Epilogue
CIPHER
The Black Crowns’ veterans’ fundraiser had taken over the broad meadow of the Rutledge Ranch, filling land normally used for training with food tents, live music, raffle tables, and more civilians than I preferred inside our outer perimeter.
Every vehicle had been screened before entering, each vendor vetted, and all the guests passed through a controlled gate without realizing three separate camera systems had identified them before their tires touched club property.
None of it required much conscious attention anymore, which meant most of mine remained fixed on Bex.
My fiancée stood beneath my arm wearing fitted jeans, white boots, and the black leather vest bearing PROPERTY OF CIPHER across her back.
Her engagement ring caught the light whenever she lifted her hand, and every flash against her finger tightened the same possessive place inside me that had settled the first time I slid the vest over her shoulders.
Four weeks had done nothing to reduce my need to keep one hand around her waist, track every person who approached, or imagine taking her home and stripping her clothes off one slow piece at a time.
Bex tipped her face toward mine, amusement warm in her eyes. “You're staring again.”
“Oh?” My tone was anything but innocent.
Her voice softened as she leaned closer, and her eyes were bright with mischief. “You know exactly what I’m talking about, Corbin. You’ve been staring at my butt every time I turn around.”
“Vest tells everybody it belongs to me.” I lowered my mouth beside her ear while my cock began thickening from nothing more than the scent of citrus and vanilla on her skin. “I’m allowed to admire my property.”
Bex bit her lower lip to contain a laugh, then glanced across the field to make sure her father wasn’t close enough to overhear.
Raines stood near the veterans support booth speaking with Stryker and Judge, his expression considerably less hostile than it had been the first time he saw my name across his daughter’s back.
He still looked at the patch occasionally like he was considering whether California law offered a creative enough definition of justifiable homicide, but he had stopped pretending Bex lived anywhere except with me.
“You’re lucky Dad is over there,” she whispered.
“He knows I fuck you.”
Her face flared pink. “He does not need to hear you say it.”
“Neither did you.” I turned her in my arms and let my gaze drop deliberately to her mouth. “Still made you wet.”
Her eyes widened before narrowing with the kind of challenge that usually ended with her pinned beneath me. “You’re awfully confident for a man standing in the middle of a charity event.”
The loud voice of a woman near the fireworks perimeter drew our attention away.
The company hired to handle the closing display had established its launch field beyond the southern drainage cut, far enough from the crowd to meet every legal requirement and close enough that Ghost had spent most of the evening irritating their safety coordinator.
I had noticed the pattern twenty minutes after Bellamy Pyrotechnics arrived and filed it under problems that did not belong to me.
Tamsin Bellamy stood beside the temporary control station while she studied a launch diagram clipped to a board.
Ghost leaned against the barricade several feet away with his arms folded across his cut, looking relaxed enough that anyone without operational experience might have missed how closely he watched every movement on the field. And every move Tamsin made.
“You’re inside my exclusion line,” she informed him without looking up.
Ghost glanced down at the painted marker beneath his boot. “By three inches.”
“Still inside.”
“Prez put me on site safety.”
“Stryker doesn’t hold the pyrotechnics license.” She finally lifted her face, fixing him with a stare that would have moved a less entertained man. “Behind the line.”
Ghost’s mouth curved lazily. “You always this friendly to people trying to keep you alive?”
“I’m friendlier to people who follow directions.”
Bex made a delighted sound beneath her breath. “I like her.”
“Ghost does too.”
“He’s spoken to her for thirty seconds.”
“He’s been watching her since she arrived.”
She laughed and pressed closer, but the opening notes of the recorded display soundtrack rolled across the field before I could persuade her that the fundraiser had already received enough of our time.
Families began turning toward the launch area, children settling onto blankets while the brothers shifted subtly through the crowd.
The first shells climbed from the mortars in clean sequence, bursting high above the canyon in red, gold, and white as applause moved through the meadow.
I watched the launch field instead of the sky.
