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“I do,” I promised at the same time.
She glared at Raphael.
“Willa—look at me.” Her gaze flittered to mine, and I implored her with the same look I’d given her in the shower the night we’d made love. “Stay with me.”
Her posture softened a fraction.
I saw the opening, and I went for it. “I want you to tell me everything. But not here. Not like this. Give me the gun. Then you and me—we’ll go upstairs. You can tell me everything. And I fucking swear on my mother’s soul that I will avenge what happened to you. I will avenge your parents’ deaths.”
Her bottom lip trembled, and it took every fiber of my self-control to not drop to my knees and beg her to believe me. To give me a chance. To give us a chance.
I would make this right.
Willa deserved an avenging angel. And who was more qualified to deliver vengeance than her devil?
I flexed my fingers. The charge of my emotions was almost too much for my flesh to contain. “Those who’ve hurt you will live in terror. Awaiting my wrath will be a poison so potent, they will pray for death. And when I can no longer resist the temptation of watching the life slip from their eyes—I will dismember them with my own fucking hands.”
“Lucifer!” Raphael roared. “You can’t listen to her! She’s a liar!”
“Tread lightly, brother,” I warned. “The only reason I haven’t put a bullet in you myself is because the same blood flows through our veins, but I’m close to draining you of yours.”
“Lucifer ...” The vulnerability in Willa’s tone grounded me. She walked me back from the brink of recklessness.
I released a stuttering breath. “Aye, sweetheart.”
She shook her head. The torment in her eyes was my own personal torture, but I couldn’t look away. “I haven’t told you ... because—”
“Enough!” Raphael lunged, but Liam intercepted him before he’d cleared the couch. In his weakened state, he was no match for both Liam and Keegan.
Keegan wrapped Raphael in a choke hold. Liam slapped the handcuffs on him, and then silenced him with a glove shoved to the back of his throat. Raphael gagged and thrashed before surrendering to his fate. Liam assessed the gunshot wound, and when he didn’t remark, I took that as a sign it wasn’t serious.
Raphael could wait for help. I returned my focus to Willa. She had a death grip on the Glock, but it was aimed at the floor.
My shoulder blades eased down my back, and I took a deep breath. We’d made progress.
She cleared her throat. “I haven’t told you because if you were ever going to choose me, I wanted it to be because you loved me, and not because you hated Raphael.”
I didn’t understand. And did she use the word love?
“Tell me what? That you came to Boston seeking vengeance?”
She wiped the back of her hand across her cheek and shook her head. “No. There’s something else I’ve been keeping from you. And after everything you just said ...” A new round of tears streamed down her flushed cheeks. “No one has ever ...” She sucked in a shaky breath and wobbled on her feet. “No one has ever ... cared for me in that way.”
I more than cared for Willa. She’d resurrected my soul. In her trust, I’d found a sliver of redemption.
Raphael jerked in Keegan’s hold as though I’d said that out loud. I would deal with him later. I’d already decided he needed a night in the catacombs to cool off, and I needed time and more intel before any conversation between us could be productive.
I still needed to nail down how Raphael had found out about the meeting with the old guard. But I had my suspicions. He didn’t know the result of the vote, so it wasn’t someone who’d been present. Grifin had been giving off vibes lately that didn’t sit right with me. I’d send Keegan and Liam to track him down while I took Willa upstairs and held her until they returned.
The familiar rush I felt when order was restored moved in like a tide slow to rise. I anticipated its arrival in earnest.
I held out my hand. “Come, sweetheart. You can tell me upstairs.”
Willa dropped the gun. Liam rushed in and grabbed it. My heart swelled with relief and something else.
Love.
I loved Willa. If I didn’t know that I was in love with her before tonight, I knew it now.
