Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lucian
Isobel is here.
I long for the day she is not.
There is no part of my heart that does not beat for Erin.
But with Isobel around, I can’t rid myself of the noose holding my past around my neck.
And I want to.
Desperately.
She is wearing one of the soft gray sweaters and black leggings. I’m pretty sure I bought them and Erin loaned them to her. A casual look instead of the armor of clothing she uses. No cream coat. No heels. No diamonds. No makeup contouring the angles of her cheekbones.
She looks younger without the costume.
More human.
With Carlos dead, I feel less edgy standing in the same room as her.
Slightly.
She did leave me to burn in a warehouse fire.
Gregory sits on the edge of a chair with a laptop open. Blaze is near the fireplace, arms crossed, looking like he would personally volunteer to kill every Moretti in Europe if it got him home to Cleo faster.
Despite Cass threatening me with the withholding of baked goods for the rest of my life, Cass and Ryan are still safely in Norway.
In the end, she knew they were safer where they are.
And that war room conversations do not need to be interrupted with snack requests.
Isobel looks at Erin first.
Then at me. “What happened?”
Rafe places the tablet on the coffee table. And gets right to the point. “The Morettis are coming for you.”
She doesn’t gasp or cry. She closes her eyes. Like she’s given in.
Like they already have her.
“I wondered when they would,” she whispers.
Erin goes still beside me. “You knew?”
“I knew they would want whatever Marina left behind,” she says. “And they think I’m another microfilm.”
“Are you?” Blaze asks, raising a dark brow.
“No.” Isobel shakes her head. “Carlos kept me in the dark. I didn’t even know she gave it to me.”
“Do you know what else she kept?” Rafe asks.
“No.”
I finally speak. “Think.”
A flicker of fight comes into her eyes. She stares at me. “I have done nothing but think since the day we found the microfilm in the necklace.” Her voice cracks on the last word.
Rafe shifts. Just enough that she knows someone is there.
Not comfort. Not forgiveness.
Just presence.
She notices.
So do I.
Bloody traitor.
His one weakness has always been blonde women who bring a chill to the air with their presence.
Regardless, I’ll kill him for this little disloyal crush later.
Meanwhile, I wrap my arm around the warm, soft woman next to me. The only woman in this world who is my weakness.
My type.
My soulmate.
Erin says, “Somehow Carlos knew you had the microfilm—”
“Or guessed it,” Isobel says.
Erin says, “And he told the Morettis you had all of Marina’s information on them.”
“Information they would kill to keep secret,” Isobel agrees.
Rafe says, “Whether he knew you had it or not, telling them would ensure they would come for you.”
Isobel looks at him. “I’m almost certain that’s what he’s done. He would have found some way to get revenge on me for betraying him. Even in death.”
“Carlos never left a door without setting a trap behind it,” I say.
Erin whispers, “He destroyed everything he touched. So why wouldn’t he leave a fire in his wake?”
For a moment, the room is still. Quiet. Too quiet.
Gregory breaks the silence first. “We use the archive.”
Everyone looks at him. Me with fatigue. Isobel with hope. Erin with curiosity.
“We’re likely the only ones, aside from Carlos, who have seen Marina’s files.
She took such care to ensure no one knew Isobel had them that not even Isobel did.
” He stands over his laptop screen, his glasses slipping down his nose as he stares at it.
He pushes them up. “We make all the information we have impossible for them to take.”
“Still not following,” Blaze offers helpfully.
Rafe’s expression sharpens. “Distributed release.”
Gregory nods. “Copies. Encrypted. Several locations. If anything happens to Isobel, the files go out.”
Blaze whistles. “Oxford has become a criminal.”
Gregory looks unoffended. “I prefer the term anarchist.”
I almost laugh.
Almost.
Isobel does not. Her face is pale. “There is something else,” she says. “Something Marina didn’t put in the files.”
My attention snaps back to her. “Say it.”
Isobel looks at the floor. “I should have told you a long time ago.”
I know. I know before she says it.
The baby.
The grief I carried like a locked room inside my chest.
Erin moves closer to me. Holding me up.
It’s something to do with the baby that still holds us bound to our terrible past.
Finally, Isobel lifts her chin. “I didn’t think it mattered if I ever told you. But now it feels like I should give you the last secret I kept from you.”
My body freezes in place. I have no idea what she could say.
“The pregnancy,” she says in a breathy rush. “It was not what I told you it was.”
The room stops breathing. Erin doesn’t move. I can’t feel my own heartbeat.
“It was no surprise.” Isobel continues because if she stops, she may never start again. “Months before I told you I was pregnant, I stopped taking birth control on purpose.”
My voice is so low I don’t recognize it. “You did what?”
Her eyes fill. “Then we lost the baby, so what did it matter anyway? Now, I see my lies create decades of consequences.”
I feel like someone has reached inside my chest and closed a fist around my heart. “Having a child is not something you toy with. And having a child with someone isn’t a decision you make alone.”
Erin’s hands are on my shoulders. To calm me. “Why?” I ask. “Why would you do something like that?”
