Chapter 19 Will #2
“William.” Her voice was softer than I expected, almost gentle. “Stop hovering in the doorway like a frightened child. Come and sit with me.”
For a long moment, she didn’t say anything. She just looked at me—really looked—as if seeing me for the first time.
“You came for me,” she said finally. “You and Thomas. You came into that place, knowing what waited for you, knowing you might not come out alive.”
“Of course we did.”
“There is no ‘of course’ about it.” She shook her head slowly.
“I have spent my entire life surrounded by people who would betray me for the right price, who would sell my secrets, my safety, even my life, if the offer was sufficient.” Her voice cracked.
“And then there is you. You and Thomas. Running into a fortress full of armed men because I needed—” Her words choked off.
I swallowed hard. “You’ve done the same for us. In Rome and Vienna.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she reached across the table—slowly, painfully, her bandaged hands trembling with the effort—and rested her fingers on top of mine.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I do not say those words often. Perhaps I do not say them enough.” Her eye glistened. “But thank you, William, for coming, for not giving up. For—”
She stopped. Her face contorted, and for a terrible moment, and I thought she might scream. Instead, she made a sound that was worse—a small, choked sob, the kind that comes from someone who has forgotten how to cry and is remembering all at once.
“They hurt me, William.” Her voice was that of a child now, small and broken. “They asked me questions, and when I would not answer, they . . .” She looked down at her ruined hands. “They took my fingernails first. One by one. They said they would take the fingers next if I did not cooperate.”
I didn’t move, didn’t speak. I just sat there, letting her hold my hand, letting her say the things she needed to say.
“I did not break.” Her voice steadied slightly, though the tears were still falling. “I want you to know that. Whatever they did, however much it hurt, I did not tell them what they wanted to know. I did not betray my people. I did not betray you.”
“I know,” I said. “I never doubted it.”
“But I came close.” The admission seemed to cost her something.
“There were moments—in the dark, when the pain was worst—when I thought about giving them what they wanted just to make it stop, just to make them—” She broke off, her breath hitching.
“I am not as strong as people think I am, William. I am not the woman they believe me to be.”
“No, you’re stronger,” I said. “You’re sitting here, alive, after everything they did to you. That’s not weakness.”
She looked at me with a vulnerability I had never seen in the indomitable woman. It was raw, unguarded vulnerability, the kind she had spent her entire life learning to hide.
“You are a good man,” she said softly. “You and Thomas both. Whatever happens—whatever comes next—I want you to know that I see you, and not merely as operatives or assets or tools. I see you as men . . . as friends.” She squeezed my hand, and I felt her trembling. “As family.”
The words hung in the air between us.
Family.
I had never heard the Baroness use that word before.
“Baroness—”
“Isabella, please.”
I blinked, stunned.
“Isabella,” I said, the name feeling more foreign than any tongue. “You need rest. The doctor can give you something for the pain, but your body needs sleep.”
“I cannot sleep.” But her voice was weaker now, the fight draining out of her. “When I close my eyes, I am back in that cell. I feel their hands on me. I hear their questions. I—”
She tipped forward and fell into my arms. Her sobs shook my chest.
I stroked her hair and held her as close as her injuries allowed.
“Then don’t close your eyes. Let the fire warm you. I’ll hold you as long as you like.”
The hours passed slowly. When the Baroness stilled into sleep, I carried her into a bedroom and wrapped blankets about her frail form. Then I moved between Thomas and standing in the hallway outside the room where Müller worked on Otto.
The farmhouse was quiet except for the crackle of the fire and the occasional sound of instruments from behind the closed door.
Bisch kept watch by the window, his eyes fixed on the road. He barely moved, barely spoke. Whatever he was feeling—guilt or grief or exhaustion—he kept it locked away, as he always did.
Around three in the morning, Dr. Müller emerged.
His hands were washed, but I could see traces of blood beneath his fingernails and in the creases of his knuckles. His face was gray, his eyes hollow with a weariness that went beyond physical exhaustion.
“Well?” I asked.
“I have done what I can.” He pulled off his surgical cap and ran a hand through his thin white hair.
“The bleeding is stopped and the damaged tissue is repaired, but there was significant trauma. His heart stopped twice on the table. I brought him back, but . . .” He shook his head.
“The next few hours will tell. If he survives until dawn, he may have a chance. If not . . .”
“Can I see him?”
“Briefly. He is sedated. He will not know you are there.”
I went in anyway.
Otto lay on the table, appearing smaller than I remembered. His massive frame was somehow diminished by the tubes and wires connecting him to machines that beeped and hummed. His mustache had been trimmed, and the absence of that magnificent white sweep made him look like a stranger.
I stood beside him and thought about the story he had told us in the car the day we arrived in Bern.
His wife and daughter had been taken to the camps.
The Baroness appeared in the chaos of an ambush to pull him from the wreckage.
He’d spoken of years of devotion, of service, and of love expressed through loyalty.
“You’re not done yet, Otto,” I told him. “She still needs you. We all still need you.”
The machines beeped.
His chest rose and fell, pushed by the ventilator that was breathing for him.
“Don’t give up,” I said. “Whatever you do, don’t give up.”
Dawn crept in slowly, gray light seeping through thin curtains.
