CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
AXEL
Twenty-three hours later, I’m back to having a fine layer of stubble on my face as I disembark my jet in Singapore with no idea where to go.
I assumed another direction would be offered by now.
But on my walk to the private car I ordered, my phone buzzes with one of my family’s stupid group threads in an encrypted chat.
Maddox: Let’s play Name That Word.
Ryker: Some of us are trying to work.
Maddox: Not me. First clue: A place with a lot of grapes.
Cash: Pantry
Jax: Grocery Store
Mercy: Vineyard
Tessa: Clearly, Mercy will be the only one who gets these Mensa-level questions right.
Ryker: Obviously. But that was low-hanging fruit. lol
Maddox: Working hard, Bulldozer. Next one: Penny …
Mercy: For your idea.
Ryker: Christ, baby. Thoughts.
Tessa: Lane
Maddox: Don’t underestimate my beautiful Nightmare.
Ryker: Shake it off, Merce. We got this.
Jax: Beatles. “Penny Lane.”
Cash: Quick, bro. Tessa got that two minutes ago.
Maddox: Tiebreaker clue: A game where you want two face cards and an ace.
Jax: Thirty-fucking-one, bro.
Maddox: Well, fuck. Looks like we need round two.
Cash: I say we level up and go for the best of five. I was preoccupied.
Jax: Right. Don’t even try to use the bound-and-gagged excuse again.
Mercy: ???
Jax: I’ll catch you up later.
Ryker: Why don’t we just blow off all our responsibilities and play fifty rounds of this asinine game?
Maddox: Will you stop pouting if we give out grades?
I climb in the back seat of the town car. “Thirty-one Vineyard Lane.”
“Right away, sir.”
Fuck, I love those idiots. Jax evidently filled them in—at least enough to have them dripping pieces of information, but probably not to their complete satisfaction because he won’t risk them responding to something wrong.
I hope Zara grasps the team we have behind us.
Though with that thought, a charge of anger rockets through me.
Whatever the hell she’s been doing, we should’ve been doing it together.
They text several more times, but I silence the chat once I gather that she’s on level fifty, in suite A.
Singapore is stunning—gorgeous architecture amid lush greenery and the sparkling ocean.
I crack my window. It’s hot out, but after an entire day in a plane, half of it spent agonizing that she might be gone by the time I landed, I crave the fresh air.
Scents of orchids and spices and fried chicken lash my face.
Beyond that, I can’t soak anything in. It’s a blur of midnight city lights until the car pulls up to her building.
I couldn’t tell you much about my trek to get to her. I’m on the fiftieth floor, standing in front of her door, and then I’m inside with her in my arms. My neck is soaked with her tears and her sweet cherry breath.
“You came,” she whispers, crawling up to my waist to coil herself around me like a koala. “You fucking came.”
“Of course I came, Zar.” My lips crash into hers with a brutalness she reciprocates.
Tongue and teeth. Swipes and swallows. Purrs and thunder.
A balm and a battle and a reckoning.
“My reason.”
“Reason?” she pants.
“For everything.” I move from her lips to her neck to her jaw to her ear, littering kisses and nips on every inch of skin between each further explanation. “My wife … my oxygen … my purpose. My whole goddamn world. Fuck, I missed you.”
Fisting her hair, I spin to flatten her against the back of the door, needing to feel all of her. Terrified my mind has finally given out and this is a cruel joke of the flashes that plague me. “Tell me I’m not fucking imagining this.”
She doesn’t respond, but she kisses me deeper, soothing me with every touch and marking me with bites and scratches. Our hips are glued. Hers are rocking. Our hearts drum a unified anthem—a clash of wills and decadent rewards.
When her chest shudders with fragility, even as she fights, a war wages within me. Shelter or wrath?
How could she question whether I’d come for her? How could she not comprehend that nothing exists outside of her?
With a final press of my mouth to hers and an aggravated feral nibble on her lower lip, I pull back. Wrath winning. “You left me.”
Her chest inflates with a sharp intake of air. “I know it seems like that, but I … I didn’t leave you. I love you. I left for you—my reason.”
We’re drenched in darkness, save for the twinkling city, glimpsed from the balcony.
I carry her closer to the open doors, passing through a vast living and dining area that’s tastefully decorated, but looks like something out of Criminal Minds.
