Chapter 25
I didn’t know if it was everything I’d ever dreamed of, but getting to see the man’s face as I popped a bullet between his eyes was up there with one of the most satisfying things I’d ever done.
Adrenaline had raced through me, like I could do anything.
And I did. I saved those kids, those families.
We sent them off with their documents, and through Donovan’s comms, he’d told us they’d receive help from Sanctum.
The adrenaline nerves had taken over now. I didn’t know what Mercy was going to say or do to me. That man had been on her list as an intel gathering job. I figured I’d done that with the drive I’d collected on his body. In fact, we had two lots of information now.
I wondered if that meant a larger pay day. I was hoping to see a couple million dollars on the TV screen in my apartment. I was already planning on spending it all, which seemed to be going well with all the mental gymnastics my brain did to avoid family.
The drive back was strange, because we couldn’t really talk without Finley or Mercy listening in. And to know that Donovan had been right there to help me sell the idea we were going to be attacked. I was relieved in so many ways, that somewhat combatted the nerves—but not quite enough.
When we arrived back at Sanctum, our weapons were taken inspected.
Donovan went down first this time. I was worried this was it somewhat because everyone was cold—and I had to remind myself not to take anything personally here.
I’d just taken out a target on a list, people might’ve already been working towards getting that information.
“I keep these,” I demanded, my fists around the two thumb drives.
“Policy states we must take all belongings,” the man behind the desk said in a sigh.
“Call someone, tell them I’m keeping them,” I said. They were bargaining chips, if anything.
The phone behind the counter, hooked against the wall rang out. He answered and quickly gave me a nod to go through. I kept both of the drives on me until I knew I wasn’t in any real trouble—I was just getting a vibe. And my vibes on things were rarely wrong.
Off the elevator—which lasted minutes, I was welcomed to Mercy and Donovan, alongside a whole host of people stood at attention. I walked forward, suddenly conscious of my legs and how I could trip over my feet at any second.
“We did the job,” I said.
Mercy finally smiled. “We wanted to be prepared.”
My eyes darted to Donovan. “Prepared about what?”
“Look,” he gestured as a screen was projected on the wall. The picture of Nathaniel Blackwell III alongside his name in blue—for intel.
A giant red cross appeared and his face became greyed out. “I guess that’s that then,” Mercy said as people around applauded, like they had when I reached the top of the climbing wall. “Come with me,” she said. “Both of you.”
This had to be when the real trouble started.
I kept the thumb drive clenched so hard I was worried I could crunch them in my palm at any moment.
Donovan hugged a hand around my shoulder as we followed Mercy into yet another office—different from the last. She sat behind the computer desk and out of ear shot from everyone, she laughed.
“Is everything ok?” Donovan asked.
“I don’t know if you’re just some lucky son of a bitch, or you just hate following rules,” Mercy said, “but you’ve done it.”
“Done—done—done what?” I didn’t want to know, but I still asked.
“Nathaniel had been on my intel list for a long time, he’s a collector.
I didn’t know he was going to be there,” she said.
“But you did, I listened back through the audio, and you knew exactly where he was going to be. I heard how, but you did all of this under my nose.” She faced the computer monitor, it glowed blue in her face for a second.
“His company is responsible for shipping people illegally in and out of the country,” I said. “And I’m not going to apologize for getting my revenge.”
She applauded twice. “If you’d just killed him, this would’ve been another story, but you—you got something from him, something I’ve been searching for.”
In my hands, the thumb drive. “The intel,” I mumbled.
“Two million dollars, that’s after my cut,” she said.
I choked as she said it. “Huh?”
“Three million,” she said. “Final offer.”
“I—uh—yeah, do I—” I glanced at Donovan hugging me tighter. “Shared?”
She shook her head. “I figure the two of you are together, so do you really want me to be your middle man diving your income?” She extended her hand, wanting the drive. “Plus, I heard you were going to get married.”
Donovan planted a kiss on my cheek. “He got the bullseye, and I’ve got the ring.”
