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After a few minutes, I feel her sleeping against me, hear her breathing turn peaceful and steady. I let warm darkness fall over me, sinking deeper into the couch, pulling Juliana atop me like the best blanket in the world.
I’m glad I’m so tired.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to keep the beast inside me caged.
But for now, we just sleep, intertwined like we’re as fused together physically as we are by fate.
I wake when my cellphone starts to blare from the table, the room dark and chilly now. Juliana leaps up and lets out a panting breath. I smooth my hand up her back, rubbing her shoulder comfortingly.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “Go back to sleep.”
“It’s cold,” she murmurs.
“I’ll close the window.”
She slumps onto the couch and I take the chance to kiss her cheek before standing up and grabbing my phone from the table. I have to move away from her quickly after the kiss. She looks too damn sexy lying there like that, half-asleep, like perfect prey getting ready for her predator to fall upon her and claim her in every savage way.
I swipe answer on the screen as I walk over to the window, pulling it shut.
“Yes?” I say, walking out onto the beach-facing porch.
Moonlight dances across the lapping waves, making them seem even more alive than they are, glittering and shining.
“You did it,” my contact says, his voice altered as it always is with a voice changer. “It worked.”
I grit my teeth to stop a noise of celebration from escaping me.
I can’t afford to get my hopes up.
Not until I know for sure.
“Igor and his men are in police custody?” I say.
“The FBI has apprehended them,” the robotic voice tells me. “That evidence you gave me was top-tier. What made you gather all the locations for their warehouses?”
“You can never be too careful when working on the East Coast,” I tell him. “I’ve got evidence on every other criminal enterprise, too. It’s how I spent my time between jobs. I thought one day some good could come out of all this work. But tell me, is Igor going down, really going down, forever?”
“They’ve got him on a dozen federal crimes. He’s done.”
“Can it be traced back to me?”
The derisive laugh sounds strange with the alien voice.
“It can’t be traced back to anybody. That’s not how we do things.”
“Good,” I say, letting out a sigh of relief. “I have more. On the mafia. On the triads. On the yakuza. You can make a career for yourself with all the dirt I’ve gathered over the years, Liam.”
The voice falters, and then the man chuckles, the voice changer fading away. Liam’s voice is deeper than I expected.
“How long have you known?”
“For five years now.”
“Motherfucker,” Liam chuckles. “Send over that intel, Jett. You’ll be reimbursed very generously. And then, I’m afraid, we’ll have to cut all contact with you. You’ll be a civilian. You’ll have to obey the law. Live a normal life. Maybe raise a family.”
A smile spreads across my cheeks. I can’t help it. It just widens, gloriously, until I’m grinning from ear-to-ear like a kid with his whole life ahead of him.
I might be over forty, but I’ve never felt younger, more hopeful for the future.
“I was counting on that,” I tell him. “Happy hunting, Liam. Keep an eye on the dropbox. I’ll have the evidence there in two days’ time.”
“Sounds good. Take care of yourself, Jett.”
We end the call and then I punch the air, my chest soaring with the heat of a thousand fires. All this time, I’ve been working on the side, scouting, gathering information.
I could never be sure if Liam Greenwald – a mid-level operative in the CIA – would take it. But maybe he’s finally realized that it’s better to do what’s right than rot in the grime of the underworld.
Maybe he’s finally realized – like I have – that there’s nothing wrong with being a normal man living a normal life.
I turn back to the house with warmth surging through every part of me.
Now I get to tell the love of my life that I’ve put her parents’ killer behind bars.
I get to tell her that we’ll never have to look over our shoulder, that this is over, really over.
We’re free to begin our lives together.
I just know it’s going to be the most amazing life a man could dream of.
Chapter Twenty
Juliana
I wake with the sun shining heavenly bright through the window, a golden shaft dappling the room and coming to rest on the bottom half of the bed. Rebel sits on my chest, curled up, and on the other side of the room, I can hear Jett doing his morning workout. He grunts and breathes steadily.
For a few long blissful moments, I lie there without telling him that I’ve woken up.
I listen to his growling breath mixing with the sounds of the ocean, the wind whispering past the house. Children play on the beach, their voices pitched high, laughing, cheering, clapping.
