28. Liana
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Liana
Bianca was still asleep against my hip, her small fingers curled in my shirt, her breathing slow and even.
“You signed it.” My voice came out rough, cracked at the edges. “You actually signed it.”
“It’s the only thing left I hadn’t given you.”
I set the papers down on the sofa beside me and I reached for his face with my good hand, and I kissed him.
“You bled for us.” I pulled back just enough to speak against his mouth, my lips brushing his with every word. “Now stop bleeding on my sofa.”
He laughed, a broken wet sound that cracked in his chest, and I felt the tension drain out of his shoulders as he pressed his forehead against mine.
“I’m serious.” I pulled my hand from his face and took his wrist, turning his palm up to look at his knuckles. The skin was split in at least five places, crusted with dried blood, swollen and dark with bruising. “You need the medic back here.”
“Romantic.”
“Get up.” I eased Bianca away from my side and onto the sofa cushions, tucking the blanket around her small body, brushing the hair back from her forehead. She murmured but didn’t wake. “Come on. Upstairs. Now.”
Dominic stayed on his knees a moment longer. He smoothed the blanket over her feet, then found Gerald on the floor where he had fallen and tucked him back under her arm. Her fingers closed around the elephant’s ear without her waking.
“She’ll have nightmares,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
“Then I’ll be here for them.” He didn’t look away from her. “Every one.”
I pulled him up and he came, his body stiff from kneeling so long. “I know, but you need to take care of yourself first.”
I led him through the house and up the stairs to the bathroom.
The bathroom was small, nothing like the massive one at the compound, but it had what I needed. I pushed him down onto the closed toilet lid and knelt in front of him and started cleaning the wounds he had been ignoring, working one-handed, my other arm strapped tight against my ribs.
“You’re an idiot.” My voice cracked on the word and I couldn’t stop it. “You know that? A complete fucking idiot. You have an entire army. You could have sent them in ahead of you. You could have stayed in the car. You could have done literally anything other than fight your way in there yourself.”
“She told them where to find our daughter.” His voice was rough, his eyes following my hand as I worked. “I needed to look at her when it ended.”
“So you just decided to beat your way through however many men were standing between you and that warehouse.”
“Yes.”
“Idiot.” I cleaned the last of the grit out of his knuckles and wrapped them in gauze, clumsy with one hand, and he held still and let me. He didn’t flinch once, even though I knew it hurt.
I tied off the gauze and sat back on my heels to look at him.
“The papers.” I said it quiet.
“I know.”
“You signed them.”
“I did.” He turned his wrapped hand over and held it open between us. “Does that mean you’ve decided what you want?”
I took his hand and pressed his palm flat over my heart so he could feel it going.
“I want to come home.” It cracked coming out of me. “But I’m not coming home to promises, Dominic. I’m coming home to watch you keep them.”
“Then watch me.”
He made a sound against my hair like something splitting open. His arms came around me, careful of my shoulder, like something in me might still come apart.
Downstairs, on the sofa beside our sleeping daughter, the papers lay where I’d left them. Signed. I turned my face into his chest and stayed.