Chapter Fifty-Two
An hour later, Piper’s been put to bed in my office, and Brian and I lie twisted in the bedsheets, his panting the only sound in our otherwise silent home.
I stare at the ceiling, thinking I can skip my next day’s workout after that marathon session and wondering how the hell things turned out this way.
He loves me.
He doesn’t care that I kill people.
He doesn’t want to end things with my arrest and prosecution.
I turn to look at him. “Brian?”
“Mm?” He shifts in bed, winces at the wound that incapacitated him only minimally as we went not one round, but two, which, in our mid-thirties, is nothing short of incredible.
I experiment with how to say it, but when the words come out, they are quite plain and to the point: “How can you love me when I do what I do? I’m not normal.”
“I won’t lie—it’s a lot to take in. A lot to come to terms with. But I love you, Nadia. All of you. And if this is part of who you are, and you’re dealing with it the best way you know how, I can try to understand that. To accept it, to accept you. In your own way, you’re doing the right thing.”
It’s true, I suppose, that I’m doing the right thing. That at least, according to my grandmother’s principles, I’m using who I am to make the world better.
“Gran always said it’s my superpower.” Another thought occurs to me. “Why the hell did you think having another baby was a good idea?”
He hesitates, holding his breath for a beat.
“I thought you were pulling away. The girls have been such a blessing to our family.” He looks at me like he can peer into my soul.
“Having Eliza brought us so much closer. I wondered if you were having an affair. I thought maybe having another baby would fix it.”
“Babies don’t fix relationships.”
“I know, and yet it made sense in my head. I just—” He sighs, rolls over, shuffles through the nightstand until he pulls out an old pair of glasses and squints at them. “I was desperate, Nadia. I don’t want to lose you.”
I let those words soak into my being, let myself feel wanted and known for who I truly am. His warmth feels soothing, and I snuggle closer, hesitating only when his breathing hitches—the injury.
“I have pain meds,” I say. “Want some?”
“God, yes.”
I’m out of bed, searching for the Tylenol-codeine pills, when I hear the noise.
Halfway to the bathroom, I glance down the hall outside our bedroom door. It could be Eliza, waking up from a nightmare. It could be Evie, and she’s wet the bed. Or…
I kick the door shut, cutting off any potential assailant’s view of inside the room.
“Down!” I bark at Brian, and like he’s done it before—which I’m sure he has—he drops to the ground.
Not a second later, the door explodes, a giant chunk splintering inward as a bullet pierces through and lodges in the opposite wall.
On hands and knees, I crawl toward the dresser, reach beneath it, yank out a Glock with a suppressor and specialty rounds—the sort that won’t go through a wall, won’t put my daughters’ lives at risk, should I ever need to shoot inside my own home—and squat on the opposite side of the furniture, aiming directly toward the door.
Brian mutters a curse but stays down.
“Another gun in the bedside table,” I tell him.
“How many guns do you have?” he hisses back.
“A lot.”
“And how many are hidden around the house?”
I huff out a breath, annoyed at the questions.
“We don’t have time for this right now.” Also, I don’t actually know the answer to that.
I just know they are all hidden in places impossible for the girls to access, and all are in biometric safes.
I may kill people for a living, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in gun safety.
Or gun control, for that matter. Most people I know should definitely not have guns.
Somewhere in the house, there’s a thump.
My only thought is the girls, and like that, I’m on my feet.
“Nadia—”
I ignore him. I won’t let anyone fuck with my family, even if it means I’m killed in the process.
If I’ve learned anything from these past weeks, it’s that I’m nothing without them.
I squat on one knee to make myself a smaller target, aim my gun over the top of my forearm to steady the weapon, and yank the door open.
An empty hallway.
They might be waiting at the turn of the hall.
Or in the girls’ bedroom. They could have retreated down the stairs, a shotgun aimed at the top for whoever makes their way down.
My breath is even, my hands steady. Brian comes up from behind me, the gun he pulled from the bedside table held in a two-handed grip identical to mine.
Our gazes meet and we nod, then start down the passageway together.
My first stop is the girls’ room. Without asking, Brian moves to open the door while I stand to one side, aiming and ready.
We burst through, synchronized, like we know what we’re doing.
And for a moment, I’m utterly grateful that we’re both who we are—we’re both dangerous and capable and deadly.
I breathe a sigh of relief to find that, besides two little girls who can sleep through just about anything, and Bear, who’s awake and alert at the foot of Eliza’s bed, the room is empty.
I double-check that they’re breathing, that they’re okay, then shut the door and lock it behind me.
A few more steps, and we’ll be past the shelter of the landing.
In the danger zone of whoever might be waiting beyond.
If it were just me, I’m not sure how I would handle it—I might not.
I might stop and wait for them to make a move.
On my own, I would literally be a sitting duck, putting myself within their purview.
In fact, one of us will still have to, but at least with Brian—with the two of us—we can work together and stop them.
Brian taps my shoulder, indicating he’ll go first. His eyes are focused, razor-sharp, probably like he is at work.
I shake my head—motion that I will go ahead of him—but he mouths a nonnegotiable No and starts forward.
My heart accelerates, and I hope he’ll be able to move fast enough—maybe shoot fast enough—with his injury.
Then I force myself to focus, to go to the side and aim, to wait for whoever it is to show their face.
A man flies around the edge of a wall to level his gun in Brian’s direction.
Another hitman.
My finger squeezes the trigger, once, twice, three times—then, blood. Silence.
“Holy shit,” Brian whispers. He stares at me, like despite the past several hours, he still can’t quite believe his eyes. Then he crosses the landing and kisses me.