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Her tears rolled over our mouths, but that didn’t stop her from continuing the kiss. She kept her hands on my wrists and refrained from touching my chest or my stomach. She was delicate with me when she used to be hard. “Cato, I love you. I love you so much.”
I rested my forehead against hers and didn’t hold back. I’d never wanted to tell her the truth for fear of what it would do to me. I couldn’t share my power. I couldn’t trust her. But now I knew I could trust her more than anyone else in the world. So I told her the truth…something I should have said a long time ago. “I love you too, baby. More than anything in this world.”
She pulled away so she could look into my eyes and see the emotion that matched hers. “Cato…”
“I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner.”
“You didn’t have to… I always knew.”
My private jet picked us up in London then took us back to Florence.
I experienced pain pretty much every moment of my existence now, even with the painkillers, but I tried to seem normal in front of Siena. She was heartbroken at the sight of me, and I didn’t want her to feel worse than she already did. She carried my pain the way I carried hers. When they’d dragged me away so she could give herself to Damien, my mind had snapped. She must have felt the same way when she saw me on the ground, weak like a corpse.
She sat beside me in the seat with Martina in her arms.
Martina was wrapped up in a blanket with her head supported by her mother. She looked up at me with the same fascination as always, like she knew exactly who I was. She didn’t understand what a father even was, but somehow, she knew I loved her and protected her. She was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me.
“Do you want to hold her?” Siena asked.
I would love to, but I was too weak. I’d have to use my core to hold her in my arms, and even the slight strain was extremely painful. “I would love to, but I think it’ll be a while before I can.”
“Of course…” She continued to keep Martina close. “Is the pain still bothering you?”
“A little,” I lied. “But looking at her makes me forget about all that.”
“Good. When I was in the apartment alone, she made me feel so much better. You weren’t there, but I felt like I still had a piece of you.”
“I know what you mean.” I rested my hand on her thigh, grateful I had these two back in my life. I’d almost lost them, and they’d almost lost me.
Bates walked over. “Can I talk to Cato for a second?”
“Sure.” She unbuckled her safety belt and moved to a different seat.
I was angry the second she was gone. She was the light of my life, and whenever I couldn’t see her, the world suddenly felt dark. “What’s up?”
“Micah has disappeared again. He’s either gone into hiding, or he’s under the hatch.”
“He can’t stay there for long.” I wasn’t concerned about it. He was like a rat in the sewer. If he didn’t want to drown, he’d have to come up for air. “I’d like to kill him now, but I can be patient. The second he makes his move, we’ll take him out.”
Bates nodded. “If he’s smart, he’ll leave the country.”
“Doesn’t matter. He could go all the way to the Arctic, and we would still find him. He knows he’s a dead man. He’s just too much of a coward to face that truth. Not yet, anyway.”
“You’re right,” he said in agreement. “The security team said the house is fine. Micah’s men came to the gates but quickly realized we weren’t there.”
“How?”
“They must have seen the chopper in the sky.”
That thing saved my life and my home. “So the place is intact?”
“Security said they left right away. There was a shootout, of course, but nothing to write home about. And you don’t need to worry about them hitting you there because they’re underground.”
I looked forward to sleeping in my own bed, to being surrounded by the walls that kept us safe.
“I’ll let you know if anything new pops up.” Bates left the seat and moved into the rear of the plane.
Siena returned to the seat beside me. “Everything okay?”
“Micah is underground. We’ll have to wait a while until he pops his head up.”
“He can’t stay like that forever. Even if he does, he’s practically imprisoning himself.”
“I agree. He’ll come out to play soon.”
She rested Martina in the crook of her arm and crossed her legs. “Bates said he was wrong about me.”
“It’s so obvious, he had to say it.”
“He apologized and said I was a badass.”
