“No,” he growls. “I won’t let you live like that. I won’t let our children live like that. You’re going to live how you want to live, pursue the dreams you want to pursue. I’m with you every step of the way.”
“But what are we going to do about Vito?” I ask.
“I have an idea,” he says. “It’ll mean bringing down Vito without making his dad – the real boss – want to kill me.”
“How?” I ask.
“His father signed the contract,” Ryland says, in a musing, rumbling tone to his voice. “He agreed never to make a play against me. He is a man of his word. If Vito were caught and arrested doing just that, it would seem like Vito’s an idiot who overstepped. Which he is.”
I pause, thinking for a moment, my mind whirring.
He’s looking at me expectantly.
“They own the police,” I say.
His eyes light up, pride flickering across his expression.
“Exactly,” he says. “So it would need to be in a different county, maybe even a different State. I have a safe house in Maine. If he’s stupid enough to follow me there, he deserves to get grabbed. The FBI is desperate to get their hands on him, but he’s untouchable in the city. He’s got so many people on his payroll. By the time the agents roll up, he’s been tipped off twenty-five times and he’s long gone.”
“That’s crazy,” I say, shaking my head.
“That’s fear. That’s money.”
“We need to do this, Ryland,” I say passionately.
“It’s more dangerous than staying here,” he tells me, sliding his fingers tantalizingly through my hair.
Whenever we’re close, we can’t help but move our hands across each other, touching each other continuously, as though we’re both terrified of breaking the contact.
“I’ll keep us safe,” he says. “But there are more variables. There’s a bunker in the safe house too. You’ll have to live in there.”
“Whatever it takes,” I declare, digging my fingernails into the solidity of his chest. “If we can be together, I don’t care what I have to do. I want this craziness to be over.”
“Not our craziness, though,” he smirks.
“No, never that,” I say quickly.
“We’re always going to be crazy about each other.”
“Forever,” I sigh, laying my head on his chest and closing my eyes.
His heartbeat hammers against my ear, moving through my head in a heavy drum-like beat, quivering through my body as though to let me know how strong and full of vital energy he is.
My womb quivers in return, answering his call, crying out in belonging.
“How many?” he asks.
“Four,” I say, knowing that he means children.
“So specific,” he says, a smirk in his voice.
“Two boys and two girls. Don’t you think that would be just perfect?”
“It would be amazing,” he says, squeezing my shoulder with barely-withheld passion. “Have you thought about this before?”
“A little,” I admit. “I used to daydream about having a family one day. But before we met, I never took it seriously. It was more like I was torturing myself with thoughts of a life I could never have, I guess.”
“But now you can have it. You will have it.”
I kiss his sweaty chest, savoring the feel of his hot skin.
“What about you?”
“Four sounds great to me,” he growls. “As long as they’re happy. As long as they have purpose. As long as they have a mother as wonderful and caring as you, they’ll be just fine.”
A glow moves through my body, setting parts of me alight, hot stars whispering through me.
“I can’t believe I didn’t want to believe this was real,” I whisper. “It feels so real, Ryland. It feels so meant to be.”
“That’s because it is,” he says, his chest reverberating with passion. “And don’t you ever forget it.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ryland
I sit behind the wheel of my sleek bulletproof sedan, glancing into the rearview as Harold gets Jackie set up in her seat.
She waves a hand at him when he moves to fix her seatbelt for her.
“I love you, young man,” she says, with the same sassiness in her voice I recognize in her daughter. She might be sixty-one, but she’s still got a lot of playful energy in her. “But if you insist on fussing over me anymore, I will make you regret it.”
Rosie giggles from beside me.
“Mom, he’s just trying to help.”
Harold grins and walks around to his side of the car, sliding into his seat.
“Dealing with unruly patients is part of the job, I’m afraid,” he chuckles.
I chuckle. “She’s nowhere near as bad as my old man.”
“No comment,” Harold chuckles.
I laugh again, shaking my head, and then double-check that all the doors are locked.
Chopper is curled up in my woman’s lap, Rosie’s hands fixed in his fur. She’s wearing tight-fitting jeans and a hoodie that does nothing to hide the shape of her fertile, no-longer-a-virgin body.
“Is everybody ready?” I ask.
Rosie looks across at me, biting her lip, her eyes wide and filled with meaning.
I can tell she’s not ready. She’s not sure.
“But I want us to live a life together, not in hiding,” she said to me last night, passionately in my arms. “If this is the way, we have to do it. We owe it to our children.”
My chest fires at the memory, the truth of her words thundering into me.
“Yes,” Jackie says.
“Yeah,” Harold says, nodding.
“I’m ready, Ryland,” my woman says, and I know she’s talking about more than the road trip.
She’s ready for us, for the life we’re going to live together.
I press the button to start the electric engine.
This car was built to keep the people inside safe under any circumstances, which is why it’s bulletproof and blast-proof.
I pull out of the garage and into the morning sun.
Vito needs to know where we’re going, and his men are amateurs.
If I left it until nighttime, they’d never keep up.
