by Ella Miles
Instead, my jaw drops to the floor when a woman, no, an angel stands in front of me. She has beaming eyes, a gorgeous smile, and waves of blonde curls. Her white sundress still looks flawless on her, even though it’s now covered in stains.
I wince when I look up at her, realizing I’m the one who ruined her dress, but all I see is pure joy on her face, and I’m pretty sure a halo around her head—definitely an angel.
“I’m so sorry. I’m an asshole. I was looking at my phone instead of looking where I was going. Can I pay for your dry cleaning?”
She gives me a smug smile. “No.”
“No?”
“You can buy me another cup of coffee and talk with me before you persuade me to give you my number.”
A shit-eating grin spreads across my face. I think I’m in love.
We spent hours in that coffee shop ignoring everyone else. She canceled a dinner with her brother, while I failed in killing my target.
The first time I told her I loved her flashes next.
“Do you want to come up to my apartment?” Odette asks, as I lean back from our kiss.
Hell yes, I want to come up to her apartment. I’ve wanted nothing else since I picked her up at her classroom. She teaches kindergarten and stayed late turning the room into a winter wonderland for the kids the next day. I haven’t been able to keep my eyes off her ass even though her clothes weren’t all that tight—a knee-length gray skirt and maroon sweater. She looked gorgeous for our first date without even trying. And if I come up to her apartment, I’m not going to have any control around her.
She laughs, reading my mind. How does she do that?
“Come on.” She doesn’t take no for an answer.
I follow her up, putting my hand in my pocket to keep from touching her. Stay in control.
She opens the door of her small loft, revealing a living room crammed full of plants, books, and crafts.
“You can come in; I don’t bite.”
I laugh. It’s not you that I’m worried about.
I step into her apartment. She stands on her tiptoes and kisses me. A kiss I feel fucking everywhere. And when she pulls away, I do something worse than fuck her on the first date.
“I love you.”
I wait for her reaction. For her to freak out. To kick me out. To say I’m crazy. Instead, she kisses me back. “I can’t wait to fall in love with you, too.”
Four months later when she finally said it back.
I’m balls deep in her. Her body is clenched around me. Her hands are on my shoulders as she bounces up and down on my dick.
“Are you close?”
“So fucking close.”
I grab her ponytail, knowing my girl likes it a bit rough just before she comes.
“I love you,” she screams.
I stop, not believing she just said that.
“Don’t fucking stop!”
I chuckle and kiss her before I let her come on my cock.
After we recovered, she said she loved me with tears in her eyes. Every happy moment with her flashes like lightning through my brain. There is too much happiness to process it all.
I fell instantly in love—with her laugh, her brightness, her kindness, her independence. She doesn’t rely on her family for income or a job. She doesn’t need expensive things. She doesn’t live in fear of the danger lurking around every corner. And most of all—she isn’t a princess in need of saving.
Odette Monroe is normal. She lived a perfectly happy life without all the death and loss that existed in my world. And I instantly wanted to be a part of her life.
So that day, I made a choice to give up my life of crime. I stopped working for my half-brother and his wife. I gave up my friends. I gave up my nieces and nephews. I gave up everything to start over again. I found a new job in marketing that pays well enough, I moved into Odette’s tiny loft with her, and I’ve never looked back.
I keep my past and present separate to keep my wife and future family safe. I know how much my brother and his friends struggled and still struggle to keep their families safe. Every day is a fight to keep their enemies away. I don’t want that for my family. Sure, it’s tough rarely seeing them and only under careful secrecy. It was tough not inviting them to the wedding and only seeing my nieces and nephews once or twice a year, but it’s necessary. I’ll do everything I can to keep Odette and my future children, that I plan on having with Odette very soon, safe.
When I started dating Odette, I didn’t think a woman like her, such an angel, could ever love a man like me. A man with blood on his hands. A man who is surely going to hell for all the sins I’ve committed. But on one drunken night after a month of dating, I finally told her the truth. I told her exactly who I am—a criminal, a weapons dealer, a drug dealer, a thief, a torturer, a murderer.
She said it didn’t matter about my past, only about my future. That was the night I knew for sure I was in love with her and that I would do anything for her, including giving everything up. A year later, here I am, married to the most incredibly perfect woman. An angel I can only hope to be as sweet and kind as. A woman I get to love for the rest of my life. I can’t think of a better way to spend it.
My two worlds can’t cross. I won’t put her or our future family in danger. It means seeing my brother and friends less. It means giving up everything before her, but Odette is worth it. I won’t lose her.
Something won’t let me forget that girl who interrupted the ceremony, though. An unnerving feeling makes me think danger is closer than I realize.
I shake the feelings off. Old habits die hard. That’s all this is. I can’t stop seeing danger when there isn’t any. So I let the uneasy feelings go, despite my gut saying otherwise.
