CHAPTER 32
Three months later…
“Stop the car.” Lucia grabbed the binoculars, her pulse hammering and her mouth arid dry.
As Cole Hartman rolled the jeep to idle on the dirt road, she adjusted the focus on the lenses and scanned the parched horizon.
There weren’t any big trees to provide a canopy in this part of Venezuela, and with the blistering temperatures, wavy heat lines distorted the landscape.
Where are you, Tate? I know you’re out there.
Woody-stemmed shrubs dotted the salt-crusted earth. Between the widely spaced out cacti with their spiny slender arms, there was nothing but rocky sand and bare dirt as far as she could see.
“According to the old man,” Cole said, leaning forward with an elbow propped on the steering wheel, “the monastery is supposed to be twenty kilometers the other way.”
They’d already driven twenty kilometers in every direction, chasing one of the hundreds of possible locations where Tiago might’ve been holding Tate.
“This has to be it.” Sweat beaded on her brow as she shifted the binoculars and dialed in on an obscure formation in the distance.
“What are we doing, Lucia?” He grabbed a bottled water from the backseat. “We’re wasting time on the musings of a senile man.”
“He said there was a gate, and I’m not moving on until I find it.”
With a scowl, he snatched the stack of papers from her lap and held them up. “There are two-hundred and seventeen places with gates. We’ll never get through all of them.”
Her desperation to find Tate might’ve pushed her past the point of insanity, but she wasn’t stopping, wasn’t budging. She would find him, dammit, and he would be alive. She refused to accept any other outcome.
“This one feels right.” She glared at Cole’s cocky aviator sunglasses and held her ground. “It’s a hunch.”
“You said that the last three times. This whole damn operation has dissolved into a hunch.” He gulped back the water and tossed the capped bottle onto her lap. “This isn’t how I do things.”
Her chest constricted with pressure and insistence. “We spent three months doing things your way.”
Three months chasing dead ends and all they knew was Tiago had left Caracas the day she attacked him. How he survived the head injury, where he went, and what he was doing—all of it was one big fat mystery.
Meanwhile, Tate was missing and alone, his body beaten and susceptible to infection. She couldn’t stop obsessing over it, couldn’t eat, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think straight. Every second without him was another second he spent in misery.
Cole had hunted down the cops who had apparently tossed Tate into the trunk of a car. But the corrupted police didn’t know where he’d been taken or who’d been driving. Any clues leading to Tate had been so thoroughly buried not even Cole could bribe, threaten, or wrestle the information into the light.
But she knew Tiago, knew how his unshakable mind worked, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the night Tate was tortured. It had been a trial, a disgusting experiment that put Tate’s love to the test.
Over the past few months, she wondered if this was her test. Tiago wouldn’t just throw her in a prison to die. His god complex demanded that he challenge, control, and weigh everyone around him, including her. He’d challenged Tate, and now it was her turn.
So many times, she replayed her conversation with Tiago right before she attacked him.
You have the power to give him what he wants most.
His survival is up to you.
There had been a lot of mumbo jumbo twisted into his words, including his suggestion that she move on. But there was something deeper at play. He never eluded to it, but he’d left her a clue.
He’d carved an image into Tate’s back.
For her.
He tortured countless men that way, leaving scarred welts on the arms, chests, and legs of those who lived. But his designs tended to be more primitive—geometric lines, whorls, and simple shapes. What he’d sliced into Tate’s skin was altogether different. It was a detailed illustration. Hours of gruesome cutting that painted a place with gates and a human-like figure floating through them.
Tiago had given her a way to find him. A depraved challenge to test her determination and love. Yes, it was just a hunch, but it sat heavily and deeply in her gut, howling and bucking and refusing to be ignored.
Then she met the old man.
She and Cole had comprised most of their list of gated places by talking to people, such as historians at universities and locals in small villages. They’d traveled the breadth of the country, and that was how she met the elderly man in an impoverished town an hour’s drive from here.
In thick Spanish, the man had told her about a monastery called Medio del Corazón. Translation: Middle of the Heart.
