It took more courage than she’d known she had to stand there, locked in that silent battle of wills with him.
Until, at last, he broke with a single nod. “All right. I’ll make some calls.”
“Thank you, Dad.” Ignoring the way her knees went weak with relief, she turned to face her uncles, pinning Desmond and his partner with a stern glare. “As for the two of you. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Wielding the privilege you have and the badge you once carried like weapons when you could be using them for good. You’re both rich enough and connected enough to be using that influence to make our city a better, safer place, and instead you use it to terrorize a man doing his damnedest to protect the city you once swore to serve from the worst kind of criminals.”
Uncle Desmond’s eyes narrowed. “He is the worst kind of criminal, Aria.”
“No, he’s not. You’re just too fucking stubborn and small-minded to realize it.”
Without giving him a chance to respond, she turned to the final member of their party. And though he looked nearly identical to his twin, her Uncle Damian raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Don’t look at me. I told them this was going to blow up in their faces one way or another.”
“Good. At least someone in my family has some goddamn sense. It was good to see you, Uncle Damian.”
“You too, sweetheart. I’ll let Emily know you said hi.”
“Thank you. Once the dust settles from this… unpleasantness, you should come over for dinner. I know Killian is fond of both of you.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
With a final, regal nod, she swept out of the office and toward the front door. Sean was, as expected, still waiting for her, and he nearly tripped over himself to scramble out of the car as she hurried down the stairs to the car.
Sliding into the backseat, she finally gave herself over to the exhaustion that had been dragging at her for hours.
“Take me home, Sean.”
Chapter Forty
Killian
He was no stranger to the inside of an interrogation room. But being locked inside one with no way to contact the woman he loved was proving to be more difficult than he’d expected.
Still, he somehow managed not to react when the door opened for the tenth time that morning and Detective Gibson walked back through.
The same could not be said for Detective Gibson. His expression was that of someone who had just taken a sip of something sour, and it warmed the cockles of Killian’s heart to see.
“You’re free to go.”
Fucking finally. Though he wanted to cheer, he managed to keep his expression neutral as he plucked his suit jacket from the chair he’d draped it over somewhere around hour five of his incarceration. “Thank you, Detective. It’s been a pleasure, as always.”
A hand clamped down on his arm as he made to move past Gibson. “Your fake wife won’t always be there to protect you. Someday, she’s going to see you for what you really are. And when that day comes, I’m going to take great pleasure in being the one who turns the key on your cage.”
Some dark, sneaky part of him thought Gibson might just be right. But he sure as fuck wasn’t going to share those insidious thoughts with a cop of all people, so he simply smiled a bland smile designed to irritate the fuck out of men like Detective Gibson. “You’re going to have to fight her uncles for that honor, Detective.”
He could have easily broken Gibson’s hold on him, but fighting the man would only give him the satisfaction of slapping him with a charge of assaulting an officer. A bullshit charge Killian’s lawyers would unravel in a matter of hours, but those were more hours he’d have to spend away from his wife.
So he waited, his gaze locked with the burning hatred in Gibson’s dark eyes, and eventually the other man let him go.
A uniformed officer led him through the familiar process of retrieving his personal belongings and making his way back out to the lobby. Reagan was already there, along with Brody, and aggravation pricked at the back of his skull at the thought of them being kept in some dinky little interrogation room for hours on end.
But then his gaze fell on Aria, looking crisp and clean in a curve-hugging dress of deep green that highlighted the soft swell of her stomach, and everything else fell away.
“Killian.” His name was half prayer, half sob, and then she was in his arms, the warm, comforting weight of her wrapped around him as her body trembled against his.
“Shh, princess. It’s okay. Everyone is safe.” He dropped his voice for only her to hear. “Your plan worked beautifully. My brilliant wife.”
When she pulled back, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright with pleasure as she grinned up at him. “Brilliant, huh?”
“A certified criminal mastermind.”
