“I can’t tell you enough how sorry I am. I’ll spend the rest of our lives trying to make up for leaving you. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“And what?” She brushed her lips against mine. “Father Gabriel would have killed you.” Her light-blue eyes opened wide. “Wait! How did the raids go? What about all the others? What about our friends? Do they have Mindy? What about Brother Benjamin and Raquel?”
I laughed. For the first time in over a week, my chest rumbled, and I wrapped my wife in my arms, sending the vibrations from me to her. “I don’t think I’ll ever tire of your questions.”
She shook her head. “That’s good, because I can’t seem to stop asking them.”
“I’ve noticed.” I took a deep breath. “The raids went well. Father Gabriel’s in custody. I don’t know anything about your friend Mindy. I saw Luke and the rest of the chosen men in Anchorage. The other followers were being transported from the Northern Light. I’m sure Mindy is among them, but there are over five hundred. It’ll take a while to get them all to Anchorage and identified. As for Raquel and Benjamin, they’ll be OK, but that’s another story.”
Her lip slipped between her teeth before she asked, “I remember Father Gabriel saying something?”
“Raquel was pretty badly injured, by Abraham, but we got her to Anchorage. I spoke with Benjamin on the way here from the airport. She’s still critical, but the doctors are encouraged. They believe she made it to surgery in time. The FBI’s allowing Benjamin to stay with her until she’s better. All in all, there were few casualties—forty-six, not including the bodies yet to be discovered in the mansion.”
“So we did it?” she asked. “Going back made a difference?”
“Yes, it made all the difference. There was a Kool-Aid plan for the Eastern Light. Lives were definitely saved there. Also, like you’d said, if Gabriel Clark had been in Bloomfield Hills, he probably would be gone with Richards.”
Stella’s eyes opened wide. “He’s free? Dylan is still out there?”
“He’s a fugitive now. Everyone is looking for him.” I reached for her cheek. “I can’t believe he hurt you after his show of pretending to be upset about your eye. I swear, when we find him, I’m going to—”
“Dylan? He didn’t do it.”
“He didn’t?”
“He’s the one who gave me the medicine, but he didn’t hurt me. Brother Mark, who I got the feeling was on the Assembly at the Eastern Light, was the one who whipped me. It was Brother Elijah who hit me. Sister Mariam was the one who put the collar on me.”
“What the hell? Whip? Hit? Collar? What?”
Stella reached out and covered my hand with hers. “We both have long stories. Let’s find out about everyone first. I want to call my parents and let them know I’m all right. And Dina Rosemont and Bernard—”
I stilled her list with another kiss. “I know I haven’t said it enough, but Stella Montgomery—”
“I definitely like McAlister better,” she interrupted.
“Stella M.,” I corrected myself. “You’re an amazing woman.” I ran my fingers through her hair. “So strong and brave. As we go through the next few months and try to undo what was done, I want to be the one there for you, the one to make your dreams come true.”
She cupped my cheeks and her eyes glistened. “Waking up and having your brown eyes in front of me was my dream. You’ve already made it come true.” She leaned forward and our lips united. “I’m all yours, Jacoby McAlister. I don’t care what we need to go through to debrief or deprogram. What I feel for you isn’t programmed, it’s real, and I don’t want you to ever question that.”
I grinned. “So now I’m the one who can’t question?”
“I believe that was a question,” she said with a sparkle in her gorgeous eyes. “And as much as I want what you said, I want to be there for you too. It wasn’t fair to give you all the burdens. I want to be a team.”
“I think I’d like that.”
As I stood I thought of something else. “Did Richards get a warning call telling him about the mansion?”
Her forehead furrowed. “No. I know he didn’t, because I had one of his phones. The other one didn’t ring until later.”
“You had his phone? Did you try to call?”
She shook her head. “I thought about it, but I didn’t want to jeopardize the FBI’s mission and mostly I couldn’t risk your life.”
I was momentarily mute, imagining the hell she had been going through, and yet, with freedom in her grasp, her thoughts had been about me and the mission.
“You never cease to amaze me. But if he didn’t get a call, why did he take you out of the mansion?”
Stella shrugged. “It was after Brother Elijah attacked me. Dylan shot him.”
What the hell?
“And then he pulled me out of Father Gabriel’s office and said we had to get away. In all the commotion I must have dropped his phone. If someone called him, he never got it.”