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There’s only one other man inside. He’s standing in a dark corner of the room, with his back to us, gawking at a table loaded with torture devices. He has a gun tucked into his belt at the small of his back. He leers over his shoulder at Camille with a sick smile that dies on his lips when he sees we’ve breached the room. He takes a step closer to her, but then stops and reaches for his gun.
Is he really going to shoot to keep us down and make a run for it?Good luck with that, asshole!
“Louis!” Camille screams.
Her voice is like a punch of adrenaline to my system.
As shots are fired, I run to her and pull her to the ground to keep her out of the line of fire. With shaking hands, I pull out my knife and cut the ropes around her wrists and ankles, and then I push her down on the floor and cover her with my body.
The kidnapper advances on the door but takes a bullet to his chest and then another. He collapses with a thud, his gun skittering across the floor.
It’s over. The entire operation took no more than five minutes, but those were the most intense five minutes of my life. Not so much because of the bullets dancing around me, but because I’d come so close to losing Camille. Never will I let this happen again.Never.
Rolling off her, I pull her into my embrace. “It’s over, baby!”
“Thank God,” she sobs. “Thank God.”
“We should get out of here!” Nikolai calls. “Now! Kurt may send in more men to see what happened.”
I help Camille to her feet. Her head and upper body are soaked, and she’s shivering.
“Did they pour water over you?” I ask as we hurry to the door.
“Something like that,” she says. “But I’m all right. You got here before…” She glances at the horror workbench.
Kurt will pay for this.Maybe not today, maybe not in the same manner, but I’ll make sure the scumbag hurts.
Nikolai’s men gag the surviving kidnapper and drag him to the van.
When Camille and I climb in, I wipe her face and hair with a towel someone hands me. I make her remove her wet sweater and put on mine.
“We’ll be home soon,” I say. “I’ll take care of you.”
She gives me a feeble smile. “Thank you for saving me!”
I shake my head. She shouldn’t be thanking me. She should be screaming at me. It’s because of me, my position and job, that she was kidnapped. The least I can do is make sure this never happens again.
“I will always take care of you,” I whisper, gathering her to me. “Do you hear me? Do you trust me to do that?”
She holds my gaze. “I do.”
It’s ludicrous in this context, but I feel as though we just exchanged wedding vows. For real, this time. When we’d signed the contract and said “I do” in front of the prime minister, neither of us had meant it. But so much has happened in three short weeks! Good, bad, classified. I’ve learned something. I want this oddball woman, with all her hang-ups and secrets. Whether it’s a curse or an ironic quirk of fate, it’s Camille that makes me tick, not Magdalena.
Can I get over my own hang-ups and trust her fully?
I believe it’s achievable.
But that’s not my biggest revelation. It’s that Icanlive with never seeing Camille naked. What Ican’tlive with is never seeing her again.
* * *
We landedin the Evorian capital this morning.
Camille, Rudy, and I will drive to Arrago to spend Christmas at Falcon’s Nest tomorrow.
Angie will stay here in Pombrio. In January, I will hire a new PA. It’s not that she’s been out of line. It’s not that Camille asked me to fire her, or that she even blames Angie for eavesdropping in the bookshop and reporting to me the bit about Jeannette. I don’t blame her either. I blame myself. She’d acted with too much zeal, no doubt, but in full conformity with my instructions after the scooter accident.
Which is why, while waiting for Prince Richard to wrap up his current audience, I decide that my first order of business will be to address that situation. He was already briefed about Camille’s kidnapping and liberation, and that it didn’t end well for either of her captors.
