Destiny Mine (Tormentor Mine #3)(8)
She blinks uncomprehendingly. “What?” Her voice is dazed, even as her gaze focuses on me with a sudden desperate hope. “Where?”
“Home,” I say, and the sucking pain in my gut intensifies, the hollowness spreading to engulf my heart. “I’m taking you back, my love, before it’s too late.”
8
Sara
I stare out the plane window at the clouds below, my thoughts scattered and my chest agonizingly tight. Maybe it’s because I’m still in shock, but everything happened with such speed that I simply can’t comprehend it, can’t make sense of this development and the tangle of emotions choking me up inside.
Mom was in a car accident. She might die.
Peter is taking me home.
My breaths are shallow, yet each time I inhale, it hurts, like the air inside the cabin is too thick. It feels like it took only minutes for us to leave, to get on the chopper and fly out, as though this was the plan all along, as if we talked it over and decided it was time.
Time for me to go home.
Time for Mom to die.
My breath hitches on a particularly thick inhale, and I have to fight to get my lungs to expand, to drag in oxygen through a windpipe that feels no wider than a pinprick.
The thing is, we didn’t talk it over. Not at all. Peter informed me, and that was it. Then there was just the hustle to get going, to grab whatever we need and get on the chopper. And once we were there, he was on the phone, arranging something, speaking lots of Russian and some English. I caught bits and pieces of his conversations, but I was too out of it to make sense of them. To make sense of anything, really. How can he take me back when they’re looking for him? When he knows that the moment I show up, I could be whisked away somewhere he may never find me?
How can he let me go when he swore he never would?
I want to ask Peter all this and more, but he’s not next to me. He’s on the couch, huddled over a laptop with the twins. I hear a barrage of rapid-fire Russian as they point at something on the screen, and I know they must be planning the logistics of this unforeseen operation, figuring out how to swoop in and drop me off right under the nose of the authorities.
I could get up and demand answers from them, but that could throw them off, make them miss some crucial detail that might mean the difference between life and death, or at least capture and freedom. So I just sit and look out the window, focusing on the exhausting task of breathing.
One inhale, one exhale. Slow and steady. I fight to use the unnaturally thick air as I keep my gaze on the fluffy clouds outside. Concentrating on them helps me cope with the knowledge that out there, thousands of miles away, Mom is under a surgeon’s knife, her frail body cut open and bleeding. I’ve seen hundreds of surgeries, have performed dozens of C-sections myself, and I know how it looks and feels, how human flesh is just meat at that point, something the doctor cuts and slices and stitches in order to save the person who’s not a person to the doctor at that moment but an assignment, a challenge to complete.
My stomach coils into a knot, my chest squeezing ever tighter, and I swipe at an annoying tickle on my cheek, only to lower my hand when it feels wet.
I didn’t realize I was crying, but now that I do, I try to pull myself together and focus on something besides the mental image of Mom’s body on a gurney, her stomach sliced open to repair the damage. And of Dad in the hospital waiting room, exhausted and sleep-deprived, his bad heart overwhelmed and overworked.
Why is Peter doing this? I try to think about that, because it’s better than the images in my head. Is he letting me go for good, or is he planning to return for me? If it’s the latter, he has to realize that stealing me the second time won’t be as easy. He’s taking an enormous risk by bringing me back, and yet he’s doing it. Why?
Could he be bored with me?
No. I slam the door on that pathetic, insecure idea. Whatever else he might be, Peter is the polar opposite of fickle. Once he sets a course of action, he doesn’t deviate from it, whether it be avenging his family or inserting himself into my life. Yesterday, he told me that he loves me, and I believed him. I still do.
He’s not taking me back because he wants to get rid of me.
He’s doing it for me. Because he loves me.
He loves me enough to risk losing me.
We land at a private airstrip near Chicago just as the sun is setting. I have no idea how many favors Peter had to call in to clear this with air control, but the plane touches down on the runway with no interference. A nondescript sedan is waiting for us when we exit the plane, and Peter leads me to it, his strong fingers gently restraining my elbow.
His face is like a block of granite, as hard and remote as I’ve ever seen it. We didn’t have a chance to talk during the flight, and I have no idea what he’s thinking. For the majority of the trip, he was on the phone and planning with his men, and I alternated between restless naps and silent crying. A few hours ago, we learned that Mom made it through the surgery, but her vitals continue to be unstable.
It’s not a good sign.
We stop in front of the car, and I see a man in the driver’s seat.
I look up at Peter’s shuttered face. “Are you going to—”
“He’s going to drop you off at the hospital,” he says in a hard, flat tone. “I won’t be coming with you.”