“Julian!Why are you laughing?”Nora’s voice rises in pitch as she presses the towel to my face.“You should see a doctor!It could be broken—”
“It’s fine, baby,” I reassure her between bouts of laughter, taking the towel from her shaking hands.“I can promise you I’ve had worse.If it were broken, I’d know it.”My voice sounds nasal due to the towel pressed against my nose, but I can feel the cartilage with my fingers, and it’s straight, undamaged.I’ll have a black eye, but that’s about it.If I hadn’t deflected to the right at the last second, though, her move could’ve crushed my nose completely, forcing fragments of bone into my brain and killing me on the spot.
“It’s not fine!”Nora steps away, still looking extremely upset.“I could’ve seriously hurt you!”
“Wouldn’t I have deserved it?”I say, only half-teasing.I know there is a part of her that still resents me for the way I took her—that will always resent me for that.If I were her, I wouldn’t apologize for causing me pain.I’d look for opportunities to kick my ass any chance I got.
She glares at me, but I see that she’s beginning to calm down now that the immediate shock is over.“Probably,” she says in a more level tone of voice.“But that doesn’t mean I want you to suffer.I’m stupid and irrational like that, you see.”
I grin at her, lowering the towel.The bleeding is almost over; as I had suspected, it was only a mild hit.“You’re not stupid,” I say softly, stepping closer to her.Though my nose still hurts, there is a new, growing ache in a much lower region of my body.“You’re exactly as I want you to be.”
“Brainwashed and in love with my kidnapper?”she asks drily as I reach for her, dropping the bloodied towel on the floor.
“Yes, exactly,” I murmur, pulling off her sports bra to bare her small, perfectly shaped breasts.“And very, very fuckable…”
And as I tug her down to the mat, my injury is the last thing on my mind.
As Nora’s semester progresses,we develop a routine.I usually wake up before her and go for a training session with my men.When I return, she’s awake, so we eat breakfast, and then I head into the office while Nora goes for a walk with Rosa and listens to the online lectures.After a few hours, I come back to the house, and we have lunch together.Then I go back to my office, and Nora either meets Monsieur Bernard for her art lesson or joins me in the office, where she studies quietly while I work or conduct meetings.Even though she appears not to be paying attention at those times, I know that she does—because she often asks me follow-up questions about the business at dinner.
I don’t mind her curiosity, even though I know she silently condemns what I do.The idea that I supply weapons to criminals and the often-brutal methods I use to maintain control over the business are anathema to Nora.She doesn’t understand that if I didn’t do this, someone else would, and the world would not necessarily be safer or better.Drug lords and dictators would get their weapons one way or another.The only question is who would profit from it—and I would prefer that person to be me.
I know Nora doesn’t agree with that reasoning, but it doesn’t matter.I don’t need her approval—all I need is her.
And I have her.She’s with me so much that I’m beginning to forget what it feels like not to have her by my side.We’re rarely apart for more than a few hours at a time, and when we are, I miss her so intensely, it’s like a physical ache in my chest.I have no idea how I had been able to leave her alone on the island for days or even weeks at a time.Now I don’t even like to see Nora go for a run without me, so I do my best to accompany her when she sprints around the estate in late afternoon.
I do that because I want my wife’s company, but also to make sure that she’s safe.Though my enemies can’t steal her here, there are snakes, spiders, and poisonous frogs in the area.And in the nearby rainforest, there are jaguars and other jungle predators.The chances of her getting stung or seriously hurt by a wild animal are small, but I’m not willing to risk it.I can’t bear the thought of any harm coming to her.When Nora had her appendicitis attack, I’d nearly gone out of my mind with panic—and that was before my addiction to her reached this new, utterly insane level.
My fear of losing her is starting to border on the pathological.I recognize that, but I don’t know how to control it.It’s a sickness that seems to have no cure.I worry about Nora constantly, obsessively.I want to know where she is at every moment of every day.She’s rarely out of my sight, but when she is, I can’t concentrate, my mind conjuring up deadly accidents that could befall her and other frightening scenarios.
“I want you to put two guards on Nora,” I tell Lucas one morning.“I want them to tail her whenever she walks around the estate, so they can make sure nothing happens to her.”
“All right.”Lucas doesn’t blink at my unusual request.“I’ll work with Peter to free up two of our best men.”
“Good.And I want them to text me a report on her every hour on the dot.”
“Consider it done.”
The guards’ hourly reports keep my fears at bay for a couple of weeks—until I get an email that turns my world upside down.
“Majid is alive,”I tell Nora at dinner, carefully watching her reaction.“I just heard from one of Peter’s contacts in Moscow.He’s been spotted in Tajikistan.”
Her eyes widen in shock and dismay.“What?But he died in the explosion!”
“No, unfortunately he didn’t.”I do my best to keep my rage under control.The fact that Beth’s murderer is alive makes my blood boil with pure acid.“It turns out he and four others left the warehouse two hours before I got there.You didn’t see him there when I came for you, right?”
“No, I didn’t.”Nora frowns.“I assumed he was outside, guarding the building or something…”
“That’s what I thought, too.But he wasn’t.He was nowhere near the warehouse when the explosion occurred.”
“How do you know this?”
“The Russians captured one of the four men who left with Majid that night.They caught him in Moscow, plotting to blow up the subway.”Despite my best efforts, fury seeps into my voice, and I can see the corresponding tension in Nora.If there’s any topic that can move my pet to anger, it’s that of Beth’s murderers.“They interrogated him and learned that he’s been in hiding in Eastern Europe and Central Asia for the past few months, along with Majid and the three others.”
Before Nora can respond, Ana walks into the dining room.
“Would you like some dessert?”the housekeeper asks us, and Nora shakes her head, her soft mouth drawn in a tight line.
“None for me, thanks,” I say curtly, and Ana disappears, leaving us alone once again.
