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He lifted his face and stroked my brow. “You’re so beautiful, it hurts, Flora.”
“I could say the same, but I won’t.”
That made him smirk, then even, smile quite a bit. He lifted away and pulled me to sitting. Looking me in the eye, he held my cheek as he spoke.
“I can lie to you no more,” he said, swallowing.
“Tell me everything,” I begged, holding his hand.
“Your father is alive.” I slapped both hands over my mouth to keep the surge inside. He looked sad, continuing, “This house is the gift he gave you both for making him a grandfather. Caelan received a visit, you see, when you were in hospital, newly a mother. Caelan left you for Ukraine even though he knows Sherry’s been trying to find Blake so she can hang everything around his neck. That’s what this is about. She thinks maybe you know something about where he might be. But Caelan is the best at keeping secrets. And don’t we both know it.”
“I can’t—I can’t—”
“We have to go. We’ll talk later.”
So I let him pack my bags for me, put me in clothes, and I fed Logan on the back seat of the car as we drove off—the cabin aflame behind us as we chased away.
As far as I was concerned, this all started with Blake, and it would end with him, too.
The sooner Caelan got back, the sooner we’d be able to tell Sherry where Blake was—and it’d be done.
Finally.
Chapter Fifteen
~ Ukraine ~
It was his last night in Kiev but he’d been all over—Dnipro, even Mariupol and Kharkiv. His presence had been much-needed. Weapons training, tactical systems, even the basics like homemade bombs as ordinary people engaged in guerrilla warfare. He’d taught a lot of people from generals to boots on the ground to people on the street who were starving and needed money to buy food… a few pence to start growing it themselves. He’d worked solidly, sixteen-hour days, in all the time he’d been here. His body knew it. He was tired. He had become more machine than man again; all the protein rations he’d slugged down his throat; all the drills he’d led and demonstrated. All the runs he’d broken men in on, the hiking up and down mountains, along riverbanks, sometimes even training them beneath ground in sewer networks if the bombing outside made the threat too great (training in sewers was actually valuable to spatial awareness and overcoming fear of the dark). He’d fought to be able to go back home and now a Jeep waited downstairs outside of the president’s palace.
Nearly every night he’d been offered women, drugs and cheap alcohol. He’d abstained from all. He’d needed a clear head. That was him all over: professional to the last. Around him men smoked like chimneys, drank their sorrows away, had their dicks sucked for a few pennies… anything to combat the reality of having their lives, families—sometimes even their souls—torn apart.
However, he had to admit he’d been tempted once. Though the contraband Russian vodka was very risky indeed, he missed whisky and he missed home. The strong vodka had offered him that oblivion he craved, yet, abstained he still had.
Women were nothing. Nobody but Flora meant anything to him. He yearned to get back to her.
Yearned to tell her everything, even though… some of it would destroy her.
The president himself met Caelan before the secret exit. They clasped forearms and Caelan looked the man in the eye as an equal. (Though Caelan did indeed stand a foot taller at least.)
“You will be back?” said the president in raspy English.
“Aye, I’ll come back. In better times.”
“To a hero’s welcome, a feast,” insistent the president.
“Nae bother wi’ that,” chuckled Caelan.
“We do not forget,” said the president. “Those who raised us when we were on our knees.”
Caelan nodded his head, a vein under his right eye twitching. “Maybe some things would be better to forget… in time.”
The rape, abuse… the suffering. The broken bodies, the uncertainty, the obliteration of a once-glorious culture.
“We are strong, we will prevail.”
“Aye,” said Caelan. “Ye shall. Braw people, ye are. Braw indeed. Seen that spirit myself, I have. In your smiles, your jokes, your banter. And there will be another side of this. I’ve given yer people everything they need.”
The president agreed with a sharp nod. “Goodbye, warrior.”
