“No.” I swallowed the lump in my throat that seemed to have taken up residence there since Izzy arrived in country. “She’ll never get on the plane if she knows that there’s a high chance Serena won’t.”
And as of an hour ago, I couldn’t even strap Izzy into her seat. I just had to pray and trust that she’d walk onto the plane.
We’d been reassigned.
Izzy shifted, her eyes fluttering open and finding mine within seconds. She’d always had an uncanny sense of where I was. My ribs felt so tight I half expected them to break from the ache in my chest.
She sat up slowly, her loose braid sliding over her shoulder, but she didn’t smile. Whatever was on my face had given me away, and she knew something was up.
How the fuck was I supposed to do this?
“Five minutes?” Graham asked.
“Ten,” Torres said from behind us.
“Ten,” I agreed. Ten would never be enough, but it was all we had.
Graham slapped me on the back and walked away, headed toward our assembly area.
I stood there, my eyes locked with hers, struggling to find the words. Wrong. Leaving her felt wrong in every cell of my body, and yet there was exactly jack and shit I could do about it. Orders were orders.
I was getting sick of being put into a position where she could never be mine, when she already was in every way that mattered.
I walked toward Izzy as she stood, her face solemn.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Putting my hand on her lower back, I guided her to the corner, where I could block her body from the view of embassy workers in hopes of just a few minutes of privacy.
“I have to go.” Every word shredded part of my soul.
Her lips parted. “Okay. When will you be back?”
“I won’t.”
Her deep-brown eyes flew wide.
“We’ve been reassigned. There are—” I swallowed. “There are places we need to be and things we need to be doing.” Even if I could tell her what I was about to head into, I wouldn’t. The worry would kill her.
Everything about the next few hours could alter the rest of Izzy’s life.
“Oh.” Her shoulders fell. “That’s understandable. I’m as safe as I can be, and your skills are definitely wasted by hanging out in the airport.” She looked up at me, forcing a smile I’d seen far too many times over the last decade. She gave it to me every time I had to leave.
“Listen to me carefully.” I took her shoulders in my hands. “At three o’clock, someone is going to come get you. He’s got a medium build, gray beard, and he’ll know how we met. He’s not going to have my charming wit, but he is going to put you on a plane out of here.”
Her brow knit. “Nate, no planes are getting out of here.”
“Even if that’s true, this one will. Company planes tend to go wherever they want whenever they want. He’ll get you stateside.” My hand slid to cup the side of her neck. Her skin was so soft.
She blinked. “And they have room for me?”
“You’re a congressional aide. Trust me, they have a vested interest in you getting home as quietly as possible.” Izzy was a PR nightmare just waiting to happen.
“And Serena?” The hope in her eyes gutted me.
“He has a seat for Serena. Taj too.” It had taken calling in every favor I’d ever earned, but her safety was all that mattered. “If your sister isn’t back by three o’clock, you have to get on the plane anyway.” I looked deep into her eyes, willing her to agree, to be pliable for once in her damned life.
Her chin drew back as she opened her mouth, and I slid my hand across her chin, running my thumb across her soft lips.
“Please, Izzy. You have to go. It’s going to be the hardest thing you’ll ever do. But you have to get on the plane.” I leaned down so our faces were only inches apart and cradled the back of her head. “Eventually the airport will be surrendered, and I won’t be here for you. You have to get out of here. I need you to get out of here.”
“I can’t leave her,” she whispered, her voice breaking.
“You can. You will. It’s what she would want.” If she was still alive to want.
“I can’t leave you.” She shook her head.
“You don’t have to when I’m the one always going.”
“I can wait another day,” she protested, hands gripping my arms.
“You can’t.” I touched my forehead to hers and breathed deeply. “Do you remember when I asked, if you knew the world had twenty-four hours before some calamity struck, where would you go? And you said that you’d go wherever you could be the most help?”
“This is not the time for the trivia game, Nate.” She pulled me closer, tears filling her eyes.
“Do you remember?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “It was when we were leaving Kandahar.”
“Ask me.”
Her lower lip trembled. “If you knew the world had twenty-four hours before some calamity struck, where would you go?”
“I would go wherever you are. I knew it that night in Tybee. Hell, I probably knew it the second you reached for my hand in that plane. There is no force on earth that would keep me from you.” I kissed her softly. “That’s why you have to get on the plane, Izzy. I won’t be able to think, to focus, to walk so much as twelve feet away from you if I don’t know you’re headed to safety.”
“We’re magnets, right?” She wound her arms around my neck. “Always finding each other.”
“And we will find each other again, I promise.” One of my hands fell to the gentle slope of her waist as I fought the emotions threatening to pull me under. “We haven’t had our shot yet.”
Surging up on her toes, she kissed me.
I slanted my mouth over hers and took it like it could be the last time, leaving us both breathing hard when I finally found the fortitude to lift my head. “I love you, Isabeau Astor. Promise me you’ll get on the plane. I know you want to stay for Serena, but I need you to leave for me.”
“Promise me you’ll come home.”
“I promise I will come home. I will find you. We will have our shot.” My chest burned with how much I loved her, how hard it was to walk away from her in any situation, let alone in this place.
“I love you.” She held me even tighter, and I pressed a hard kiss to her forehead, trying like hell to breathe deeply enough to minimize the burn in my eyes.
“I love you,” I whispered.
Then I let her go, and her arms fell away as I stepped back, taking one last look at her before turning around and forcing my feet to move, my legs to carry me away from her.
“I’m sorry,” Torres said, pushing off the wall as I walked past him. “I know what she is to you.”
Everything. She was everything. “If I asked you to go with her, would you?”
“If I could, then you know I would.” He shot me a look so full of remorse that I had to look away. “But I can’t, Nate, and you know why.”
“Yeah.” I grabbed the pack I’d left near the entrance to the temporary embassy and slung it over my shoulders, boxing up every emotion I possibly could. Now wasn’t the time to lose it over Izzy. Now was the time to act for Izzy. “Unfortunately, I do.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
IZZY
Kabul, Afghanistan
August 2021
I watched the clock tick away the minutes after Nate left, then the hours, pulling myself together so I could help wherever possible.