Dane chuckles as he pulls free from my body, and I decide it’s my new favorite sound as we clean up.
It’s definitely better than the sound of the woman’s voice who speaks from the doorway when I slip on my second boot.
“I hope I’m not interrupting.”
Chapter 46
Dane
I jerk my head up to see Arianna standing in the doorway, her gun leveled at Kat where she stands directly in front of me.
What the hell?
“Actually, I don’t care if I am interrupting.”
Rome tracked her to Israel and had a local operator going after her. There’s no way she should be in the States right now.
“Surprised to see me, boss?” She glances at Kat. “He never used his desk for anything this exciting before. I guess near-death experiences really do change people. Too bad this one won’t be near.”
“Why’d you do it, Ari? Money? Blackmail?”
She knows exactly what I’m talking about.
“Why did I contact Vargas and let him know there was a perfect opportunity to get revenge?”
That takes the blackmail option off the table.
I nod.
“You don’t even know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“It was my turn to take everything from you since you did it to me.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
She steps forward, her gun held steadily at Kat’s head. “Luis.”
Like it has a hundred times, the memory of watching him fall to his death plays through my head. Arianna would have seen it too, working at the Central American ops headquarters. Where they worked. Together.
The pieces come together.
“You and Luis?”
She nods. “We were going to get married. Have a family.”
“Rome’s non-fraternization policy wasn’t going to stop you, I take it?”
“I was going to quit as soon as I found another job. Luis would stay, and there would be no problem. But we never got the chance because you killed him.”
Hearing someone else level the same accusation I’d directed at myself so many times would have cut deep only days before, but Kat had finally gotten through to me.
“I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t even there.”
Arianna takes another step toward us and I wrap one arm around Kat, bringing her against my chest while reaching under the desk with the other hand.
“You should’ve been there! It should’ve been you! He wasn’t ready. It was all her fault.”
The gun quivers in Arianna’s hand, and now I understand why she dragged Kat into the whole mess to begin with.
“So for revenge you arranged for us both to be kidnapped, and her to be sold and me transported to Vargas to kill me.”
“I did what I had to do.”
“Take two lives to make up for an accident? Luis would be disgusted by you.”
She shakes her head, and the gun wobbles. “He would be proud that I got revenge. But you had to screw that up too.”
“So you came to work with me when I left the field because you wanted revenge.”
Arianna smiles, and it’s pure evil.
How did I miss it for a year? Because I was too blind to see anything through my guilt.
“Keep your enemies closer, I believe the saying goes. Now you both pay.”
She squeezes the trigger as I throw Kat to the floor and raise the gun taped under my desk to fire back.
There’s only a click.
Arianna’s bullet makes contact, slamming into my shoulder.
“Should’ve checked your weapon first, boss.”
She sights in on me again, but before she can pull the trigger, another shot fires. Arianna is thrown backward onto the floor, blood pooling around her.
I look down to see Kat crouching on the floor, the revolver she started carrying everywhere two weeks ago in her shaking hands.
She looks up at me. “I knew I didn’t like her.”
Epilogue
Kat
Three months later
“How am I going to tell him?”
The test results shake in my hand. The last three months have been unusually quiet after all the craziness, and now this.
I lower it to the table and flex my hands into fists to stop the shaking, then drop into a chair.
The garage door goes up as Dane pulls into the driveway. He has finally recovered from his most recent gunshot wound, and I swore that better be the last one. He agreed.
“Baby, I’m home!” he yells two minutes later when he opens the door from the garage into the house.
My throat seems frozen, unable to yell back.
How am I going to tell him? I ask myself again.
Dane finds me in the kitchen and stops. “What’s wrong?”
I’m terrible at hiding anything from him now, and we promised no more secrets between us.
I pick up the test from the table and hold it in the air.
“What the hell is that? Wait a minute.” Dane looks up from what I’m holding to meet my gaze. “Is that—”
“I’m pregnant.”
His entire face lights up, and he yanks me out of the chair and hauls me up in his arms. I lose my grip on the pregnancy test, and it falls to the tile floor.
“Are you serious?”
I nod. “Yes. I took six of them.”
“Of course you did.”
He spins me around the kitchen as we both break into laughter. It reminds me of the day, not so very long ago, that I got my negative ALS test results in the mail. I bawled and laughed, and we both celebrated no longer having that cloud hanging over us.
“We’re having a baby.” I try out the words, and they feel right.
“It better be a boy, or I’m going to have to tail her on every date she has, which won’t even happen until after she turns thirty.”
“Stop. If it’s a girl, she’ll have you wrapped around her finger.”
“No way.”
“I’ve met you, and you might look big and tough, but it’s all a front.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“That’s only for you, baby.” He squeezes me tighter. “I’m so fucking happy.”
“Me too.”
He finally sets me down and holds my face between his hands. “I love you so fucking much.”
He leans down to cover my mouth with his, and before our lips touch, I whisper back to him.
“Always and forever.”
The End