Isobel’s tears spill. “Because you were leaving me.”
“What?”
My mind is a fog with old pain swirling around my thoughts, my memories, the past. I stare at her. “A child is not something you use as a weapon. Or a trap.”
“Let her finish,” Erin whispers.
“No. You don’t get it.” She shakes her head. “Carlos had already started telling me what you were becoming. That you would leave and join your family. And that there was no way they would ever accept me.”
“Why?”
It’s the only word I can find.
“I was scared, and vain, and desperate to still matter to you.” Her hands twist together. “So I told you I might be pregnant. I wanted you to stop. To look at me. To choose me.”
I want to feel rage. That would be easy. Instead, I feel grief.
All the pain in my past that I carried. The walls I built around me. All the pain I’ve put Erin through because of those walls.
All built on the lies of others.
My voice is barely audible. “I don’t understand how you could do that.”
“It’s in the past,” Erin whispers.
“No.” She swallows. “It’s still here.” The room is so quiet I can hear the fire settling. “And that’s why, for the fire, the baby, everything…” Isobel looks at me, looks at Erin. “I need you to know. And I need to say, I’m sorry.”
I stare at her for a long time.
“I loved you,” she whispers. “In a way that served me.” She looks at Erin. “But she loves you in the way you deserve.”
Erin grabs my hand.
“Don’t let what I did to you…let you ruin her.”
Then I turn to Erin. And I hold her in my arms. She looks up at me with every ounce of love and trust she’s given me, which I’ve done nothing to deserve.
I want to kiss her, but the moment is too raw for that.
I make her a promise instead: “I won’t.”
She smiles up at me in a way that makes me want to command everyone to leave us alone in this room.
Immediately.
Behind us, Blaze clears his throat.
It is the most helpful sound I have ever heard from him.
“Yo. Romeo. We still have some nasty Italians trying to kidnap Ice Queen.”
Isobel gives a tight smile. “Thank you, Blaze. I thought you’d rather see me dead.”
“You’re welcome.” Blaze gives that roguish, half-devil, half-danger shit-eating grin of his. “It’s not you, Elsa. I just can’t do this feelings crap. Let’s get ready to blow up some shit.”
“Blaze,” Rafe sighs. “We will not be ‘blowing shit up.’ We’re doing the opposite. Locking it down.”
“So that later, we can blow their shit up.”
Rafe gives Blaze an exasperated look.
Blaze holds out a hand in surrender. “Only if we need to.”
Erin laughs.
I stare at her, so beautiful when she smiles. When she doesn’t. When she’s angry with me.
When she wants me.
When she wants me to show her how much I want her.
I stand there, dazed. Worried.
And head over heels in a love so deep my chest is so full it aches simply when I look at her.
Rafe picks up the tablet. “Gregory, duplicate everything. Three encrypted vaults minimum. One with Bayne and the Kings in Scotland. One with the Russos in Italy. And ours.”
Gregory nods.
Rafe barks more orders. “Blaze, call Cleo and tell her we need her in Norway a few more days.”
Blaze looks personally betrayed. “Why would you do this to my marriage?”
“Because I need you.”
“I need to be in my wife’s bed.”
“Blaze.”
“Fine.”
Rafe turns to Isobel. “You’re not going to the Morettis.”
She blinks.
“You are not going to be traded for peace. You are not bait. You are not leverage. We are ending that part of your life.”
For the first time since I met her, Isobel looks surprised by kindness.
Jesus. He does have a crush.
I’ll kill him.
“What happens to me?” she asks.
I answer her before Erin forces me to. Not warm or cruel, I tell her, “The Bachmans will protect you.”
She looks at me. Something final passes between us.
Not love.
Not hate.
The absence of ownership.
Freedom.
“Why?” she asks me. “Why, after all this and everything that I’ve done to you, to her, to everyone…why protect me?”
I turn to Erin. “Because she’s taught me that betrayal isn’t always the end.”
She grabs my hand and squeezes it.
No one comments.
Blaze snorts.
Rafe starts giving more orders.
Gregory starts typing.
Blaze starts complaining.
Isobel moves with her guards, leaving the room.
Erin turns to me. “Come with me.”
I narrow my eyes. “Where?”
“I need air.” She stares at me. “You can’t deny me air.”
“Only this once,” I say. “Do not get used to it.”
We walk through the house, finally stepping outside together.
Brisk air. Sunshine. No guards between us.
And finally, I do what I’ve been scared to do since the moment the thought first came into my mind.
I drop to one knee in front of the only woman who could bring me to my knees.
“Erin. Marry me.”
She smiles down at me, and her eyes hold equal parts surprise and acceptance.
Like she had hoped, this moment would come.
But was never really sure that it would.
And it has.
“Erin.”
“Don’t use that Lucian voice with me when you’re proposing.”
But she’s smiling.
So, I grab her hand. And I say it again. “Erin. Marry me.”
I won’t stop till she says yes.
But there must be a God because she does.
“Yes,” she says, staring down at me with tears in her eyes.
“Say it. Again.”
“Yes, Lucian,” she laughs. “I’ll marry you.”