Abandoned a century ago, it was left in rubble and ruin. He said the gate still stood to protect the dark secrets that loomed behind its bars. Secrets about a high-ranking monk who had fallen in love with a village girl. The religious order condemned their relationship, separating them. But the lovers had found a way to steal a night together, and within the sacred walls of the monastery, they’d killed themselves.
The old man claimed the lovers could still be heard in the crumbling foundation. He called it a silent, unified heartbeat in the midst of devastation.
She knew it was just folklore. Whispered words among superstitious locals. But the story resonated with her. If Tiago put Tate behind gates, it would be those gates. She believed it down to the bottom of her soul.
Problem was, the old man wasn’t exactly sure how to find it. He’d never been there, and his directions were approximations. She and Cole had been circling the desert for days.
“Find a road that goes that way.” She pointed at the formation on the horizon.
With a sigh, Cole handed the papers to her and shifted the jeep into gear.
An hour and several wrong turns later, he slowed along a rocky road that ended on a hill. At the top of the incline stood two towering pillars of stone. And between them hung a massive wrought iron double gate.
“This is it.” Her heart slammed against her ribcage, and her hand shot out to grip Cole’s arm. “Those pillars… I remember them on his back.”
She couldn’t breathe as she fumbled with the door handle, shaking all over with urgency.
“Lucia, wait.” He caught her wrist, stopping her from scrambling out of the jeep. “If he’s here—”
“He is!”
“—there will be guards. Security. We don’t know what’s up there, and they probably heard us approach.”
With panting breaths, she opened the glove compartment and removed a 9mm gun.
“I’m going in alone.” He drew a pistol from one of the many holsters he wore. “Stay in the car.”
“Not happening.”
After spending three months together, their power exchanges had fizzled into a laughable waste of time. He barked orders. She barked back. Then he stormed off, grumbling about how he should’ve never taken this job. Which he did now as he slid out of the jeep, tossed a backpack over his shoulder, and crept up the hill with his gun raised.
The sun beat down on her neck as she followed behind him. Then they separated, seeking the concealment of the pillars on either side of the gate. The gun rattled in her hands, and the atmosphere was so dry it burned her lungs.
Beyond the heavy black bars sat clumps of simplistic, boxy structures made of stone. A passage of archways cut through the largest building at the center. Two wings of corridors spread out from there, connecting smaller, one-room buildings. No doors. No bars or glass on the windows. And from this vantage, there didn’t appear to be a roof on the main belfry.
She scanned the perimeter. No cars. No people. No signs of life whatsoever.
Her gaze locked with Cole’s where he stood on the other side of the gate.
No one, she mouthed.
Muscles bounced along his jaw, and his shoulders loosened. The disappointment on his face made her stiffen. He’d already decided they had the wrong location.
“I’m not leaving until I look around.” She stayed alert as she sidled through the two-foot opening in the sagging double gate.
Arms locked in front of her with the gun trained, she made her way to the ruins on silent feet. Cole trailed at a distance as she crept through the largest building.
The scent of dust and baked earth permeated the air. Loose gravel crunched beneath her boots, and birds took flight in the open rafters. Very few plants grew in this region, but something twiggy and leafless had vined its way up the stone walls toward the open sky.
The altars and benches and pots were long gone. There was nothing. No indication that anyone had been here in decades.
Desperate and tense, she continued moving, passing through the decaying corridors and rooms that would’ve slept rows of monks on spartan beds. A century later, this monastery only housed families of birds. Nests made of spindly shrubs lined what was left of the rooftops.
She searched everywhere for a hidden door, a basement, someplace that could house a prisoner. When her quest brought her back to the main tower, she let her head fall back on her shoulders and stared at the pale sky peeking through the rafters.
Why isn’t he here?
She’d been so certain. So damn amped up with hope.
The thud of her heart drummed in her ears, growing stronger, louder in the silence.
A silent, unified heartbeat in the midst of devastation.
