DIEGO
“Tea?”
Raven’s shadow falls over me and my phone and when I glance up, she’s smiling slightly while offering me a cup of tea that’s redder than anything I’ve seen before.
“That’s tea?”
She nods, her curls bouncing. “Cassian said I should make you drink it.”
“Make me?” I squint up at her.
“He said it has a lot of good things in it that will make you feel better now that your stitches are out.” Her hands lower. “But you can wait and ask him yourself if you want.”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll drink it.” I set my phone down on my lap and accept the warm cup.
As soon as it leaves her hands, Raven turns and walks away with surprising speed, so I hold off on drinking.
“Raven?”
She stops abruptly and turns. “Yes?”
“Have you heard from them? Cassian and… Valentina?”
She nods once. “It’s going smoothly.”
“Okay.” I’ve never doubted Valentina’s skills even when she lacked the memory to back them up. Now that she remembers everything, it’s like she’s throwing herself into everything just to prove that she can. It worries me only because being parted usually never ends well for us.
Raven turns away again, but I stop her once more. “Raven?”
She turns back slower this time. “Yes?”
“I…” How do I ask what’s been on my mind since I met them all without sounding like a dick? “You, uh…. you seem different. From the others, I mean.”
“Different?”
“Yeah. Uhm… the others all look like they belong in this world. Criminals and Mafia and everything. Even Cassian, although he also seems softer than I’d expect from everything I’ve learned. But you seem so different. More like Ivy than Bradley, if that makes sense?”
Raven’s mouth twists slightly to the side as if she’s mulling over everything I’ve said, and in the end she simply shrugs. “Did you think the Mafia was cookie-cutter?”
“No, I just…” I sigh deeply. “I want to be with Valentina, and seeing you, it made me think it was possible for someone ordinary to exist here.”
“You think I’m ordinary?” She smiles suddenly as if I’ve just given her a compliment, then she turns and wanders out of the room, leaving me without an answer.
Either she’s ordinary, or she’s the scariest one of them all and I’ve just complimented her disguise.
Sinking back into the cushions of the sofa I’ve been relaxing on, I lift the cup to my lips and cautiously sip my tea. Not having stitches tripping up my speech has been great but my tongue is still tender, as is the rest of me.
Maybe Raven was the wrong one to ask about how life here could work for someone like me. Ivy and Raven do it, so what could the harm be? Or should I be asking Valentina to leave with me? Given how happy she’s been since she got her memories back, that definitely feels like the worst choice.
The tea is sweet and fruity to taste but slips gently down my throat and within a few minutes, it’s as if the entire drink has pleasantly numbed my tongue and throat. It’s pleasant, more than pleasant, and I drain the entire cup within two minutes, then rest back and gaze up at the ceiling.
I’m overthinking things.
No one has asked me to leave. Valentina loves me and I love her. Then again, she has given me a bunch of building leases to scroll through. Is that a sign?
Groaning, I lie there for ten more minutes, then pick myself up and limp back to our bedroom.
My thoughts are spiraling, but I know it’s because I’m worried about her being out there in the city tracking the very people who fucked her up and tortured me.
This time, she’s with her team and her people, but I can’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that something is wrong.
Back in the bedroom, I sink down onto the bed and return to my phone.
A couple of days ago, Valentina presented me with several leases to buildings that can easily be turned into the bar of my dreams. A gift from her to me, apparently a thank-you for saving her life.
I tried to turn her down because it was far too much, but she saw right through my lie about returning to my old job.
They fired me for not turning up, so even if I wanted to go back, I can’t.
Valentina is offering me the opportunity to be my own boss. My own bar. Free from debt, because the Suit all paid that off, apparently, as a thank you for keeping Valentina alive and safe.
It’s a fresh start. A new place that’s all mine.
One that I can grow and cultivate to be a safe haven for people like me, desperate for a place to connect after struggling with drugs or alcohol, or hell, kidnapping.
Every building is close to the Empire State Building too, and in Valentina’s own words, it’s to ensure that I stay safe since there’s no leaving a world like this once you’re in it.
That should be proof enough that she wants me to stay.
Resting back on a pillow that smells like her, I scroll through all of the leases she found for me. A couple stand out to me immediately. Rustic bars, old-school pumps, and warm, unassuming entranceways that could create the cozy bar of my dreams.
Maybe I died because the fact that this is my reality is insane.
“Diego!” Valentina suddenly bursts into the room with her gorgeous hair flying, her eyes sparkling, and an alarming amount of blood staining her skin and dress.
“Val!?”
“Don’t panic, I’m fine!” she gasps, kicking off her heels and stumbling toward me. “I’m totally fine!”
“You don’t look fine!” I sit up just in time for her hands to collide with my face and she drags me in for a deep kiss that halts abruptly.
“Is your tongue okay?”
I nod. “Tender but okay. What about you, though?”
She kisses me again, harder, then darts away from me with the widest smile I’ve ever seen on her beautiful face. “I did it! Can you believe it? Everything we’ve been doing, everything I did before we even met, it finally paid off!”
