Chapter Seventeen
Angela couldn't sleep.
She'd showered. Changed into clean clothes. Sat on the edge of Edge's bed and stared at her hands like they belonged to someone else.
The same hands that had arranged flowers for weddings and funerals. The same hands that had pressed against Sal's wound to keep him alive. The same hands that had gripped a gun and pulled a trigger.
The same hands that had watched, steady and sure, while a man bled out on an office floor.
She should feel something. Horror. Guilt. The crushing weight of complicity in violence that had been committed in her name.
Instead, she felt... quiet.
The door opened. Edge stepped through, still wearing the clothes he'd worn to the warehouse, blood dried on his knuckles despite the quick wash he'd done before leaving.
"Hey." His voice was soft. "You okay?"
"I don't know." Angela looked up at him. "I watched you kill someone tonight. I wanted you to. I asked you to."
Edge crossed the room and knelt in front of her, taking her hands in his.
"Does that scare you?"
"It should." She searched his face, looking for judgment, finding none. "A month ago, I was worried about wedding arrangements and wholesaler deliveries. Now I'm watching men die and feeling nothing but satisfaction. What does that make me?"
"Human." Edge's thumbs traced circles on her palms. "Someone tried to destroy everything you built. You wanted justice. There's nothing wrong with that."
"It wasn't justice. It was revenge."
"Sometimes they're the same thing."
Angela let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. This man—this dangerous, violent, impossibly gentle man—kept seeing parts of her she'd never shown anyone else. Kept accepting them without hesitation.
"Come here." She pulled him up, onto the bed, into her arms. "I need you."
Edge went willingly, wrapping himself around her like he was trying to shield her from the world. They lay tangled together, her head on his chest, his hand stroking her hair. The compound was quiet around them, the night stretching out dark and peaceful.
"My grandmother used to say that beautiful things require ugly work." Angela's voice was soft in the darkness. "I never really understood what she meant until now."
"Tell me about her."
"Grandma Rose." The name brought warmth flooding through Angela's chest. "She had this garden in her backyard. Nothing fancy—tomatoes, herbs, some flowers she'd picked up on clearance at the hardware store. But she treated it like it was the most important thing in the world."
Edge listened, his heartbeat steady beneath her ear.
"She taught me that growth is violent. Seeds crack open. Roots tear through soil. Flowers push through concrete. Nothing beautiful happens without something being destroyed first." Angela traced a pattern on his chest. "I thought she was talking about gardening. But she wasn't, was she?"
"What do you think she was talking about?"
"Life." Angela lifted her head to look at him. "Survival. The way you have to break things apart to build something new. The way becoming who you're supposed to be means destroying who you were."
Edge's hand found her face, cupping her cheek with a tenderness that made her heart ache.
"Is that what this is? Becoming who you're supposed to be?"
"Maybe." She leaned into his touch. "All I know is that the woman who walked into that flower shop three weeks ago doesn't exist anymore. She burned down with Shore Blooms. And I'm not sorry she's gone."
"Who's left?"
Angela considered the question. Considered the woman she'd been—careful, controlled, building walls instead of bridges—and the woman she was becoming.
"Someone stronger. Someone who knows what she wants and isn't afraid to fight for it." She held his gaze. "Someone who belongs to you."
Something shifted in Edge's expression. Not surprise—he'd known that for a while now. But something deeper. A settling, like a final piece clicking into place.
"I'm done being alone." His voice was rough. "I spent years telling myself that protecting was enough. That keeping this territory safe was all I needed. But it wasn't. I was just surviving, same as you."
"And now?"
"Now I want more." His thumb traced her lower lip. "I want you. I want a life with you. I want to wake up every morning knowing you're there and go to sleep every night with you in my arms. I want forever, Angela. With you."
The words hit her like a wave. Not because they were unexpected—she'd felt them building for days—but because they were real. Solid. A promise from a man who didn't make promises he couldn't keep.
"Ryan." She said his name like a vow, watching his eyes darken at the sound. "I want that too. All of it."
He kissed her.
This wasn't like their first time—tentative, testing, both of them learning the shape of each other. And it wasn't like the roof—desperate and demanding, survival instinct turned to flame.
This was something else entirely.
This was knowing.
Edge kissed her slowly, thoroughly, like they had all the time in the world. His hands moved over her body with purpose, not urgency—touching the places he'd learned made her gasp, avoiding the places that made her tense. He knew her now. Knew what she needed before she asked.
Angela let herself sink into the sensation. Let her own hands explore, mapping the scars she'd memorized, the muscles that tensed when she touched certain spots, the way his breath hitched when her fingers traced his ribs.
They undressed each other without rushing. Pieces of clothing falling away like unnecessary armor, revealing skin they'd already claimed but still wanted.
