Chapter 24
Remi couldn’t look at him.
She didn’t trust herself not to do something foolish.
So she sat there, quiet and stoic, eyes fixed on the waters crashing on the black sand beach, pretending she didn’t care that he was leaving. He told her he was going into town. She didn’t respond. She didn’t ask why it was so important for him to leave that early in the morning.
There was an obvious answer, and then there was the truth.
Despite what happened last night, this wasn’t some romantic tryst in the Tango Lowlands.
By now, she was probably considered a fugitive.
A wife wanted for the murder of her husband.
A man she’d killed in cold blood. They likely presumed she was armed and dangerous, trying to get away with her crime.
The cops could be combing the islands, interrogating her friends and family, all to find out where she was right now, tucked away in a remote paradise.
Of course, Everett would need to go into town.
Arrangements had to be made, contacts had to be lined up.
Setting up new lives for both of them, far away from the Palmchat Islands, was no easy feat. She was grateful for everything he was doing for her. The sacrifices he was making and would continue to make to ensure she stayed a free woman. That was the official answer she knew he was telling himself.
The truth was a whole hell of a lot different.
He was running from what happened between them last night.
Forcing distance between them that no longer felt right.
For the first time in years, her body was something other than a map of damage, pain, and mutilation from her past.
Every caress, every touch, every kiss screamed that they’d been apart for too long. That they shouldn’t be apart from each other ever again.
Remi groaned, pushing up from the bed. Her fingers slick from stroking and pleasuring herself …
again. Everett had done the one thing she’d thought was impossible.
The one thing she’d given up on ever feeling again, he’d unlocked with his hands, his mouth, and the devastating patience of his tongue on her clit.
Her body had blossomed with an intensity that scared the fuck out of her. But not enough to push him away, to turn down what he’d offered.
What are you doing?
Proving you wrong … about everything.
And he’d kept his word.
Her first orgasm in over three years was like fireworks erupting in the night sky, booming and brilliant and thrumming with unbridled excitement and pleasure.
Every part of her still hummed from memories of the way he’d looked at her.
His gaze feasting on her body, even the parts that should have repulsed him …
hadn’t. He’d kissed all the ugliness away and revealed the true, formidable strength and resilience she hadn’t been able to see in herself before.
She loved seeing herself through his eyes.
He’d done so much more than awaken her from a sexual coma. He’d shattered the ugly lies she’d believed about herself and freed her to see herself differently than before. It was a beautiful gift.
But before she could show him how much she appreciated it, he pulled away. His moral code and sense of fairness, right and wrong, put up a wall between them again.
How could he say that last night didn’t change anything between them? She’d seen the look in his eyes. The raw, feral want that he could barely restrain. He wanted her as much as she wanted him, but for some stupid reason, he’d drawn a line in the sand that he refused to cross.
She knew him well enough to know that no one could change his mind. Not even her. That’s why he’d left her this morning. To prove his point that he could have last night and not allow it to become anything more.
Nothing has changed between us.
“Tell that to my heart,” Remi muttered, falling back on the bed.
Memories of his kisses all over her body had flooded her all night long.
She’d stroked herself too many times to count, pulsing and coming over and over again from thoughts of him.
Her moans died against the pillow she had pressed against her face so he wouldn’t hear her from where he slept out on the deck under the night sky.
An awakening that she’d have to ignore.
For the rest of her fucking life.
She would live the rest of her life with Everett, on the run and evading capture by law enforcement.
All the while, she’d also be evading her heart.
Struggling to have the willpower to be so close to him and not have him.
Everett would fight by her side to keep her safe forever.
But his heart was the one thing he would never let her have again … even if he was tempted.
She had to get past this.
Wasn’t he doing enough for her?
She had no right to ask or demand anything more.
The best thing for her to do was to put him out of her mind and prepare herself for their next move.
She suspected he’d gone into town to secure another safe house for them until transportation could be arranged to get them off the island.
And that couldn’t happen until he’d found a safe country for them to flee to, preferably one without an extradition treaty with the Palmchat Islands.
Remi clenched her eyes shut, trembling from the mess she’d made of her life. Why hadn’t she listened to all the warnings about Bobby? There had been far too many that she’d dismissed, explained away, and ignored. All because she felt guilty about not being the wife he deserved.
But that bastard never deserved her at all. She hated her current predicament, but she didn’t regret what she’d done. She would do it again. She’d lost everything because of Bobby’s lies. And so had Everett.
Because of Bobby, the Jamaican cartel’s henchmen had found her at Everett’s safe house.
They’d killed her baby, left her bleeding on the floor to die.
The irony of how she’d gotten her vengeance wasn’t lost on her.
Seeing Bobby’s blood across the tiled floor as he lay lifeless mere feet away from her.
She snapped when he admitted everything he’d done.
It had sickened her that the only part of his manipulation he regretted was that she’d been physically hurt.
He didn’t care about destroying Everett’s career and setting him up to be killed.
He wasn’t devastated about the baby she lost, because it was Everett’s.
His hatred of the man she loved seemed to have no limit.
That was too much for her to bear.
The machete was light as a feather in her hand.
Shaking with rage as he told her why he’d done something so vicious, she swung it with ease. The first spurt of blood had shocked him.
