A tear slipped down her cheek, and I kissed it away.
"We're going to get through this," I said. "The trial, Lang and Briggs, all of it. And then we're going to have the life we should've had all along."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
We made love again that night. Slower this time, gentler. Learning each other all over again, rediscovering the intimacy we'd lost.
And when we finally fell asleep, tangled together in her bed, I knew that whatever came next, whatever challenges we faced, we'd face them together.
Because I'd spent ten years in the darkness, and Betty was finally my light again.
I was never going to let her go.
The next morning, we established a new routine.
I woke her with kisses and coffee. She complained about being a morning person while secretly loving every second of the attention. We showered together, which took longer than it should have because I couldn't keep my hands off her, and then we headed to the bar.
Martinez had finished the security upgrades overnight. New cameras. Motion sensors. Panic buttons behind the bar and in the back office. The place was as secure as I could make it without turning it into a fortress.
"It feels different," Betty said, looking around at her bar. "Safer."
"Good. That's the point."
She turned to me, her expression softening. "Thank you. For all of this. I know you have a company to run, clients who need you."
"None of them matter as much as you." I pulled her into my arms, pressing a kiss to her hair. "You're my priority, Betty. You always have been."
She smiled up at me, and the sight of it made something warm bloom in my chest.
We were going to be okay.
We just had to survive the next week.
Chapter 7: Betty
The next week passed in a blur of fear and happiness so intertwined I couldn't separate them.
During the day, I went through the motions of running the bar, always looking over my shoulder, always waiting for the next threat. Lang and Briggs hadn't come back since Hudson had run them off, but I could feel them out there. Watching. Waiting. Planning.
The FBI agent assigned to my case, a no-nonsense woman named Torres, called every other day with updates. The trial was on track. The evidence was solid. All I had to do was testify, and Lang and Briggs would spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
All I had to do was survive long enough to make it to the witness stand.
But at night, when the bar was closed and Hudson and I were alone in my apartment, I could almost forget about the danger. Almost pretend we were just two people in love, building something real, making up for lost time.
He cooked for me every morning. He held me every night. Wrapped around me like a shield, his arms tight, his breath warm against my hair. Sometimes we made love until we were both breathless and boneless. Sometimes we just talked, sharing pieces of the ten years we'd missed.
I learned that he'd built Black Hawk Protection from nothing. Started with just him and Reeves, two guys fresh out of special ops with no money and a lot of skills nobody wanted to hire. Now they had offices in six countries and a client list that included Fortune 500 CEOs and foreign dignitaries.
I learned that he'd never been in a serious relationship since me. A few casual things, he admitted, but nothing that lasted more than a few weeks. Nothing that mattered.
"There was only ever you," he said one night, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my bare shoulder. "Everyone else felt like a placeholder. Like I was just killing time until I could find my way back to you."
I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to believe every word.
And most of the time, I did.
