Chapter Thirteen
Angela couldn't stop shaking.
Not in the shower, where she scrubbed blood from her hands until her skin turned raw.
Not while she pulled on clean clothes, fingers clumsy on buttons.
Not standing in the hallway of the compound, listening to brothers move through the building, everyone too wired to sleep despite the dawn light creeping through the windows.
She kept seeing Sal's blood on her hands. Kept hearing Edge's fist connect with Carver's throat. Kept feeling the gun at her hip that she hadn't needed to fire but had been ready to.
The adrenaline had nowhere to go.
It buzzed through her veins like electricity, making her heart race and her muscles twitch and her mind spin through the same images over and over. The shattered restaurant. The bodies on the floor. Edge moving through violence like he'd been born for it.
She'd been part of that. She'd chosen to be part of that.
And she didn't regret it.
Angela climbed the stairs to the roof access without deciding to. Her body knew where it was going even if her mind was still catching up.
Edge stood at the edge of the roof, silhouette sharp against the brightening sky. He'd showered too—she could see the damp ends of his hair—but his shoulders were tight, his hands gripping the railing like he might rip it free.
He heard her approach. Didn't turn.
"You should be sleeping."
"So should you." Angela stopped beside him, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body. "Can't."
"Too wired."
"Yeah."
The shore town lights were fading as the sun rose, the distant glow of Ventnor and Margate giving way to the ordinary grey of early morning.
Somewhere out there, paramedics were working on Sal.
Police were investigating a robbery that would never be solved.
And Vitale was learning that his operations manager was dead.
"I keep thinking about what could have happened," Angela said. "If you hadn't gotten there in time. If Carver's men had been better. If—"
Edge turned so fast she stumbled back.
His hands caught her shoulders, pulling her toward him, his eyes burning with something dark and desperate.
"Don't." His voice was ragged. "Don't think about what could have happened. You're here. You're alive. That's all that matters."
"I'm not scared." The words came out fierce, defiant. "I'm angry. At them. At Vitale. At this whole situation that dragged me into something I never asked for."
"Good." Edge's grip tightened. "Use it."
"How?"
His answer was to crush his mouth against hers.
This wasn't like their first time. That had been slow, deliberate, both of them testing the water before diving in. This was a collision—two bodies crashing together with all the force of the fear and fury they'd been carrying since the restaurant.
Angela kissed him back just as hard. Her hands fisted in his shirt, yanking him closer, not caring that they were on the roof where anyone could see. Let them see. Let everyone know she was his and he was hers and nothing Vitale threw at them could change that.
Edge's hands dropped to her hips, lifting her, and Angela wrapped her legs around his waist. He walked them backward until her shoulders hit the wall beside the roof access door, pinning her there with his body.
"Tell me to stop." His voice was guttural against her throat. "Tell me and I will."
"Don't you dare."
She felt his control snap.
His hands tore at her clothes, not gentle, not careful. Angela helped, pulling at his shirt, his belt, anything that kept his skin from hers. The cool morning air hit her exposed body and she gasped, but then his heat was there, covering her, consuming her.
"Mine." He growled the word into her neck as he lifted her higher, positioning her. "Say it."
"Yours." She bit his earlobe hard enough to make him hiss. "But you're mine too. Don't forget that."
"Never."
He thrust into her and Angela cried out, the sound swallowed by the wind off the bay. This was nothing like the first time. No patience, no slow build, no tender exploration. This was need, raw and desperate, both of them chasing something they couldn't name.
Angela matched his rhythm, her hips rolling to meet his, her nails raking down his back. She wanted to mark him. Wanted to leave proof that she'd been here, that they'd survived, that neither of them was alone anymore.
"Harder." She breathed it against his mouth. "I'm not going to break."
Edge's eyes flashed with something wild. He adjusted his grip on her hips and gave her what she asked for.
The world narrowed to sensation. The rough wall against her back. His hands bruising her hips. The pressure building low in her belly, coiling tighter with every thrust. She heard herself making sounds she'd never made before—desperate, demanding, not caring who heard.
"Look at me." Edge's voice was strained, his control fraying at the edges. "Angela. Look at me."
She met his eyes and saw everything. The fear he'd carried since the restaurant. The relief that she was alive. The possession that went deeper than words could reach.
