My eyes flitted briefly closed at the thought.Ian and I had never even considered the reach of international law when we’d established the new order, yet there I was, the one on my knees having my rights read to me—the same rights he and I had stripped away from so many others.
In a twisted way, there was a forbidding satire to my fate, and rather than rile, the idea was grimly reassuring.
After all that time with power and virtual license to do as I wished, justice had finally come calling.
It was my time to pay the piper.
I guess nobody outruns the past.
The sardonic response flitted through my head, temporarily distracting me from the agonizing, clenching pain in the pit of my stomach.
Caroline was free.I had to hang onto that, and whatever happened to me, she was well beyond Ian’s grasp.I hoped to anything holy that we could be together, but if that wasn’t to be our fate, at least she was alive.
“These charges,” the officer went on, “are based upon documentation which has identified the use of your authority in accordance with the apparatus of the state to wrongly incarcerate, persecute, and torture civilians for cruel and inhumane treatment, and for kidnapping, slavery, and rape.”
My focus flitted to one of the women I had indeed kidnapped, incarcerated, and held in servitude, tears burning in her eyes as she gazed at me.I was guilty of all the charges against me, except for one.I’d never taken Caroline, nor any woman, against her will.I liked to dominate, and to demean, but I hadn’t forced myself on anyone sexually.
It was a small consolation in light of the many heinous things I had organized, officiated on, and overseen, but as two of the officers with guns yanked me to my feet, there was still some small solace in the knowledge.
I was a bad man, a selfish man, maybe even an evil man, but Caroline had managed to break through the veneer of my malevolence and remind me who I really was before it was too late.
I was a better man because she had loved me.
“Cuff him.”
The female officer’s lips were moving, though I barely processed her words, and I didn’t resist as two of the assembled group tugged my hands behind me and forced my wrists into cuffs.
“Take him into custody,” the officer ordered.
“Wait!”Caroline called, gripping onto my arm as they started to move me.“Please just wait a minute.”
She pushed past the largest officer who’d told her to be quiet and somehow managed to maneuver herself in front of me.My little girl versus all those armed police, yet she had achieved her purpose, reaching for me as I fought against the metal at my wrists.I would have smiled at her fortitude and the irony that I was the one restrained had I not been so thoroughly despondent.
Only Caroline had enough pluck and courage to shove past men with guns and demand their prisoner’s attention.I supposed all those months as my captive had honed that mettle inside of her, or more likely, I couldn’t take any credit at all and, deep down, she’d always had the audacious bravery to act.
“Miss!”The officer sounded utterly exasperated, a feeling I knew all too well where Caroline was concerned.“Do not impede us in the course of duty, or we’ll have no choice but to arrest you as well.”
“Please.”Caroline glanced back at the other woman.“Before you take him, I just need to tell him something.”
Not waiting for permission, she looked back my way and rose on her tiptoes.
“I love you.”She mouthed the words, although everyone crowded in the claustrophobic hall must surely have heard her.
Staring into her eyes for the few seconds we had before one of the goons hauled me out of the door, I swooped to press my lips to hers.If I never saw her again, if the bastards with the guns got their way and locked me up, and I never got to spend another moment alone with her, then I needed that gentle collision of flesh to keep me whole.
To remind me that the love we’d made had been real.
Then, as quickly as the caress had been offered, I was jerked sideways and out of the door.As the Swiss sunlight blinded my eyes, all sight of Caroline was lost.