Tamsin stood at the firing board with one hand near the emergency stop, her attention moving between cue lights and racks while two technicians held positions outside the marked zone.
Ghost remained near the barricade, his gaze tracking the same right-side battery that had caught mine when its status light flickered out of sequence.
The next volley began with three clean reports.
A fourth ignition flashed from the far rack half a beat too soon, the recoil tearing one support free and kicking the tubes sideways until their mouths angled toward the occupied meadow.
Tamsin’s hand slammed toward the emergency control at the same instant Ghost started moving.
“Down,” I ordered, turning Bex into my chest and covering her with my body while the brothers spread through the crowd.
The tilted rack spat flame. Ghost reached it before the shell cleared the tube, drove one boot into the steel frame, and knocked the entire assembly toward the empty drainage wash as the live round launched.
It tore low across the dark, trailing sparks over scrub before bursting beyond the far ridge with a concussion that struck the meadow hard enough to send children into their parents’ arms.
Tamsin killed the firing sequence, but another fuse continued hissing inside the damaged rack.
Ghost caught her around the waist when she lunged toward it, lifted her off her feet, and carried her backward despite the furious command she threw at him.
His usual easy amusement had vanished, leaving the cold focus of the EOD specialist beneath it.
“Put me down,” she snapped. “There’s another live shell in that tube.”
“Exactly why you’re moving.”
“I know that system better than you do.”
“I know explosives better than you know me.” He set her behind the concrete barrier, pointed one finger at the ground near her boots, and added, “Stay.”
I lifted my head only after the immediate threat disappeared, then inspected Bex from hairline to boots while keeping one arm locked around her waist, my hand resting protectively over her flat belly. Only the two of us knew that our baby was growing there.
She had gone pale, but her breathing remained steady and nothing had struck her. The realization loosened none of the rage pounding behind my ribs, because a live shell had crossed the exact space my woman occupied and missing her did not make the attempt acceptable.
“I’m fine,” Bex assured me, cupping my jaw when my hands reached her waist for the second time. “It went into the wash.”
“It was aimed at the crowd.”
“For less than a second.”
“You were in the crowd.”
“I’m okay, Corbin.” She slid both arms beneath my cut and leaned against me. “We’re okay.”
I kissed her hard enough to taste the relief she offered. Then our attention was snagged by the sound of a man and woman in a heated argument.
Tamsin was toe-to-toe with Ghost arguing about the explosion and figuring out what, or who, had been behind it.
Bex moved against my side, and I glanced down to find fascination lighting her face despite the fear still lingering beneath it. “He likes her.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think he knows?”
“Ghost knows the rack was sabotaged, the firing system was bridged, and Tamsin Bellamy is currently following him across the field while threatening to revoke his access to her equipment.” I watched Ghost take the clipboard from her when she tried walking and reading at the same time, his hand settling briefly at her lower back as he moved her around a coil of wire. “He’ll catch up.”
Bex smiled. “Maybe faster than you did.”
I scoffed. “Identified you as mine immediately, baby.”
“You also walked away from me.”
“Temporary tactical error.”
Her face scrunched adorably and she huffed, “It lasted three weeks.”
“Still temporary.”
Her laughter eased the last hard pressure inside me, but I kept my arm around her as I led her to our SUV.
By the time I got Bex home, the adrenaline had turned into a restless hunger I had no interest in controlling.
She made it three steps inside before I caught her around the waist, locked the door behind us, and put her back against it.
Her property vest creaked beneath my hands as I claimed her mouth, and the small sound she made sent blood rushing to my cock.
My hands worked over her body, needing to feel that she was okay. In one piece.
“You checked me about a dozen times before we left,” she murmured when I lifted my head.
I swept her into my arms and started toward the stairs. “Need you naked where I can put my hands on every inch.”
Her expression softened, but she caught one of my nipple rings through my shirt and tugged hard enough to make my abdomen contract. “That sounds suspiciously like another inspection.”
“More thorough.”