Chapter Eighteen
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Ryker stretched out on his side, one arm draped lazily around Emma’s bare waist, his fingers tracing light, aimless patterns over her skin. The morning sunlight spilled through her bedroom window, warming the rumpled sheets tangled around them.
Three days. Three days since the shootout in the woods. Three days since Ethan’s twisted reign had finally come crashing down.
And now… this.
Peace. Quiet. Emma curled against him, soft and warm and very, very naked.
He brushed his mouth over her temple, breathing her in. She smelled like sleep, like soap, like his.
“After breakfast,” he murmured, his voice still rough from sleep and other activities, “I’m thinking we hit the shower. Could make it a two-for-one deal.”
Emma’s mouth curved against his chest, her smile slow and lazy. She tilted her face up to his, found his mouth, and kissed him, deep and lingering.
Heat sparked instantly between them, even though they were still catching their breath from round one. Hell, with her, the fire never really went out.
Ryker slid his hand down her back, pulling her closer, already thinking that breakfast could wait. A little longer.
The kiss deepened, the world narrowing to nothing but the heat between them, the slow press of skin against skin.
Then both their phones vibrated.
At the same time.
Emma broke the kiss with a groan and dropped her forehead against his chest.
Ryker cursed under his breath, reaching toward the nightstand without much enthusiasm. His screen lit up with Hallie’s name, and he saw Emma grabbing hers, mirroring his frustration.
“It’s a group call,” Ryker muttered. “She’s got us both.”
Emma flopped onto her back, dragging a hand through her hair. Ryker hit answer and set it on speaker between them.
“You’re on speaker, Hallie. Emma’s here too,” Ryker said, his voice still rough and a little accusatory.
Hallie chuckled, a dry edge of humor threading her voice. “Yeah, I figured as much. Sorry to interrupt… whatever you two were doing.”
Emma shot Ryker a look that said she’d like to strangle whoever invented phones.
Hallie’s tone shifted, growing serious. “I’ll keep it short. Wanted to give you an update. Ethan’s condition was upgraded this morning. He’s stable.”
Ryker exhaled, tension knotting in his gut.
“That son of a bitch is going to live,” Hallie continued, her voice tight with satisfaction. “Which means he’ll get his day in court. And after that, he’s going to rot in a cage for the rest of his miserable life.”
He met Emma’s gaze across the pillow. It wasn’t justice in the full sense. But it was damn close.
Ryker lay back against the pillows, staring at the ceiling for a long moment after Hallie’s words sank in. The weight of everything they’d been through still clung to him like the stubborn winter chill outside.
Things could have been so much worse.
Veronica and her housekeeper had survived, battered but alive. Charlotte, too, though she would carry scars that went deeper than the physical. They all would.
And Janette… she was still breathing. Her gunshot wound hadn’t been life-threatening, and she’d already been arraigned on a laundry list of charges. Accessory to attempted murder. Assault with a deadly weapon. Conspiracy. The list went on.
She wasn’t going anywhere but prison.
Hallie’s voice came back over the line. “Now that Ethan’s stable, I’m headed over to the hospital to get his statement. He’s requested that you both be there.” She paused, letting that land. “Apparently, he’s got some things he wants to say to you.”
Ryker dragged a hand over his face and sighed.
“FYI,” Hallie added dryly, “according to what he’s been spewing to the medical staff, he wants to curse you both for ruining his life.”
Ryker’s mouth twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Of course he does.”
Because God forbid Ethan Ross take any responsibility for the hell he’d unleashed. God forbid he look in the mirror and see the real source of his destruction.
Ryker ended the call with Hallie, tossing the phone back onto the nightstand with a dull thud.
Emma pushed up onto one elbow, the sheets pooling at her waist. “You think it’s a good idea to go?” she asked, her voice low, cautious.
He didn’t answer right away. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, rubbing the back of his neck as he thought about it. “No,” he said finally. “But it feels like the right idea.”
Closure. For her. For both of them.
Ryker stood, pulling on his jeans, feeling the shift in the air between them, no longer lazy and indulgent, but back to sharp focus. Back to duty.
He glanced over his shoulder at her, giving a faint, crooked smile. “Afterwards, you still owe me that shower.”
Emma gave a soft snort, a flicker of a real smile. But the shadows stayed in her eyes.
She grabbed her clothes, moving to dress as well. “We’ll hear him out,” she said. “Then we put him behind us. For good.”
“Exactly.” Ryker reached for his shirt and his badge, feeling a grim satisfaction settle deep in his chest.
Let Ethan have his say. It wouldn’t change a damn thing.
And when it was done, he and Emma would finally be free of the last grip Ethan had on their lives.
Once they’d dressed, they made their way to the garage and got in Ryker’s truck that he’d brought over after their ordeal with Ethan.
Of course, they hadn’t actually needed transportation since they’d basically spent three days, and nights, in bed.
But they got in now and started the drive to what Ryker knew would be the final farewell.
He swore to himself that after this interview, memories of Ethan would be shoved way back in his mind as part of a really shitty past. No way did Ryker want Ethan anywhere in his future.
