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“No…” I struggle to stare at Jasleen, and at once, there are two of her, her hair pulled back away from her face and her skin taut, her mouth a thin line. “No. When we left him, he was alive.”
“Honey…” Aria stops, clears her throat.
“Then I’m not sure what to tell you,” Jasleen says. “The man is deader than those poor schmucks immortalized in Pompeii. Someone must have gotten there after you left and finished the job.”
“Impossible.” I whisper the word, but they catch it anyway.
“Does it matter?” Aria scoots closer. She’s careful not to jostle me in any way. “He’s gone. Which is exactly what we wanted, right? It doesn’t matter whether we killed him or someone else. It’s over now.”
It is what I want, except I’d hoped to be the one to slap the cuffs on Steven’s wrists and take him in. I’d hoped to be the one to absolve myself with the rest of the precinct rather than letting Naomi do the talking for me.
“It seems I missed a lot while I was unconscious,” I say out loud instead.
“Not as much as you’d think. There was an uproar in the office. I heard it even from my basement dwelling.” Jasleen sets me with another grin. “No one could believe that Broderick Stevens had actually gone down.”
“I’ve taken care of everything.” Aria strokes a hand across my forehead, and I lean into the contact. “There’s no chance your cop friends will point the finger at you now, Tough Guy. I had all my guys seize control of Broderick’s online files and forward them to Bill and Adam. You’re free, and the Syndicate is crumbling.” She turns to Jasleen. “Not bad for, what? Two days?”
Jasleen nods and says, “We had to keep busy while we waited for this one to wake up from his nap.”
I try to chuckle, and the movement jostles my wound. “Is Naomi okay?”
“She’s fine. She’s pulling closed a couple of loose ends and told me to watch you until she’s got back,” Jasleen replies. She blinks those wide, dark eyes at me. “We haven’t left you alone since you came out of surgery, Bishop. There’s always been someone here with you to make sure you would be looked after. And to have some friendly faces around when you finally woke up.”
It tickles me, thinking about Aria being my silent savior and my knight with shining red hair. There are female knights, right? I’ve got no clue, but the visual in my head is something special.
“They’ve got every piece of information they need to start tracking down the others. I can only imagine the look on Antoni’s face when Naomi takes him down.” Aria tips her head back and laughs.
“You’re not worried?” I ask, slicking my tongue over my dry lips. “About whoever put a bullet in Broderick’s head?”
I joined the academy for stability. To learn discipline, control. Two of the things that had been sorely lacking in my upbringing. I found what I needed.Now, something isn't right. There’s a missing piece, and I’ve seen too many things to believe this is all wrapped up with a nice bow.
“No, I’m not,” Aria insists with a bit of force to her tone. “And I think, right now, we need to work on getting you home and comfortable. I assured the hospital staff that you would be perfectly cared for if they released you early, and they made me promise to watch you. Every.” She boops my nose. “Single. Second.”
I close my eyes, breathing in deeply and struggling to make sense of things. On one hand, I’m grateful for this moment to be alive and surrounded by these two fabulous women. One of whom is…well, damn. Yes, Aria agreed to be my girlfriend. And Jasleen has Broderick in the morgue.
The Syndicate is going down, the bottom knocked out from underneath them.
Why do I feel that it’s not over yet?
Between the two women and later, Adam, they manage to get me back to my apartment with relative ease and settle me in my bed invalid style.
“I think this is the first break you’ve taken in two years, buddy,” Adam jokes, pushing a cup of soda closer for me and waiting until I lift the straw to my lips for a sip before he relaxes.
“Enforced vacation,” I correct him.
Aria shuffles closer and stares me down. “Now, don’t think this is going to be a regular occurrence, mister. I’m not the type of person who caters to someone else full-time. Once you’re up and running again, we’re going to have a serious talk about boundaries and what we can expect out of each other.”
The tenacity on her face is enough to have me chuckling. “One tiny victory bringing down a nationally feared crime family, and she’s acting like she’s got bigger balls than the rest of us,” I tease.
“She does,” Adam replies solemnly.
Aria smiles at me, the expression so bright and exuberant it lights her from within. Love.
Me…and her. The mistress of the underworld.
Am I a crazy bastard who went head over heels for the first woman to suck him off in an alley? Trying not to let her see how nervous I suddenly feel at the realization. She’s the girl for me, no matter how fucked up her past, no matter how far we both have to go to heal our shit.
Dual alerts go off on their phones at the same time, and Adam and Aria look at each other.
