Chapter Twenty-Nine

I sat in a taxi moving through Rio de Janeiro on my way back to Marcus. I’d left my parents in the villa at Lagoa.

This time, I’d said goodbye.

I couldn’t take them up on their offer. I couldn’t be them, mostly because I didn’t know who they were. I stared out the car window as dawn broke on the city, the hazy apricot light of the wee hours exposing a side of Rio that few travelers saw. The streets were full of police.

There wasn’t a riot or a crime spree. It was an ordinary December morning, with cops patrolling like armed militants. They were dressed in gray and black camouflage fatigues with black berets on their heads and combat boots on their feet as they stomped through the streets, bulletproof vests on their chests, rifles slung over their shoulders, ready to be aimed. They held German Shepherds on leashes while they cleared the sidewalks of the homeless, the poor, the drug addicted or drug dealing—any unsavory character that might scare off the tourists and ruin the Girl from Ipanema image of tropical paradise. It was a city skilled at duplicity, and it seemed so fitting given the parents I’d left behind.

The reality was my mom and dad were heartless, calculating, career criminals who killed people without guilt and who, for years, used their kids and their jobs as engineers to project a picture of an ordinary loving American family. It was all fake. Maybe even the love, at least for them.

I had wished when I saw them that all I would feel was a white-hot burn of hate, but it wasn’t that easy, as Keira predicted. When I’d sobbed on their shoulders, it was with a mix of profound betrayal and twisted pleasure that they had broken out of prison for us. I wanted to believe they were trying to protect us, trying to destroy the organization they built, all for the well being of their children. I wanted to have a family again, and I wanted everything to be okay.

I wanted that so badly, I ran out of there at record pace. I didn’t look back.

The taxi pulled in front of Rio’s largest hospital, and I handed the driver cash as I stepped into the muggy air catching the stench of disinfectant and sickness wafting from the glass doors.

My heart was conflicted when it came to my parents.

But not when it came to someone else.

…

His eyes were open when I walked into the room.

Marcus was wearing a white gown with blue polka dots, no longer bare-chested, so the sensors must have been removed from his body. There were still tubes connected to his arms pushing fluids, and his skin looked impossibly pale, which was saying something given his already pasty complexion. But his black hair was mussed in a way that looked sexy—only guys could pull off bedhead in a hospital room.

“You’re okay.” I stepped toward him, exhaling a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

“Thanks to you.” His voice was husky, like it hurt to speak.

“Are you kidding me?” I collapsed next to him, reaching my arms around the beige plastic bedrail to grip his hand, hold it tight. “I’m the reason you’re here.”

“You’re the reason I’m alive.” He tried miserably not to wince from the effort it took to talk.

“Shhh. Don’t speak.” I placed my finger on his lips. “Do you remember what happened?”

He shook his head “no,” so I relayed his story, from the drugged drinks to me kicking Paolo in the crotch so hard he’d probably never have children. I told him what it was like to ride in the ambulance, how the doctors cared for him, and how I didn’t want to leave him.

“It’s okay. You needed the rest,” he rasped, then he narrowed his eyes. “But it doesn’t look like you’ve slept.” He reached his hand to my face, his fingers brushing what must be massive puffy purple circles, only not from insomnia.

I searched his eyes, trying to decide if I should tell him about his brother’s betrayal or Cross being dead or my parents being alive and looking to create a Phoenix Family Fighting Club. It was a lot for me to take in, and I wasn’t recovering from a drug overdose. Instead, I lowered my head to his chest and rested it there. Those details could wait until tomorrow.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, tears in my voice. “If I had listened to you, to Keira, if we’d gone to the CIA, if we hadn’t come here…”

“This isn’t your fault. None of this is your fault. It’s okay. We’re okay.”

He stroked my hair, gently, comforting me while he lay in his hospital bed having narrowly escaped death. “I promise I will never do this again. I’ll listen to you guys from now on. I’ll trust you. I do trust you,” I pleaded, wondering if it was even possible to express how wretched I felt.

“I know. It’s okay. I’m okay,” he repeated.

I closed my eyes. Even with the smell of antiseptic in the air, even with the beeping machines, his touch on my hair was so soothing. My breathing synced with his, my head rising and falling with his chest. After a night of stifling conversations, I felt like I could breathe again, with him, near him. My whole body relaxed, and I wanted to melt into him, fix him, heal his wounds, and let him heal mine. Suddenly I felt completely overcome, with emotion, exhaustion, and relief that I couldn’t ignore the words battering inside me—collecting one, two, three—insisting they come out. They were shouting from my heart, and I had to say them. I wanted to say them.

“I love you,” I whispered, eyes still clenched.

I’d never said the words before, not to a guy, and it took more guts and bravery than anything I’d done since I’d left America, more strength than fighting any spy. I’d walked away from the two people who left me, abandoned me, and did nothing to teach me what those words meant. I had to find that meaning on my own.

I could hear his heart pound faster in his chest.

His lungs hiccupped. “I love you, too,” he rasped, then he pulled at my head, urging me to face him. When I did, there were tears in his eyes, and I knew they weren’t from pain. These were the words he wanted to hear, he needed to hear, and I couldn’t do it before. Now it felt so real, so honest.

I slowly lowered my head and kissed him carefully on the lips, barely touching him, afraid to hurt him.

“I love you so much. And I trust you, with everything.” I breathed against his mouth.

He nodded in return, pressing his forehead to mine.

We stayed like that, forehead to forehead, hands clutching one another’s face.

This was what I wanted.