Which got him thinking.
Future was a damn big word, and it was an even bigger decision. And while as cops, it might never be completely rosy for Emma and him, at the moment rosiness was definitely there.
And he wanted to keep it that way.
Wanted to keep her in his life.
He’d need to spell that out to her once they were done dealing with the asshole who’d tried to take that future away from them.
Ryker made the short drive to the hospital and parked. He kept his hand close to Emma’s lower back as they pushed through the hospital’s sliding doors, a shield against the sharp sting of the wind and whatever fresh hell waited inside.
The blast of overheated air inside the lobby didn’t chase off the chill in his gut.
They made their way down the sterile hallways, past nurses at the station shooting wary glances toward Ethan’s room. There was a deputy posted just outside his door, lean, sharp-eyed, and fully alert. Ryker gave him a quick nod. The deputy stepped aside but didn’t relax an inch.
When they walked in, they saw Hallie waiting for them. The sheriff didn’t look especially relaxed either. More like pissed off. Ryker got that. This was part of the job, too. Wrapping up the paperwork with the asshole.
The hospital room was dim, the blinds pulled, and the only light was coming from the monitors tracking Ethan’s weakened heartbeat. He was pale, battered, a shell of the man he once was. Tubes snaked from his arms, his handcuffed wrist secured to the bed rail.
But when he saw them, those bloodshot eyes lit with venom.
Hatred practically radiated off him.
Hallie pulled out her phone, hit record, and kept her distance by the door. “He’s been Mirandized,” Hallie let them know.
Ethan’s mouth twisted into something that was probably meant to be a smile, but it came out a bitter, broken sneer. “Well, well,” he rasped, his voice wrecked and thin but still laced with malice. “The golden ones themselves.”
Ryker stood silent beside Emma, refusing to rise to the bait.
Ethan’s gaze flicked to Emma. His lip curled. “You betrayed me,” he hissed. “You used me, threw me away.”
Emma didn’t flinch. She stood tall, steady, her face like stone.
Ethan turned his glare on Ryker. “And you. You were supposed to have my back. Brother. You chose her instead.”
Ryker stayed cool, his face unreadable. He wasn’t going to let Ethan get even an ounce of satisfaction.
Ethan wheezed in a shallow breath and coughed, straining against the handcuffs for a moment before sagging back into the mattress, defeated but still vicious.
“You think you won?” Ethan spat out. “You’re standing there because you got lucky. That’s all.”
Ryker shrugged. “You lost everything because of what you did.”
“We just survived it,” Emma finished for him. “And now, Ryker and I will get to lead our lives… and you won’t. You won’t get the chance to try to end us.”
Ethan’s voice cracked through the room, raw and furious. “You should be dead!” he practically shouted, the monitors beside him spiking with the effort.
Ryker and Emma shared a glance, steady and sure, the same instinctual connection that had carried them through every ambush, every shot fired, every close call Ethan had thrown at them.
“She had my six,” Ryker said, his voice calm and even.
Emma didn’t miss a beat. “And he had mine.”
Ethan sagged against the bed, rage bleeding into exhaustion. His mouth worked like he wanted to spit another curse at them, but he couldn’t summon the strength.
Ryker watched the hate flicker in those bloodshot eyes, watched it drain away as Ethan realized there was nothing left to say that would matter. No wound left he could inflict. No power left to wield.
They had won.
Without waiting for another word, Ryker turned with Emma at his side and walked out of the room, leaving Ethan behind them, broken, beaten, and finally irrelevant.
The soft click of the hospital door closing sounded like a nail in the coffin.
Ryker took a deep breath as they stepped into the hall and walked outside into the cold, clear air, every step forward feeling lighter than the last.
It was over. And now, for the first time in a long damn while, the future actually looked wide open.
It looked even better with Emma standing beside him.
The cold slapped Ryker across the face as they crossed the parking lot, but he barely felt it. Not with her walking beside him. Not with the weight of the past finally off their shoulders.
They reached his truck, and instead of opening the door, Ryker turned to her. He cupped her face in his hands, kissed her deep and slow, pouring everything he felt into that single touch.
When he pulled back, her eyes were shining, her breath misting the air between them.
“I’m head over heels for you, Bonetti,” he said, his voice low and rough. “No halfway about it. All in.”
Emma’s smile started small, but it grew, warming him better than any sun ever could. “I love you too, Caldwell.” She tapped his chest lightly. “Even if you’re stubborn as hell,” she added, teasing.
He chuckled, tugging her closer by the front of her coat. “Guess it’s a good thing you like a challenge.”
“Oh, I do,” she said, mock-serious, lifting up on her toes to brush her mouth over his. “Especially when the reward’s this good.”
Ryker grinned, opened the truck door, and he helped her inside.
As he rounded to the driver’s side, he shook his head and muttered to himself, “That I love you is the best damn confession I ever made.”
And as he slid in beside her, Emma laughed, and Ryker knew they had just officially stolen their own future right out from under Ethan Ross’s ashes.
Together. Exactly where they were meant to be.
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