A tear trickled from her eye. Then more fell, tracing sluggish, crooked lines down her cheeks and clinging to her throat.
Goddammit, Tate. Where are you?
She wiped her face and lowered her chin. Then she saw it.
An arched corridor led to the rear of the monastery and opened to a barren landscape of shrubs and sand.
Standing at this angle, she could peer through the arches and see something in the distance. A small structure. Maybe fifty yards away.
“Cole.” Her whisper echoed like a roar through the cavernous space.
“I see it.” He stepped to her side and gripped her shoulder. “I’m right behind you.”
She took off, sprinting over gravel and fallen rock in the passageway. The sun blinded her as she burst outside and raced across the field of sand and stone. Her legs burned. Her lungs heaved, and her muscles worked overtime to cover the distance.
As she grew closer she could make out a shed. A tiny, single-room shack made of rustic wood, with a steel bar across the door.
He’s in there. He has to be.
But for how long? They were in the middle of nowhere. How did he eat? Who took care of him? What if he was left there to die?
Her pulse went crazy, and by the time she reached the door, her entire body was shaking uncontrollably.
Cole skidded to a stop beside her and helped her lift the steel bar from the supports.
As she moved to push open the door, he clamped his fingers around her arm, halting her. Then he cast her a look that said, Brace yourself. You don’t know what you’ll find in there.
A vicious battle erupted inside her, a tug-of-war that seesawed between terror and exaltation, ramming against her breastbone like an earth-shattering hurricane. This was it, the moment that could salvage her life or utterly destroy it.
She pulled her arm from his grip, drew in a ragged breath, and opened the door.
The next breath came in a gasp as her heart dropped out of her chest and tumbled across the dirt floor.
Tate stood near the back wall, with a dirty, paper-thin blanket tied around his waist. The rest of him was nude, his skin pale, his entire physique emaciated. A full beard covered his face, and his hair hung in clumped strands around his crystal blue eyes.
“Tate.” The violence of her emotions and the overwhelming happiness spiking through her staggered her forward steps.
He jerked back, bumping into the wall. “You’re not real.”
“I am.” She covered her mouth with a hand to stifle her sob. “This is real.”
Behind her, Cole spoke quietly into his phone, probably arranging transportation with Matias.
Trusting him to watch the door, she inched closer to Tate. He went rigid, lifting his chin at an angle and glaring at her with a menacing look in his eyes.
A metal cuff encircled his ankle, the skin beneath it torn and red. A chain connected the cuff to a spike. The hard, moistureless dirt floor had been dug away from it, revealing a block of concrete underneath.
He’d tried to escape at some point, and though he looked stunned and distrusting, he was still in there somewhere. She just needed to be patient.
“You’re an angel,” he rasped, his voice dry as dust. “Not real.”
“Do angels have scars?”
His brows pulled together, and he shook his head.
With a trembling hand, she lifted the hem of her shirt to expose her abdomen.
“I doubt I’ll be chosen for heaven, but if I am…” She traced a finger along the marred flesh from her breastbone to her hip. “I don’t intend to take this with me.”
He stared at her scar. The longer he stared, the faster his breaths came, until his chest heaved with whatever was building inside him.
She held impossibly still, waiting for him to make the first move, to say the word, to give her an indication that this moment was sinking in.
When he finally lifted his eyes and found hers, she saw him. He was right there, clear and bright and alive.
“Lucia.” He swallowed and took a step forward.
The chain clanked against the ground, but he wouldn’t need the length of it, because she was running, reaching. Her fingers tangled in his long hair, and she lifted on tiptoes to press her nose against the pocket of his throat.
He wrapped his arms around her back and held her tight against his chest. He felt different, so much thinner, but the embrace was the same—protective, strong, possessive.
“God, I missed you.” She couldn’t stop the tears from coming, couldn’t hold back the whimpers or the clench of her fingers in his hair.
“The memory of you was the only thing that kept me alive.” His deep voice whispered over her, threading with unimaginable pain. “How long has it been?”
