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“You may have made a bargain with your body,” Lucan said, “but it was Rio’s trust you sold.”

A rasp slipped from between Rio’s parched lips as Eva cooed and caressed him. His eyelids fluttered open. There was a shallow, gasping breath as he tried to form words.

“I…” He coughed, his wracked body spasming. “Eva…”

“Oh, my love—yes, I’m here!” she cried. “Tell me what you need, baby.”

“Eva…” His throat worked in silence for a moment, and then he tried again. “I…denounce…you.”

“What?”

“Dead…” He moaned, his mental pain no doubt deeper than the physical, but the fierce look in his bleary, bloodshot eyes said he would not be deterred. “No longer exist…to me…you are…dead.”

“Rio, don’t you understand? I did this for us!”

“Leave,” he gasped. “Never…see you…again…”

“You can’t mean that.” She lifted her head, her eyes darting frantically. “He doesn’t mean that! He can’t! Rio, tell me you don’t mean that!”

When she tried to reach for him, Rio growled, using what little strength he had to shun her touch. Eva let out a sob. Blood from his wounds covered the front of her clothes. She stared down at the stains she bore, then over to Rio, who had now shut her out completely.

What happened next took only a few seconds at most, but it played out as if time itself had slowed to a merciless crawl.

Eva’s stricken gaze lit on Rio’s weapon belt lying next to the bed.

A look of resolve crossed her face as she lunged for one of the blades.

She raised the gleaming dagger up near her face.

Whispered to Rio that she would always love him.

Then Eva flipped the weapon around in her hand and pressed it to her throat.

“Eva, no!” Gabrielle screamed, her body jerking in reflex as if she thought she could save the other female. “Oh, my God, no!”

Lucan held her at his side. He swiftly took her in his arms and turned her face into his chest, shielding her from seeing Eva slice through her own jugular and fall, bleeding and lifeless, to the floor.

CHAPTER

Twenty-eight

Fresh out of the shower in Lucan’s bedroom suite, Gabrielle toweled off her wet hair and slipped into a plush white terry-cloth robe. She was exhausted, having spent the better part of the day with Savannah and Danika, the three of them helping Gideon attend to Rio and Lucan. Everyone in the compound moved in a state of numb disbelief over Eva’s betrayal and the tragic outcome that left her dead at her own hand and Rio clinging precariously to life.

Lucan was in bad shape as well, but true to his word and his stubborn volition, he had left the infirmary on his own motor to rest in his personal suites. Gabrielle was astonished that he had accepted any care at all, but between the other women and herself, there hadn’t been any hope of his refusing.

Gabrielle felt a swelling sense of relief when she opened the bathroom door and found him seated on the massive bed, his back propped up against the headboard with several pillows. Although his cheek and brow were stitched and bandages covered much of his broad chest and limbs, he was recovering. He was whole, and in time, he would be healed.

Like her, he wore nothing but a white terry robe; it was all the women had permitted him to put on after they’d spent hours cleaning and patching up contusions and bloody shrapnel wounds, which peppered so much of his body.

“Feel better?” Lucan asked, staring as she ran her fingers through her damp hair to push it out of her face. “I thought you might be hungry once you came out of there.”

“I’m starved.”

He gestured to a squat cocktail table in the sitting area of the bedroom, but Gabrielle’s nose had already picked up on the impressive buffet. French bread, garlic and spices, tomato sauce, and cheese wafted from across the room. She saw a plate of field greens and a cup of fresh fruit, even something dark and chocolate-looking amid all the other temptations. She wandered over for a closer look, her stomach growling in anticipation.

“Manicotti,” she said, breathing in the pasta’s aromatic