We step off the elevator on the top floor of our hotel hand in hand. Odette laughs at a stupid joke I made. Her laugh is infectious. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard, and her smile the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. Same goes for her blue eyes, blonde hair, and curves. I love everything about her.
We reach the door of our suite before I stop. There are limitations to only having one arm, but this won’t be one of them.
“What are you doing?” she squeals as I wrap my arm under her ass, lifting her into the air. Her legs wrap around my waist while her arms cling to my neck.
“Carrying you into our honeymoon suite.” It may not be honeymoon style, but it doesn’t matter.
She giggles, slightly tipsy from the champagne we were drinking at the reception.
“You don’t have to—”
I kiss her lips. “I want everything to be perfect for you, today and every day.”
“Okay,” she says, her eyes growing darker as I carry her over the threshold. Her eyes are still on me as we enter the room.
I nod for her to take a look at her surroundings.
Slowly, she peels her eyes off of me and looks around the room. “Oh my god, Beckett, this is too much! You shouldn’t have—”
I capture her lips with mine, so she stops saying things about how expensive the room is or that we can’t afford it. I want to give her the world. Tonight is nothing compared to what I have planned on our honeymoon. I want to spend every penny I earned through less than moral means on her—my way of making amends to the world for my sins.
She moans against my lips, completely forgetting about the expensive suite.
I’ve been in control all day. I didn’t fuck her in the bathroom even though I knew she would have if I’d asked her. But now that we are alone together, I lose all control. I grind against her as I hold her up. I don’t want to fuck her up against the wall. At least, not the first time I fuck her as husband and wife; that will come later.
I carry her to the bedroom, and we fall together onto the bed. We devour each other. Our tongues tangle, our moans sync, our hearts beat as one. We were so made for each other. My hand roams over her body, feeling the mix of fabrics beneath my fingertips. I want to rip the dress from her body, but I’m no
t sure if she wants to save the dress as a keepsake.
I’m about to ask her when she sits up suddenly.
“Shit, I forgot to take my insulin at dinner.”
Odette has type one diabetes, and I know how important it is that she takes her meds on time.
I inwardly curse that I’m going to have to peel myself off her for even a second to go retrieve her bag, but it’s for the best. We have all night together. Our flight tomorrow isn’t until the afternoon, and I plan on enjoying every second we have together until then.
“It’s been less than two hours since we had dinner. You should be good. I’ll get them from your bag,” I say, climbing off the bed in search of our bags. We ended up having dinner much later than everyone else since Odette couldn’t get enough of my new dance skills.
I search the bedroom, closet, and living space, but I don’t find our bags. I pick up the phone and dial the front desk, assuming our bags are still with the bellhop, but there’s no answer.
I sigh, running my hand through my hair.
I loosen my tie and toss it aside, as well as my tux jacket, knowing what I need to do next.
“I have to go downstairs to get the bags. The front desk isn’t picking up. Do you need anything else while I’m down there?”
She leans up on her elbows, staring at me with such heat in her eyes that I almost say fuck it, I’ll get her insulin after. But I know that will be a mistake when her blood sugar spikes or drops and we spend the rest of the evening with her sick. I love her too much to hurt her.
So I talk my cock down. Soon, buddy, real fucking soon.
“Just for you to hurry back.” Her hand trails down her cleavage.
I gulp as my cock hardens in my pants. There is no way I’m going to be able to walk with this hard-on.
Jesus, she’s making my job difficult.
“Don’t move. Don’t undress. I’ll be right back.”
She laughs at my strained words as I run out of the bedroom. I press the button on the elevator a thousand times like that is somehow going to make it arrive faster. I adjust my cock discreetly, getting my bulge to decrease enough to not make a scene when I arrive in the lobby.
I step on and press the ground floor button repeatedly on the way down, begging the elevator to move faster. The doors open on the second floor, and I immediately hit the closed door button as an elderly man tries to step on. Sorry, old man, you can take the next one. I have a hot as sin wife lying in my bed waiting for me. You understand.
After chewing the front desk worker’s ear off for not sending the bags up and not answering the phone when I called, I am promised that the bellhop will be bringing the bags up immediately along with a free bottle of wine.
I jog back to the elevator banks and once again press the button repeatedly.
Come on, come on, come on.
The bell chimes as the elevator doors open.
I move to step on but stop in my tracks.
A woman rushes off, colliding into me.
I grab her shoulder, steadying her.
It’s the same woman from before with the raven hair that interrupted our ceremony.
Our eyes meet.
This time the fear from earlier that I was expecting is there.
But just as I notice her anxiety, she blinks it away like I fucking imagined it. She shudders out of my grasp.
“Excuse me,” she says as she flees.
So strange.
I move to step onto the elevator when I look down at my hand.
It’s covered in blood.
What the hell?
I glance at the woman just as she exits through the revolving door. I get one last look at her and realize she’s covered in blood.
I squeeze my eyes shut, silently cursing myself for what I’m about to do. I want nothing more than to step onto the elevator and go back to my wife, but something about the woman unnerves me. Whoever is chasing her could be a danger to my new family.
