“Not tomorrow, Bob. Now!” Aiden hisses through his teeth.
“I can’t, Mr. Hale. I’m due in court—”
Bob’s words become disjointed, scrambled, until his voice fades into silence. The garden vanishes. No gurgling fountain. No rose-scented air. All that’s left is a dark void. And me.
Oxygen, 15.999— A gust of cinnamon breath on my face reactivates my lungs. Once, twice. Slowly, the smell of roses seeps through. Then Aiden’s midnight eyes and his body heat around me. And finally his voice—back to its furious, dominant timbre.
“And Bob?”
“Yes, Mr. Hale?”
“I will say this only once. England. Is not. An option. I don’t want to hear it tomorrow, the day after or ever. Is that clear?”
A moment of silence follows his words.
“I understand, Mr. Hale,” Bob wheezes at last. “And, Elisa, please try to sleep tonight. We’ll do our absolute best on this.”
It takes another gust of cinnamon air for me to find my voice. “Thank you, Bob,” I choke.
Aiden hangs up and tightens his arms around me. “Hey! Shh, shh,” he murmurs, sitting on the fountain edge and folding me on his lap.
The shivers I was managing to contain break through, and I start convulsing.
“I’ve got you. I won’t let them hurt you. Just breathe, baby. I’m here.” He kisses my cheek, my temple, my hair.
But his words give me no comfort. They only remind me of what’s at stake. Of how much more there is to lose.
“Shh, baby, shh. Hydrogen, 1.008. Helium, 4.003,” he recites slowly, in rhythm with the circles he draws on my back. He runs through the table five times before the shivers start receding. Still, his fingers never stop caressing my shoulders. I focus on their motion, imagining letters, words. L—o—v—e.
“Say something,” he croons, tipping my face up to look at him.
The moment I meet his eyes, the question I’ve never asked him breaks through. “What if I have to leave?”
His shoulders twitch once. “We’ll fight this with everything we have,” he says fiercely.
But I hear what he can’t promise me: that it will not happen.
“Let me see what I can find on that fucker, okay? I want anything that can get us leverage.” He sneers as he refers to Feign, and his foot starts tapping. Itching for action. I nod to give us both some relief.
He bolts to his feet—somehow managing to hold me to his side without a single jostle—and starts firing orders at Benson. I hadn’t noticed him hovering next to us even though his shadow darkens half the fountain. His forehead is crumpled like Javier’s.
“Find everything you can on that motherfucker. Grandparents, cousins, fucks, doctors, schools, banks. Then get me a list of every investigator involved—full briefs on them, their staff and their families. Full building sweep. Trail on Feign twenty-four seven. Download at twenty-three hundred.”
“Yes, sir.” Benson almost salutes him.
“I’ll call Sartain and Congressman Kirschner, and then head over to Boley Law Library. I want to read these fucking laws myself!”
Before Benson can nod again, Aiden grips my hand and starts marching across the Rose Garden. His face is so thunderous that visitors—and their dogs—give us a wide berth on their own.
“Aiden?” I rasp as I stumble and trip to keep up with him. “Can I call Javier from your phone? I have to warn him.”
He hands me his iPhone without breaking stride. “Tell him to avoid that whole area.”
I dial Javier, praying to every high power I can think of that he picks up. The powers answer. Or maybe I’ve depleted all the bad luck in the world. I splutter and huff everything as I jog next to Aiden.
“So you have to stay away from the gallery, Javier. Just don’t go around there at all! Please!”
“I won’t,” Javier mumbles, his voice sounding too far, too weak. Suddenly, I want to sprint to him, not the library. Hold him like he has held me all these years.
“Don’t worry, they don’t have your name or any footage of you. This is just a precaution.”
“I know. I just wish that asshole had told me the truth, not left me a message barking about vacations. Not to mention all the cash we’ll lose from this.”
“Don’t think about that. We’ll figure something out,” I say as we reach the trellis and Benson races across the parking lot to get the car.
“Yeah, yeah. Listen, don’t tell Maria, she’ll freak. And be careful with Bob.”
“Don’t worry about me. Aiden is all over it.” I look at Aiden. Black clouds are descending on his eyes, shoulders ready to demolish concrete. A flicker of hope glimmers in the void. I can’t imagine anyone—ICE or fire—brave enough to mess with him.
“I’m glad you have him,” Javier says in a quiet voice. And I realize something just changed for him with Aiden.
“Thank you,” I say, the words so fervent that Aiden looks down at me, his eyes stilling in concentration.
“Do everything you can to stay, sweetheart. No matter the cost.”
“We will. Love you, Javier.”