32. Eve
32
EVE
M y head is throbbing, and my vision is obscured by all the matted clumps of hair, but I can still pinpoint the exact moment I see his monster take over.
As he stares at me, I watch his eyes darken and narrow until two black pools of malevolence and hate are dominating his face. In contrast, his features are so still. There’s barely a flicker of movement. No muscle twitch, no clenched jaw. He’s a killer waiting for his moment to strike.
I catch a flash of silver in his hands, and I finally figure out his last words to me. He wasn’t apologizing for his past wrongdoings, he was asking for my forgiveness for the bloodbath about to unfold, for unleashing his true depravity—the one that he tries so hard to conceal from me every day.
I glance at the thirty or so men lined up like armed quarterbacks, all itching to take down the man I love. Fear explodes in my chest. The odds are crazy. In the next few minutes, I’m going to watch Dante disappear in a hail of bullets. I’m going to watch on, helplessly, as all that fire and passion is destroyed.
And then me and my father are next.
Joseph has stopped rolling around on the floor and has pulled himself up onto his knees. His blue shirt is completely crimson, but his expression is sparking with renewed zeal. He’s sensed something is afoot, and he’s gathering what strength he has left to join Dante in their last stand together.
What happens next transpires so damn fast. The scene is a blur of black and red. Before I know it, the two men nearest to us are down and clutching their gaping throats, and Dante has a loaded machine gun in his hand. Five more men go down in a hail of bullets, as the rest fall back and try to form some semblance of a retaliation.
There’s a continuous roar of gunfire and shouting. I see Dante chuck something Joseph’s way, and then dive for cover behind the burnt-out shell of a car near the entrance.
“Eve,” Joseph hisses, wrenching his hands free from his restraints. His face contorts in fresh agony as he does.
How the hell did he do that?
I look down and see Dante’s flick knife in his fingers. Somehow, he raises his good arm and slices through the ropes that are binding me in one jagged arc. We collapse to the floor in a crumpled heap together. His skin is glistening from sweat and blood—saturating my senses and smearing the ground beneath us. Meanwhile, the gunfire has spilled out onto the docks. We’re all alone in the warehouse now.
“Stay here, keep safe,” he says, grimacing. “I need to get to Dante. He’s guiding the line of fire away from us. ”
“You’re hurt. Let me help you first.” Frantically, I look around for something to use as a tourniquet.
“I’ve had worse, believe me.”
“Well, it looks pretty bad from where I’m sitting. Here, give me the knife.”
He hands it to me without protest.
Leaning over the nearest corpse, I plunge my blade into his black shirt and rip two jagged strips from it, trying not to scream when my jerky movements make his head roll, and his lifeless eyes fix on me.
“It’s cool, Eve. He’s gone.”
“Just don’t die on me too, okay?” I scoot back to him and wrap the material as tight as I can around the gaping wound in his shoulder.
“I’m not planning on it.” He grabs my hand and I try not to flinch as his warmth and wetness coat my skin. “I had a love like yours once… He’s a good man. I know you feel it, too. Don’t let him self-destruct. Don’t let his damn darkness—”
“I have no intention of it,” I say, cutting him off quickly with tears stinging my eyes. “You met Dante in the military, didn’t you?”
Joseph nods.
“What happened to him out there?”
“Maybe I’ll tell you someday.”
We share a look as I tie off the second piece of material. “Done. Now, go save the man I love.”
That hint of a smile returns. “Yes, ma’am.”
He picks up a couple of discarded guns next to the corpse, and limps toward the warehouse’s exit. After checking out the immediate conduit, he throws me one last glance before disappearing into the night.
I force myself to pick up a gun, too. It’s a Glock—my dad’s weapon of choice. I check the magazine. Fully loaded.
Keeping close to the walls, I follow in Joseph’s footsteps, crouching down at every fresh wave of gunfire, making sure I stay out of sight from the broken windows. There are more bodies littering the ground outside. Dante and Joseph are evening-up the numbers. I can’t process what I’ve learned about his past. If we escape with our lives, we have years to dissect the hurt and significance.
Mimicking Joseph’s action, I peer around the exit, my Glock raised in anticipation, my wrists still tender from the bite of my restraints. The ache from my shoulder muscles has settled into a dull throb. It makes me think about Joseph again and how much pain he must be in.
The gunfight has shifted to the next warehouse, leaving a red trail of dead and dying in its wake. I keep moving in that same direction, keeping low to the parked-up SUVs on the roadway next to the waterline. Their amber headlights are still on, illuminating more felled bodies up ahead. I rake my eyes over each one, but they’re not Dante. Bullets are still flying. He’s still alive.