It can’t be a coincidence that I saw the woman twice now.
I have to find out who she is and get her to talk to me so I can protect Odette.
It will take twenty minutes at most for me to get her to talk, get her in an ambulance, and call up reinforcements if I need help keeping Odette safe.
Twenty minutes until I’m back with my wife.
I run out the door of the hotel and hope like hell that I don’t regret it.
2
Ri
Run faster.
When people are faced with fear, they do one of four things: freeze, fawn, fight, or flight.
I’ve done the freeze thing. It didn’t keep me safe.
I’ve tried the fighting thing. I lost. I have the bruises to prove it.
Fawning only made me sick to my stomach every time I agreed to a request.
My only option left is flight.
So that’s why I’m running.
I have no choice.
The only way this plan will work is to keep running, keep moving, don’t stop.
Clearly, I haven’t thought my plan through. I can’t always be running, but I don’t have time to stop and think about how stupid my plan is. I have to keep running.
I could hide?
The idea creeps in as I run through the streets of Chicago.
Hiding will only be temporary.
Run first, hide later.
That’s my new plan.
Run, hide. Run, hide. Repeat, forever.
It’s not a good plan, but it’s all I’ve got.
I don’t feel anything as I run. My body feels like it’s floating on air with every step. My brain tries to process what happened, but there is a haze, a fogginess. I let the haze cover the truth. I’m not ready to face it. Not today. Not ever.
Another survival technique I learned from an early age is to push down secrets. Hide them. Don’t let them out. Don’t think about what just happened. Then you never have to face it.
I’m good at it.
It’s how I’ve survived this long.
I still can’t believe it came to this. I should be going to sleep so I can wake up, go to classes tomorrow, and then go to my waitressing job in the evening. I shouldn’t be here, running.
I want to turn around and see if I’m being followed, but it would slow me down, and I can’t spare a second. If I do, the darkness will find me. I feel the dark wave growing speed and getting closer.
And then, I hear footsteps.
They’re getting closer.
I chance a look, just a quick one, ensuring my feet keep flying forward.
Smack.
My head bounces off something hard. My legs are forced to stop even though they are itching to move again.
I realize I’ve hit a hard chest. I wasn’t looking where I was going, so I probably stumbled into someone.
“Sorry, excuse me,” I say, moving to run around the man whose chest I ran into.
A hand tightens around the back of my bicep.
My eyes close, my heart squeezes, my world stops. I’ve been caught.
I didn’t even make it a whole day.
Finally, I look up, ready to face my captor. I’ve lost, and fighting will only bring more pain. But the eyes I look into aren’t those of the devil I’ve been running from. These eyes are a sharp, steely chestnut brown. Dangerous eyes that tell me he could end my life with one squeeze of his hand. And yet, something fluttering in my chest tells me he won’t.
“You,” I say accusingly.
He doesn’t say anything at first, just stares me down like I just killed his goldfish. I haven’t done anything to this man, though. I don’t even know who he is, apart from when I ran through his wedding ceremony earlier. I don’t have a clue why he followed me, but I’m not going to stick around to find out. He’s wasting precious time I don’t have.
“Let me go,” I say, trying to wiggle out of his grasp as I beat on his chest.
He doesn’t flinch at my punches. And he doesn’t loosen his grip on my arm.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“I’m no one. Now, let me go!”
I beat against his chest again, but the man is made of steel or something. He doesn’t budge.
“You’re not no one. I’m not going to ask nicely again. Who are you? Who sent you?”
“It doesn’t matter who I am. Let me go!”
I dig my nails into his arm until I’m sure I’m drawing blood. He still doesn’t let me go. He doesn’t react at all except for a slight flare of his nostrils.
This man has experienced pain. Inflicting a little pain won’t get me what I want.
I look him over. The most notable thing about him is that he’s missing his right arm. My guess is he lost it in an accident or fight. He wasn’t born this way. That’s the pain he carries with him every day, but it doesn’t hold him back. I’m just as trapped as I would be with any man.
I scan him top to bottom. His golden-brown layered undercut is more tousled than before. I’m sure his new bride is to blame for that, along with the missing tie, undone top buttons on his shirt, and jacket missing. He’s an athletic man, lean and tall, but not too bulky. I would love to see what is underneath his clothes, but my eyes drift back to his face. Stern anger burns in his eyes. His tightened jaw is covered in a five o’clock shadow.
He’s handsome. His bride is a lucky woman.
I glance behind me as his suffocating grip on my bicep tightens, almost cutting off the blood flow. He’s strong. But is he strong enough to fight the man I’m running from? And would he fight even if he was stronger? I doubt it. He’d probably toss me into the fire without a second thought about how he’d be ending my life.
He shakes me, drawing my attention back to him.
“Who are you running from?” He changes his question.
“Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be with your wife?”
