Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Softer tears fell, enjoying the moment even knowing the future would be anything but happy.
Cut’s fingers landed on my cheek. I swallowed back rage, pushing unsuccessfully off the ground to get away.
“I’m so glad to see you’re in one piece.” His fingers latched angrily around my chin. “However, you have a lot of explaining to do before I let you stay that way.”
“Let’s start with a few easy questions, shall we?” His other hand smeared blood from Jethro's forehead. “How is he here? How is he alive? Where the fuck is Daniel?”
Gritting my teeth, I used every avenue of energy and shoved Cut’s hand away from my lover.
You can touch me, you bastard. But not him. Never him.
“I’ll tell you everything if you let him go.”
“Let him go?” Cut chuckled. “Why on earth would I do that? It’s not every day a ghost comes back from the grave.”
I tried to crawl closer to Jethro, to place myself between him and his father. He was alive but unconscious. Cut could kill him so easily, and he would never know until his soul untethered and became homeless over the African plains.
“Stop it. Leave him alone.”
Cut dropped his hand, his smile deepening. “You’re telling me what to do now, Weaver?”
“Yes.”
His eyes glowed. “And what do I get in return?”
My heart clanged and the pits of Hades opened up beneath me.
Marry me.
Yes.
Husband.
Wife.
None of that would come true now.
But I had the power to keep Jethro alive. I would do whatever it took.
“Me, you get me. Just...let him go.”
Cut stood upright. “No. I have a better idea.” Snapping his fingers, he ordered a guard closer. “Bind his hands.”
The guard nodded. Dropping to his knee, he rolled Jethro roughly onto his stomach, not caring his bloody face squashed into the dirt. Efficiently, the guard wrapped the same coarse rope that’d bound me in the mines around his wrists.
It physically hurt watching them maul him while he couldn’t defend himself. Then again, it was better this way. This way, he couldn’t antagonise his father or somehow manage to get shot a second time.
Please, wake up.
Please, don’t leave me.
Selfishness rose. It would be better if he left in peace. If he slipped quietly away. But I couldn’t stomach his loss.
Whatever Cut had planned would make both of us wish we’d died. The belief that we’d get out of this intact and alive was left in the disfigured Jeep,crushing our dreams into African soil.
Cut wiped his hands on his jeans, glaring at the workmen. “Has anyone seen Daniel?”
