A charcoal four-door slipped from the edge of the forest, headlights flashing, telling him it was time to go. He responded in kind, and the engine on Grafton’s rented sedan turned over with a well-tuned purr. They made their way down the cracked and crumbling boulevard, the trees crowding in on them like dark forest spirits peeking through the sunroof, curious about the clouds of outrage and suffering and heartache swirling inside.
Heartache…
Now, there was a word. Angel’s heart actually ached.
“Amazing how much hurt the truth can cause between two people,” he said more to himself than to her.
Her voice had lost its husky quality. It was sharp as a knife’s edge when she blurted in Hebrew, “Tell me your favorite color. Tell me your real birthday. Tell me what my favorite movie is and who my favorite authors are.”
Apparently, she required more proof.
Like her, he switched to Hebrew. The first word out of his mouth had her gasping. By the time he’d correctly answered all her questions, she was wide-eyed and gaping at him.
“How could you?” she demanded, having gone back to English. “I thought you loved me. I thought—”
He glanced over, hoping she could see the truth in his eyes. Begging her to see it. “I loved you then. I love you now. And I have loved you all the days in between.”
“Shut up!” Her face caved in on itself. “Stop lying to me! Stop lying!”
Her grief overwhelmed her. It overwhelmed them both. He was helpless to do anything when she curled against the passenger door and buried her face in her hands. Her huge, gulping sobs made his own eyes well with tears. One rogue drop spilled onto his cheek.
“Sonya…” he said after a few agonizing minutes. “Please, you have to understand.”
She lowered her hands and glared. “I don’t understand! How could you do that to me? How could you do that to us? How could you—”
Her words cut off when she choked on another sob.
He wanted to curl up and die. He wanted to crack his chest open, take out his heart, and hand it to her. He wanted to go back in time and make different choices. He wanted…
Her.
She was the only thing he truly wanted, and she was slipping away from him.
“I thought I was doing the right thing.” He flipped on his turn signal and merged onto the highway. It was mostly deserted now. A few delivery truck drivers were the only other souls on the road.
Seemed appropriate. The long, desolate stretch of asphalt was an apt metaphor for what he suspected would be his long, desolate future. A future without Sonya or that house or those two little girls with their bright firefly laughs.
“How was leaving me the right thing?” she demanded.
How indeed? Looking back he wasn’t convinced it was. Damn hindsight! Why did it have to be twenty-twenty?
“When my ramsad came to me, asking me to assume the identity of an Iranian nuclear science student because I already looked so much like him, when my ramsad told me I had the chance to stop Israel’s greatest threat from becoming a nuclear power, I saw no way to say no.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me think you were dead, Mark?” Her brow furrowed. “Or Angel. Or Majid. Or…I don’t even know what to call you!”
Call me your love, he wanted to beg her. Call me anything you want, but don’t call this thing between us over. Sonya, please!
“My ramsad knew the training I would need would take a year. A year to school me in nuclear science so I could pass as Majid when I assumed his identity. A year to study his mannerisms and accent. A year to undergo the plastic surgery needed to make me his doppelganger. To take over Majid Abass’s life, Mark Risa had to die. But, more than that, my ramsad didn’t expect me to come through the mission alive. He convinced me it would be better for you, easier for you, fairer for you to let go of me then and there. So you could mourn and move on.”
She choked on a wet laugh. “I never moved on!”
Yes, he knew that now. It made two of them.
“‘She’s young,’ he told me. ‘Don’t let her spend these next years of her life worrying herself sick over you. If you die inside, don’t let her always wonder what happened to you, because whether your mission is a success or a failure, we can never tell her the truth of it.’”
When he glanced at her, he found her staring at him in disbelief. “But Sonya, you have to know…” He wanted so badly to reach for her hand. “You were never meant to be there that day by the river. That show was put on for the CCTV cameras, proof that Mark Risa was dead so there would be no way anyone could ever question—”
“What happened to the bomber?”