“And the blood?” My stomach twists as the sight of her looking like this is painfully similar to the first time we met.
“Not my blood,” she assures me while removing her earrings. “I swear. All I got was a busted lip, but it was barely even that.”
“You swear?”
She pauses at her mirror and turns to me with a warm smile. “I promise, Diego. I’m fine.”
It’s difficult to swallow down the worry, but after a few seconds of staring into her eyes, I nod. “Okay. So, today was good?”
“So good! You remember how I said Ruslan and I would need to pretend to be husband and wife so we could sneak in there without raising suspicion?”
I nod. “Because you still haven’t found all the moles in the police force yet so you didn’t want him to be alerted.”
“Exactly. Well, it worked perfectly. We got up there and then it was like old times. I haven’t felt that alive since…
oh, can you get my zipper?” She approaches me and turns while sweeping her hair over one shoulder so I can access the zipper on her dress, then she continues.
“Well, I felt alive, but I finally felt like I was in control of my own body again, y’know?
Like what I felt and what I knew finally meshed together. We killed all of the guards.”
The zipper, slightly sticky with blood, finally glides down her back after several tugs from me and she walks back to her dresser while slipping the straps down her shoulders.
“And then that fat fuck was out by the pool, sunning himself as if he hadn’t sentenced God knows how many children to a life of hell.
So I killed him. Ruslan made some great shots and I scared that fucker.
I know he knew the end was coming, and part of me wishes I’d killed him slower, but Diego, that’s not even the best part! ”
Stepping out of her dress, she spins to face me with an excited smile.
“Don’t keep me in suspense!”
“We found her! Tabitha! The chances were so slim and I know no one said it, but I knew everyone was giving me the side eye when I would ask every fucker we came across if they’d seen her.
But this poor little boy appeared which, y’know, confirmed there were kids in the penthouse, and we saved a bunch, but then I found her!
Tabitha! She was alive!” Valentina lets out a deep breath as if she’d been holding it since she came in, then she pauses and her face crumples slightly.
“They were using her as bait ever since someone bought the last kid they used. She was used to lure in other kids and then also me. I can’t imagine what that will be like for her to deal with. ”
Valentina stands in her underwear, one hand on her hip and her skin stained with the blood of those she killed.
She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life.
“But!” She smiles once again. “We reunited her with her family after getting her checked at the hospital. She’s got a long recovery ahead of her, but we’ll take care of everything for her and her parents. The important thing is she’s safe and home.”
“Val—”
“Ew, gross.” She glances down at herself and grimaces, then looks back up at me. “Hold that thought, I really need to shower.”
Then she’s gone through to the ensuite and silence falls around me.
What a woman.
Some of the guards around here made jokes that I was able to tame someone as cold and as bristly as Valentina, but she’s the warmest person I’ve ever met.
She saved my life. She never gave up on looking for Tabitha and thankfully, it paid off.
Weeks of pain and agony have finally paid off in something good, and I couldn’t be happier for her.
For us.
Joining her in the shower is painfully tempting, but my doctor would have a fit if I got the bandages around my thigh wet, so I remain on the bed and set my phone aside while mulling over everything she told me.
She killed those people. Evil men and women doing evil things. Over the past week, she’s weeded out all the ones they could track down in New York, and people all over the world are doing the same. In the ever-changing world, a victory like this is huge.
And it’s all because of her.
I close my eyes and picture that elated look on her face once more. It’s a far cry from the wounded, unsure woman caught on my bed with no way to remember her own name. All the bad I’ve done in my life, all the way fate has twisted the knife… have I finally done something good?
Saving her led to the dismantling of a child slavery ring and countless children returned to their families. I can’t take all the credit but I’m pretty sure I helped.
I mull it over until the shower clunks off and two minutes later, Valentina appears in the doorway with her hair wrapped up in a silk wrap and an equally silky nightdress covering her body. Her skin, still dewy from the shower, glitters as she slowly walks toward me.
God, I fucking love her.
I love all of her.
Every single inch.
She could break me apart and I’d let her.
“What?” Valentina tilts her head as she approaches, then she eases herself onto the bed and very slowly crawls over me.
“What, what?”
“What are you staring at?” she asks softly, easing me back down onto the bed as she crawls high enough over me that we’re face to face.
“You,” I murmur softly, resting my head back on the pillow.
“Did I miss some blood?” She glances down her body and checks her arms and legs for any missed splatters while I close my eyes and breathe in the sweet honeysuckle scent from her body wash.
“No,” I say as I open my eyes. “I was just thinking that I can’t quite believe that you’re real.”
Her eyes flit up and she gazes warmly down at me. “Really?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Because I brought such a nightmare into your life?”
“No.” I lift my hand and gently curl my fingers underneath her warm chin. “Because you’re like something out of a dream and I can’t believe how fucking lucky I am to know you.”
Her smile wavers, then widens. “Really?”
“Really, really. I love you, Valentina. I love you so fucking much.”