“This is a lovely drive,” Jackie comments about an hour in, as we roll through the winding country road, bordered on all sides by bright spring-green.
Rosie smiles across at me, glancing down every so often as she wrestles the tiny rope from Chopper. The Chihuahua is on his hind legs, his forepaws laid against my woman’s stomach, as he fills the car with his loud playful growling.
“Very scenic,” Harold says. “It almost makes one long for the days of I, spy.”
“Makes one?” Jackie laughs. “Are you the poshest Englishman in America, young man?”
Harold grins at the good-natured joke.
I know because I’m glancing in the rearview every few moments, making sure that Vito’s dumbass men are still following at a distance. Maybe they think they’re being discreet, always leaving a few cars between us, but I clocked them the moment I left the estate.
“I hope so,” Harold says.
Rosie laughs. “Ignore her, Harold. She loves picking on people.”
“I called him the poshest man in America,” she cries, smiling. “I’d label that a compliment.”
We all chuckle, but I keep something back, a piece of me that has to be ready for war no matter what happens. I grip the steering wheel hard, despite myself, despite knowing that remaining calm is the best way to make this work.
But my anger is less obedient today than it normally is.
These motherfuckers are tailing me when I’m with my woman, with my future mother-in-law, with the man who cared for my father in his final days.
Who the fuck do they think they are?
Rosie reaches across, touching my forearm.
“Relax,” she whispers, just loud enough for me to hear as Jackie and Harold keep bantering from the b
ackseat. “We’re all going to be okay.”
I relax my hands with an effort, and then she touches my face and I smirk, realizing I’m clenching my jaw, too.
“There,” she smiles. “All better, right?”
I smirk. “Yeah, except it’s hard to focus on the road when you’re sitting next to me.”
“Hey, enough of that,” Jackie smiles.
I chuckle. “Sorry, ma’am.”
“See?” Jackie flares, full of life. “This is a man who understands manners. I told you he was a keeper, Rosie. I’m glad you’ve taken my advice for once.”
Rosie giggles, rolling her eyes.
“I’m glad I followed your very wise advice as well, Mom.”
She throws me a look, all silent communication, as though the years have fallen away and we’ve already been married for decades. I can read every tiny change in the implications of her expression, detect every tic of her eyebrows and quirk in her lips.
I know what she’s saying.
I’m so happy you’ve won mom around, her eyes blaze.
I nod, letting her know I understand how important this is for her.
She smiles wider, nodding in return.
We could trade whole songs in this way, through glances alone.
“I should ask you if you have honorable intentions, though, young man.”
I smirk as I guide the car around the soft bend in the road, glancing at the rearview to note Vito’s jet-black sedan trailing after us. Whoever’s behind the wheel deserves to be fired for their shitty effort.
“Young man?” I chuckle. “It’s a long time since I was called that.”
“You’re—what—fifty?”
“Mom,” Rosie says.
“I’m forty-two,” I tell her.
“That’s young to me,” she declares. “Or are you trying to dodge the question?”
“No, ma’am,” I tell her. “My intentions are to be with your daughter forever. My intentions are to keep her safe and as happy as a man can keep a woman.”
She laughs quietly.
“Very nicely phrased. See that, Rosie? He left himself some wriggle room there. As happy as a man can keep a woman. And we all know how difficult it is for them.”
Rosie throws me a look of apology, but I find myself grinning, enjoying the bantering back and forth.
“I’m going to make your daughter happy, ma’am,” I say. “And we are going to give you grandchildren. I may be old-fashioned, but I’ve chosen your daughter, and nothing will ever change that.”
She smiles, clasping her hands to her chest.
“That’s wonderful,” she says. “Just wonderful. What a lovely thing to say.”
“Are you done with the interrogation now?” Rosie giggles, lifting up Chopper and cradling the little terror to her cheek. “I want everybody to get along.”
“We are, we are,” Jackie says hastily. “A mother has to check.”
“She’s right,” I tell Rosie. “I’m relieved you have somebody who cares about you so much. Loyalty means a damn lot. Excuse my language.”
“What—damn?” Jackie cackles. “I don’t embarrass as easily as that, Ryland. But I agree. Family means a fucking lot.”
“Mom,” Rosie cries, giggling. “Please don’t say stuff like that.”
“What do you think, my dear Prince Harold?”
I smirk at him in the rearview.
“You’re a prince now?” I say.
He shrugs, sheepish. “I am whatever my lady requires.”
I chuckle, shaking my head. “Try not to work him too hard, ma’am. I don’t think he’s a match for you.”
“I’m going to die,” Rosie sighs. “Chopper and I aren’t listening anymore. This is so embarrassing.”
Everybody laughs and I lean back, focusing on the calm flow of traffic, the smooth road sliding beneath the car.
If it wasn’t for the men lurking far down the roar, a little black speck in the rearview, I could pretend that this is a nice family outing.
I wouldn’t have to think about blood, and death, and fighting, and all that’s required to keep my family safe.
“Are you okay?” Rosie asks me quietly, as Jackie and Harold banter in the back.
“Yeah,” I say, letting out a heavy sigh. “I just want this to last.”
