Chapter 29 #3
He bundled me up in his arms, swinging me around like he hadn’t seen me in years.
I clutched onto him desperately, unable to hold back my giggle as he twirled us around.
The moment he set me down, I was caught in another set of muscular arms. Kellan lifted me until I had to wrap my arms around his waist. He threaded one of his hands through my hair, cradling my head as his lips claimed mine like he never wanted to let me go.
But a hard chest pressed up against my back, another arm encircling my waist, while Merrick crooked a finger under my chin and stole my lips away so he could devour me.
“A little help here,” Lorenzo wheezed, but we all ignored him. I had to do all the heavy lifting in the fight. The least he could do was roll his father’s corpse off himself.
“Let me guess, you took them all out?” Spade whistled as he looked around at the carnage I’d wrought.
“Of course.” I grinned once Merrick allowed me to come up for air, my chest heaved in a deep breath, but all the earlier tightness was gone.
My heart felt lighter than it had in years, my mind clear, my shoulders not weighed down by thoughts of the future.
All those dreams we’d clung to over the last few weeks were now a reality.
Angelo and his minions were gone. And as long as Lorenzo kept his promise, there wouldn’t be a crime family gripping this town by the throat anymore.
Lorenzo grunted, and something thudded against the roof. We all turned to watch him pull himself to his feet and straighten his suit jacket, like he hadn’t just killed his father. Well, I guess technically I did, but he did take that shot… eventually.
“Glad that you all had so much confidence in me,” Lorenzo said, wiping a hand over his brow, but I didn’t miss the way he couldn’t keep his eyes off his father’s body, like he didn’t quite believe it himself.
“Can you blame us?” Merrick growled. “If it were the woman you loved, would you trust anyone but yourself to have her back?”
His gaze went distant before he shook off whatever had come over him. “No. No, I wouldn’t.”
Did the new crime heir actually have someone he loved?
He never brought anyone around his family—not that I could blame him when his father had planned to cart the woman his deceased son loved off with him to who knows where.
A shiver ran over me, and Merrick soothed a hand down my spine, chasing the unease away.
Merrick helped me down from Kellan’s hold on me, and each of them flanked me, with Spade coming to guard my back.
It was honestly a miracle that they let the plan go off as we’d discussed.
“Give me a few days to get everything in order, then I’ll be gone, and East Haven can forget they ever heard of the Barones.”
“I don’t think that will be possible,” I scoffed. “But we’ll give you until the end of the week to get everyone in line. Take out the bad apples before the rot spreads even further.”
He nodded and grimaced. “I will. I’m sure I’ll have to track most of them down.”
Lorenzo’s shoulders slumped, his defenses falling for a moment. “I’m sorry, you know. I’m sorry for everything my family has done to both you and this town. If I could take it back—”
“I know,” I said, not wanting to relive the tragedies threatening to bob up from the depths of my memories. “All that matters now is the future. I never want another person in this town to have to fear the name Barone ever again.”
“They won’t,” Lorenzo said, clasping his hand to his chest.
“And we’ll make sure of it.” Spade placed a comforting hand on my shoulder.
“We should get down there.” Kellan glanced back at the hatch. “We rushed up here to make sure everything had gone according to plan, but a few of the guys were hurt, and we were getting them loaded into ambulances.”
Kellan and Josh had contacted the same paramedics from earlier and had them on standby for when the battle was over.
“And I should get started on the cleanup.” Lorenzo gave us a sharp nod before striding for the ladder. “I’ll be in touch soon.”
My shoulders slumped as his footsteps clanged against the metal, leaving me alone with my men. “It almost doesn’t feel real.”
“Well, it is, sugar.” Spade placed a kiss on my cheek. “And now we get to live out all those dreams of the future.”
A grin tugged at my lips as I turned and wrapped my arms around Spade, squeezing him tightly to my chest. He returned the embrace with just as much vigor, leaving my ribs aching in the best way.
Kellan and Merrick joined in, my three men cocooning me in their warm, comforting arms, where I’d happily stay from now on.
“We’re free.” The words rolled unbidden off my tongue, like a prayer or a sign from some higher power. “It’s really over.”
We let that sink in. Those six years that had separated us had threatened to break us and tear us apart, but they only strengthened us.
It gave us the power and means not only to escape, but to wrench our freedom from Angelo’s clutches and release the town from the iron grip the crime family had held it in for far too many years.