Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Robyn
“ K nock knock.”
My neck protested as I turned my head, catching Harm’s head poked through the door.
“Hey,” I rasped and returned my gaze to the window, not seeing much of the forest and instead only my reflection and the approach of Harm’s.
My brother stopped when we were shoulder to shoulder. Part of me still resisted his presence. I struggled to be around any of them, but at the same time, it was a comfort. A distraction. Harm and Dare’s banter. Rhys fiddling on his hurdy-gurdy. And Tynan always bringing me something too delicious to turn down.
In the last two weeks, I’d let them in more than I had in almost the last two decades, and it was because of Damon.
“How are you feeling?” Harm’s voice settled me, as deep and strong as though made of stone .
Swallowing, I looked at the woman in the glass, hardly seeing any sign left of what had happened that day. I’d walked away from Belmont’s chalet with a whole host of damage. Physical things like cuts, bruises, broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and a concussion. Those had drastically faded almost completely away. Unlike the weight of finality.
It was…over.
Uzair and Amir were dead. The first by my hand, the second by the FBI agents who’d rescued us. Belmont was in custody. I had no details and no right to request them. All I knew was what was reported on the news; Bernard Belmont had been arrested on criminal charges, and it was unlikely there would be any bail…or any future life beyond prison.
I had no idea what would happen to GrowTech without him at its helm, but at this point, I didn’t care. The man who’d ordered the deaths of my parents and then spent decades covering it and a whole host of other illegal activities up was finally behind bars.
Along with my husband. Along with my heart.
Pain bloomed in my chest—in what felt like the vacant cavern that continued to fill endlessly with the pain of his loss. It was easier the first time he’d left me to ignore how I loved him; I was too busy hating him for what I’d thought he’d done, but now I had no recourse.
I loved Damon, and he was gone. And the way he haunted me now was worse than the pain of hating him had ever been.
Every time I closed my eyes, it was to see his face. The look of fear on his chiseled features when he told me to run. The sheer agony that ripped through him when Peter stabbed him in the side. And then his pale, lifeless form carried away by the FBI agents.
Weeks ago, this was the end I’d hoped for—an end I’d worked decades to see. Belmont brought down. GrowTech dismantled. And Damon in custody.
“I will be your end. Not as your wife but as the reason you end up in cuffs being hauled away by the FBI…”
Now, I hated the woman who’d said those words; she had no idea how many new places a heart could break.
My breath caught, and I quickly answered, “Better, but not okay,” hoping he didn’t catch the crack in my emotions.
“It will be.” His hand landed on my shoulder, a warm weight in the middle of the cold grief that surrounded me. “This isn’t how it ends for you.”
How do you know? I wanted to scoff. Just because the rest of them had found love in the darkest of places and against the odds didn’t mean that could happen for me. None of them had loved the most wanted criminal in the world.
“Have you heard anything?” I asked, unable to say anything else or care about anything else, really.
Harm’s mouth thinned. “Not since he recovered from surgery and was released from the hospital.”
Released was an ironic choice of word. Damon would never be released. The FBI hadn’t even admitted to having him in custody. God only knew what their plans for him were…what they would do to him for the things he’d done.
I bit my lip just as it started to quiver.
“Give it time. We’ll figure out what’s going on. We’re pulling on every string, every friend, every favor we’ve got, and we’re still waiting to hear back from some contacts in the Bureau.”
My brothers had explored every possible avenue to learn what was happening or going to happen to my husband, yet the answers were just as evasive as Damon had been all these years.
“He’s not coming back.” My voice was almost imperceptible. “He was never planning on coming back. ”
“For you, I will gladly end up in cuffs.”
How many times had he so eagerly, so charmingly promised to end up in custody because I said it was what I wanted? How many times had I thought it was just another part of his plan to con me back into his arms?
The whole time he’d told me nothing but the truth.
That he’d always loved me. That he’d always been faithful. That he’d do whatever it took to protect me…including turning himself in.
“I don’t believe that, and neither do you.”
“What else am I supposed to believe?” I fired back, turning my head away, the pain blinding me. “Why else would he have done what he did?”
“What other choice did he have?”
Anything , I wanted to scream. Damon had any other choice but to sacrifice himself like this.
But did he? The tiniest voice inside my head asked.
