by Katee Robert
“He’s dead.”
“Yes.”
She shuddered harder. “After all this time . . . He’s really gone. The threat is really gone.” She twisted and pressed her face against his chest. “Thank you. If you hadn’t . . . Thank you.”
He smoothed her hair back from her face. “Let me hold you for a while. I don’t know if I can sleep tonight, but I think we both need this.”
Her lips twitched in something that was almost a smile. “Your timing might be a little suspect, Agent Young.”
“I meant what I said before—I do want to take you out when the dust has settled. I like you, Lei, and I admire you a whole hell of a lot.”
This time, her smile actually made an appearance. “Dinner and a movie might be kind of anticlimactic after hunting down my serial-killer ex-boyfriend.”
He chuckled, his amusement eating away at the fear still lingering along the edge of his awareness. They were safe. They actually had a chance at the possibility of a future because the threat was gone. “I was thinking more along the lines of a shooting range, or you can show me one of the hiking spots around here I keep hearing about.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “And while we’re out, after kissing the hell out of you, I’ll give you my pitch on why you should join the FBI and the BAU.”
She tilted her head back, a clear invitation. “I think I might be able to be persuaded.”
“Don’t make it too easy on me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Lei kissed him, sliding her hands up to cup his face. Every touch, every taste, was confirmation that they were alive. They’d won. They’d beaten the monster and had lived to fight another day.
And it was all because of the woman in his arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Six months later
“We find the defendant, Trevor Addams, guilty on all charges.”
Lei sagged against Dante, relief taking all the strength from her body. Six months ago, when Travis had died, she’d hoped that the nightmare was finally over.
Today, that became the truth.
Trevor Addams, identical twin to Travis Berkley, had been entitled to his own trial in the deaths of twenty-one Omega Delta Lambda sorority girls. It should have been an open-and-shut case, but he’d pleaded not guilty. It had been like traveling to the past, although this time, instead of using the defense of a good boy who’d taken a wrong turn, the attorneys chose to blame everything on Travis and try to prove that Trevor had been just as much a victim as the dead girls.
They’d failed.
The only good thing about the damn trial was the closure it offered. The answers.
Trevor had been the one to hunt down his twin’s location and identity when he was sixteen, and a twisted friendship had formed as a result. There had been the typical starter crimes—fires, killing animals, stalking—as they worked up to what happened that night. Travis was most definitely the dominant partner, but best she could tell, Trevor had been more than willing to go along for the ride.
Dante pulled her closer and pressed a kiss to her temple. “How are you doing?”
“I’m okay.” It was the truth. Trevor Addams might be able to count his time served toward his sentence, but when there were twenty-one life sentences with no possibility of parole, he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. He’d been a foster kid, and it didn’t appear he had any other family to speak of. “Let’s get out of here.”
He kept his arm around her as they headed out of the courthouse through the side door to avoid the circus of reporters camped out on the front steps. It wasn’t until they were safely tucked into his rented sedan that she breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s really over.”
“It is.”
She twisted in her seat to face him and took his hand. Her heartbeat kicked up at the casual touch that still felt anything but, even after half a year of talking to Dante almost regularly and seeing him as often as they could manage. Her phone buzzed, and she smiled at the sight of Emma’s name. “Hey, Em.”
“They found the bastard guilty.”
“They did.”
Emma exhaled, as if she hadn’t dared believe it. “I’m glad. How are you holding up?”
“Pretty good, actually.” She stroked her thumb over Dante’s knuckles. “How’s the new office?”
“It’s good. I have an assistant now, and she’s not totally terrible. She spoils Prince, though.” For all her grumpy words, her tone was as happy as Lei had ever heard. The move across the country had been good for both of them. Emma had picked out a condo in DC that put her at a nice central location to contract out with the FBI as they needed her and still continue to work on her missing-persons program. She didn’t leave her home now any more than she had before, but she was allowing herself to become a little less isolated, a bit at a time.
As for Lei, she’d taken Britton’s offer of a job.
She smiled. “You’ll train her up right.”
“That I will.” Emma laughed. “It’s good having Saul here while you’re traveling. Prince misses him when he’s gone. Where are you off to now that the trial’s over?”
She glanced at Dante. He showed no signs of listening to their conversation, but she had no doubt he heard every word. “Arizona—Scottsdale. There’s a triple homicide that may or may not be a serial killer, so Dante and I were called in to consult.”
“Tell D hi for me.” Dogs barked in the distance, and she cursed. “I have to go. I’ll catch up with you soon. Love you.”
“Love you, too.” She hung up and set the phone in the cup holder. “I think we should move in together.”
Dante’s hand tightened around hers, but his face showed no expression—until she got to his dark eyes. All the emotions he kept bottled up lingered there, a window to the very depths of him. “I don’t want to rush you.”
She laughed, feeling free for the first time in as long as she could remember. Feeling like the old Lei. Except she wasn’t the old Lei. She wasn’t the postmassacre Lei, either. These days, she was something else altogether. Still broken. Still very much a work in progress. Too proud, too willing to jump straight into danger to prove she wasn’t afraid, too prone to wake up from nightmares, her scream caught firmly between her clenched teeth.
Lei pulled their interlaced hands to her face and kissed his knuckles. “Dante, we spend most of our time on the road, living out of hotels. We already are living together, as far as our current lifestyle is concerned. I don’t want to spend our limited time in DC apart. I want to be with you.”
His slow smile was like the sun emerging from behind a cloud. “Let’s move in together.” He stopped at a light and leaned over to capture her mouth in a soul-searing kiss. “I love you, Lei Zhang.”
“You damn well better.” She spoke against his lips. “Because I love the hell out of you, too. Now let’s go catch us a serial killer.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to Krista Stroever for helping me make this story in the Hidden Sins series into the best version of itself. Big thanks to the team at Montlake for your amazing support!
Thank you to Lauren Hawkeye and Piper J. Drake for being my go-to support team. Writing books feels like a much less solitary journey when I can chat with you two!
As always, thanks to John Nave for not taking my random research questions as grounds to throw me into the back of a cop car. I swear I’m not burying bodies in the woods—and this book is my evidence!
Hugs to the support team at home—Kristen Nave and Hilary Brady. You two keep me sane and help me remember to take a day off every once in a while! Thank you!
Last, but never least, to Tim. Thank you for brainstorming great ways to fictionally murder people, for never complaining about pulling more than your fair share of dinner duty, and for keeping me anchored no matter how crazy life gets. Kisses!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Katee Robert learned to tell her stories at her grandpa’s knee. The Surviving Girls is the t
hird book in the Hidden Sins series following The Hunting Grounds and The Devil’s Daughter. Her 2015 book, The Marriage Contract, was a RITA Award finalist. When not writing sexy contemporary and romantic suspense, she spends her time playing imaginative games with her children, driving her husband batty with what-if questions, and planning for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. Visit her online at www.kateerobert.com.