I don’t have the capacity for rational thought anymore. I don’t give myself the chance to be frightened. I can only think of reaching him before it’s too late. But, then what?
We need back up.
We need an extraction plan.
Steeling myself, I kneel down next to another corpse. Keeping my eyes fixed on anything other than the bloody mess of his face, I rifle through his front pockets—trying his jacket first, and then moving down to his pants. I find what I’m looking for right away. Yanking out the cell, I punch in a number, cutting across the polite welcome.
“Ace’s Nightclub. South Beach area.”
“Sure thing ma’am. Can I put you through?”
“Yes!”
The call rings and rings. I almost lose hope until some guy answers, sounding stressed out.
“Is Mr. Sanders there?” My words spill out in a breathless rush.
There’s a pause. “I don’t know anyone here by that name.” Of course, he doesn’t. “Can I take a message, and get someone to call you back?”
“Yes!” I cry again, reading between the lines. “It’s Eve Miller. Tell them it’s super urgent.”
I have to take a leap of faith. I have to believe that Rick is still on Dante’s side. On our side.
“Okay. Hang on… I think there’s someone here who can help.”
The next few minutes last an eternity. I’m crouching down for cover behind the rear of one of the SUVs. In the background, the gunfire is starting to trail off. Please can Dante be alive, please can Dante be alive…
“Eve?” Rick Sanders’ drawl cuts through my silent pleas.
“R—?” I stop myself just in time. “Oh God, you have to help us!”
“Eve, stop. This is an unsecured line.”
“The package has re-emerged,” I babble. “Here in Miami.”
There’s a pause. “Where?”
“Docks. Southside. Manuel…my apartment.” I can’t hold ba ck my tears any longer, not when I think about my friend and bodyguard lying dead on my living room floor.
“I need you to breathe, sweetheart. Keep to single words and short phrases.”
“Outnumbered.”
“Fuck. I’m sending a present right away. What’s your location?”
A chorus of sirens sound in the distance. Dockside crew must have raised the alarm that the mother of all shoot-outs is going down out here. If what Emilio said was true, Dante’s been exposed. If he gets captured, he’ll never get out of prison alive.
“Cops,” I sob. “Getting closer.”
“Good.” Rick sounds relieved. “We can track your location through them. I need to go.”
“But how will you—?”
“Remember Helen of Troy, sweetheart?”
My mind goes blank. She was beautiful, she caused a war, she launched a thousand ships… Ships. Rick is sending a boat. “Yes, yes I do!”
“Good. Relay the message.”
He hangs up, and I glance at the warehouses again. The gunfight is over. As I watch, two figures spill out onto the roadway. In the glare of the headlights, I see them locked together in a deadly duel of fists. My heart lurches when I recognize the taller of the two. There’s no man on earth with that fluidity of movement, that same grace and power. That savagery.
Dante.
The fight moves closer. They’re barely twenty yards away. His black hair is a disheveled mess, and there’s barely an inch of his skin that hasn’t been tainted with blood. Somehow, he manages to gain the upper hand and straddle the other guy, raining blows down onto his face and chest. So controlled, so deadly. He raises his fist in one final arc, and that’s when I see the knife glinting there.
I let out a soft cry and drop the cell phone. I’ve just watched him stab a man, over and over.
No doubt.
No hesitation.
“Game’s up. Ditch the weapon,” comes a voice as Emilio emerges from the warehouse clutching a bloodied chest wound. I look down at his other hand and my stomach drops. He’s pointing a gun at Dante.
With a curse, Dante tosses away the knife and rises to his feet. “I was hoping Joseph had finished you off.”
His voice is rough with exhaustion. His chest is working hard to draw breath into his lungs, but there’s still fight in him. His eyes are pits of darkness; his expression is as controlled as ever. Emilio hasn’t spotted me down by the car, but I know that Dante senses me. I watch his gaze flicker in my direction, and then back to his brother.
“No such luck,” drawls Emilio. “You’ve just taken out thirty of my best men.”
“And I’ll murder another thirty, given half the chance. Why did you do it? Why kill my daughter? She was an innocent in all of this.”
My eyes fill with tears when I hear the emotion in his voice.
“Because I knew how much it would damage you. Because I knew what you were capable of, even as a boy, and I wanted to twist it to my advantage and turn you into my pet killer. For a while at least…” I can see the sinister white outline of Emilio’s smile. “It forced you back to Colombia, didn’t it?”
“We are brothers no more!”
“My thoughts exactly. Goodbye, Dante.”
Three shots ring out, sharp and deadly in the cool night air, slamming into the body that I love so much. I watch in horror as he goes down.
“No!” I scream, leaping up from my hiding place, my mind a dangerous blank.
