Light spilled from the front of the van, and he saw her lips dip down before Agnes told him, “I don’t want to change who I am. Or what I’ve done. Want to know what my favorite movie is?”
“Yes.” He wanted to know every single thing about her, but he was very much afraid he wouldn’t. They were running out of time.
“My favorite movie is It’s A Wonderful Life. Bet you’ve seen it, everyone has.”
He remembered watching the old black and white with his mom, with Gray… “My mom actually lost her hearing when she and her sister fell into an ice-covered pond when they were kids.” It had taken too long to get his mother out of the frigid water. She’d gotten an infection, been in the hospital for weeks, and… “She would watch that movie and cry and sign that even bad things could happen for a reason.”
“I really wish I could have met your mother.”
He did, too. She would have loved you.
Her lips trembled. “I miss Max. He was a good person who lit up the world by being in it.”
I will never be good. I will never be someone who lights up the world. He was far too comfortable in the darkness. Most days, Cass felt like he was the darkness.
“I will always miss him, just as I will miss the girl I used to be. But I would not change who I am now. Because this woman? The one who probably currently looks like hell?”
“You look beautiful,” he assured her.
A weak laugh slipped from her. “Stop being a dirty liar.”
“You look beautiful,” he said again. “You always look beautiful to me.”
“And you call yourself the bad guy.”
Like bad guys couldn’t see beauty?
She shifted her body a bit against the side of the van. “If I hadn’t gone undercover as a prostitute, more women would have died. If I hadn’t gone into that prison, more women would have been hurt, brutalized. I stopped that. I made a difference.” She sent him a half-smile with her trembling lips. “It’s A Wonderful Life. We all make small changes. We all help others, even if we don’t always realize it’s happening. We change others.”
She’d changed him. In such a short time, she’d changed him so much.
“We’re going to stop Bayne,” she told him. “And he won’t ever play his sick game again. He won’t hunt people in the night. Won’t kill them. Won’t leave families grieving.” A soft exhale. “We both know Gray is tailing us.”
Absolutely, he understood that. He understood that Gray would have a team ready to swarm. He got the whole deal.
“He and Ryan served together,” she revealed.
The van bounced again.
“They’re close,” she added as her head leaned near his. “I’d bet my life that Ryan has been texting Gray updates and staying in contact with him ever since he began tracking me. Ryan probably realized what I was doing with our shoot-out scene in Atlanta or maybe he figured out things when we left the body at the Grove Motel. Ryan is a very good tracker.”
He thought both of her brothers were very tough bastards.
“I’m sure…” She wet her lower lip. “I’m sure he was at the scene with Levi. Watching from the shadows. When the bullets started flying, he would have reached out to Gray immediately. I figure that’s how Gray got here so quickly to catch us with Bear. Ryan was in contact with him. Those two have probably been scheming together all along. I suspect Ryan is one of the reasons Gray held back with me about the Twins.”
Cass hadn’t been given the chance to contact Gray. He’d been too focused on Agnes. But I’m not a bit surprised that Gray had other eyes on us. That was just the way Gray operated. Contingency after contingency.
“We don’t have to kill anyone today,” she whispered. Her voice had been low the whole time. He wondered how much of their conversation her brother had heard as he drove up front. “We can lock away the bad guys. You and I can both walk away.”
You think someone who wants you dead gets to walk away?
“Maybe I’m the one who never should have entered your life,” she said, voice a bit sad as he remained silent. “Maybe I never should have gone into that bar.”
Screw that. He leaned forward. His lips pressed lightly to hers. “I wish you’d walked into my life sooner. So much sooner.” Another kiss. One that lingered.
Then his head lifted.
A teardrop tracked down her cheek.