“Three months.” Cole crouched beside them and dug through his backpack. “It’ll take me a second to pick the lock on your shackle. Are you expecting visitors?”
“Two guards bring food at nightfall.” Tate dragged his nose through her hair. “How are you alive?”
“Long story.” She stepped back and glided her hands up his arms. “Let’s get you out of here first.”
Her fingers bumped a patch of strangely rough skin on his bicep, drawing her attention to it.
What the—?
She’d been so focused on the drastic changes in his appearance—his beard, loss of weight, the healing skin on his injured arm—she didn’t notice until now that his tattoo had grown, stretching above his elbow and covering part of his shoulder.
The inked roses he had before blurred into something new. A portrait of a woman with straight black hair, holding her finger against the profile of her lips.
Her breath caught. “Is that—?”
“You.” He glanced at it and returned to her eyes with a flicker of light in the brilliant blue of his. “Badell gave me a last request. Since I couldn’t have you, this was the next best thing.”
He asked for a tattoo of my face on his arm?
Tingling warmth seeped through her limbs, sparking a sudden release of all tension. Her chest expanded. Her heart overflowed, and every whirling, erratic, out-of-control piece of her life snapped into place.
“Got it.” Cole stood and tossed the chain away. “I’ll run and get the jeep.”
“I can walk.” Tate twined his fingers with hers and strode to the door.
“It’s rocky—” She was jerked forward by his grip on her hand and stumbled to keep up.
He crossed the hot, rugged terrain on bare feet with his free hand shielding his eyes. He didn’t wince or slow, his gait matching Cole’s in strong, efficient strides. The only thing he wore was a small blanket, and as her slower pace put her behind him, his back moved into her line of sight.
The image was just like she remembered, only cleaner, free of infection, and healed. The raised skin from each cut formed an artistic illustration of pillars along his sides, a double gate hanging between them, and a silhouette of a woman levitating in the opening with the arc of the sun behind her head.
It was terrible and beautiful, summoning extreme reactions from horrific agony to profound wonder.
“You’re staring at it.” He glanced at her over his shoulder.
“Have you seen it?”
“No.” His tone held deep anger, and he tugged her forward.
Cole explained the history of the monastery as they passed the stone structures, including the tragic love story that had compelled her to come here.
She and Tate didn’t speak, but they watched each other, their eyes sharing three months of loss, one night of lasting torture, and a future that didn’t need to be defined. Wherever they went from here, they would go there together.
When they reached the gate, he stopped abruptly and released her hand.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“That’s…” He stared up at the towering wrought iron bars and reached behind him, sliding his fingers over the welts on his back. “I’ve felt this so many times, trying to figure out… That’s it, isn’t it? He carved those gates on my back?”
Her chin trembled as she nodded. “I think he did it to see if I would find you. That’s why it took me so long. I’ve been searching for gates and—”
“There’s something else.” He moved his hand up his spine.
She edged back, watching as his fingers traced the feminine figure.
“It’s a silhouette,” she said on a serrated breath. “A woman.”
“Show me.” He pointed at the gates before him. “Walk through them.”
A swallow lodged in her throat. She glanced at Cole, who waited patiently behind her, surveying the perimeter. Then she moved to stand in the opening of the gate, facing Tate exactly as it was depicted on his back.
The sun sat high in the sky. If it were a few hours later, it would’ve been at the right height behind her head.
“It’s…” His chest rose and fell with a deep breath. “Beautiful. You’re absolutely stunning, Lucia.” He twisted to look at Cole. “Is that what my back looks like?”
“Pretty much.” Cole flicked his gaze between the gate and the illustration. “It’s uncanny, really.”
Tate regarded her for an endless moment before he lowered his head and stared at the ground.
“Okay.” He anchored his hands on his hips and made a sharp sniffing sound that almost resembled a laugh. His lips twitched, and he met her eyes. “Let’s go home.”
“Where’s home?” She reached her arm toward him, stretching her fingers.
He caught her hand and squeezed. “Wherever you are.”