Chapter 8 #2
“They tell you why they’re so interested in Villa Pandora?” he asked. “Because they haven’t told me shit.”
“They want something from the vault under ours and want me to get it for them. Some research called the Lazarus Protocol.”
“Sounds like a bad spy novel.” Sabin shifted and winced as the movement jostled his hand. “Tell me you’re not doing it, p’tite.”
She held his gaze. “They have you.”
“And I’m not worth whatever they’re planning to do with that research.” His eyes were fierce, the blue darkened with pain. “Viv, listen to me, you. Whatever it is, it’s bad. These people—” He broke off with a cough that made him grimace.
“There’s water,” she said, nodding to a plastic cup on the small table beside him. “Can you...?”
He reached for it with his uninjured hand, but the angle was wrong with his wrist still zip-tied to the arm of the chair.
“Let me,” she said, standing.
“Sit down,” one of the guards barked.
She turned and fixed him with a stare that had made far more dangerous men step back. “He needs water. Either you untie his hand so he can drink, or you let me help him.”
The guard looked to his companion, who gave a curt nod.
“Hands where we can see them,” the first guard said. “Give him the water. Nothing else.”
She crossed to the table, filled the cup from the pitcher, and carried it to Sabin. As she pressed it into his hand, her fingers wrapped briefly around his wrist—a half-second, no more, but it was all she needed.
She returned to her seat as he took a sip of water.
“You don’t look great either,” he said after a moment. “They treating you okay?”
“We have better accommodations than you,” she admitted. “It would almost feel like a vacation if not for the cameras in every corner. Dominic hates it.”
A smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “I’m glad he’s here with you.”
She couldn’t quite hide her wince. “He wasn’t my first choice in partners.”
“Don’t be like that. I know you care about him. You can bullshit everyone else, but not me.” Sabin leaned forward as much as his restraints would allow. “Viv, listen to me. In Istanbul—”
She shook her head. “We’re not talking about that. It’s ancient history.”
“No, if something happens to me, you need to hear this. What happened in Istanbul wasn’t Dom’s fault. It was mine.”
She went still. “What are you talking about?”
“I told him to get you out. Not just get you out—to keep you out, by any means necessary. The safe house, that was my call. I made him promise.”
The room seemed to tilt. “No.”
“Yes.” Sabin’s eyes never left hers. “I knew you’d come back. Try to turn yourself in alongside me. I couldn’t let that happen. You had a future. I didn’t.”
“So you had him imprison me?” The words came out sharp, brittle.
“I had him save you.” Sabin’s voice softened. “And he did, Viv. He got you out. He kept you safe.”
“By locking me in a room for a week while you went to prison.” The old anger flared, but it had nowhere to go now. It ricocheted inside her chest, searching for a target and finding none.
“It was a week in a safe house versus years in prison. Simple math, p’tite.”
“It wasn’t his choice to make.”
“No, as your older brother, it was mine.” He leaned back in his chair. “And I’d make it again. Every time.”
She wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him that he didn’t get to make that choice for her, that neither of them did. But the guards were watching, the cameras were recording, and she had so little time. This wasn’t the place for the conversation they needed to have.
“How bad is it?” she asked instead, nodding to his hand.
“Ah, you know us Cavaliers don’t break easy. We’re swamp stock. Built for worse than this.”
He was deflecting. Sabin only reached for the jokes when the truth was too bad to say out loud.
She’d learned that young — he’d been doing it her whole life, wrapping the worst things in humor so she wouldn’t have to feel the full weight of them.
It had never actually worked. She always felt it anyway.
She exhaled hard. “When this is over—”
“I know,” he interrupted with a faint smile. “You’ll bust me out, we’ll get margaritas on a beach somewhere, and you’ll yell at me properly. Like old times.”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Like old times.”
His gaze shifted to something over her shoulder. “Don’t look now, but I think our time’s nearly up. Guards are getting restless.”
She refused to acknowledge those assholes until they made her. “What do I need to know about the Villa? Have you been there recently?”
“Mais, yeah. Security’s tighter than it was last time you were there. They upgraded after an incident with a Saudi prince.”
“Three minutes,” one of the guards announced.
Sabin’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You remember the combination?”
“Of course.” The date their parents met.
It was one of their dad’s favorite stories to tell—how he’d seen their mom across a hotel lobby in Martinique and fell head over heels in love, how their mom had taken one look at him and shot him down flat, leaving him flummoxed because until that moment, no woman had ever said “no” to Jean-Luc Cavalier.
Sabin was a lot like their father in that way.
The resemblance was striking sometimes. Vivi had inherited their mother’s coloring and height, but Sabin was their father through and through—the charm, the recklessness, the absolute conviction that everything would work out in the end.
Even now, with his fingers broken and his face bruised, he had that look. The Cavalier certainty.
“I’m getting you out of here,” she told him.
“I know you are.” Sabin’s eyes softened. “And Viv? When it comes down to the wire—and it will—trust Dom. Whatever happened between you two, he’s still the best. And he still—”
“Time’s up.” The guard stalked forward and yanked her up by the arm.
Sabin surged against his restraints. “Don’t fucking touch her.”
“It’s okay.” She shook off the guard’s hand and straightened her shirt. “I’ll see you soon.”
“You’d better. You owe me margaritas on the beach and a lecture. You be smart, p’tite. You be safe.” His eyes held hers, communicating everything they couldn’t say. “Forgive him, Viv. It’s time. Life’s too short for the kind of grudges you like to hold.”
The guards flanked her as the door opened. She took one last look at her brother—broken fingers, bruised face, still somehow the strongest person she knew—and then let them lead her away.
The walk back through the corridors was a blur. Her mind raced with what Sabin had told her. Dom had been following orders. Sabin’s orders. The person she’d been furious with for three years had been carrying out her brother’s wishes, taking the blame so Sabin wouldn’t have to.
It changed everything.
But it also changed nothing.