"You're beautiful." Edge pulled back to look at her, his eyes moving over her body with something like reverence. "Every time I see you like this, it hits me all over again."
"So are you." Angela pulled him down to her. "Now stop talking."
He laughed—a real laugh, low and warm—and then his mouth was on her throat, her collarbone, the curve of her breast. He took his time, building heat with patience instead of urgency, making her want instead of demand.
When he finally settled between her thighs, Angela was already trembling.
"Look at me." His voice was steady, commanding. The voice of a man who knew exactly what he wanted. "I need to see your eyes."
She met his gaze. Held it as he pushed into her, slow and deep, giving her time to adjust. The connection was overwhelming—not just physical, but something more. Something that felt like coming home.
They moved together in a rhythm that was familiar now, bodies knowing instinctively what the other needed.
Edge's hands gripped her hips, not bruising but holding.
Claiming without controlling. Angela wrapped her legs around him, pulling him deeper, wanting to be as close as two people could possibly be.
"Mine." He said it against her throat, her jaw, her lips. "You're mine, Angela. Forever."
"Yours." She breathed the word back, meaning it with every cell in her body. "I'm yours."
The pleasure built slowly, deliberately. Not the frantic climb of their first time or the desperate sprint of the roof. This was a wave building in the distance, growing larger with every stroke, every kiss, every whispered word.
When it crested, Angela shattered.
She came with his name on her lips—his real name, the one only she was allowed to use—and felt him follow moments later, his body tensing over hers, inside hers, both of them falling apart together.
The aftermath was quiet.
They lay tangled in sheets damp with sweat, her head on his chest, his arms wrapped around her like he expected someone to try taking her while they slept. Angela listened to his heartbeat gradually slow and felt something settle in her own chest.
Peace. That's what this was.
She'd never felt it before. Not really. Her whole life had been survival, work, building walls against a world that had shown her early on that love was a weapon people used against each other.
But this didn't feel like a weapon. This felt like armor.
"I've been thinking," Edge said into the quiet.
"Dangerous habit."
He huffed a laugh. "About Shore Blooms. About what comes next."
Angela tensed slightly. The shop. She'd let herself not think about it for the past hour, lost in him, in them. But reality was still waiting.
"There's nothing left." Her voice was flat. "They burned it to the ground."
"The building burned. The business didn't." Edge's hand traced patterns on her back. "You've still got your reputation. Your clients. Your skills. Everything that made Shore Blooms what it was exists in you, not in those walls."
Angela lifted her head to look at him. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying we rebuild." His eyes met hers, steady and certain. "Not in Margate—at least not right away. Too risky until Vitale's operation is completely dismantled. But somewhere. Anywhere you want. I'll help you do it."
"You want to help me run a flower shop?"
"I want to help you build whatever you want to build." He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "The shore towns need protection, and I'll always do that. But they also need beauty. They need someone who makes arrangements for weddings and funerals and Tuesdays-just-because. They need you."
Angela's throat tightened. "I don't even know where to start."
"You start with insurance claims and permits and probably a hundred phone calls to vendors who are worried sick about you." Edge pulled her closer. "And you don't do any of it alone. Not anymore."
"What about tomorrow? The assault on Vitale?"
"Tomorrow we end this. We take out Marco and whatever's left of his operation, and we make sure nobody else tries to move on our territory for a long time." His jaw tightened. "And then we start building. Together."
Together.
Angela let the word settle into her bones. Let herself believe in a future she'd stopped imagining the moment she saw those photos of her shop in flames.
Shore Blooms hadn't died. It had just been waiting—like a seed in winter, dormant but alive—for the right time to grow again.
"There's a lot in Ventnor," she said slowly. "Near the boardwalk. I looked at it when I was first shopping for locations but couldn't afford the rent."
"Tell me about it."
"Corner unit. Big windows. This gorgeous old tin ceiling that they don't make anymore." Angela felt something spark in her chest—hope, maybe, or the first stirrings of a plan. "It's twice the size of the old place. Room for a workshop in the back, maybe even a small greenhouse."
"Sounds perfect."
"It's expensive."
"I know people." Edge's smile was slow, satisfied. "People who owe me favors. People who'd be happy to help a woman who stood with the Outlaws get back on her feet."
Angela stared at him. This man who'd killed for her, held her while she cried, made love to her like she was the only woman in the world.
"You'd really do that? Help me rebuild?"
"Angela." He cupped her face in both hands. "I'd burn down the whole world and rebuild it for you if that's what it took. A flower shop is easy."
She kissed him. Long and deep, trying to pour everything she was feeling into the contact—gratitude and love and the kind of fierce, protective devotion she'd never known she was capable of.
When they finally broke apart, they were both breathing hard.
"Tomorrow," Angela said, "we end Vitale. And then we start the rest of our lives."
Edge's smile was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.
"Together."
"Together."