Chapter Twenty-Three
Caroline
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I’D BEEN WAITING IN the damn corridor for what seemed like an eternity.
Pacing backward and forward, my pulse galloped faster at the prospect of being able to see Harper, yet I simultaneously expected Kaspar, or one of the others, to retract the so-called privilege at any moment.
Months of existence in Fortorus had produced the mistrust in me, a wariness that was reinforced by the guy brandishing a huge, evil-looking weapon in the doorway.
Leaning against the wall, I fought for composure.
I had no choice but to trust Kaspar. The officer who’d delivered me to the corridor was with Harper in the next-door room, and I had to believe that she’d let us see each other.
I turned my head toward the door and closed my eyes to block out the sight of the disconcerting weapon between him and me.
If Harper was in there, I’d savor every single moment we were allowed.
Who knew if or when I’d be able to visit him after that, especially once they moved him to the Netherlands.
My stomach fell at the daunting prospect.
The Hague was hundreds of miles from Zurich—an arduous journey we’d already taken across Europe—and I had no documents or means to get there.
When they took him away, I had no way of knowing if I’d ever lay eyes on him again.
The crushing thought was vanquished by the sound of the door opening, and heart racing, my eyes flew open to find Kaspar standing on the threshold. With a small smile, her hand rose and gestured for me to go inside, and swallowing down my anxious energy, I persuaded my feet to take me forward.
The world around me had taken on that same odd experience I recalled from the days when Harper and I had planned to flee from Fortorus.
Time had stretched and compressed then, some days flying past in seeming minutes, while other hours dragged on for what felt like weeks.
As I walked past Kaspar, the clock played the same trick.
I sensed the transfer of my weight from one foot to the other, yet somehow, none of the steps appeared to take me any closer to my goal of getting inside the room.
From the other side of the large space, a man rose from a table—Harper, I assumed—yet, as the room began to spin, I didn’t seem able to focus on him.
“I’m giving you ten minutes.” Kaspar’s voice rang out from somewhere behind me, but my head was too heavy to spin and acknowledge her. “And I’m trusting the two of you to be unsupervised. Do not disappoint me.”
My brows knitted as the door slammed shut, the noise of it echoing long after it closed.
“Caroline!”
He was on me in seconds, his long legs closing the distance between us until those two strong arms I’d missed were wrapped around me.
“Sir.” I clung to him, recognizing the scent of his body and breathing him in long before I focused on his appealing form. “Oh, thank God.”
“Are you okay?” Drawing away a fraction, he tilted my chin so I was forced to meet his eyes.
“Just a little dizzy,” I admitted. “Probably just stress.”
“Have they been feeding you?” He shot an accusing look toward the door.
“Yes, I’m fine.” I clutched at his shirt, already feeling better because of his proximity. “What about you?”
“I missed you.” Tugging me toward a nearby couch, he steered me onto the seat at his side. “I didn’t think she was going to let us see each other.”
“I might have worked on that.” I smiled, taking in the tiny lines around his gorgeous blue eyes.
I’d seen his face so many times before, yet I’d never realized how important it would be to memorize every detail until I was faced with the possibility of never seeing him again.
“She said if you answered their questions, she’d consider it, but I think buttering her up a little helped. ”
“Clever girl.” Drawing me onto his lap, he hugged me tighter as I straddled his thighs.
“What’s going to happen, Sir?” I almost didn’t want to ask.
The pleasure of that moment—of merely having him in my arms again—was so great that I didn’t want anything to pollute it.
Yet I had to know, had to prepare myself for whatever came next.
Somehow, I had to survive his absence. “When will you travel to The Hague?”
“I’m hoping I won’t have to.” His voice was uncharacteristically quiet.
“What?” That answer didn’t make sense. “I thought the ICC wanted to question you and the Swiss were only holding you until you traveled to the Netherlands?”
“I’ve spent all day answering the ICC’s questions here.” He stroked the stray strands of hair from my face. “And if they accept what I’ve offered, then I can get impunity from prosecution and not need to travel there at all.”
His face lit up into a smile. “We can be together!”
“Really?” After hours of wrestling with the idea of a future without him, the outcome seemed near impossible.
“Yes, really.” His hand shifted into my hair and drew my head closer. “And then you’ll be mine again.”
Our lips collided, his kiss punishing, as though I was somehow responsible for our separation.
I gasped when he allowed me up for air, trailing my fingertips over his stubble.
Whatever dizziness I’d experienced had disappeared as soon as I was back with him.
Harper, it seemed, was the security I needed to feel whole.
“I’ve been yours all along,” I reminded him. “In Fortorus, at the house, and all the time we’ve been apart, Sir.”
“Good answer, little girl,” he purred. “God, I’ve missed you.”
“I missed you, too.”
Kissing the edge of his jaw, I couldn’t believe we were back together, and even less likely was the possibility that he might have been able to give the powers-that-be enough information to get him off the hook.
One facet of me knew that result wouldn’t be justice for those women who’d died on his watch, yet another, greedier and more selfish part of me didn’t care.