Emilio turns in my direction. I see surprise and intent on his face. Flicking off the safety, I fire five rounds in quick succession, and watch his body fly backward—my arms absorbing the gun’s recoil with a grim satisfaction.
The silence that follows is the loudest sound I’ve ever heard. I feel no regret, no guilt. Nothing.
Dropping the gun, I rush over to Dante. He’s lying face-down, a sinister red pool spreading out underneath him. I roll him onto his back. There are three gaping holes marring his chest and abdomen.
“Please don’t die, please don’t die,” I whimper, ripping my sweatshirt over my head to press against the wounds.
“Put your damn clothes back on, Eve. You know I can’t resist you naked.”
I cry out in shock. His dark eyes are staring straight at me. The skin on his face is pallid and bloody. Pain is etched into his every feature, but he’s alive.
“You bastard! Don’t you ever dare die on me again!” I throw myself onto his chest and he groans .
“Not planning on it.” He coughs, and it’s a rough, brutal sound. “Fuck, that hurts.”
The sirens are nearly upon us. I can see a convoy of lights barely half a mile out, hurtling up the road that runs parallel to the container docks.
“You need to stand-up,” I tell him urgently. “I have to get you to the water’s edge. I called Rick. He’s sending a boat for you.”
He turns to look at me. His eyes are softer now. I can see those gold flecks re-emerging in a sea of darkness. “You really are an angel.”
I shake my head. “I just killed your brother. I don’t get to hold that title anymore.”
“You will always hold that title with me.” He coughs again. “Now, put your sweatshirt back on.”
“Seriously? That’s all you care about? The police will be here any minute.”
“And you said you’d never visit me if I got locked up.”
“Let’s not hang around to find out.” Throwing my sweatshirt over my head, I help him into a sitting position. “Do you recall everything I ever said to you?”
He nods and nuzzles into my neck, smelling like sweat and death, and the man I love most in this world. “Every damn word.”
We stagger to our feet and I half-drag, half-carry him to the edge of the dockside. He’s twice the size of me, and my arm muscles are screaming. We stop to rest as we pass by the body of Emilio. He’s sprawled out on his back, a thin trickle of blood oozing out of the corner of his open mouth. He eyes are no less cold and flat than they were when he was alive .
Did I really just kill a man?
“You did well,” murmurs Dante.
“I didn’t expect to feel this…numb.”
“It gets easier.”
Not for me.
“Santiago!”
Joseph exits the warehouse dragging his left leg behind him, chucking away his gun as he goes.
“Grayson.”
They touch each other’s hand briefly, as if disproving a mirage. Two soldiers surviving against all the odds, yet again.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” says Joseph wearily.
Dante nods, looking gray and exhausted himself as he takes my arm. The cops have reached the roadway, but a lone speedboat is racing alongside us. It pulls up as close as it can, but there’s still a huge gap between us and no time to unload a gangway. The two men glance at each other.
“Jump!” I cry. “What the hell are you waiting for?”
Dante grips my arm tighter. “Are you ready for this?”
“Not me.” I yank myself free. “I can’t swim.”
“It doesn’t matter. We can keep you afloat between us.”
“You’re both bleeding too heavily. You’ll barely be able to keep yourselves afloat.”
“I won’t leave you,” he snarls.
“There’s no time for this!”
“Eve—”
“Please, Dante! They have your name. They know what you look like. You saved me. You saved my father. You don’t belong in a cage for that.”
“Come with us,” he pleads again, taking my face in his hands, smearing his blood all over my cheeks.
I shake my head, my heart shattering into a million pieces. “There’s too much mess. I need to stay here and face the consequences. I have no idea how I’m going to explain everything to my father, but I have to at least try. They can’t lose me, too.”
I see the dawning comprehension in his eyes. He has to let me go. He has to make that sacrifice. He has to return me to my family because it’s the only way he can ever hope to atone for my brother’s death.
“My angel,” he says, pressing his forehead to mine, wrapping me in his warmth for one final time.
“My devil,” I whisper, smiling through my tears. “Find your daughter’s body. Grieve. Come back for me.”
“You have my word.”
He staggers away, keeping hold of my hand until the very last second, like he did on the plane in Africa. When the contact severs, my grief strips the strength from me, and I tumble to my knees.
“I love you, Dante Santiago,” I call out after him, my voice breaking. “… And I forgive you.”
He turns to smile at me, a sight so rare and so exquisite that I can feel my whole body shuddering from the power and intensity of it.
I watch as he tips his glorious head back to look at the myriad of stars above our heads, and then at the soft lights reflecting on the water below. He opens his mouth to say something but stops himself just in time.
Moments later, he’s diving headfirst into the ocean.