Hold Me

“They relented yesterday. It took some convincing, but your parents should be able to return without anyone standing in their way.”

“Ah.” I can only imagine what kind of “convincing” Julian had to do in light of the devastation we left behind. Even the cover-up crew dispatched by the CIA hadn’t been able to keep the story of our high-speed battle under wraps. The area around the private airport might not have been densely populated, but the explosions and gunfire hadn’t gone unnoticed. For the past couple of weeks, the clandestine Chicago operation to “apprehend the deadly arms dealer” has been all anyone’s talked about on the news.

As Julian speculated in the car, the Sullivans had indeed called in some serious favors to organize that attack. The police chief—formerly a Sullivan mole and currently bloody goo swimming in lye—took the information the Sullivans dug up about us and used the “arms dealer smuggling explosives into the city” pretext to hurriedly assemble a team of SWAT operatives. The Sullivan men joining them were explained away as “reinforcements from another area,” and the entire rushed operation was kept secret from the other law enforcement agencies—which is how they were able to catch us off-guard.

“Don’t worry,” Julian says, misreading my tense expression. “Besides Frank and a few other high-level officials, nobody knows your parents were involved in what happened. The extra security is just a precaution, nothing more.”

“I know that.” I look up at him. “You wouldn’t let them return if it weren’t safe.”

“No,” Julian says softly, stopping at the entrance to the fighting gym. “I wouldn’t.” His forehead gleams with sweat from the humid heat, his sleeveless shirt clinging to his well-defined muscles. There are still a few half-healed scars from the shards of glass on his face and neck, but they do little to detract from his potent appeal.

Standing less than two feet away and watching me with his piercing blue gaze, my husband is the very picture of vibrant, healthy masculinity.

Swallowing, I look away, my skin crawling with heat at the memory of how I woke up this morning. We might not have had intercourse since the miscarriage, but that doesn’t mean Julian has been abstaining from sex with me. On my knees with his cock in my mouth, tied down with his tongue on my clit . . . The images in my mind make me burn even as the ever-present guilt presses down on me.

Why does Julian keep being so nice to me? Ever since our return, I’ve been waiting for him to punish me, to do something to express the anger he must feel, but so far, he’s done nothing. If anything, he’s been unusually tender with me, even more caring in some ways than during my pregnancy. It’s subtle, this shift in his behavior—a few extra kisses and touches during the day, full-body massages every evening, asking Ana to make more of my favorite foods . . . It’s nothing he hasn’t done before; it’s just that the frequency of these little gestures has gone up since we came back from America.

Since we lost our child.

My eyes prickle with sudden tears, and I duck my head to hide them as I slip past Julian into the gym. I don’t want him to see me crying again. He’s had plenty of that in the past couple of weeks. That’s probably why he’s holding off on punishing me: he thinks I’m not strong enough to take it, afraid I’ll turn back into the panic-attack-stricken wreck I was after Tajikistan.

Except I won’t. I know that now. Something about this time is different.

Something within me is different.

Walking over to the mats, I bend over and stretch, using the time to compose myself. When I turn back to face Julian, my face shows nothing of the grief that ambushes me at random moments.

“I’m ready,” I say, positioning myself on the mat. “Let’s do this.”

And for the next hour, as Julian trains me how to take down a two-hundred-pound man in seven seconds, I succeed in pushing all thoughts of loss and guilt out of my mind.

* * *

After the training session, I return to the house to shower and then go down to the pool to tell my parents the news. My muscles are tired, but I’m humming with endorphins from the hard workout.

“So we can return?” My dad sits up in his lounge chair, distrust warring with relief on his face. “What about all those cops? And those gangsters’ connections?”

“I’m sure it’s fine, Tony,” my mom says before I can answer. “Julian wouldn’t send us back if it weren’t all taken care of.”

Dressed in a yellow one-piece swimsuit, she looks tan and rested, as though she’s spent the past couple of weeks on a resort—which, in a way, is not that far from the truth. Julian has gone out of his way to ensure my parents’ comfort and make them feel like they’re truly on vacation. Books, movies, delicious food, even fruity drinks by the pool—it’s all been provided for them, causing my dad to admit reluctantly that my life at an arms dealer’s compound is not as horrible as he’d imagined.

“That’s right, he wouldn’t,” I confirm, sitting down on a lounge chair next to my mom’s. “Julian says you’re free to leave whenever you want. He can have the plane ready for you tomorrow—though, obviously, we’d love it if you stayed longer.”

As expected, my mom shakes her head in refusal. “Thank you, honey, but I think we should head home. Your dad’s been anxious about his job, and my bosses have been asking daily when I’ll be able to return . . .” Her voice trailing off, she gives me an apologetic smile.