Tony’s arms tighten around me. He’s still trembling, but he doesn’t say a word.
“Come on,” Dmitri mumbles. “Let’s get you both out of here. Boris can handle the cleanup.”
The next few hours pass in a haze of debriefing and damage control. Boris’s team handles the bodies while Dmitri and Alexei coordinate with their London contacts to ensure Adrian’s deathdoesn’t create additional problems with local authorities or rival families.
By the time we make it back to the hotel, I’m exhausted in ways I didn’t know were possible. Every muscle in my body aches. My throat is bruised, and my palm throbs beneath the bandage one of our men applied in the car. My mind keeps replaying that moment when I drove the glass into Adrian’s leg, wondering what would have happened if I’d missed. If my grip had been too weak. If he’d pulled the trigger before I could act.
Tony and I sit on the couch in our suite. He’s cleaned up and changed clothes, but the haunted look hasn’t left his eyes. He keeps glancing at me like he expects me to disappear if he looks away for too long.
Neither of us has spoken since we walked through the door.
Finally, he breaks the silence.
“I love you.”
I turn to look at him. He’s staring at his hands, which are clasped between his knees. The same hands that held a gun steady while Adrian had me at his mercy. The same hands that have touched me with such tenderness over these past weeks.
“I think I’ve been in love with you for weeks. Maybe even since the day I met you at Alexei’s wedding.” He lifts his gaze to meet mine. “I was terrified I’d never get the chance to tell you. When Adrian had that gun to your head, all I could think was that you’d die without knowing how I feel. That I’d spent so much time being afraid that I’d wasted whatever time we might have had together.”
I swallow hard against the lump that has lodged itself in my throat and try to blink away the tears that are burning in my eyes. “I love you too,” I whisper.
Tony’s breath catches. “You do?”
“After everything that happened with my family, with Adrian, with the lies and the manipulation... I convinced myself that letting someone in would only lead to more pain. That keeping my distance was the only way to protect myself from being hurt again.”
I reach over and take his hand in mine. “But watching you risk everything to save me, seeing your face when you thought you might lose me... I don’t want to protect myself anymore. Not if it means losing this. Losing you.”
Tony brings my hand to his lips and presses a kiss against my knuckles. When he looks at me again, his eyes are bright with something I’ve never seen in him before. Hope.
“Marry me,” he says.
A nervous giggle sputters past my lips as I ask, “What?”
“Marry me, Sasha. Build a life with me. I know it’s fast. I know we haven’t known one another all that long, and half of that time we were running for our lives or trying not to get killed. But I’ve never been more certain of anything in my entire life.”
“Tony...”
“I’m done being afraid,” he interrupts. “I’m done assuming the worst is going to happen and holding back because of it. We’re finally free. Adrian is dead. Your family is safe. For the first time since I met you, there’s no threat hanging over our heads. No mission. No deception. Just us.”
He gathers my face in his free hand. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to wake up next to you every morning and fall asleep beside you every night. I want that apartment near Patriarch Ponds we talked about. I want to watch you build your authentication consultancy and come home to you after working with your brothers. I want to build something real and permanent. Something worth fighting for.”
I search his face for any sign of doubt or uncertainty. I find none. Just love and hope and a future I never thought I’d get to have.
“Yes,” I breathe.
Tony’s face transforms. The fear and exhaustion melt away, replaced by joy so pure it makes my chest ache.
“Yes?”
“Yes.” I laugh, and it comes out watery. “Yes, I’ll marry you. Yes, I want to build a life with you. Yes to all of it.”
He kisses me then, so soft and tender it almost feels like a dream. A promise of everything to come.
When we finally break apart, he rests his forehead against mine and just breathes. Like he’s memorizing this moment. Like he wants to hold onto it forever.
We clawed our way through hell to get here, and I would do it all again for this single moment.
38