“It will,” she says firmly. “It has to.”
I nod, taking some of her fierceness and letting it burn inside of me.
She’s being strong for our family.
I have to do the same.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Rosie
I stand at the window, peeling back the curtain to peer out at the forest. The trees have been cleared in the area immediately surrounding the cabin, but beyond that, the trees are thick, devouring what little is left of the light.
Mom and Harold are asleep downstairs, in the bunker, ready to be sealed in at the slightest hint of danger.
I refused to stay down there with Ryland.
“I want to be with you,” I told him fiercely when he tried to banish me.
He pushed me up against the wall with his brawny body, his chest crushing into me. My body trembled and pulsed when he gripped my hips, squeezing possessively.
“I need to keep you safe,” he snarled. “Without you, I’m lost.”
“I can run down at the first sign of danger,” I told him, my hands on his massive shoulders, hoping he could feel some of my need through my touch.
He agreed, but I could tell from the tensing of his jaw and the pulsing of his temples, he wasn’t happy about it.
Chopper is curled up on the end of the bed, his head resting on his leash, snoring softly.
I glance from the bed back at the forest, sighing.
They could be out there already, waiting for it to get dark.
Was this a mistake?
I join Chopper on the bed, dropping down and letting him shimmy into my lap.
“What do you think, boy?” I murmur, running my hand through his fur as I look at the door to the bathroom.
It’s ajar and I hear the shower going, my body tingling with a thousand lust-fueled suggestions when I think about my man in there, the water cascading over his hard, rippled skin.
He steps out of the shower a few minutes later, wearing jet-black cargo pants and a black hoodie. He’s got a gun at his hip and a rifle slung over his shoulder.
When I held the rifle, it felt huge, but it almost looks like a toy flung over his shoulder.
He carries the rifle to the window and lays it on the table, turning to me with his eyes narrowed, his jaw going tight when his gaze flits over me.
“You’re damn distracting, Rosie,” he growls. “That was part of the reason I wanted you to stay downstairs. Those tits drive me wild.”
“You’re thinking about that now?” I say.
He smirks, laying his hand on his gun.
“You make it hard to think of anything else,” he tells me.
I bite my lip, turning away from him. I know he likes it when I capture my lip in desire like that… I can hear the growl in his voice, the way his breathing changes.
“Why did you shower?” I ask. “You had one before you left, too.”
He had one after we made love in the morning.
I was on top this time, my nails clawing down his chest, bouncing as confidence burned through me. His eyes gazing up at my bouncing body like it was the most captivating sight he’d ever seen.
Like he needed me.
Why should I find it hard to admit I’m beautiful now, at least to him?
“Mercenary work can be bloody,” he says, his voice steady, his eyes silver-blue and gazing firmly. “It makes you dirty, Rosie, and not just physically. I like to feel clean before that.”
“I thought you said that wouldn’t happen,” I gasp, laying Chopper aside as I stand up.
I walk over to him, staring up into the firmness of his jawline. His silver hair glints in the lowlight, like icy water.
“You said the FBI would arrive before you had to fight.”
“They will,” he growls. “But I’d be a fool not to stay vigilant.”
I grab his shoulders and pull him aside, away from the window.
“How is standing at the window staying vigilant?” I ask.
He smirks.
“It’s bulletproof glass,” he says. “But you’re right. We shouldn’t be advertising our position. We’ve got the cameras to watch them. Curtains—close. Lights—low.”
Suddenly, shutters slide across the regular glass of the window. It looks thick, more solid than window glass. It shimmers oddly, distorting the light.
“Blast-proof,” he tells me. “And they blind the bastards as they approach. Technology, Rosie, it’s incredible.”
“I can just about work my Kindle,” I laugh. “And half the time that’s with an online tutorial.”
He chuckles. “Trust you to find a way to make all this less grim,” he says, voice husky. “Come on. If we’re staying up, we might as well be comfortable.”
He grabs his rifle and walks toward the bedroom door. The cabin has a log style, but the logs are built over a sturdy metal structure. From the outside, it looks like a picturesque Christmas card, but inside, it’s all hard edges and sleek modern surfaces.
He leads me toward the living room. Chopper pads at my feet the whole time, the little boy grinning up at me. He’s got his leash in his mouth, dangling behind him, partly gnawed from his efforts.
The living room has a long plush couch and a large flat screen TV mounted to the wall. The fire is unlit, and the floors are covered with plush rugs. Ryland lays his rifle on the counter, out of Chopper’s reach, and then presses a few buttons on his smartwatch.
The TV flashes on, showing infrared footage of the surrounding forest, lighting up at any movement. I see a rabbit leap by and then disappear behind a tree. A bird flutters across one camera.
“That’s crazy,” I say. “I didn’t notice any cameras when we drove up. And your watch… Are you a freaking spy or something, Ryland?”
His lips twitch and he stares at me, his eyes smoldering Nordic blue. “When I was a kid, I used to dream I’d be a spy one day. I thought that was what Dad was training me for.”
I walk over to him, placing my hand on his arm, sensing the emotion that makes his words low and husky.
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