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“I’ll always love you. I’ll always be here. But what happens next depends on you.”
Looking into his eyes, I see the face of that handsome teenager he used to be, leaning in through my doorway. The face that was always there when I needed it most. To defend me. To love me. To protect me.
How many women in the world have a love like this? This history. This loyalty. This quiver in their belly?
“I’m here. I love you. I’m not going anywhere. Ever. As long as you’ve loved me, I’ve loved you. That will never, ever change.”
He nods, grim but pleased. “Good. So now listen. And listen close.” His fingers slide down the small of my back and he grips my hips and ass with his huge hands. “I need you to stay right here. In this room. Until I get back. No fucking bullshit. No grocery store runs. Luke and Edward are going to stay and keep you safe, but I gotta go out for a while. While I’m gone, you don’t fucking leave this room. You stay away from the windows, you don’t even so much asthinkabout going outside.”
A deep pulse of terror rips through my stomach, through my heart. “Okay.”
“Good. Because I need you to realize that your life—that my life—depends on your being safe for the next little while.”
I look into his eyes, seeing that dangerous fire again. “I know.”
“For me to do what needs to be done, I need to know that you are completely safe.”
I nod, pushing my trembling lips together to keep the tears at bay. But it’s no use. I am a mess of tears and sobs. This isn’t about punishing a schoolyard bully; this is about life. And death. “That’s why I didn’t tell you before. When you were away.”
“Stop that. Stop it. Shhh. I know,” he says, calmly and firmly. Not angry now. Just pureTrent.“I fucking get it. But now I’m home. And now you’ve told me. You did great, baby girl.”
Did I? All those terrified nights. All those secrets. All those Skype calls when I told him I was fine, everything was fine, when it was just the opposite. I don’t know how I’ll ever forgive myself for keeping so many secrets from him for so long.
“Did I?”
The look in his eyes, it’s both pride and lust. “You did perfectly. But now it’s time to let Daddy do his job. Because there is no universe in which someone threatens you and lives, we clear?”
My belly tightens and my heart pounds. “I know,” I whisper through a sob. “I’ve always known.”
CHAPTER22
Trent
Wearing civvies and carrying my McMillan Tac-50 rifle in my backpack, I have Edward drop me off in front of a nine-story bank building downtown.
I give the security guard a nod, like I know him, and head for the elevators. Nobody gives me a second fucking look. All the time, I’m scoping out my surroundings. Assessing threats. Doing my fucking job. But this time, doing it for the one I love.
The only woman that will ever matter to me in the world. The one who gives me purpose. Peace. Meaning itself.
She didn’t fucking like it, me coming down here, doing this. But she knew it was necessary. For her. For me. For us. And though she cried her eyes out, she didn’t fight me.
Not that I’d have changed my fucking mind even if she had.
Because nobody hurts my family and survives. Nobody threatens her and lives to tell about it.
Nobody.
The elevator opens on the top floor and I step out, with a brand new phone I bought on the way over here in hand, looking just like another fucking financial planner in a sea of guys dressed like me. But when they all head to their nine-to-fives after lunch, I head for the staircase that goes up to the roof.
I scan the stairway for security cameras but see none. God bless this fucking country. So fucking innocent still. So fucking naïve.
I check the door for any alarm, but there isn’t any. So fucking far, so fucking good.
On the roof now, flat and coated with gravel-covered tar. My dress shoes crunch underfoot. That sound is as powerful as a fucking IED explosion. Just like that, I’m back in the white-hot sun, making heat snakes everywhere. I don’t mind this flashback. Not a fucking bit. Because then, just like now, it was my job to rid the word of evil.
And I’m fucking good at my job.
I pick a spot pointing west, toward where Luke pinpointed Rominovski’s main office. On my stomach now, I unpack my McMillan, doing what I’ve done a thousand times.
