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* * *
It takesthe better part of the day to get us back to Seattle, and it’s evening by the time the plane from Vancouver lands.
I take Destiny and Molly back to my place without asking.
No discussion, no argument, no emotional firestorm over what this means. We’re all just too soul-drained to care.
We fall down in my bed together the instant we’re through the door.
My gut rolls with phantom motion, still feeling like we’re trapped in that storm.
Dess has the same far-off look in her eyes.
I run my fingers through her hair, and she digs hers under the hem of my t-shirt so we’re skin to skin. We allow ourselves this bliss, this peace, for what feels like hours and it’s still not nearly long enough.
Molly sleeps in a grumbling heap of long legs and fur at the end of the bed.
Goddamn.
I never thought I’d have them here again—especially not like this—but I couldn’t bear it if she left me now.
“What do we do next?” she whispers in the darkness.
“We belt Adriana with everything we’ve got. One good sleep and I’ll be ready,” I tell her.
We sleep with that thought hanging over us, my legal machinery already moving in the background.
The lawyers will go to war without me lifting a finger, but it doesn’t feel like enough.
Leaving a woman who tried to murder us to a mundane arrest warrant and years behind bars doesn’t begin to touch the hell she put us through.
Of course, I don’t want an open confrontation. Not until I’m positive Dess has fully recovered from her ordeal.
It’s two more slow days staying in, making phone calls, and listening to the softly pattering rain like whispers from another world before we talk through our decision.
* * *
We setoff in the morning and arrive at Adriana Cerva’s townhome just outside Medina.
It’s the typical plush, upper middle crust sort of dwelling you’d expect. A fitting space for someone who’s done well, but never well enough when there’s an endless appetite for Chanel and Prada and regular trips to warm beaches.
No doubt it’s all from her daughter’s mudslinging, and it’s predictably tacky as hell. Her entire moral compass is based on its price tag, and I imagine it extends to her daughter, too.
Meghan is only valuable as long as she makes money for mama—and lots of it.
Fuck, if only I’d noticed how off things felt at the restaurant.
There’s so much I should have done differently.
Still, the stakes are too high today to dwell on the past.
Destiny slips her arm through mine.
We’ve had a few difficult conversations, but they’ve all revolved around the immediate future. What’s going to happen with Adriana, how we’ll prevent my attorneys from having cardiac arrest when they find out what we’re doing, what we’ll tell the cops.
Honestly, I’m giving fewer fucks about Adriana’s fate by the minute. I can’t wait until this is over so we can talk about the future.
“Ready?” she asks in the back of the limo.
