seemed she had no tears left to cry. She’d shed them all. And she was so tired, exhausted from worry, from the constant stress of the unknown.
Quint held her firmly, silently brooking no dissension. “Amara, everything is going to be fine. We’ll find Hampton, and Frederik will be in a jail cell within the week. I have enough contacts that we can get him found and locked up quickly. We’ll have our baby boy back, and I can finally get to know the son I’ve missed every single moment since I remembered who I was in that field hospital in Khatlon.”
Chapter Twenty Three
HE SMILED SOFTLY AND CONTINUED in a
wistful tone. “Isn’t that strange? I never met Hampton, never got to spend any time with him, but you and he were the only people on my mind. You … of course, the picture of you in my head was one of the first things I recalled. I kept wondering what your name was and why I kept dreaming of you.”
“I thought of you, too,” Amara admitted shyly.
“Did you miss me?”
“Of course. You and I talked nearly every day on the phone while I was pregnant. I missed that when you were gone.”
“But did you miss me as something more than a voice on the phone?”
She knew what he wanted her to say, but she couldn’t do it. While he’d been lost, presumed dead, she’d never admitted to herself how much she longed for him, how much she hoped he was still alive. She didn’t allow herself to linger on those thoughts. She had Hampton, and he would be enough. He had to be.
Quint lightly stroked her arm. “You don’t have to answer that. I could never forget your beautiful face, Amara. Or your eyes, the way you smile … but I think the prospect of getting back to both of you is what kept me going even when I didn’t know who I was. My dreams remembered what my waking mind couldn’t.”
“You’ll see, Amara,” he told her, more upbeat than he’d been since they hit the pockets of turbulence. “Once we talk to the right person, the right Orlando, all will be well. Hampton can come home, and we’ll put all of this behind us like it never happened.”
Amara leaned into his embrace, giving only a soft nod in response, trying her hardest to maintain her composure. Though she felt helpless in many ways, she found hope and comfort in Quint’s arms.
He spoke of them all together, and while only a few months ago she would have balked at the prospect, there was something about the surety of his tone that soothed her wrecked emotions. He believed there would be a future for them.
She prayed he was right.
AMARA WOKE TO THE GENTLE rocking sensation of the turbulence as they descended through the clouds and lined up with the runway at Carrasco International Airport. She sat up slowly, reaching down to buckle up, only to find that Quint had already strapped her in for the landing. He still sat beside her, idly stroking her wrist with one hand and going over the plan on his phone with the other.
“Quint? Are we there?” She brought up a hand to rub her eyes, shaking off the dreamless bliss of sleep.
He turned his head toward her, smiling warmly. “Almost, yes. We’ll be landing shortly at Carrasco in Montevideo. From there, we’ll be headed straight to the Orlando estate. I’ve arranged for transportation, but I didn’t give our intended destination. Never know who’s connected to a family that large.”
