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I stumble back on my heels. “What did you say?”
“I love you, Link. I love you, I love you, I love you… and if you blow your head off and I don’t get the chance to tell you, I’ll figure out a way to bring you back from the dead and kill you myself!”
My lips kick up in a small grin, heart pounding harder than it ever has.
That’s my spitfire.
My Ava.
Mywife.
I lower the gun at the same time that Damien simply releases her. It has to be that. He’s not as strong as I am, but he could’ve kept Ava right where he wanted… but he drops his gun to his side, letting her run to me.
If I wanted to, I have a direct shot at him. If he wanted me dead, he could turn his gun on me. So long as Ava isn’t being threatened anymore, I could give a shit what he does.
Only I do.
Because shelovesme.
That realization makes me feel fucking bulletproof. Damien can fire every round in his gun. I don’t care. Ava loves me.
I throw open my arms as she launches herself at me. Lifting her off the ground, I squeeze her to my chest as she buries her face in my neck.
Even then, she can’t stop telling me how much she cares about me.
“I married you because I needed it. I was scared. Terrified. I didn’t want to go to jail. I had no idea why any of the mobsters in the city would be after me… but if you’d walked back into my life at any point in the last fifteen years, it wouldn’t have mattered. I was meant to be your wife. I love you, you big idiot, and I can’t wait for ”
“You know?” I murmur.
“I know,” is all she says before the tears finally begin to fall, sobs following shortly after, the heat of her tears scalding me beneath the collar of my shirt.
Over her head, I meet Damien’s icy blue eyes. His hands are empty, I notice, as though he’s already honoring this truce he wants between our factions.
It won’t last. I have no idea why Damien thinks this is the right time to work together, to combine our might, and move our specialities into each other’s territory. Back when I knew him, I could never figure out how his mind worked; I was always the brawn to his brains, just like Ava is my beauty.
“You agreed to the truce,” he reminds me.
“I did.”
He taps his pocket. “You shoot me now, or pull a Skittery on me, my men will know. You won’t like how they avenge me.”
I’m sure I won’t.
Damien always was a smart fucker. While the only backup I have is my driver, he must have a radio or something to connect him to one of his men. That way, he didn’t break the spirit of our agreement—that we would both enter the alley alone—but I can’t break my word when there are other witnesses than just my wife.
Mywife.
As if reading my mind—and sometimes I wondered if hecould—Damien points at Ava.
“Do a better job of protecting her,” he tells me. “If I could get her that easily, someone else could, too.”
Someone else? When we’re the only two players in Springfield? If I’m protecting Ava, and so is Damien, who else is there to worry about?
I go to ask him, but he’s already gone. Disappearing down the far end of the alley, slipping off into the night, the Dragonfly flies away—and I know that that’s not the last I’ll see of him.
EPILOGUE
AVA
