Chapter 11 #3
Then Blaze crouches, checks him, and looks up. “Dead.”
The word should satisfy me.
It doesn’t. Instead, it feels almost anticlimactic.
Am I getting soft? Or was this too easy?
I chalk the feeling to adrenaline and poor emotional regulation.
Gregory’s voice cracks through radio. “Is it over?”
I look down at Carlos. “Yes,” I say. “It’s over.”
As I say the words, I don’t feel the full flood of relief I thought I would. I guess that’s what love does to you. Makes you feel vulnerable even in your victory.
Static fills the line.
Then Erin’s voice. “Lucian?”
One word. My name. A command, a warning, a caress.
All at once.
I close my eyes. “I’m here.”
A shaky breath comes through the radio.
“I’m coming to you.”
My first instinct is no. But I need her. So, I force the word out. “Come.”
I stand in the old courier chamber beneath the rebuilt Village with Carlos dead at my feet and wait for Erin to come.
Mack appears first.
Then Erin.
Snow melts in her dark hair. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold. Her eyes find mine before they find the body.
She stops at the threshold. Her gaze drops to Carlos. Then to my hands.
Then back to my face.
I expect horror. I expect recoil.
Instead, she steps into the room.
Toward me. Every inch of me breaks.
She comes until she stands in front of me. “Are you hurt?”
A laugh almost leaves me. “No.”
She takes my hands. She lifts them one at a time and presses her mouth to my knuckles.
The room goes silent.
Blaze turns away first.
Rafe looks down.
Mack watches the corridor.
Erin keeps my hands in hers. Alive in front of me. Choosing me after seeing me at my worst.
I pull her into me. Too hard. I know it the second my arms close around her.
But she lets me anyway. “I’m here,” she whispers.
I bury my face in her hair.
Carlos is dead.
Gregory appears in the doorway minutes later, pale and shaking, laptop clutched like a shield.
He looks at Carlos.
Then at me.
Then at Erin.
“It worked,” he says, like he cannot believe he was right.
I look at my brother. The boy I protected by becoming a monster.
The man who helped end one.
“Yes,” I say. “It worked.”
His eyes shine. Then, he fully takes in the body of the dead man lying on the floor. A momentary shade of color fades from his face.
It’s quickly replaced with the sharp word, “Good,” and the locked set of his jaw.
And so, it begins.
I put a hand on his shoulder, turning him away from the scene like I can still shield him from this world.
But I can’t.
And now, he wouldn’t want me to.
We leave Carlos behind on the concrete with his screens dark, his files exposed, his men gone, his lies severed, and no one left to listen.
She takes my hand and leads me right out the front door. The cold air hits my face. The smoke has thinned. Snow falls through the red pulse of dying alarms. Men move across the courtyard, securing doors, checking roofs, calling all-clears.
Open.
I stand on the sidewalk and look back at what will soon be the place I purchase the only physical proof of my love I can give.
You know it by now.
Four carats. Princess cut. Platinum band.
With an inscription inside.
I know what it will say.
Isobel is standing on the sidewalk, under guard in her white coat, face turned toward the sky as snow melts against her cheeks.
Blaze is calling Cleo on the phone and saying, “Before you yell, I’m alive and handsome.”
Mack is checking every angle as if peace is suspicious.
I look at Erin.
Alive.
Free.
Mine because she chooses.
Behind us, Carlos lies dead under the old Village.
Ahead, our home waits unfinished in the snow.
For the first time in years, the fire is out.
And the Mafia King walks out of the ashes a better man.
Hand in hand with the queen who made him so.
As we walk back to the cars, she whispers to me, “You know I like gold, right?”
“What?”
“For the ring. When you propose,” she smiles up at me. “I always pictured it in gold.”
A laugh comes from the center of my chest. “Gold. Okay. Gold it will be.”
She narrows her gaze, giving me a curious smile. “What’s so funny?”
“Compromise,” I say. “Partnership.”
“You inhaled too much smoke, silly.” She stretches up on tiptoe to kiss me.
I need her comfort, her warmth. I need to feel that she’s alive. Safe.
“Come here.” I wrap my arms around her waist, pulling tight against me. “Maybe. Or maybe you just make me deliriously happy.”
“Come on, let’s go,” she says. “You know Isobel doesn’t eat if I don’t feed her. And she’s looking extra peaky right now.”
That’s so Erin, it makes me smile. We pile up in the convoy, Rafe glued to his screen. Before we loaded up, I told him to keep his eyes out and his guard up.
Something feels off to me.
On the ride to our next destination, Erin rests against my shoulder, her breathing slowing to a relaxed rate.
I’d say I almost nod off myself. And I would.
If I felt relief, I would.
But I don’t.
I rest the back of my head on the headrest and try to convince myself that the scene in the office of Bachman’s Jewelers was the end.
Then, Rafe looks up from the screen. He catches my eye.
He mouths, ‘Another message.’