In the days I’d spent confined to bed, recovering from my injuries, I pieced together what happened at the chalet. Damon had called Pat, that was the truth, but it was never to bring reinforcements to get us out. At least, not the kind of reinforcements I’d assumed. He’d called Pat to have the man tip off the FBI to his location.
Damon chose self-destruction over salvation. Because of me. To protect me.
All this time, he’d never lied to me about his motives. There was nothing and no one he wouldn’t destroy to keep me safe, including himself.
“You haven’t heard from…anyone?” Harm probed gently, but no matter how softly the question turned on his tongue, there was no easing the destruction caused by a twisting knife.
Three weeks had gone by, and I hadn’t heard anything. Not from Damon, obviously. Not from the FBI, who’d taken my initial statement at face value and hadn’t come back to probe. But neither had I heard from Pat or Nonna. I wondered if they were in hiding with Damon in custody.
“No,” I croaked.
I thought about going to the house to find out. At first, it wasn’t an option because of my injuries, and then I was afraid. What if I went there and it put them at risk? I knew whatever information Damon was giving the authorities, he wouldn’t reveal anything to harm the people he cared about.
“We’re going to find him, Rob?—”
“Please, don’t,” I begged, not wanting a promise we both knew he couldn’t make.
There was a sound at the door, and we both turned as Dare poked his head into my cabin. “Rob.” My other brother’s face was pulled taut. “There’s someone in the garage here to see you.”
My heart catapulted against the front of my chest, and then I was moving. Rushing by him as he called after me, “Robyn!” But I was already gone.
Down the hall that had never felt so long. Up the elevator that had never moved so slowly. Through doors that never felt so heavy to open.
And then I was in the main part of the garage, rushing through the maze of motorcycles to the open bay door at the front.
“Hello, Robbie,” Pat drawled, and I skidded to a stop as soon as I saw him.
A cry lurched from my chest. Not that I wasn’t happy to see the scarred Irishman, but I thought…hoped. What had I thought? That the FBI would just let the man sitting atop their Most Wanted list and their former agent walk away after less than two weeks in custody ?
I could blame the concussion for such a stupid thought, but it was all my heart’s doing.
“Hi.”
“How are you doing?”
My throat bobbed. “I’m okay…but not good.”
He nodded, his worn face creasing like he knew exactly what I meant.
“I don’t understand, Pat. How could he do this?” My lungs emptied.
“Oh Robbie.” His head swayed. “I think you do understand.”
I nodded, starting to feel the burn behind my eyes. “I don’t want to. I don’t want to understand why this was the only choice—to leave me without him.”
The ground started to tilt and sway underneath me, and I along with it.
“Dammit, Robbie.” Pat reached for my shoulders and steadied me. “You all right?”
Slowly, my eyes found his, and I shook my head, feeling the strangest sensation of heat leaking from the corners of my eyes.
Pat’s expression softened. “Oh, Robbie. He watched you live in the shadows for over a decade, fighting for justice. You think he could live with himself for resigning you to a future on the run as a fugitive?”
“Shouldn’t that have been my choice?” I could barely form the words.
“Wasn’t it?” he asked, and I flinched. “Did you tell him your happiest memories were the ones with your adopted family? Their kids? No matter what you think of him, Damon’s not the man to ask you to turn your backs on them.”
My tongue swelled into a useless lump in my mouth.
“Plus, you aren’t the only one who’s been hiding all this time,” he rumbled. “Damon was ready to face the consequences of his choices for a future with you.”
“And what future is that now? Life without parole in federal prison?”
“Here.”
I blinked and saw Pat’s hand extended with an envelope. There was no writing on the outside, but there was only one person it could be from.
Taking it, my heartbeats slowed to the faintest gait as I lifted the flap and pulled out the folded sheet of paper.
I will always come back to you, Robber. I love you as ever. Forever.
Tears now burned bitter tracks down my cheeks.
Pat didn’t say anything else but quietly backed away toward his car now that his delivery was done.
“Pat,” I called, and he stopped and turned.
I didn’t want to stay here—didn’t want to be here. Here belonged to a woman who’d loathed the man she’d tied her life to. A man she’d wanted to forget existed.
I wasn’t that woman anymore.
“Yeah, Robbie?”
“Can you take me home?”
His broad shoulders settled, a bittersweet kind of happiness passing across his expression.
“Yeah, Robbie.”
