“I don’t like leaving you alone,” Rand admitted.
Rand and Adam had found a place in Australia. A resort built on an abandoned silver mine property in the Blue Mountains about fifty miles outside of Sydney had gone bankrupt three years ago. Trident had made the purchase of a main house and the corresponding eleven hundred plus acres within the last few hours, spending an exorbitant amount but fully willing to do so for the safety the terrain provided. Raines had gone ahead, scouting and getting the essentials in place. It was fully furnished according to Rand but the place needed safety upgrades that would take longer. Raines would also begin that process.
Dmitry had never been to the Blue Mountains of New South Wales but had heard of their beauty and remoteness. This property served three purposes—protection, distance from the U.S. and proximity to where they believed Ken was hiding.
“We will be fine. Take your women and the children and get them to safety,” Dmitry told him. “Did you speak with your contact in the Australian government?”
Rand nodded. “He will keep the purchase silent. We bought it under a shell corporation so the trail is much harder to follow. There is no way to ensure complete safety but we have time to plan how we’ll respond to President Locke as we give our women time to heal.”
“He has to be Joseph’s,” Dmitry mused. The Collective’s reach knew no bounds. It was truly a one world order type of entity.
“Then he will die,” Adam said in a voice that carried vengeance.
Within hours, the others were on their way to the compound in Sydney and Dmitry was left with Bone and an old, crotchety physician who enjoyed reading poetry aloud to his patients. Dmitry hated poetry.
He watched over Bone for the next four days, bathing her through her fevers and changing her IVs and bedclothes.
He prayed. He cursed. He prayed some more.
And on the third day, Bone woke.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The brittle sounds of an old man’s voice sifted through her mind, his words grabbing her attention and not letting go.
It was an Emily Dickinson poem. I Cried at Pity. Bone enjoyed poetry and Dickinson’s works, more than any others, had always spoken to her. So she listened to an old man she did not know, speak words that told the story of her life and as the darkness began to part, ushering her up through layers of pain, she sighed and tried to find her way.
Bone squinted against the low light, breathing silently lest the ropes tethering her to reality snap. She opened herself up to the pain instead of fighting it, though she was pretty fucking sick and tired of waking up in pain. It seemed it was all she ever woke to since she’d met Asinimov.
His head rested beside her on the bed. Soft snores fell from his lips and she smiled.
He wouldn’t like her pointing that out she was sure so she’d have to make sure and do that very thing once he awoke. Bone was unable to resist the draw of his hair and so she slid her fingers into it remembering how it had been to hold him to her in the heat of passion.
It seemed hot pokers stabbed her in the side, and she shifted to get away from the agony but all that did was make the pain worse.
“Don’t move.” His gravelly voice washed over her.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she bit back.
His eyebrows rose and his jaw slackened. Disbelief was written all over his face followed quickly by anger. “I will damn well fucking tell you what to do. You’ve been shot in the gut and have been kissed by bullets on your shoulder, hip and side. You’ll fucking stay still or I’ll sit on your ass.”
“So my ass is pretty much the only place that didn’t take a bullet?”
His brows lowered. “That’s not funny, Bone. Not at all.”
“I’m the one who got shot, Asinimov. If anyone can laugh, it should be me,” she informed him.
“Why did you do it?”
His gaze burned into hers, the light blue of his eyes darker than she’d ever seen it. Worry? Possibly. She mentally shrugged. “They were mine.”
He nodded. “For once, I understand you.”
Shock ghosted through her. “You do?”
“Da, because you’re mine and I would destroy the world for you,” he answered simply but it set her heart on fire. His language reverted to his native Russian when he was upset. She did not know why this made her heart sing but it did.
“Where have they gone?” she asked, searching for more solid ground.
When last they’d talked, she’d been rough with him, denying the living, breathing thing between them and seeking refuge in her pain. She’d had many days alone with her sisters to contemplate her future.
“Where we will be heading tonight since you’re finally awake.”
“So it’s my fault we took an excursion?” she asked with a smile.
Dmitry cocked his head. “Well, I sure didn’t take on an entire combat troop of Spec Ops soldiers and get my ass shot up.”
“Touché,” she said lightly.