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Did she know how beautiful she was?
Did she know how gracious and graceful?
How couldn’t she know how badly I wanted to kiss her? How badly I wanted to turn that freakin’ frown upside down?
As I studied her, a reporter asked, “What’s next for you, Ms. Sullivan?”
“There isn’t a ‘next.’ That implies this is over. It is not over. More names will be added to the monument as and when we uncover those we failed. More arrests will be made and more governments will topple as crooked officials are revealed through our investigations.
“This monument exists because two million women deserve to be remembered.”
“But personally, Ms. Sullivan? There are rumors—”
“There are always rumors.” Star smiled at the crowd, a special smile that hadn’t existed before. That was a new mask. A PR mask that had come into being when she’d become the face of the ATRF foundation and had been revealed, by a tabloid, to be one of the key sources of intel for Aaron Goldstein’s Special Trafficking Unit. A move I still wasn’t sure was a leak Conor had orchestrated or not, but I figured it was likely. “The rumors of a split are not true. I’ve decided to make an honest man out of my fiancé.” When Conor’s brows lifted, she chuckled. “See? Even he didn’t know that. You are not invited to my wedding; it will most definitely be a family affair.
“But it’s time. Nine years, he’s waited for me, and I know he’ll wait a lifetime, but the longer this investigation carries on, the more I realize that there will never be a definite end point to it. That was what I was waiting for.
“There is centuries’ worth of corruption to unravel, and together, Conor and I, as well as the team at Interpol, will work to bring justice to those we failed, while the ATRF will work to ensure that the victims have a safe place to land.”
As the journalists applauded, I was close enough to Conor to hear him mutter, “I’ll hold you to that promise, seeing as you skipped out on the tequila. I’m rather looking forward to being an honest man.”
“Teamwork makes the dream work,” she told him, turning into him as the cameras flashed, her cameo-beringed hand settling on his chest, her nose nuzzling Minnie’s.
None of us knew that that shot would be the one featured on the front pages in the morning.
None of us knew that that shot would, panned wide with the monument in the background and the clan surrounding them, be used in the history books and that kids, years down the line, would have to reason in their essays why that was such a powerful image.
Why it was a declaration of love and intent.
Why it represented the fight for democracy and liberty for all.
No, to us, that was just Conor and Star.
Our uncle and aunt, mother and father, brother and sister-in-law.
As they made history together, I turned to Kat and found her watching me.
I smiled.
She smiled back.
