“Oh, you know I won’t.” His eyes sparkle with affection. “I love you, Papa.”
“I love you too, Luciana.”
Taylor clears her throat behind us and I turn around in preparation to hiss at her, only to be horrified at her unholstered gun and blank expression. “If you are finished?” She inspects her pistol, squinting down the length of the barrel. “Step away from Leader Piccolo, please.”
“But, Papa?—”
He holds up his hand. And, so, I abandon my father. I detach myself from my blood, my creator, and the only other place where my mother’s memory lives. Papa gets to his knees, cartilage cracking beneath his weight. He grunts and braces a palm on the wet asphalt, finally resting on his knees fully.
He makes the sign of the cross and closes his eyes. This is it. A legacy gunned down in an airport ruin on the verge of rebellion.
The hammer clicks. I close my eyes.
A gunshot rings out. My father shouts.
My father shouts?
I open my eyes to see my father cowering, confused. Taylor holsters her pistol. “You don’t have much time. Board the plane, both of you.”
My father and I exchange looks. “What? That was not the agreement.”
“It is not the agreement I wish to honor. I promised to keep your daughter alive, and I intend to keep that promise. She is much safer with someone who would die for her, and it is clear you intended to do that.” Taylor straightens her back. “When you land, the pilot will provide you with the address of a safe house and some money. You are to stay in hiding indefinitely. Neither of you are safe in the regions.”
My father laboriously rises from the ground, and I scramble toward him, burying my face in his shoulder. He looks past me. “Why are you doing this? What’s in it for you?”
“Miss Piccolo’s safety.”
Once I pull away from Papa, he crosses his arms and his posture stiffens. He’s obviously larger than Taylor by a considerable margin, but I know what she is. I know she could kill him before he could finish a blink. “How do I know you won’t double-cross us?”
Taylor rolls her eyes. “Why would I waste my time in such dramatic fashion if I wanted you dead?”
My stare lingering on Taylor, I lean into Papa. “She’s telling the truth, Papa. She’s…she’s letting us leave.”
The gravity of those words topples me. Leaving. I’m leaving. I’m getting on that plane with my father. He’s not going to die and I…I am never going to see Taylor again.
“I don’t get why some Order dog gives a shit about my daughter’s safety,” Papa says, still suspicious.
Taylor looks between my father and me. “I have come to care very much about your daughter, Leader Piccolo. More than I could hope to explain to you in the limited time we have here. I would prefer to keep her with me, but I no longer believe she is safe here. So, while it pains me to do so, I am entrusting her to the only other person I know who may care about her as much as I do.”
My father’s thick eyebrows rise in his forehead, but the devastated look on my face makes the realization dawn on him. “Oh. I see.”
“Excuse me, Papa. Taylor, can I talk to you?” I ask, but I don’t wait to guide her away from my father, near the tail of the aircraft, out of earshot. “What is going on?”
Taylor toes the ground with her boot. “When Theia made this agreement with your father, she ordered me to force you to execute him as a show of loyalty. If you refused, I was to execute you both. It became clear to me you were no longer safe with the Order.”
So much for making me one of them. I was always a means to an end, at least for Theia. I can’t say I don’t understand her, but she’s a colder bitch than I could ever be. “When did she tell you this?”
“On our way back from Wolfshield, via my watch. I would have told you,” she rectifies quickly. “But I knew you would tryand convince me to let you stay. And I was worried I would let you convince me. It has become embarrassingly apparent I am quite weak where you are concerned.”
“But I…I am not ready to say goodbye to you.”
Taylor’s lips quirk into a brief, sad smile. “You haven’t been ready for anything since I took you, but you have done fine.” She runs her fingers through her rain-soaked hair. “You are the strongest person I have ever had the privilege to know.”
“I need more time. I want—I need more time with you.” Averting my eyes, I watch droplets of rain smack the ground and soak through the stone. I don’t feel strong. I feel undone, unmoored, unraveled. “You know, someone once told me you never abandon someone you love.”
“Believe me, I wish there were any other way.” Her breath quivers and she peers down at her shoes. “I am going to miss you so much more than I anticipated.”
A smile lifts my lips, imagining Taylor doing a serious risk assessment of how much she’d miss me. I take in a breath and consider the deepest, most treasonous betrayal I can imagine. “If I did as Theia asked…”
