Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
VANYA
I’d taken worse checks, but getting hit by a truck truly, completely, and totally sucked. Every muscle in my body ached, and the places where I’d hit the road and tore skin stung, even with everything the nurses had treated me with.
But I was breathing a little easier. I was alone. Micah had been taken down to the Boston Police station to speak with a detective, and in the middle of my visit with Alexio and Jonah, another detective had shown up to ask me questions.
Most of them had been about the accident and about my experience with Hunter before that night.
But some of it had been about an anonymous tip that the police had gotten from a number they couldn’t trace. It was clear they knew I had something to do with it, but the pretty detective with the bright green eyes didn’t seem interested in pushing the issue.
Instead, he smiled, said thanks, then left me to my thoughts.
I lasted all of ten minutes before I was on a call to Tyoma, who didn’t confirm or deny anything.
“He was found, yes?”
I sighed into the receiver. “Yes.”
“And your injuries are…you’re not…” It was the first time he sounded shaken. “You’ll be okay.”
“I’ve come off of worse games,” I told him. “Broken wrist, cracked ribs, some bruises, light concussion. I lost my gallbladder, but they assured me I didn’t really need it.”
He swore under his breath. “And Micah?”
“He was there, but he wasn’t hurt. And thanks to someone,” I said, unable to hold back my smile, though I had a nasty cut on my lip, which made it hurt, “they found the person who hurt us.”
Micah wasn’t hurt tonight, but the ‘us’ was appropriate. I knew the car had been coming for him. I knew Hunter was waiting for Micah to step into the road to meet me, and I’d run faster than I thought I was capable of to keep him from doing what he planned to do.
Killing for Micah would be worth it.
And so would dying for him.
And this recovery would be nothing so long as he was by my side. I was a little afraid that he would panic once the shock wore off. He’d blame himself, and he’d run, thinking he was protecting me.
I had to work on him before he got that wild idea.
I was not letting him go this time.
I was done being patient.
“He will go to jail,” Tyoma said after a long silence. “He will take a plea deal and serve jail time.”
“Yes.” I figured as much. Not as much jail time as he should serve, but it was better than nothing.
“I will take care of it after that,” he murmured. “I’m still working on how he managed to get past all the security, but I will find who he was working with.”
I refused to ask what that meant. Instead, I thanked him and told him that he should fly out soon, then let the phone fall to my side as the little machine beside the bed clicked and gave me my next dosage of painkillers.
It was easy to doze after that—floating on a hazy cloud somewhere between afternoon sun and sleep. I had no idea how long I was drifting before there were noises in my room, and it didn’t take much to realize the hands on me didn’t belong to a nurse.
“Micah.” His name came out thick and slurred, but I forced my eyes open to take him in.
He looked exhausted—dark circles under his long lashes, cheeks flushed, hair still a bit of a mess. His hand moved sluggishly up and down my arm as he leaned over me.
“You’re awake.”
“You’re back,” I said. English was coming a little easier now that the pain medication was starting to wear off. “Was…difficult with police?”
“No.” He leaned over the side of the bed and dropped his face into the crook of my neck.
He wasn’t running, and that meant something.
“The detective was nice. They have Hunter in custody, and I gave them all the messages he’s sent me over the years.
I told him what Hunter did to my house—and to yours. And…and everything else.”
I wrapped my good arm around him and held him as close as I could manage with the big, ugly bed between us. My side was aching and sore from the cracked ribs and the surgery, so I couldn’t make room for him, and I hated it.
“Promise me,” I said.
Micah pulled back, his forehead furrowed in a deep frown. “Promise you what?”
“Not run. You…” Okay, maybe words weren’t as easy as I thought. I licked my lips with an overly dry tongue and sighed. “You love me.”
He burst into laughter. “Oh my god, you needy weirdo. Yes, I love you. I wasn’t lying when I said that.”
“So you’re…you don’t…” What were the words I was looking for? “You love. You stay. Yes?”
“Vanya,” he said quietly. I really loved the way he said my name. Almost as much as I loved saying his. “I know I was a shit before, but I meant what I said when I told you that I was going to make this work. Everything’s out in the open now, okay? And, ah—and I’ve made a decision.”
