I look at Valentine for his confirmation, and the mask on his face is torn by a similar conflict. I can see it plain as day. Likewise, I can also read his growing support and gratitude for making the split decision I did to end her father. Quicker than he deserved.
Matteo is still vibrating in his anger, working through how easily and painlessly her father died. But his eyes are locked on her. He finds his own acceptance in the way Layne regains herself.
“Thank you,” she whispers. Her voice is still muffled as she leans against Valentine’s chest, but her relief is deep, and the way she relaxes is like watching the sun rise on a new day.
We’re all impacted by it.
In Valentine’s arms, she looks at me first, then Matteo, checking we’re still here, then she takes another deep exhale and turns to Valentine, finding her safe place to fall apart. And again, she doesn’t hide or pretend it’s not happening. She fucking collapses against him. Her breathing gets strangled until her sobs break free.
“God, I totally ruined the one opportunity I had of making him suffer, didn’t I?” she says, her breathing shuddering before she takes another shaky, emotional inhale. “I hope you can forgive me?—”
“Nothing to forgive,” Valentine barks, answering for Matteo and me.
She smiles—it’s forced, but it’s infinitely better than the terror on her face from before—and then she continues talking. “It would have killed me to have him anywhere near our home.Also, the thought of him around you… Well, yeah.” She shakes her head, her voice low. “Sometimes death needs to be quick, but it doesn’t make it any less brutal. I hope that makes sense to you, because it makes a lot of sense to me.”
I was going to rush over and comfort my brave wife, but instead, I turn on my heel and march back to the cunt and empty every bullet in my gun into the dead fucker.
Once I’m done, Matteo steps up and scoops her into his arms.
“We’re done here. Don’t leave anything unnecessary.” Valentine’s voice is clipped when he speaks to me, but in the next moment, he’s talking into his phone.
I half pay attention to Valentine calling in a favor with one of the senior contacts we have at the FBI. But this scene is too good an opportunity for the truth to be hidden. I might not have had the opportunity to actually torture her father, but in his death, my pack will do everything in our power to tarnish his name. We will make other people, in both our world and the legal world, aware he was in the same boat of every fucking criminal he’s sent to prison.
Unsurprisingly, my wife is already on the same path as me. “I hope wherever his spirit goes now, he gets the chance to see how stupidly in love with my pack I am and catches me defending my clients against people like him in the courtroom. Ruining the Rothchild name is the worst thing we could ever do to him.”
The Rothchild name will be poison by the time we’re finished.
Matteo turns and takes her outside, giving me the chance to finish what needs doing.
I find a veritable pot of fucking gold on the table next to his body too. If the FBI wants evidence, this is going to have them fucking weeping. The files might be coated with the wet and glistening remains of his intelligence, but they’re also full of his notes. Obviously, he was getting fucking cocky, or maybe healways had been, because seriously, the shit he’s got listed in his files are akin to a drug mule sticking baggies all over his bare body.
And seeing the set-up of the hangar, it’s not a leap to assume he was meeting someone for a reason. The pompous fuck even had his monogrammed stationery set out, his engraved pen at the ready to take notes. If I’m reading the room right, the dead cops were here for him to hide behind, which also means they never expected any trouble from the people in the charter who were here to collect my wife.
Snatching up one of the files, and rifling through the briefcase at his feet, I decide the deeds and agreements I find will serve me more than the detectives who will be assigned the case. Fuck me, I’m leaving them a treasure trove of evidence as it is. I leave behind his phone, because even though we’ve got people on the inside of the law, there’s a bigger group in the FBI that want to lock us away forever. Having the phone of the dead attorney general would be incriminating, although it would make an excellent trophy for our shelves.
I do a quick sweep of anything else important or that could be traceable to us. The bullets I’ve left inside her father are going to be a puzzle for the investigators to mull over, but they’re not going to lead to me. The gun I used is a dime a dozen on the streets.
Before leaving, I take a series of photos of the dead men, with the intention of figuring out who is who. But also, in case we need to visit anyone else in the dead of night to keep my wife’s identity a secret.
Valentine waits out of sight, just in case his call to the feds has drones already out, watching. It’s unlikely to happen, but that's what we thought about our wife being snatched right from in front of us too.
“The plot thickens.” My brother's voice is still laced with anger, and his scent is too. It’s a warning to stay away, but only to others. I walk up and hug him, glad we’re all back together. His arms hold me closer, so he can talk into my ear. “So, we’re clear, Dante, Diego will suffer the death of a hundred cuts, or anything that has him crippled with pain and fear.”
“Of course, brother. Layne’s father’s death wasn’t for us—it was for her. Diego, though, he’s ours to torture. His pain will be penance for everything he’ll never be able to repay.”
“And if Layne says she doesn’t want that to be the case?” he asks, his tone as frigid as mine.
I squeeze him harder, smiling when I pull away, so I can look at him. “She won’t, Valentine. Layne will let us do whatever we need because Diego doesn’t scare her. Her father did, and now that he’s dead, he can’t scare her anymore. Let’s get out of here and figure this out.”
Valentine and I jog the short distance to the Escalade. Matteo is already sitting in the back seat next to our wife. Bella is on one side of her, Edward on the other, although the poor dog is almost lost under the sea of bags from our ill-fated shopping trip.
“Are you okay, Layne?” Valentine asks as soon as we start driving away.
His question is unnecessary, because she doesn’t smell like fear has a grip on her anymore, and her eyes are no longer hiding anything from us, but I’m guessing he needs to hear confirmation from her lips as well. “I will be,” she says, her tone back to normal. “I wasn’t expectinghimto be here, front and center, when I walked in. I mean, I wasn’t expecting to see him at all.”
I keep glancing at her in the mirror. She’s peering out the window, and it’s not until we’re merging back in with the afternoon traffic and heading away from the airport she looks at me.
She waits until I check on her again in the rearview mirror. “Dante, thank you for dealing with him. And thank you for not dragging it out or suggesting we take him home and torture him.”
