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Invincible. But he hadn’t been invincible. It had taken Fuentes almost two years, but before his rescue, Noah had known it wouldn’t be long before he lost the will to live or to fight. And Sabella had been there with him. In the darkest nights, the bleakest days, she had been there through it all, holding on to his soul.
That damned woman had a spine like steel and a look that could flay a man’s flesh at a hundred paces. If she deigned to look at him. She was the woman who had held him through hell, through her dreams. And he had thought she wasn’t strong enough to hold him broken and in pain.
He’d been a fool. And now, walking away from her just might kill him. But staying, what if staying could kill her?
“What time do we need to leave?” he finally asked Nik, forcing his gaze away from Sabella.
“Just after the garage shuts down.” At dark.
They would enter the bunker under the cover of night, lights off and on stealth mode.
He nodded slowly.
“I’ll let my friend know we’ll be there,” Nik murmured as Noah rubbed the back of his neck and moved from the garage to the convenience store where Rory was taking his turn manning the counter.
The convenience store was empty. One of those lulls that came every few hours.
Rory watched him approach, his blue eyes flat, his expression set. Rory had been watching him like that for a week now.
“What do you need?” His brother crossed his arms over his chest as he glanced at the closed door between the store and the office.
“I have to go out this evening.” Noah stared back at Rory curiously.
Someone else had changed in the past years. Maybe Rory had grown up. Noah felt his chest clench at the knowledge that he had missed it. His baby brother. Their father had cast him and his mother off, refused to acknowledge the black-haired, red-faced infant he’d created with the dark-haired shop clerk from Odessa.
Grandpop had taken him instead. The squalling little scrap of flesh that no one wanted but an old man and a ten-year-old boy.
Noah had helped raise Rory, and he’d missed whatever moment Rory had faced that turned him from a lazy, reckless young man to the man facing him now.
“Fine. You go out, I’ll watch her. It’s what I’ve been doing all along anyway.” Rory shrugged, that thread of anger warning Noah exactly what the problem was. The same problem Sabella was having.
He breathed out roughly and glanced at the door.
“She doesn’t need to know,” he finally said, his voice hard as he turned back to Rory. “She still has her memories of what was. She doesn’t need to know what it became.”
“I said I’d watch her.” Rory grunted. “I didn’t ask for your excuses.”
“What the hell do you want to ask me for then, kid?” Noah bit out. “Spit it out before it eats you alive.”
“Before it eats you alive.” Rory smiled mockingly. “Don’t worry, man. I got nothin’ to bitch at you about. You’re free and easy, right? Go be free and easy. I have work to do.”
Noah glanced at the door again. In the past two days, he could have sworn he felt her tears. Her pain.
“Get off that attitude, Rory,” he told his brother warningly. “This thing is getting too close. I have to be able to trust you to handle the fallout.”
When things went to hell, Rory had to get Sabella out of town. He wanted her out of it, away from it.
“I know my responsibilities,” Rory assured him, a snap in his voice. “Damn good thing one of us remembers.”
Before Noah could stop the reaction, his hand snapped out, his fingers gripping Rory’s neck. His brother’s eyes widened as Noah gritted his teeth and pulled back. Slowly.
“Don’t forget them.” He was aware of Sabella standing in the doorway, the doorknob gripped in her hand, as she stared between Noah and Rory.
She was pale. There were dark shadows under her eyes. His cock jerked, already erect, he swore it only hardened impossibly further at the sight of her.
“Do you two have a problem I need to know about?”
Rory’s jaw clenched. “No problem, Belle,” he answered for both of them. “He just grates on the nerves sometimes, I guess.”
