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Twenty-Five
Aidan
The second we were freed,we took the general maintenance elevator to the penthouse.
Savannah, unsurprisingly, was exhausted, and to be frank, I was too because I hadn’t slept the night before. Still, the exhaustion went deeper than that. The hits were coming at us from all angles, and though my brothers were on the case as well, the rest of the Five Points too as we dealt with the Sparrows, it was different now.
Savannah was involved.
The woman I’d tried to protect all these years.
The woman I’d kept my eye on all this time.
The woman who, despite all the shit I’d tried to do to protect her, to keep her out of this life, was here anyway.
If that wasn’t fucking fate, I didn’t know what was.
So, when we made it upstairs, I came to the decision that we could spend the night here.
Tomorrow, we’d have been heading to the family estate in upstate New York anyway. With one of two access points to this apartment out of commission, and Conor having done something to make sure that the general maintenance elevator we’d used was shut down, I knew we were safe for one night.
Especially as, knowing him, that meant he was sleeping in the damn contraption, and I couldn’t complain. I figured he knew what Savannah meant to me, or at least, he did after we made it upstairs, with her shaken and quiet, huddling under the arm I had hooked around her shoulders.
Either way, I knew no one else would be getting in here tonight, not without going through Conor, so that enabled me to let my guard down a little. Just enough to get a few hours rest as she did too.
None of this was expected.
None of it.
Didn’t take away from how fucking right it felt.
Especially with her curved into me. Somehow apart but connected.
I’d shared my bed with very few women, but each time, they’d been clingers. As if clinging to me there was a way to cling to me through the day.
Spoiler alert: it hadn’t worked.
Savannah was huddled on her side into a tight ball, but she was distinctly on her half of the mattress, while one hand drifted toward me. Not invasive, giving me space, so whenever I woke up, which was every hour or so because I rarely slept the full night through, I knew she was nearby.
Close enough to touch.
Exactly what I’d needed these past five fucking years without her.
After I woke up for the eighth time in two hours, I decided that my body was warning me about something.
Not one to let my instincts be ignored, I got out of bed with as much stealth as I was capable of. Which was to say, not much.
I grunted as pain slammed into me, but I gritted my teeth and blew out a breath, trying to let out the discomfort, manage it the best way I could now—through breathing and shit that Conor told me was beneficial—fucking meditation. A goddamn mobster meditating. Talk about a joke.
Either way, it spoke of how tired she was that she didn’t stir regardless of the fucking shit show that was me in stealth mode.
The urge to protect her was strong. Stronger than it had ever been before.
I’d never thought I could feel so much for someone after such a short length of time, but that was the difference. I’d watched her for so long that I knew more about her than she would ever imagine.
Just as, I realized, she was with me, because I highly doubted that inquisitive mind of hers would have stopped researching the family—she’d just have been quieter than before.
We had a five-year courtship under our belts. Without either of us realizing it.