“Fuck, Remi … you cut me!” Bobby roared, gripping his arm.
Her vision was red with rage as she rushed toward him?—
She pushed the thoughts away.
One moment had changed the trajectory of her entire life.
A life she could no longer live with the people she loved.
Leaving her home, the islands she grew up on, and her family ripped at her heart. She was going to miss them so much. Miss her community and her friends. The twins. Her mom. Her dad.
She needed to hear her father’s voice. Talk to him before she vanished. Everett would tell her it was reckless, and he'd be right, but she didn't care.
The thought grabbed her before she could push it away, and once it took root, there was no talking herself out of it.
She was on her feet before the decision fully formed.
The bungalow wasn't wired for communication by design, and the people who lived in the Tango Lowlands prided themselves on being disconnected from the outside world.
Still, Sebastian had to have a burner phone or another communication device hidden here. A backup for emergencies.
Her eyes swept the bedroom. She started with the obvious—the dresser. She yanked open the drawers. Blankets, extra pillows, batteries, candles, and a lighter.
She moved faster, pulling at cabinet doors, dropping to her knees to check under the bed, rifling through supply shelves with both hands. She didn't know what she was looking for until her fingers hit the hard shell of a kit at the bottom of one of several bags tucked on the floor of the closet.
She unzipped it.
There. Nestled beneath layers of gear she didn't have names for was a satellite phone.
She grabbed it and stood, glancing toward the door. It was a risk, but knowing Sebastian and the Stingray Team, this phone was secure. Untraceable by the cops. Everett would have a litany of reasons why she shouldn’t reach out, each one perfectly valid.
But he wasn’t here, and he didn’t need to know.
She had to be fast.
She turned the phone on, then dialed her father’s burner phone.
He answered after half a ring. “Baby girl, is that you?”
Remi’s heart ripped at the panic in his voice.
“It’s me, Dad.”
“You okay?”
“I am.” She swiped at the tear falling down her cheek. “I’m safe. I wanted you to know so you wouldn’t worry.”
“I’ll stop worrying when you’re far away from the Palmchat Islands.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been working on ways to make that happen, hoping you’d call?—”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“You cannot stay here,” he roared. “I’ll make a deal with every devil there is to make that happen.”
“I’m not staying, even though I should?—”
“No, you shouldn’t.”
“After what I?—”
“Don’t say another word,” her dad warned. “Baby girl, this is very important. You don’t speak about it. Not to anyone. Ever. Do you understand?”
“Dad?”
“You never know who is around, who is listening. So you don’t speak about it. Promise me, Baby girl.”
“I promise.” She exhaled a shaky breath. Her father was a former assassin who never got caught. Cops might have suspected he was Mr. Goodnight, the best enforcer the PC-5 ever had, but they couldn’t prove it.
When her dad turned his life around, he did more than leave his past behind.
He made it his mission to disrupt the PC-5’s recruitment of vulnerable young men looking for money, belonging, or protection, and helped others trapped in the gang find their way out.
Many of the employees at the farm were former gang members working to re-establish normal lives for themselves.
She was so proud of her dad, but it came with a price.
He was always on guard to make sure no one connected him to his crimes. He didn’t speak about it to anyone. He’d never confessed to her that he was a contract killer. It was the thing known and left unsaid. Just like Bobby’s death would have to be for her.
“Good. Now convince me that you don’t need my help right now.”
“I’m not alone. Everything you’d do for me, this person is already putting the plans in motion to make happen over the next few days.”
“This person. Who is it?”
“I don’t think I should say …” Remi bit her bottom lip.
As much as her dad despised Bobby, Everett triggered only slightly less of his wrath.
He’d never gotten over what happened to her in Jamaica and blamed Everett for not protecting her.
If only her dad knew that Bobby was behind it all. He might find a way to forgive Everett.
“You trust this person? Really trust him to make your best interests his priority?”
Her response was quick and confident. “Absolutely. I trust him. He won’t let anything bad happen to me?—”
“Again … ” her dad said, a knowing edge in his tone. “He better not, or there will be a special place in hell for him right next to mine when I get through with him.”
“Dad, please … I needed to hear your voice one last time before I go. I can’t talk to Mom or the twins. It would be too hard …”
“Yeah, that’s for the best. I’ll help them understand why you’re doing the right thing.”
A sound outside stopped her cold. Footsteps on the path. The low creak of the wooden gate.
Everett was back.
"I gotta go, Dad. I love you. Tell Mom and the twins I love them, too. I'll miss you all so much."
She pressed end before he could respond and was already moving. The kit went back the way she'd found it, shoved to the bottom of the bag, buried under everything else. She zipped it, dropped it back on the closet floor, and nudged it into place with her foot.
She grabbed her things and slipped out the back door toward the outdoor shower, turning the tap as Everett's footsteps hit the stairs. The water ran cold at first, and she didn’t flinch from it.
She stood under the spray and let it wash away the goodbye she’d said to her dad without either of them acknowledging it was the last time they’d ever speak to each other.
Everything she'd ever known was behind her now.
Everett was the only thing ahead.
She was so hopelessly in love with him.
She would never be able to hide it.
And he needed to know that.
Know what he was walking into before it was too late to walk away.