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Surprisingly, she lets me wrap my hands around her waist, and I pull her gently off of the beast.
Her face is flushed and her hair is wild. I’m sure it’s all tangled, and she’s going to need something to tame it with.
I make a note to find something in town.
“Why are we here?” she asks.
My question from earlier surfaces again.Do you trust me?
I look at the harbor. “We need a boat.”
“A boat? Where?—”
“I can get us out of here.”
She looks at me, her eyes pinched together with worry. “Liam and Stassi…”
“I can’t do anything right now,” I say softly.
She looks backwards. “We should go back.”
“We can’t.”
“We should, Marco.”
I have to keep her safe.
“All we can do is keep moving forward, Roisin.”
“What if they’re dead?”
The question is flat. I can’t decide if she’s already accepted that they might be dead, or if she’s hopeful that they haven’t.
Roisin is too much of a realist to be hopeful that they aren’t dead, I decide.
“They might be.”
The statement makes her wince, and I kick myself for not being sensitive enough.
“I’ll tell Elio. He and Gia will be able to get a ground force here quickly,” I say. I whip out my phone and text Elio that Stassi is in danger, and that he needs to mobilize someone from Italy quickly.
When he confirms, I look back at Roisin.
“They didn’t come for Stassi,” she murmurs.
It’s a confirmation. “They didn’t,” I murmur.
Roisin’s eyes fill with tears.
My heart feels like it crumples as I look at her. She wraps her arms around herself, looking at me through the tears.
“Why is this happening to me?”
“I don’t know,” I say, my voice a low growl. “But we’re going to find out.”
The boat from Donegal is small. It stinks, like fish and ocean and the iron-sharp tang of seaweed left to rot in the sun.
Worst of all, though, Roisin has cut herself off from me entirely.