Chapter 42 #2
“I mean, of course I love you too!” I rush to catch up, cursing myself for being such a floundering baboon. I cringe as the words come out clumsy, and so woefully unromantic after his poetic declaration.
His eyes light with a mixture of wonder and amusement, his grin becoming impossibly brighter. “Oh yeah?”
“Definitely.” I nod. “I’m sorry, I’m not very good at this.”
Truthfully, I have been in love with him for a long time.
There was no defining moment when I realized, just a slow ascension over time as we collected all of the little tender moments between us along the way.
His vulnerability as he confessed his demons, the way he embraced Sunny, the way he never made me apologize for who I am…
the way he looks at me like I’m the sun.
Like he is right now. Perhaps it was when I spent time with his family, or it could even have been when he first walked into that interrogation room all stormy and irritable.
I don’t know, and I don’t care. All I know is that I love him. The big, gooey, heart-thumping kind.
“You’re right, but lucky for you I’m romantic enough for the both of us.” He grins, letting go of me and peeling my purse off my shoulder.
“I’m not sure if that’s your color.” I point at the purse, fighting a smile.
I laugh as he slings it onto his own arm, the slender strap getting wedged halfway up his thick bicep. “What, you don’t think I can pull it off?”
He flashes me a panty-twisting grin and winks, offering me his hand. I take it willingly, surrendering myself into this new part of my life where I’m a little less lonely and a lot more loved.
“I really do love you, you know.” I beam, reaching up on tiptoes and stealing another short kiss.
“Good, because I don’t plan on ever letting you go.” He says the words so casually as we walk hand in hand toward the car, so unaware that they cause my heart to stutter and lose a beat, and not caring that he looks ridiculous with my purse hanging loosely around his elbow.
“Come on, Peppercorn, we have two very important things we have to do today, but first I need to show you something.”
***
I stare at the image in front of me, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
The CCTV footage is of a room I don’t recognize, which looks like an old-fashioned private library. Wingback studded chairs flank each side of the room, alongside a deep burgundy Chesterfield.
I do recognize one thing very clearly, though. Jeremy Rénir Junior lounges on the couch with one ankle laid over his knee, flicking through some papers with a glass of scotch in hand.
Nausea turns my stomach, every part of my body primed to react this way to that disgusting man. Chase lays a hand across my shoulder, his magnetic presence crackling from behind the chair I sit in.
“I’m sorry, but it’s important you see this.”
Rénir’s head jerks up in alarm, and although there is no sound on the footage, it seems to be caused by a disturbance.
Armed men in black outfits swarm the bottom of the screen, and Rénir leaps forward out of his seat, bellowing something I can’t make out as the papers cascade onto the floor in all directions.
I grip the edge of Chase’s desk and lean forward, transfixed. Another two men come into frame, both of whom I recognize in a heartbeat. The thick brush-mustached Detective Morris, and the broad shoulders of the man standing behind me.
Rénir’s face tightens into an angry scowl, pointing a furious finger at Chase and sloshing liquid out of his glass in the process. I can’t see Chase’s face, only the back of his head.
“What was he saying?”
“Nothing of consequence,” he replies quietly.
Rénir pauses, and it appears Chase speaks from the way his attention remains glued on him. Suddenly, Rénir throws the glass to the ground, smashing it into a thousand pieces and barreling toward Chase.
I gasp as three blacked-out agents tackle him to the ground before he can get close, the man struggling and writhing in their grip as they pin him down and clamp handcuffs onto his wrists.
Chase turns in the image, his face unusually grim. And then to my astonishment, he shakes Detective Morris’s hand, his eyes trailing over his shoulder to look directly into the camera.
Chase reaches around me and slams his finger into the space bar, pausing the image. The large leather seat groans softly as I lean back, letting Chase use the mousepad to click on a browser window that brings up a news article.
The headline in big blocky letters shouts, Head of Underground Cyber Criminal Network, Incognito, Arrested. I feel myself go cold, my gaze dropping to the image below.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper, looking up at Chase as he walks around my chair and leans against his desk so that he can face me. Because the image below the headline isn’t me like it should be…it’s Rénir.
“I know who you are, Pepper. I know that you started Incognito, and I know what you do.” His eyes sparkle like the night sky, and I swallow back guilt as I remember telling him all those weeks ago that I worked alone.
“How did you know?”
He sucks in a deep breath, his chest swelling. “Your friend Rosie, she was working with one of my employees to steal from me. We confronted them both.”
My jaw plummets, synapses misfiring in my brain. “What?”
I think back to her abrupt disappearance, and her eagerness for us to target Chase in the first place.
A distinct burning sensation lodges itself in the back of my throat, betrayal coating my tongue.
I thought she was one of us…I thought she understood.
How could I have misjudged someone so badly that they would be selling dangerous tech to armed rebels right under my nose?
I file that away to ponder at a time when my head doesn’t feel so crammed full of new information.
“It turns out she’s been doing this kind of thing the whole time you’ve worked with her.”
“I’m so sorry,” I croak, shaking my head. What a fucking mess I created. “But I still don’t understand.”
“I did what I had to do to get you out,” he says gruffly, all of his usual teasing demeanor swept away by darkness.
I sit in stunned silence, only the soft sound of his wall clock ticking away to fill the charged air between us. “You framed him for my crimes?”
He nods and I swallow roughly.
“But you don’t cross lines like that.”
He lifts one shoulder in a shrug and then lets it drop. “I’d cross any line I needed to keep you safe.”
Tears fill my eyes and I inwardly groan, because all I’ve done for the past few days is bawl and I’m sick of it.
“You put yourself at risk for me.”
“You’re worth it.” He drags one corner of his mouth up in a halfhearted attempt at a smile. “But you have to promise me one thing.”
“Anything.”
“This Incognito stuff, it’s done.”
I nod, swiping at my eyes before the tears can fall and looking back at the screen with Rénir’s face, feeling it sink in that the man who has tormented me for years is finally going to be behind bars.
Something glows in my chest, the tiny little jagged pieces of my heart leaping back together and fusing.
It’s over. It’s finally fucking over.
“Agreed,” I state firmly, taking my first free breath in over ten years.