ara looked eagerly out of the car window, desperate to see Bellisia. When Bellisia had failed to come back to the compound, she was terrified that her best friend was dead. Shylah and she had spent hours alternately crying and then trying to convince each other that Bellisia was alive and had managed to escape. Eventually, Whitney’s anger and his retaliation—separating Zara and Shylah—had Zara believing Bellisia was still alive. She couldn’t wait to see her. She had so much to tell her, and she needed her advice on what to do about the information she had stored and locked in her brain.
Zara recognized their driver, Adam Cox. He’d been a soldier for Whitney and, after Bellisia disappeared, Adam and his partner Gerald Perkins had been sent out, presumably looking for her. They had never returned. Seeing him driving the car made Zara uneasy. If she hadn’t been able to read Gino’s energy so easily, to merge her own energy with his, she might have become suspicious, but there was no way for Gino to hide the fact that just the mention of Whitney brought that cold demon inside him close to the surface.
Bellisia stood outside the two-story house the vehicle drove up to. She looked beautiful. Radiant. Tears welling up, Zara clutched Gino’s hand. “I can’t believe she’s really alive. Whitney wouldn’t tell us for sure. I hoped she was. I hoped she really was the one to kill Violet. When we heard the senator had died from being bitten by a blue-ringed octopus when she was diving, I thought it had to be Bellisia, but there was no way of knowing for certain.”
The car came to a halt, and Zara threw the door open. She swung her legs out of the car before Gino could stop her.
“Zara, what the hell do you think you’re doing? You can’t walk, remember?” He caught her around the waist to keep her from trying to leap out.
She’d forgotten. For just that one moment she was so happy to see her “sister” that she forgot Zhu, the torture, everything but hugging Bellisia. Bellisia looked toward the car and her face lit up. Zara had forgotten how beautiful she was, and how her smile could light up the sky. She was very small with blue eyes and pale blond hair. Already, she was in motion, leaping off the porch and running toward the car. Zara braced herself, her answering smile hurting her sore face.
Bellisia ran around the hood of the car and launched herself into the air. Ezekiel Fortunes caught her, wrapping his arms around her, his mouth on hers. Zara’s smile faded. Shocked, she couldn’t take her eyes off the couple. Bellisia hadn’t even seen her. Her gaze had found Ezekiel and she never looked anywhere else.
“They’re married,” Gino said. “This mission, you have to understand, princess, it wasn’t certain we were coming back. Boss called it a suicide mission, and if you’d seen the jump onto the roof at night with those power paragliders, you’d realize just how close it was with those winds.”
She knew he recognized that she was hurt and he was making excuses for Bellisia. He was right too. If she had a husband and that man had gone on a suicide mission, she would be looking for him first. Still, that didn’t take away the hurt. All those weeks of thinking Bellisia was dead. Instead she was falling in love and getting married—without her. It embarrassed her that Gino saw her at her absolute worst all the time.
“I’m really tired,” she said. “Can you take me inside?”
“Sure, baby.”
Of course he would. She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. There was no tearing her gaze away from Bellisia and the tears streaming down her face as she looked her husband over so carefully. Bellisia had to have known that if Zara was left with Cheng for three days before the rescue, she would be tortured, but instead of even checking on her …
“Zara.” Gino’s voice was low. She was in his arms, her face in his neck. “Don’t. You’re understandably upset, but Bellisia couldn’t possibly have known what Zhu did to you. When we’re on an unsanctioned mission, we can’t report home. As much as Zeke would have wanted to tell her, he couldn’t.”
She’d said it out loud where Gino could hear her. What was wrong with her? Now he really knew what a mean, petty person she was. She should be happy for Bellisia, not feeling alone, miserable and betrayed.
“I always show you my worst side.” It came out a whisper. She kept her eyes closed as he entered the house and moved through rooms. She knew there were other people around, but she didn’t want them to see her puffy face and black eyes. For some reason, she felt embarrassed and guilty as if she could have somehow prevented Zhu from beating her. “It’s not like what happened to me was that bad.”
“Zara stop talking right now. Keep your mind blank,” Gino ordered. “Stop thinking until I can get you into the bedroom.” It was a clear command, issued in his gruff, obey me or else voice.
Zara tried to do what he said, pretending her mind was a slate, and every time she thought about Bellisia ignoring her, or self-pity, or the fact that she was making such a fool of herself in front of Gino, she would wipe that slate clean. Unfortunately, she couldn’t stop the tears. Those flooded his neck and soaked his T-shirt.
He kicked a door closed. The thump of his boot on the wood was loud as well as the slamming of the door. He took her to a bed and gently laid her onto her back. She attempted to roll onto her side, away from him, but he had anticipated her movement and stopped her with a hand to her belly. Gentle. Always so gentle. He looked scary and tough, but when he touched her, it was almost with reverence. That brought another fresh flood of tears.
“Zhu tortured you, Zara. He beat you unmercifully with his fists. He caned you. He used a whip on you. The man knows anatomy very well because he inflicted the most pain on you he could without permanently damaging you. He’s well versed in torture and, although he was careful not to do permanent damage, he certainly went for maximum pain.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Of course I know that. Aside from the fact that I’m a doctor and I can see what he’s done, and of course I know anatomy, I certainly can beat someone with my fists, cane them and whip them. I’m just as well versed in the art of torture as he is—maybe more. I’ve been dealing with that sort of thing since my family was slaughtered.”
Her heart jerked hard. She opened her eyes and looked at his face. God, that face. If a woman could fall for a face, she had. Those unusual, intense eyes. The scruff on his jaw. The hard angles and planes. The scars. His mouth. Slaughter? His family had been slaughtered? She’d been wallowing in her own misery, counting on him. Forcing him to stay with her because of her cowardice, but she hadn’t asked him about his past.
“Does that scare you?”
She frowned, uncomprehending.
“I learned to torture people. That I’m capable of torturing someone. That I have.” He refused to look away from her, his gaze holding hers.
She could see he was waiting again for condemnation. He had before, when he’d tried to put her off with scare tactics. To be able to have even a slight chance of combating Zhu, Gino had to know what Zhu was capable of, what he would do to her, to anyone in his path. Gino had to be a fierce ice-cold demon, everything that Zhu was and more. The more was his protective nature.
She shook her head. “It’s a little at odds with being a doctor, but I imagine you went to school sometime after you learned your other … um … skills. No, Gino, you don’t scare me. I just am sorry that you lost your family. We’re a pair, aren’t we? I have no family and you lost yours.”
He swept his hand over the tears on her face. “Princess, those tears had better not be for me. Looking at you, I believe I have what I want right in front of me.”
Her heart clenched hard and her stomach did a slow somersault. She didn’t know if she was willing him to want to be with her, to overlook her cowardice and every shortcoming that was right there in his face, or if she was being selfish because she was so afraid without him.