Chapter 8 #2
"I'm talking about cleaning up a mess that started twelve years ago." Priest's pale eyes meet mine. "I created the conditions that led us here. It's my responsibility to end it. If your father gives the order, I'll execute the operation myself."
My stomach turns. This is my father's world. The world I've spent my entire life trying to escape. Death as a business decision. Murder as problem-solving.
And yet.
Santini sent men to kill me. Sent them twice now, with a third attempt apparently in planning. If he isn't stopped, he'll keep sending them until one succeeds.
"Ford." I turn to face him. "What do you think?"
"I think it's your call." His gray eyes meet mine steadily. "You're the one he's trying to kill. You're the one who has to live with whatever decision gets made."
"But if you were in my position?"
"I'd neutralize the threat." No hesitation. No qualification. "Because the only way to guarantee your safety is to remove the person who wants you dead. Everything else is just hoping he gives up."
I look at Priest. At Mace. At Cal. At the men who've spent two days protecting me from an enemy I didn't even know I had.
"Do it." The words feel like crossing a line I can never uncross. "Tell my father to give the order."
Priest nods. "I'll handle it personally. This started with me. It ends with me."
The operation takes eighteen hours.
Ford and I spend them on Second Watch, anchored in the protected cove, waiting for news. Cal and Mace handle tactical coordination from the Salt and Steel boat while Priest moves into position.
I don't ask for details. I don't want to know the specifics of how Pietro Santini dies.
What I want is to be in Ford's arms when it's over.
The message comes through just after midnight. Priest's voice on the secure channel, clipped and final: "Target eliminated. Clean extraction. Debt paid."
Ford puts down the radio and looks at me across the cabin. The dim light catches the angles of his face, the silver in his hair, the intensity in his gray eyes.
"It's done."
"I heard."
"How do you feel?"
I consider the question honestly. Search my conscience for guilt, for horror, for the revulsion I always felt when my father's business touched my life.
"Relieved." The word surprises me. "Is that terrible? That I'm relieved a man is dead?"
"He was trying to kill you." Ford moves toward me, slow and deliberate. "Relief is a reasonable response to surviving."
"I didn't survive. You kept me alive."
"We kept each other alive." He stops in front of me, close enough to touch but not yet touching. "We kept each other sane. And unless I'm wrong, we're about to keep each other warm."
The shift from tactical to personal makes my breath catch. "Is that so?"
"The threat is neutralized. The danger is over. Your father's people will be here tomorrow to officially end the protection detail." His hand comes up to cup my jaw, thumb tracing my cheekbone. "Which means tonight is our last night on this boat."
"Our last night as a job."
"You were never just a job." He leans down, his lips brushing mine as he speaks. "From the moment you looked at me like I was part of the problem, I knew you were going to be the solution to every question I didn't know I was asking."
I kiss him.
Not desperate like this morning. Not urgent like our first time. This kiss is slow. Deliberate. The kiss of two people who have time and intention and a future stretching out before them.
Ford walks me backward toward the narrow bed, his hands working the buttons of my shirt while mine tug at his. We undress each other in the dim light, revealing skin and scars and the evidence of lives lived hard.
When I'm bare beneath him, he pauses. Looks down at me with an expression that makes my chest tight.
"I love you." His voice is rough. "I should have said it back this morning. Should have said it first. But I was so damn grateful you came back to me that I forgot everything else."
"Say it now."
"I love you, Sera Mancini." He lowers himself over me, his weight settling against my body in all the right places.
"I love your sharp tongue and your brave heart and the way you refuse to be defined by your last name.
I love that you push back when you disagree and trust me when it matters. I love you."
"Then show me."
He does.
His mouth traces a path down my body, lips and tongue and the scrape of beard against sensitive skin. He takes his time with my breasts, sucking each nipple until I'm arching off the bed, then continues lower. My belly. My hips. The crease of my thighs.
When his tongue finally finds my clit, I cry out. He doesn't ease up. His mouth works me with expert precision while his fingers slide inside, crooking to find the spot that makes me see stars.
"Ford." His name tears out of me. "Please."
He doesn't answer with words. He adds another finger, stretching me, and sucks my clit harder. The orgasm builds like a wave, cresting and crashing over me in pulses of pure sensation.
Before the aftershocks fade, he's kneeling between my thighs, rolling on a condom with hands that shake slightly. The sight of his control fraying makes me even wetter.
He pushes inside in one long stroke.
We both groan at the sensation. He's so deep, filling me completely, his hips pressed flush against mine. For a moment he holds still, letting me adjust. Letting us both feel the connection that goes beyond physical.
Then he starts to move.
The rhythm is different from our first time. Deeper. More deliberate. Every thrust hits exactly where I need it, his pelvis grinding against my clit with each stroke. I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him even closer.
"Harder." The demand comes out breathless. "I need—"
He understands. His pace increases, his hips snapping against mine with force that makes the bed creak and my body sing. I grip his shoulders hard enough to leave marks, pulling him down for a kiss that's all teeth and tongue and desperate need.
"Touch yourself." His voice is gravel. "I want to feel you come around my cock."
My hand slides between our bodies, fingers finding my clit. The combination of his thrusts and my touch pushes me toward the edge faster than I expect.
"I'm close." The words are barely audible. "So close."
"Let go." He pounds into me harder, chasing his own release. "Come for me, Sera."
The orgasm rips through me with a force that steals my breath. My pussy clamps down on him, pulsing, and I feel him follow a moment later. His whole body goes rigid as he spills inside me, my name on his lips like a prayer.
We collapse together, sweat-slicked and gasping, tangled in each other's arms.
"Stay with me." Ford's voice is muffled against my hair. "Not just tonight. Not just until your father's people come. Stay with me."
"In Tidehaven?"
"Anywhere." He lifts his head, meets my eyes. "Here, Boston, the moon. I don't care where we are as long as we're together."
I think about my apartment in Jamaica Plain. My work waiting at the museum. The life I built so carefully to prove I was more than Enzo Mancini's daughter.
Then I think about the man in my arms. The boat that became a sanctuary. The future I never knew I wanted until it was right in front of me.
"Yes." The word feels like flying. "I'll stay."
Ford's smile transforms his whole face. For the first time since I met him, he looks young. Happy. Free.
"I love you."
"I love you too." I pull him down for another kiss. "Now prove it again."
He laughs against my mouth and proceeds to do exactly that.