The new version of Caroline only wanted the man she loved back in her life and back in her bed. She wanted justice for herself.
He sighed, the sound contented, yet as I rose over him, I saw the flicker of what looked like pain in his blue eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I knew in an instant that something wasn’t right, his paling expression and the way his hand rose to rub at his temples only reinforcing the dread mushrooming in my chest. “Sir, what is it?”
“I’ve had this damn headache for hours.” His fingers stroked the side of his head. “It went for a while, but now it’s back, and I just can’t seem to get rid of it.
“Headache?” My stomach contracted with guilt. He hadn’t mentioned a headache for days, but the last time he’d suffered with them had been in the aftermath of my attack on him. “Because I hit you?”
It seemed I was destined to never be able to move past my remorse about walloping him that day. Assaulting him to free myself had seemed like a good idea at the time, a necessary evil required to get me out of his clutches, but I’d had no idea of the potential repercussions.
“No,” he assured me, but the way his eyes fluttered closed and his brows knitted conveyed the extent of his pain. “This feels different, like...”
His voice trailed away, and I watched, horror-stricken, as his face fell to one side, as though he’d abruptly lost consciousness.
“Sir?” I tapped the side of his face lightly to try and rouse him. “Sir? Are you okay? Wake up!”
Acting on autopilot, I reached for his wrist and was relieved to find he still had a steady pulse, although it seemed his heart was racing faster than I might have expected.
“Something’s wrong.”
I climbed from his lap and headed for the door, the panic streaming through my system pulling the levers of time in reverse so that everything sped up around me. Yanking the door open, I found Kaspar chatting to a man I didn’t recognize in the hall.
“Something’s wrong!” I cried, pointing to the sofa he was slumped on. “Please help him!”
“What happened?” Kaspar pushed past me and ran to Harper’s side.
“We were just talking.” Alarm was washing over me in cold waves and making it difficult to think. He’ll be all right, won’t he? He has to be all right! “And the next thing I knew, he’d passed out.”
“Did he complain of any pain?” she demanded as she gave an order to the man behind me in German.
“He said he’d had a headache.” Tears collected in my eyes as I tried to explain. “And there’s something else. He had a blow to the head a few days ago, and his doctor wanted him to have another scan before we left.”
Frozen dread seized me as I watched another two men rush into the room. Hurrying past me, they spoke in German as they stretched Harper out on the carpet.
“A blow to the head?” Kaspar asked as the men, who I assumed were medics, checked Harper’s vitals. “With what?”
“A decanter.” I could hardly get the words out.
“For alcohol?” Confusion flashed in her gaze.
“Yes. His doctor wanted him to have another MRI, but we left the country and came here...”
“Ich habe seinen Puls verloren!” one of the medics called out, motioning for Kaspar to give him room, and I watched in shock as he proceeded to deliver chest compressions to the man I loved.
“No!” I cried out, not needing to understand their language to see what was going on. Harper’s heart had stopped, and if they couldn’t get the organ working again, then mine was about to break wide open. “You have to save him!”
“Miss Craness.” Kaspar dashed around the couch to console me. “We are doing everything we can.
“Pulse is back!” The second medic spoke in English, his words inspiring fragile hope as I clung to the officer who’d arrested him. “He needs a defibrillator.”
My knees buckled as someone else rushed past us with a stretcher.
Gripping the back of the sofa, all I could think was how I’d let it all happen.
I should have made him go to see a doctor.
He had the money, yet I’d known he was trying to stay below the authorities’ radar, and dealing with medics wouldn’t have helped maintain our anonymity.
I pulled in air as I tried to make sense of the spiraling events.
Harper had collapsed, and his heart had stopped, and I didn’t know why.
Everybody else in the room was speaking German again, their words whizzing over my head as the fragments of hope I had for a future with the man I loved unraveled around me.
“We need to get him to a hospital,” Kaspar said, presumably translating some of what the medics were telling her. “They can check his heart there and give him an MRI.”
“Can I go with him?”
I knew already what her answer would be, but the idea of losing him all over again, of watching him leave the room, and maybe even die and not even being allowed to be with him, seemed too cruel to contemplate.
“You must stay here,” she instructed. “I will let you know about his condition.”
“But, please...” I watched as two of the medics lifted the stretcher his body was strapped to from the ground.
In all the time I’d known him, I had never seen him look so helpless before.
Even the version of the man I’d left sprawled out in his unit that day hadn’t seemed so sad and powerless.
“He’s on his own! Who will advocate for him? ”
“I will go with him,” she assured me, directing the medics in German. “He’s still in my custody. I’ll ask my colleague, Michel, to keep you informed.”
She ushered me away as two men carried the stretcher toward me, and fleetingly, I caught sight of his pale face.
“Please look after him,” I called out as his unconscious form disappeared from view. “I love him so much.”
Those final words caught in my throat, the sentiment tangible yet trapped in the choking emotion that seemed hellbent on strangling me.
Every hope I had in the whole world was invested in Adam Harper. On his survival, on his love for me, on his life, and on the amazing future I knew we could carve out together.
There was no choice.