If it wasn’t for him holding me up, I might’ve fainted, this entire thing had to have been a dream. Everything I’d ever wanted was happening, and it was surreal, my skin tingled, hairs standing on end. “What’s on the drive?” I asked.
“Names of people, agencies, money, numbers, all things you don’t need to know about,” she said. “But don’t worry, those people you saved today, we’ll help them. I’ve already told you this. And I stick to my word.”
Dangling my hand over hers. “All the people, not just the ones from that van.”
“I’m not running a charity, Artemis,” she said, making a grabby hand, almost ready to jump from the table to grip me. “We will repatriate money recovered from the Blackwell trust, which is on that drive, and I need something else from the two of you.”
“What?” Donovan asked.
“Nathaniel’s family are going to become very broke now he’s dead, and their source is dried up,” she said.
“They’re going to be searching for someone to blame.
I believe you two might have been spotted on a camera or two, don’t worry, Finley reached it before it went live, but we can’t get all the phones from people.
That building went up in flames. Swallowed. ”
“I know,” I said. We’d seen the fire engines and through the wing mirrors, the plumes of smoke that started consuming the blue skies. “So, we’re just going to stay here?”
Grabby hands once more. “No, no, I want you two out of Sanctum—for a little while, not forever, but long enough for some of this to blow over.”
“You’re kicking us out?” Donovan asked, laughing. “So, what does that mean?”
“All funds will be transferred to your respective offshore banks, and my fee taken out, but I need the drive, Artemis,” she said. “You hand this to me, and you and Donovan can go experience marital bliss. Call it a honeymoon.”
She didn’t have to say all of that. I was just glad this wasn’t a punishment. The only punishments I liked came from Donovan. I’d been ready to hand the drive over—she didn’t need to up her offer at all, but three million dollars was so fucking much. Including whatever Donovan had.
I dropped the thumb drives and looked at Donovan. “Since I have a lot of money now, we might have to sign a prenup.”
Mercy laughed. “Wait until you see how much he has squirreled away.”
“Oh, so you’re a sugar Daddy?” I asked.
We stared at each other, his nose rubbing against mine. “I’m so proud of you,” he whispered before Mercy interrupted again, telling us we were free to leave—and should leave quickly. Something about use of a private jet—which I tuned back in upon mention.
“The what?”
“Oh god,” she said. “Donovan, maybe he needs more training.”
He swooped me up into his arms, cradling me. “Say less,” he said. “We’ll be out of your hair in just a minute.”
People watched as he carried me out of the office. I didn’t mind, I was actually beginning to enjoy the attention. I wondered if I’d have had more eyes on me if the thread to walk me like a dog had happened. Now, instead, he was carrying me like a baby.
“Where are we going?” I asked him as we were alone in the elevator.
“We’re going to get that picket fence dream,” he said. “And I have something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
I giggled. “Is it, have you shaved?” I asked.
“Or is it when was the last time you touched yourself?” I teased with the same questions he’d asked me when I was in training.
I felt like training hadn’t stopped, but now, at least we’d overcome a lot of the pain that separation had brought to us.
Like magnets, hitting together, causing friction, only to settle in place and never be pulled apart again.
He carried me into his room, practically kicking his door in—it wasn’t locked and opened with complete ease. “No,” he said, gently placing me on the bed. I didn’t want to leave him. I wanted to continue being his baby koala, clinging to his body. “If you really want to know, I can ask you it now.”
I knew the question, I knew the answer. My eyes were already watering as I watched him leave the end of the bed.
He walked right over to his dresser, his eyes still on me, looking at me as he went into his dresser.
I’d searched around in his drawers before, I’d taken his underwear as mine—I liked to feel close to him, and he wanted me in his clothes.
“Close your eyes,” he said. “And no peeking.”
As I screwed my eyes, tears came down. I didn’t know if this was going the way it was supposed to. This wasn’t how I’d planned it, but it was definitely how I wanted it. Especially with the elation that I had millions in my bank now—fuck, we were going to get our picket fence dream.
