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Lucifer had promised God that he would be a good man. In the end, the tragedy was that he’d been one all along.
But he’d never believed it.
Willa
Six Months Later
The high October sun reflected off the granite tombstone.
“Why think separately of this life than the next, when one is born from the last? Time is always too short for those who need it, but for those who love, it lasts forever.”
Keegan had come up with the inscription. He said he’d heard it in a Dracula movie, and since Dracula was the OG monster, it would be—according to him—fucking epic.
He was right. It was perfect.
Behind me, fallen leaves crunched beneath the weight of heavy boots. I knew those footfalls—and the man they belonged to.
My heart thumped a little harder.
“What do you think?” the gravel-filled voice asked.
Heat spread across my collarbones and traveled up my neck. I bit my bottom lip. The coarse Irish timbre made me feel things that were seriously inappropriate given the situation ...
I turned around.
Lucifer Flynn.
My husband.
My grin widened. “Da would approve. Thank you for doing this.”
“Aye. Jack would.” He raised an eyebrow. “And your mother?”
I closed the distance between us, emotion welling in my throat. “She’d love it.” My palms smoothed over his chest, stopping when they reached his heart.
Lucifer counted breaths; I checked for heartbeats. It’s how we coped after coming so close to losing each other.
He brought my hand to his lips and kissed the black ink that now covered the white lines on the inside of my wrist. Not the permanent mark I had gotten from falling out of the apple tree. No, that was a memory I wished to keep.
But the other scars?
The day Lucifer was released from the cardiac rehabilitation center was the day I decided it was time to leave tragedy in the past where it belonged.
So I’d gotten my first tattoo: a Celtic knot—the eternity of life symbol—with our initials in the center.
It would also be my last. That sucker fucking hurt.
“Do you want to stay a while longer?” Lucifer’s thumb traced my cheek. “We could go tomorrow instead.”
These days, the devil worked smarter, not harder. That meant he took time away from running the most successful syndicate in Irish-American organized crime history to enjoy the simple things in life. Like taking his wife apple picking and—I glanced over my shoulder—building her parents the most beautiful memorial.
My gaze returned to Lucifer’s. Adoration was etched into every angle on his handsome face.
I pressed onto my toes and kissed his full lips. “Sosanna said she’d bake an apple pie.”
The Flynn Estate was our home. I could visit the chapel anytime I wanted. Today, I wanted to create new memories.
He gave me one of his easy-going, lazy grins—the kind that made me breathless. The boss of the Flynn Syndicate hadn’t gone soft, but those closest to him might say his approach to life had ... evolved.