"Ryan." She said his name like a claim, like a prayer, like a weapon. "Don't stop. Don't ever stop."
He came apart at the sound of it.
His rhythm shattered, becoming wild, erratic, chasing the edge. Angela felt his release trigger her own—pleasure crashing through her in waves that left her gasping, clinging to him like he was the only solid thing in a world that had gone liquid.
For a long moment, they stayed there. Pressed against the wall. Trembling. His forehead dropped to her shoulder, his breath coming in harsh bursts against her skin.
Slowly, carefully, he lowered her feet to the ground.
Angela's legs didn't want to hold her. She sagged against him, letting his arms take her weight, feeling the aftershocks ripple through them both.
"That was..."
"Yeah." He pulled back enough to look at her, and the darkness in his eyes had shifted. Still intense. Still possessive. But softer somehow. "You're going to kill me, woman."
"Not before Vitale does."
He laughed—a real laugh, rough and surprised—and the sound did something to Angela's chest. Made her feel like she'd accomplished something important.
They made their way down from the roof, Edge keeping her close, his arm around her waist like he expected her to collapse. Maybe he was right. Her legs still felt like water.
His room was dark and cool after the morning brightness of the roof. They fell into his bed together, still tangled, still not quite ready to let go.
"Tell me about her." Angela's voice was soft in the quiet. "Your grandmother. Tell me what she was like."
Edge was silent so long she thought he wouldn't answer. Then his arm tightened around her, pulling her closer against his chest.
"She was stubborn. God, she was stubborn. Lived in the same house for fifty years and never once considered leaving. Even when the neighborhood changed, even when the developers started circling, she just dug in deeper."
Angela listened, her hand tracing idle patterns on his chest.
"She worked two jobs until she was sixty-five.
Cleaned houses for wealthy families in Margate, took in laundry on the side.
Never complained, never asked for help. Just..
. handled it." His voice cracked. "She raised me after my parents died.
Seven years old, showing up on her doorstep with a garbage bag of clothes, and she just opened the door and said 'well, come in then. ' Like she'd been expecting me."
"She sounds amazing."
"She was everything." Edge's chest rose and fell beneath her cheek. "And I let them take her home from her. Watched it happen in slow motion—the rent increases, the pressure to sell, the neighbors leaving one by one. By the time I realized how bad it was, she was already packing boxes."
Angela lifted her head to look at him. "You couldn't have known."
"I should have. I was patched by then. Had brothers who would have helped. But I thought—" He broke off, jaw tight. "I thought there was time. Thought I could fix it through the right channels. By the time I accepted that the right channels didn't exist for people like us, she was dead."
"Ryan..."
"She died in an apartment that smelled like cardboard and failure.
" His eyes found hers, and the pain in them made her heart crack.
"She never unpacked. Just sat in a chair by the window and watched the street like she was waiting for someone to come tell her it was all a mistake. Waiting to go home."
Angela understood now. All of it.
The way he'd appeared at her flower shop like a guardian angel with bloody knuckles. The way he'd claimed her so quickly, so completely. The way he talked about the shore towns like they were sacred ground.
He wasn't just protecting territory. He was fighting a war he'd already lost once, trying to change an outcome that couldn't be changed.
"That's why you do this," she said. "The shore towns. The protection. All of it."
"I couldn't save her." Edge's voice was raw. "I couldn't save the house she loved or the neighborhood she built her life in. But I can save other people's homes. Other people's grandmothers. I can draw lines that the developers and the dealers and the men in suits can't cross."
Angela cupped his face in her hands. Made him look at her.
"You saved me," she said. "My shop. My life. Everything I built. You saved all of it."
"We haven't won yet."
"But we will." She kissed him, soft and certain. "Because you don't know how to lose. And neither do I."
Edge stared at her like she'd handed him something precious. Something he didn't know how to hold.
Then his arms came around her again, pulling her down against his chest, and Angela let herself sink into the solid warmth of him.
She understood now. What drove him. What haunted him. What he was really fighting for every time he threw himself into danger for people who couldn't protect themselves.
He was still trying to bring his grandmother home.
And somehow, impossibly, Angela had become part of that mission.
Part of him.
She pressed closer, felt his heartbeat steady beneath her ear, and let herself believe that maybe they could win this thing after all.