Confused, I turn to look at Alex, she’s standing with the gun in her hands — my gun, I realize – she looks at the man on the floor. Then at me.
“You really are my perfect match,” I tell her, smiling as the color climbs her face. “My wife.”
“Can we please have this conversation when we are not standing in a hallway full of death?”
“We can,” I say, taking the gun from her and grabbing her hand once more. We keep moving.
When we reach the reception room, Nikita is gone, an issue to be handled at a later date. We head for the front door, which still stands open. Down the steps, David is waiting with Evie beside him.
Alex makes a sound I have never heard from her before, the raw, pained sound of a mother reunited with her child. She rushes down the steps as Evie climbs up them, and they meet in the middle. I watch it happen at the top of the steps, my heart lighter than it has been since that night at the Onyx when this all began.
I take one step. And then my body gives, the pain, and exhaustion overriding my will to stay upright. And then there is nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Victor
The first thing I am aware of is the fan on the ceiling going round and round. I recognize it as the ceiling of my room in the penthouse and not a hospital room. I’m instantly grateful to whoever made the decision to bring me home instead.
The second thing I am aware of is Alex.
She is sitting in a chair beside the bed, slumped over, arms crossed on the edge of the mattress, head down. The cut above her eye has been cleaned and closed with a small butterfly bandage. And there is a faint bruise along her jaw that I hadn’t noticed before.
I shift, causing the sheets to ripple, and she lifts her head to look at me.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi,” she says.
“Before you say anything,” I start.
“No,” she says. “I go first.”
I close my mouth.
“You were shot, and instead of letting David take you to the hospital and be seen, you ambushed a house of fully armed men.” She took a deep breath before continuing, “Then after rescuing me, you proceeded to pass out on the staircase while I watched in utter panic, only moments after getting my daughter back. I hope you understand how furious I am with you.”
“I do,” I say.
“Good,” she says. “I am also—” she stops. Looks at her hands. Looks back at me. “I am very glad you’re awake,” she admits, her voice lower. “I never want to feel what I felt on those stores ever again, Victor. When I thought you were dying?—”
“I’ll do my best.” I reach for her then, taking her hand softly as I sit up.
“That’s not the reassurance you think it is.”
“I know.” I pull her toward me, my shoulder argues extensively, but I ignore it. “Come here.”
She unfolds from the chair, moving to sit at the edge of the bed. I take her other hand and pull both hands to my lips. Placing a kiss on her knuckles, then locking eyes with her.
“I need to ask you something.”
“Victor–”
“Yarina.” Her name on my tongue feels right; she goes still. “Marry me.”
She just stares at me.
“Marry me.” I say again, “You are my equal, my wife, in every way. You are stubborn, difficult, and the most extraordinary person I have met in thirty-three years. And I don’t want anything to stand between us any longer.”
