Chapter 42 Extra Coverage #2
I chuckled as my hands ran back down her sides. I hadn’t even truly begun yet, but she was already in a fit of giggles and squeals as my fingers dug into her torso.
“Cinnamon!!” she screamed. My hands immediately stopped, and my mouth dropped.
“I can not believe after all the shit we’ve done, tickling is what has you screaming the safe word for the first time? Are you so serious?”
She laid on top of me still, gasping for breath, giggling as tears ran down her cheeks. “Yes. Don’t fucking tickle me, Carragan.”
I grinned, shaking my head as I shifted slightly and pulled her phone from her waistband, her brows drawn together as she sat up, straddling me with a now vibrating phone in her palm. “It’s the detective.”
My eyes widened for a moment, a sobering process for us both, before I took the phone, answered, and put it on speaker phone.
“Well good evening, Detective,” I said.
Over the last two months, we’d talked to this man at least once a week with updates on the case involving Bennett. Apparently, real life wasn’t like Law & Order. Things like this truly did take time, planning, more planning, more paperwork, and lots of damn hoops to jump through.
Montague and I both decided we had a shared hatred of paperwork and hoops. Fields, the FBI agent in charge, seemed to love the dramatic hoops and bullshit. Which is why we decided early on to go through Montague. He was more…real, as Ember liked to say.
“Hey Wyatt, is Ember there?” he asked. He sounded nervous, which only happened when he had news.
“I’m here, Liam,” she answered.
I tried to keep the eye roll at their first-name basis to a minimum, but I was only human.
“We got him.”
The entire world went quiet as we stared at each other, and tears began rolling down her face.
“Really?” she whispered.
I could hear the phone shifting slightly, and he barked a laugh.
“Yes. We got him in the act. He’s going to be charged out the ass, including for your theft charges.
It’s going to be a bit of course, fucking paperwork and court proceedings, but we got him.
As soon as the charges are official in front of a judge, Fields said he’d ensure your stuff gets handled quickly. Should be good as new in no time.”
She was nodding as she wiped her eyes. “Thank you so much, Liam.”
“Anytime girl. Oh and Wyatt? Tell Antonelli I’ll be in this week to see him about his girl.”
I chuckled. “Have fun with that one, Detective.”
“Ugh, fuck you.” Montague hung up the phone, and Ember and I just stared at each other.
“It’s actually over, or at least as over as what it can be right now,” she said. The smile plastered across her face had my heart skipping beats.
“It is my beautiful girl.”
After we’d met with the police and given our statements, Evan had confronted Elliot. We’d told him not to, the cops had told him not to, but Evan was a hard-headed human, and he wanted to save his brother. He’d told Elliot his options were to flip, or Evan was going to be the one going undercover.
Fields had brought Elliot in immediately and interrogated him.
With Evan’s help, he did flip on the whole operation.
He started wearing a wire in an effort to get a reduced sentence and keep Evan out of the situation.
Fields was able to get the district attorney to agree to parole and rehab, no actual jail time, but it would go on his record.
Thanks to the boys, they’d been able to get almost everyone on tape doing something worth jail time, from the distributors to the assholes who sent people after Ember. Elliot had driven himself right into the heart of everything to shut it all down as quickly as he could, and it worked.
The only person who didn’t offer to help, and in fact hadn’t been heard from once since that dinner two months ago, was Lori.
Ember thought she had finally decided enough was enough, and she ran from Bennett.
I thought she knew exactly what her husband was up to and didn’t want to be dragged into the middle of it.
Fields still wanted to interview her though, whether she knew anything or not, but that was his job, not mine.
I smiled as Ember leaned down, peppering me with kisses and smiles so much that the next words from my mouth just slipped out without a second thought.
“Marry me.”
She sat up, her hands on either side of my chest, the shock clear on her face. “What?”
“Marry me, Ember Rae,” I repeated. “Marry me so I can finally put your real last name on the end of that.”
I moved, setting her down on the couch and running upstairs to our room and into the bottom of my sock drawer, only to sprint back downstairs where she was still sitting—confused as hell.
Kneeling down in front of her in her favorite grey sweatpants that I owned and a paint-covered black tank, I smiled as I opened the ring box.
“I’ve been thinking about this since the moment I saw you in those woods and even more after our first meeting at the bakery.
I wanted so badly for my masked girl and Ember Brady to be the same person.
Someone hard-working, intelligent, who could match my spicy wit and would also let me chase her through the woods and tie her up until she was screaming my name.
I wanted it all, and the night I found out it was you?
All of it? The whole package?” I swallowed, my throat tight as I shook my head.
“I bought the ring that week, Ember. You, little flame, you are the only future I’ll die without. Marry me.”
“Normally I’d sass you for saying that as a command instead of a question, but truly, I don’t fucking care, Wyatt.” She wiped the tears from her face and started nodding. “I want nothing more than to be your wife, crazy man. I love you.”
I pulled her down for a kiss—one that said everything I knew my words were lacking. One that said I was beyond thrilled I got to spend my life with this stunning woman next to me for the rest of forever.
When the kiss broke, the smile still gracing her stunning face, she held out her left hand. I pulled the gold band with diamonds encrusted throughout it, the band interwoven to look like vines, and the diamonds set to look like small leaves until it reached the center stone.
It slid onto her finger perfectly, and she let out a deep breath. “It’s beautiful, Wyatt. Absolutely stunning.”
“Just wanted it to match the girl who’ll wear it for the rest of our lives.”
And it would—forever.