“What if,” I began and the words slipped out before I could stop them. “What if we could make this work?”
He pulled back just enough that we were face to face. “If we want that, and I really fucking do, then we have to fight for it.”
I never considered myself a fighter, at least not for anything outside the OR, but I wanted to fight for this. For us. “Okay. How?”
“We need to start with James. We have to stop reacting and start acting.” He sat up, thoughts racing as he stared at the wall. “Answer him and tell him you’ll meet him. Somewhere public enough to keep him bold but not so private that you’re in danger. We have to set a fucking trap.”
My eyes went wide at his words. “You want to use me as bait?” I wasn’t as incredulous as I should’ve been, which was terrifying.
“Yeah,” he nodded, his gaze never wavered. “I’ll never put you in actual danger, Viv, you have to know that. I’ll have you covered every step of the way, but we need to do this.”
I nodded because I believed him. Because I trusted him. But I needed to know more. “Explain it to me.”
He smiled, his eyes danced with excitement. “Later,” he growled and claimed my mouth once more, but the kiss wasn’t a distraction, at least notjusta distraction. This kiss was one hundred percent all about us. About taking back what James and the Russians, and fear had stolen from us.
We couldn’t ever get those years back, but we didn’t have to let them steal another day from us. Taking back that power made me feel strong and brave, and with that came something else, dark and intense.
And when Falcon pulled me on top of him, I took his body in mine and got lost in him, in us, again.
And again.
Chapter Seventeen
Falcon
The clubhouse office had turned into a fucking war room. The tables that were usually scattered around the room, offering space and privacy while everyone did whatever needed to be done to keep the MC moving forward, now sat in a straight line with my brothers gathered around it. On top were empty coffee mugs and half a dozen torn apart burner phones. Viv sat beside me as stiff as a corpse, her gaze flicked from one member of my MC to the next, bracing herself like she was waiting for one of them to kick her out, to tell her she didn’t belong.
Nobody did becauseof coursethey didn’t think that.
It would take her some time to believe it, but I was sure that she’d eventually see that nobody here blamed her for shit. I laid my hand on her thigh under the table, offering a supportive squeeze to get her to calm the fuck down. “You’re wound tight, Viv,” I whispered.
She side-eyed me. “No shit. This plan puts me right in the line of fire and I keep thinking,” she began but her words broke off. “That when I say goodbye to TJ today this might be the last time.”
“It won’t be,” I assured her, feeling as certain as I ever had about anything.
Viv shook her head. “You don’t know that, Falcon. I know leaving was my plan, but I didn’t want it to be like this. Don’t promise something you can’t deliver.”
She was right goddammit, but I had to. “I will fucking deliver. Believe that.”
Diesel breezed into the room looking fresh despite the early hour. “All right, you got a plan?” He looked at me and then Vivian, not skipping a beat as he made his way to the head of the table. “I’m listening.”
I nodded and reached for Viv’s hand. “We need to take the fight to James,” I began around the lump in my throat. “He thinks he’s got her on the hook by dangling the job in front of her. We need to use that.”
“Dangling how?” Slate asked.
Viv produced her phone and slid it to Slate. “James has started texting me again. Offering to give me a lifeline if I come back to him.”
Slate’s eyes widened at that. “You talk to him?”
She shook her head. “No. He texts, tries to get me to call but I don’t. I won’t.” Her gaze connected with mine. “Until now. Because I have to.”
Diesel nodded, contemplating what we’d said and more importantly what I hadn’t said. Viv still had no idea how deep her ex was in with the Russians and she won’t. Not yet. “So what’s the plan?”
“She’ll message him to meet up, and we’ll be there to talk to him, see if he can give us the information we need.”
Viv frowned in confusion, probably wondering why the fuck I was being so vague even if she didn’t say it. “He’s been texting at least once a day, so it won’t be a problem to convince him that he’s worn me down.”
My jaw clenched tight with anger. I wanted to fuck him up, to make him regret ever coming after Vivian, and I would. But not until we got what we needed from him. “This can work.”
