He had a gasoline canister dangling from his fingers.
I looked back and caught it as Knight lifted his chin to the guy then grabbed my hand, reaching out to take my carry-on from Sylvie in his other.
He moved me toward the pool doors.
I looked back into a hall that now held Sylvie, Raid, Ghost and the scarred man.
“Thank you,” I called as Knight dragged me out the door.
“Don’t get bored senseless in the middle of fucking nowhere,” Sylvie called back as the door swung closed behind me.
That was not going to happen.
I felt my lips start curving.
Knight pulled me down the side of the pool until I started almost running to match him step for step, nearly surpassing him on our way to the back gate.
There was a Maserati in my alley. He helped me into the front seat, threw my bag in the trunk, got in beside me and took off like a shot down the alley.
We were three blocks away before I looked back.
The flames consuming the vast mansion that was so not me (even when I didn’t know what me was) were already dancing toward the sky.
“Valenzuela,” Knight stated.
I settled back in my seat and looked to him.
“Sorry?”
He looked at me out of the side of his eye quickly before returning his attention to the road.
“Benito Valenzuela murdering her sister’ll keep Georgia occupied while we take care of the rest of the business. Same time it does that, obviously it’ll keep her from thinkin’ she needs to look for you.”
They were framing Valenzuela.
I did not want to know and knew not to ask. Filled body bags. Gasoline. It was not for me to know. I knew this because, even if I asked, Nick would have made it so they didn’t tell me.
Still, I started, “Knight—”
He didn’t look out the side of his eye then, but glanced fully at me before he looked back to the street.
“No matter what you saw, no one got harmed in the making of that scenario, Livvie.” He jerked his head to indicate behind us. “That you can trust. Now you just gotta keep trusting and let Nick’s plan play out.”
I drew in a sharp breath.
This was Nick.
All Nick.
I closed my eyes.
When I opened them I knew two things.
One, I was smiling at the windshield.
And the other, I knew what was happening to my heart.
For the first time in my life, it felt light.
We did not go to DIA.
We went to a private airstrip and Knight and I got into a private jet.
We were taxiing not even five minutes after the doors were closed.
Wasting no time.
Nick was wasting no time getting me back to him.
I closed my eyes as we took off.
When we were climbing into the sky, I opened them, turning my head so I was looking out the window.
We were flying east.
We were flying into the dawn.
We were heading straight to the morning light.
I was going to Nick.
Another first in my thirty-one years of life.
I was going home.
*
Creed
Thirty Minutes Later
His wife’s back to the wall, her ass in his hands, his cock drilling inside her, the noises of them fucking filling their hotel room, Creed felt her move her hands so they framed his face.
He lifted it out of her neck and looked to his Sylvie.
At the look in her green eyes, he stopped moving, buried deep inside her.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Yeah.
Fuck yeah.
His Sylvie.
“Born to love me, baby, like I was born to love you,” he whispered back.
Her eyes got soft as they dropped to his mouth. He suspected his did too, as he dropped his mouth to hers.
Creed kissed her, moving her from the wall. Still inside her, he walked her to the bed and put them both into it.
There, they stopped fucking.
They finished making love.
His Sylvie had wanted four kids.
She wanted it, Creed gave it to her.
But that night, Creed gave her number five.
*
Raid
Thirty Minutes Later
Raid walked across the porch with its now-empty porch swing to the door, through it and into the farmhouse.
A light was on, shining dim from the living room to his left.
He walked that way and saw her there, on the flowered sofa, curled up in an afghan, head to the arm of the couch, asleep.
Waiting up for her man, she’d conked out.
Pregnant women, he’d learned (repeatedly) did that shit.
He moved to her and sat in the area open at the curve of her lap, a small area considering the size of her belly.
He had a hand lifted to pull her blonde hair away from her face even as her head turned and her big blue eyes opened.
Blinking, she focused on him.
“Hey,” she whispered. “It go okay?”
“Nothing sweeter,” he answered.
Her head slightly twitched as she lifted it up from the couch.
“Sorry?”
“Years, my two boys, my baby girl you got in you, countless hot fudge sundaes, all that you gave me, and there’s nothin’ sweeter.”
She was getting him, he knew it when he saw her face grow soft.
“Raiden.”
His name was hushed, reverent.
Fuck, but she loved him.
Nothing sweeter.