Pictures and strings drape every hard surface.
Even a grand piano has been transformed into a staging ground.
Not trusting myself to investigate any of that with Zara in my arms, I drop her into a white velvet chair and wander to the balcony, staring at the breathtaking view and wondering how long she’s been here.
Indigo sky. Canopy of stars. Skyscrapers and sea.
A picturesque backdrop to her days without me.
The anguish I’ve been quelling simmers beneath my skin as I breeze back inside and cup her chin, pleased to see her wearing her collar and wedding ring.
“I love you too. There is nothing that could change that. Nowhere you could go. Nothing you could do. I will always want you, and I will always show up. You’re mine, but …
” I release her and move to the other side of the room, shrugging off my suit jacket and folding my shirtsleeves to my elbows.
“You need to give me more. I thought you’d been taken, Zar. I was going out of my mind. I—”
“I know,” she interrupts, her tone even and her body statuesque, as if she were talking me off a ledge. “That’s why I risked everything to sneak into La Lune Noire. I couldn’t bear the thought of you frantic.”
It was a risk, and she managed it seamlessly, but I’m not in the mood to be impressed by her prowess.
“Why didn’t you just tell me whatever the hell was going on?”
“Because of KORT.” She pauses, aware that she’ll have my full attention now.
“I figured I’d be loyalty tested at some point after we were married.
Most of those organizations do that, and I needed to handle some things.
I couldn’t be fretting over whether those things looked loyal or not.
I also knew if you felt my life was endangered, you’d step in and carry the freaking heavens, which probably would’ve gotten you killed. ”
Another pause to see if I’ll refute it, but her acknowledgment that I would have carried it for her eases some of the tightness in my chest. I take a seat on the couch, spin my watch to the unfortunate tune of not-my-number, and motion for her to continue.
“I got my orders the day of the wedding. I could carry out the hit and they’d extract me, or I could pass on it, plant a tracker on the target, and leave from Greece so another agent could handle the marks.
The week before, my father and brother had warned me the order was coming, that they were doing the best they could to present it in a way I’d be comfortable with, even though they were pissed.
But the marriage … it seemed to expedite everything.
I didn’t understand at first, but then I did. ”
The wedding.
My gut wrenches. “Who was the hit for?”
“Gage and Leigh Porter.”
“Shit.” That’s not who I was expecting, and while I’m grateful she didn’t say Rena, Gage and Leigh are important to me, and they’re Rena’s family, so it isn’t much better.
“See?” She stands and paces, her hand on her chest. “It didn’t even make sense.
None of the intel I’d gathered pointed to anything about them.
They weren’t even on my radar because I didn’t meet them until the wedding.
It was too convoluted to leave it to chance.
My only option was to handle it, to use the inside glimpse I had to get information, and to figure out who was after them and end it. ”
I’m about to flip out because the loyalty test would have nothing to do with her not being able to protect Gage and Leigh, but then I realize she doesn’t know that Wells and Ivy are KORT chairs or that the other three men in Rena’s family—Ty, Liam, and Gage—are high-ranking members.
“You’ve been gone for weeks because Gage and Leigh were threatened? You barely know them.”
“What’s to know?” She halts ten feet from me, and with the silvery moonlight blanketing her face, the stress she’s been harboring is suddenly apparent.
“Rena loves them. You trust them and care about them. The entire family embraces them. They are part of your inner circle. They have a baby. And your honorary grandchildren adore them.”
All the time she was missing, I thought about how I loved her despite her leaving me. But right now, I love her more because of it, and I wouldn’t have believed that was possible.
Still, I can’t help but protest. “Yes, but … you risked your life for them, and I didn’t even know what the fuck you were doing.”
“No,” she insists, strutting over to me with that defiance that ignites every yearning inside me.
She crosses her arms beneath her chest, her breasts practically tumbling out of the cropped tank top she’s wearing.
“I used my skill to keep them safe. To preserve your peace. I might wish I’d taken a different path in life, and maybe, some days, it’s hard to look at myself in the mirror, but I was built for this.
One stone.” She bites her lip, a veil of guilt and remorse falling upon her.
“I’m sorry it scared you, Axel. That’s why I left you my bracelet, the stone, and the quote. ”
I glance at the tables strewn with pictures and notes, but I want to hear it from her first. “What have you found?”