“What decision?” My hand drifted upward, along his back, into his hair, his soft waves curling around my fingers.
“I want to talk about it later. When you’re home and feeling better.”
My heart felt strange—hopeful and afraid all at the same time. “But you stay?”
“Yes. I was thinking—I mean, maybe this is nuts because we’ve been friends forever, but being together is kind of, you know…new?”
“New?” I repeated. The word felt odd in my mouth.
“I—whatever. Fuck it.” He took a heavy breath, and his nose wrinkled. I fought the urge to touch it. “Do you want to find a place together? To live?”
“With me?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I was understanding right. “Same…house? Bed? Kitchen? Coffee mug?”
He laughed again, and fuck, I loved that sound so much. I moved my hand to touch the corner of his lips, and they rose higher into a smile. “I think I’d like to have my own coffee mug, but the rest…yeah. We can share all that.”
“In Salem? I can drive—”
“No. Boston. Or somewhere near it. Somewhere that will make you happy,” he said.
There was something significant in what he was saying, but my addled brain couldn’t quite put the line between the dots to make the picture.
But we would talk about it later when I could think.
And when we both felt safe.
I was released three days later, and Katya came through on a rental for both me and Micah on the same day that Hunter posted his bond. We only knew because Micah and I were both listed as victims in the case, and the detective Micah spoke to called him to let him know.
But Katya made sure the rental was in neither of our names, and she found a place in Winchester with a gate that required very specific access to be able to get onto the street, let alone anywhere near our house.
All of our friends had a pass, of course, but they were kind enough to let me rest for the duration of my recovery.
By the time I got home, the reality set in that the season was a wash—I wouldn’t be back on the ice until summer, but I was able to look up the games I’d missed, and it seemed like Ferris was working his little rookie ass off to fill my skates.
And he was doing a damn good job of it.
We lost two of the seven games, but he made the other teams work for it. I also had an appointment with the team’s new physical therapist—Ferris’s boyfriend, Quinn.
It had been two months now, and Micah had yet to bring up “the thing” he’d wanted to talk to me about in the hospital.
I didn’t remember much while I was on my haze of medications, but I remembered that.
I remembered the weight of it in his voice and how he’d seemed nervous, like maybe I wouldn’t want to go forward with him once I knew.
Of course, Micah could reveal he was an immortal serial killer, and I would simply ask him to teach me how to hide bodies, I loved him that fucking much.
I didn’t say that, of course. He was still jumpy and uncertain, and I wasn’t about to send him running. Even if he continued to promise that running wasn’t on the table.
I was pacing our little rental now, anxious because he was supposed to be home from his roadie soon, and I missed him. A lot.
Hunter’s first hearing was coming up, and the prosecutor said right now the defense was considering the plea deal they’d offered him.
There were a grand total of seven charges, and if he pleaded guilty to three of those—the revenge porn, stalking, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon—he would face six years in prison.
They also tracked down the person who’d given him all of Micah’s information.
It was a security guard who’d quit after the first night Hunter had stalked Micah in the arena parking lot.
He’d swiped information on where I lived, on Micah’s schedule, and where the team was staying on roadies.
He’d given Hunter several key cards to be able to get into the parking lot without checking in with security, and he’d used that information to scam both my front door code and Micah’s out of one of the interns who had access to our files.
That guy had been picked up and offered a plea deal for information on Hunter, and while it pissed me off, Tyoma assured me he would also handle him. Whatever that meant. I wasn’t going to ask.
My siblings seemed bound and determined to make sure both of them actually paid for their crimes. Especially after learning all the things they’d done to Micah.
Right now, knowing what was coming, all I wanted to do was hold him. I was feeling better, but I was still sore some days and very tired, and I had no idea if it was because of my injuries or the weight of everything that had come with falling in love with Micah.
I would never tell him that, of course. I would never let him know that parts of it had been hard and painful.
Because none of it mattered, and he carried enough on his shoulders as it was.
My heart leapt in my chest when I saw a dark car pulling into the driveway, and I kept myself from running to the door and flinging it open when I saw him get out. He looked good—though he always looked good.
He was wearing a button-up shirt and slacks, carrying a bag over his shoulder, and his cane led him across the little pathway to the front door.