Page 64 of Bound

A pause.

“But it’s getting pretty difficult for a patient lady to keep waiting for a commitment. Are you ever going to get around to proposing to me or what? Hearing even Blaze talking about wedding bells, a girl starts to get bridal fever.”

My heart slams once. Hard.

She lifts her head. There is fear in her eyes now.

Fear that she asked too much.

Fear that she opened a door for us that I might not walk through.

Foolish girl. Beautiful girl. Mine.

I cup her jaw. “Do you want me to propose in an armored car on the way to bait a psychopath?”

Her lips part.

Then narrow. “No.”

“Good,” I say. “Because there is only one thing that’s been holding me back.”

“Which is?” She stares up at me.

“The ring has to come from the family jewelry store. There can be no other way.” I brush a thumb over her lips. “And so, I wait.”

“Oh my God.” A grin breaks over her face. “A ring from Bachmans Jewelers. Do you know how many times I’ve walked by that store before I met you? Dreaming of diamonds I’d never have.”

For a moment, with New York outside and Carlos waiting somewhere beneath old bones, I can see it. A ring. Her dress. The Village gates opening without blood.

Erin walking toward me because she chooses me.

My wife.

The thought is so sharp I can’t breathe.

Rafe’s voice comes through the comm. “Two minutes to outer perimeter.”

The moment folds itself away as the convoy slows. Ahead, Bachman Village rises from ash.

Erin looks out the window. Her hand finds mine.

CHAPTER TEN

Erin

Once, this place had been a hidden civilization in the middle of New York. A full city block sealed behind gray stone walls and windowless backs of Bachman-owned businesses. Black gates tucked behind luxury shops. Secret closets in offices and storerooms. A second gate beyond the first. A private world no one entered unless a Bachman allowed it.

A little town hidden behind money. A completely hidden, right in the middle of it all, civilization.

Streetlights. Cobblestone. Bistro tables. Wine and bread and fruit. Couples kissing beneath soft lamps as if the city outside didn’t exist.

Now, it is scaffolding and snow. Fresh brick over old scars. Half-finished row homes where a secret kingdom used to breathe.

But I can see what it was.

Worse, I can see what Carlos wants Lucian to remember losing.

New black iron rises between stone pillars still dusted with construction grit. Floodlights cut through the gray winter afternoon, turning falling snow into silver ash. Open spaces in the stone wait for windows. Walkways are half-laid. Men move on rooftops like shadows with rifles.