“Means she’s tired,” Graham calls from the next room. “I speak Texan.”
“His boyfriend grew up there.” Pouring the water in a slow circle, West inhales deeply. “Nectar of the gods, according to Cam. None of us have slept much in the past thirty-six hours.”
“I got at least two hours overnight.” Raelynn settles back on the sofa, her hand finding its way to my thigh. “Despite Nash’s snorin’.”
“I don’t snore!”
“You did last night, darlin’. Smoke inhalation.” Leaning in, she brushes a kiss to my cheek and drops her voice to a whisper. “You can saw wood every night for the rest of our lives and I won’t care, because it’ll mean you’re safe. With me.”
“I’d tell you to get a room,” West says, retrieving three mugs from the little kitchenette and setting them on the coffee table, “but there’s a perfectly good one through that door. After we talk about a few things.”
The coffee helps me focus as West, Graham, and Raelynn tell me what happened after they got to Chicago. Meeting my father, discovering one of his men was loyal to Enzo, invading the DeLuca compound. And more.
“The chef and the housekeeper are being debriefed by the FBI. They turned on Enzo in a heartbeat. Apparently, he didn’t believe in paying them very well.” West shakes his head. “Asshole.”
“We tried to send you a message through your father,” Raelynn says. “When the call came in with your location, Angelo said you could go back ‘west.’ Did you catch that?”
“I don’t remember anything from that call except how badly I wanted to warn my dad not to come. I didn’t know you were here—that you were even alive—until the fire started.”
I’m suddenly so tired, not even one of Adam’s double espressos would help. “What happens now?” I ask.
West drains his mug. “You and Raelynn rest. The plane will be ready whenever you are. If you need more than another day in Chicago, Graham and I will go back to Seattle, but a couple of the Boston crew can come take our place.”
The SEAL pushes to his feet, but I reach for his arm. “You don’t think we’re safe here?” Truthfully, I’d return to Seattle right now if I thought I could do much more than stumble into the next room and collapse onto the bed. But I have to know.
“I think some of the most dangerous and unpredictable assholes go into organized crime. The Five Points is the safest hotel chain in the world, but we don’t take chances. Not where family’s concerned.”
The sun sets outside the large picture window in our bedroom. I slept for six hours with Raelynn in my arms, and room service delivered steaks, buttery potatoes, asparagus, and two slices of chocolate cake when we woke up.
But now, Raelynn strips off her tank top, and I get a good look at the deep purple bruises covering her stomach, back, and arms. I know I don’t look much better—not with all the cuts from falling shards of glass—but she hasn’t said a word about what Enzo’s men did to her, and I need to know.
“Tell me about this?” I ask, fingering the pink compression wrap around her head.
She leads me into the bathroom and sheds her knee brace before leaning against the counter. “Enzo wanted to know what you’d told me. Whether they had to worry about anyone else knowin’ they were after you.” Her eyes pinned to the floor, she unwinds the stretchy bandage to reveal a blood-stained piece of gauze covering her left ear. “They were spittin’ mad when I wouldn’t talk.”
Her fingers tremble as she loosens the single strip of tape holding the white fabric in place.
“Oh, God.” A bright red, angry nub is all that’s left of the lower lobe of her ear. “I…fuck.”
“Nash? It don’t matter.” She stops me before I can flee back to the bedroom, her grip on my forearm almost desperate. “I’m alive. So are you. And we’re together.” A sob wells up in her throat, and a single tear tumbles down her cheek. “There ain’t nothin’ they could have done to me that would stop me lovin’ you. Please, darlin’. Tell me you understand.”
I gather her against me and tip her head back so I can stare into her bright blue eyes. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known, Raelynn. I understand. And I love you.”
Epilogue
Six months later
Raelynn
“I’m home!”
Kiki thunders down the stairs from his favorite perch in our bedroom window, leaping over Ripley, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier puppy flopped on the landing.
Wiping my hands on the dish towel, I turn and lean against the kitchen counter, watching the man I love rub the cat’s belly for a full minute before he rises and saunters toward me, a hungry look in his eyes.
The kiss rocks me down to my boots, and if the fryer weren’t hot as a stolen tamale, I’d drag him upstairs right now. Instead, I drape my arms around his neck. “How’d it go?”
“Dad looks good. Awkward as hell to have a decent conversation in that place, though.”