Thomas woke first.
I was sitting beside him, half asleep in a chair I’d dragged from the kitchen, when I heard him stir. His eyes opened. He was confused at first, then sharpened as the clouds parted.
“Will.” His voice was a croak, barely audible.
“I’m here.” I took his hand, squeezed it. “I’m right here.”
“What happened? I remember the corridor, the shooting, and then—”
“Babe, shh. It’s okay. I’m right here.”
He tried to sit up and gasped, his hand going to his shoulder. “Fuck.”
“Don’t try to get up.”
“Will, what the fuck?” His eyes cleared further, and I finally saw the man I loved return in full.
“You were shot,” I said. “You were so focused on getting us all out that you didn’t even notice until we were in the car.
You passed out from blood loss and left me to keep pressure on your wound for twenty minutes while Bisch drove like a maniac.
” I tried to keep my voice light, but I could feel it shaking.
“Do you have any idea how terrifying that was, you dramatic idiot? I had to talk to you the whole time you were out just to keep myself from falling apart. You missed a very moving speech about our relationship.”
“Sorry I missed it.” A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “Was it romantic?”
“Incredibly. I talked about Rome and the day we met. Oh, and your terrible coffee.”
“My coffee is excellent.” His mouth quirked, a sure sign he was on the mend.
“Your coffee is an insult to beans everywhere, and you know it.”
He laughed. It was a weak sound, more breath than voice, but it was real. Then he winced, his hand pressing against the bandage on his shoulder.
“Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”
“Good. That’s your punishment for scaring me.” I tried to maintain the teasing tone, but my voice cracked on the last word. “Thomas, I thought—when I saw all that blood and you not responding, I thought—”
He reached up with his good hand and cupped my cheek. His palm was warm now, the color returning to his skin. His eyes—those warm brown eyes I loved more than anything in the world—were steady on mine.
“Hey,” he said softly. “I’m okay. We’re okay.”
“You almost weren’t.”
“But I am. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” His thumb brushed across my cheekbone, catching a tear I hadn’t realized I’d shed. “You’re stuck with me, remember? That was the deal.”
“The deal was you wouldn’t get shot.”
“I’m pretty sure the deal was till death do us part. Getting shot doesn’t count as death. It’s barely even an inconvenience.”
I laughed despite myself—a wet, shaky sound—and leaned into his touch.
“You’re such an idiot,” I said.
“But I’m your idiot.”
“Yes.” I turned my head and pressed a kiss to his palm. “My idiot.”
We stayed like that for a long moment, his hand on my face, my hand wrapped around his, while the gray dawn light brightened and washed over us both.
There would be time later for fear, for planning, and for the terrible questions that still needed answering.
Right now, in this moment, Thomas was alive, and he was looking at me with all the love I had ever hoped to see in another person’s eyes.
“The Baroness?” he asked eventually.
“She’s recovering. Her hands . . .” I hesitated. “They tortured her, Thomas. What they did to her—”
“I know.” His jaw tightened. “I saw them when we found her.”
“And she’s different now. Softer, almost. She called us family.”
“Family?” Thomas gaped.
“Her word, not mine. I think . . .” I tried to find the right way to say it. “I think whatever happened in that cell broke something in her. Or maybe it just . . . cracked her open.”
Thomas nodded slowly. “And Otto?”
I hesitated. He saw it, and his face went still.
“Tell me.”
“He’s alive, but barely. His heart stopped twice during surgery. The doctor says if he makes it until dawn . . .”
“It’s dawn now.”
“I know.”
Thomas closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were wet.
“He went in alone,” he said. “That stupid, brave old man.”
“He loves her.”
“I know.” Thomas reached for my hand again, squeezed it hard. “I know exactly how he feels.”
A half an hour later, Dr. Müller returned from Otto’s room.
I stood, my heart hammering against my ribs. Thomas tried to sit up, but I pressed him back down.
“He is alive,” Müller said. “I believe he is stable, for now, and his vital signs are improving.”
Relief hit me so hard I nearly collapsed.
“He is not out of danger,” Müller continued. “The next few days will be critical, but he has survived the night. Frankly, that is more than I expected.”
“Can the Baroness see him?”
“Briefly. He will not wake for many hours, but yes. She can see him.”
She was in the kitchen again, staring at the fire. When I told her the news, something broke loose in her face. It wasn’t joy, exactly, but something close to it.
“Help me up,” she said.
We walked to Otto’s room slowly, each step an effort. At the doorway, she stopped.
“I would like to sit with him alone, please.”
I helped her inside and pulled a chair beside where Otto lay, then stepped out, closing the door behind me.
Later, we gathered in the kitchen—those of us who could.
Thomas was propped up in a chair, pale but awake, his good hand wrapped around a cup of tea. The Baroness sat across from him, her ruined hands resting on the table, her face exhausted but calm. Bisch stood by the window, still watching the road.
Otto was alive, Thomas was recovering, and the Baroness was broken but unbowed.
We had survived the night.
“They will be looking for us,” Bisch said finally. “They will have people searching.”
“Let them search,” the Baroness said. “We are in no condition to run, and I am tired of running.”
“Then we rest,” I said. “We heal and figure out our next move when we’re strong enough to make one.”