I turned, thinking to grab some of my things, and then it hit me that I had no things. Not really.
I gave up on having any pieces of a life the first time I’d lost him.
When I looked back, I saw Harm and Dare waiting in the shadows. As soon as they saw my face, they knew. Maybe they’d always known my place had never been here. As much as I loved them, loved my family, my home had never been here.
I went to them, embracing each of them in the kind of hug we rarely shared but deeply felt.
“You know we’re always here for you, Rob. Whatever you need.”
“I know.” I drew back and looked at him with a smile. “Thank you for everything. Love you both.”
“You, too, Rob.”
I walked back to Pat and followed him to his car. For the first time in a very long time, I knew exactly where I belonged.
Two months later…
“I’ll be up in a minute, Nonna,” I called, hearing the sliding door open and then shut as I floated in the pool.
I wasn’t much of a swimmer, but since I’d returned to the house, I’d found solace in the nightly swims that Damon used to take.
“All right.” I sighed and opened my eyes, my pupils adjusting to the starry night…and the shadow approaching the pool.
That wasn’t Nonna.
Panic seized my chest. I still had nightmares about Shazad and Belmont even though I knew they couldn’t hurt me, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t made enemies in my quest for justice. And Damon surely had .
My feet sank to the bottom, water sloshing as I stood upright.
“Who are you?” I demanded, backing toward the center of the pool.
The shadow coalesced into a distinctly male form. A well-dressed male form with a fedora—“Is that any way to greet your husband, Robber?”
The smooth voice was like a light bursting through the darkness of the night. Its smooth tenor followed by the flash of his smile as the lights around the pool finally illuminated his face.
“Damon…” I cupped my hand over my mouth, my chest lurching.
He crouched by the edge of the pool, only the slightest wince giving away that he was still recovering.
“You…what…how…” My eyes whipped over him in a frenzy of disbelief. This couldn’t be real. He couldn’t be real. I was hallucinating.
“I promised you I’d come back to you,” he said, piercing the panic of disenchantment, his words a balm over my beaten, broken heart.
In shock, I watched his hand extend toward me, and I wanted to resist, so afraid that if he wasn’t real, I wouldn’t recover. But before I could stop myself, my hand reached out and landed in the warm strength of his.
“Damon,” I choked out.
“I’m here, Robber,” he murmured, eyes twinkling. “God, how I’ve missed you.”
With a strangled cry, I reached up and grabbed his collar with my other hand, catching his look of surprise a second before I pulled him into the pool, the water gobbling him up.
His hat remained on the surface, floating away as his head broke through the water.
“What do you think you’re doing, wife?” he growled and gripped my arm, hauling me to his chest. His suit was plastered to him, but I still felt the heat of his body underneath.
“Making sure you’re real.”
He cupped my cheeks, the warmth of his eyes skating over my face. “I don’t know about real, Robber, but I do know I’m yours.”
Tears mingled with water running down my face. A small cry bubbled from my throat as I wrapped my arms around his neck and crushed my mouth to his.
Real. Mine.
“Damon…”
“I told you I’d come back to you.”
“How?” I breathed out.
“I have a lot of information to barter, Robber. A lot to trade to be able to live the rest of my life with you,” he said, his hand brushing my wet hair back from my face. “And I have new ankle jewelry to prove it.”
A watery laugh sounded from my chest, the ball of my foot brushing against the ankle monitor on his right leg.
“I can’t believe they let you go.” I pulled his face to mine.
His chest rumbled into mine. “Oh, they didn’t let me go. I am most assuredly indentured to the US government for a very long time. They did realize I’m much more valuable as an asset rather than a prisoner.”
Questions spilled like marbles through my mind, running in all kinds of directions for what this arrangement meant for him. For us. But I didn’t care about collecting the answers tonight. I didn’t care about anything except that he was here.
“Was this your plan all along?” My eyes searched his, our lips a breath from touching.
“Not my plan, Robber. My promise,” he said low. “I promised I’d come back to you. ”
I breathed fully as though for the first time in months, and then I felt it, the steady thump in my chest. The warmth of relief. The bloom of hope. The end we’d fought for had come and gone, and now, it was time for our beginning.
“I love you, Damon.”
“As ever.” I was smiling as his mouth came for mine again, my final vow sealed to my lips.
“Forever.”