“Are they closed?” he asked, his voice getting closer.
Gulping hard on the nervous rock in my throat. “Yes, they’re closed.”
He grabbed me by the knee and tugged on me, pulling me across the edge of the bed until my legs were over it.
In some of my dreams, I’d been in a restaurant, we’d ordered an expensive bottle of wine, there was definitely some boujie food on the table—maybe even one of those desserts with the candles that sparkle and keep fizzling.
“Artemis,” he whispered, his mouth to my ear. He kissed the side of my cheek. “Artemis Grey,” he said. “Open your eyes.”
Donovan was on a knee in front of me. It was somewhat like I’d already asked of him, to be on a knee especially after I’d gotten the bullseye, I wasn’t going to let that go—but this was more than I imagined he’d ever give in to do.
He was always in charge, and yet, I’d forced his hand.
“I—I—” Heat rose up the sides of both cheeks. “Please don’t tell me this is a joke.”
He revealed a velvet black box and opened it up. Inside, there was a golden ring with small glittering opalescent stones. Blink in a certain angle of the light and you’d miss them. “Artemis Grey, will you marry me?”
“I—”
“You can say no,” Donovan said with a smirk. “But if you did, I’d take that as a personal punishment. And I’d probably deserve it.”
I shook my head. “I will,” I said, through a gasp and a full body shiver. “I will marry you. I—I will.”
Donovan’s hand shook as he took the ring out and place it over my forefinger. “I was prepared for you to be a little sassy about it,” he whispered.
I tried to protest, but I wasn’t going to, I wanted this. His commitment was something my entire body had been craving, and now, he was giving it to me. “This means forever, you know that,” I told him.
“Of course,” he said. “I would’ve done this sooner, but I was far too worried about the world I’m in. Now, the world we’re both in.”
“So, you think I can handle myself?” I asked, giggling. “Because you know, I feel pretty sure I could’ve done that job today on my own.”
He pulled me back into his arms, holding me at the back and picking me up. He walked me to the wall and pressed my back against it, kissing my neck. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, baby,” I told him. “I love you, and that’s a dangerous thing to do. I’m gonna worry about you.”
“That’s why you were hard on me,” I said.
His slight laughter at the skin on my neck had my torso tensing up with my thighs pinching together around his waist. “I was hard on you because it’s what you needed,” he continued to whisper right against my neck and ear.
“I did it because you desire to be tamed, and I know you’d only ever let me be your tamer. ”
“Does that make you my owner?”
“Well, you’re already wearing a necklace I gave you, in some places, that’s considered a sign of ownership, so yeah, make of that what you will baby.
” His scruffy facial hair tickled my neck to the point I was trying to give him those same tingles—my hands up his t-shirt, stroking over the remnants of lines I’d marked on his skin with my fingernails.
I didn’t want to do that again, I just wanted to reminisce and hope they reminded him of what I could do.
“You’ve been a good boy ever since,” he said, and now I was nail gripping his back, like he activated me with a simple good boy. He knew what he was doing.
“You’re gonna make me do bad things,” I said.
“As long as you do them with my ring on your finger,” he whispered, now licking at my neck. “I want to get married as soon as possible. I want to really have you.”
“I want to have you more.”
He pulled his head away, his tongue out slightly from the way he’d been licking me. “You own me, I own you,” he said. “I like those terms.”
Pulling my knees in at his waist, he thrust forward. “Fuck me.”
“We’re only here to pack,” he said. “We have five minutes. Then we’ve gotta leave.”
I kissed him. “I can do five minutes.”
And we could, right there, against the wall.
It didn’t take much, all the excitement from being newly engaged had my cock hard, to the point even a stiff breeze would’ve had my cumming a bucket.
Although we didn’t have much time to shower afterwards, which was fine, we had a sink, some soap, and an timer going that ended with a knock at the door.