Page 54 of Darkest Kiss

My hand tightens on her back. Do I tell her what I suspect? But I don’t have to, as it turns out.

"Rian. What if she didn't just sell me?" She looks up at me. "What if this has been going on for longer than I think?"

I don't answer right away, but I’m way ahead of her on that one.

“She… she has sold out other people in our family. I just thought that…” She presses her lips into a thin line. “I guess I thought I was special.”

I was bracing for tears, for screaming, for her to shove me away and demand to leave. Instead, she presses her face into my chest and wraps her arm around me, clinging to me tightly.

I hold her back and keep my mouth shut. For once in my miserable life, I understand that not everything requires action. Sometimes, you just lie in the dark with the person you love and let the truth be terrible.

After a long time, she lifts her head. Her eyes are dry but raw, stripped of every defense she normally keeps in place. "What are you guys going to do?"

"Ransom has a plan. We're going to hit the Vitelli compound. Every last fucking soldier and associate, all the way up to Anders." I push her hair back from her face. "It ends tomorrow night."

She searches my expression, looking for doubt. She won't find any. "All of them?"

"Every single one. You'll never have to be afraid of the Vitellis again."

She absorbs this. Then she grabs my face with both hands and kisses me hard. "Promise me you'll come back?" she whispers against my lips.

"I promise."

"If you die, I’ll hate you. I’ll pee on your grave."

I almost smile. "I believe you."

She pulls back just enough to look at me. "There's something else. Something I haven't told you."

Beast goes still inside me. I nod once, careful.

"You asked why Anders Vitelli targeted me in all of this. In the bookstore, before I got kidnapped, I saw Anders and Marc arguing." She reaches for her phone on the nightstand, opening the phone, and hands it over. “I also took photos.”

I swallow, looking down. Sure enough, there are photos of Marc crumpled on the floor and Anders with a smoking gun in his hand. “Why were you holding out on me?”

She takes a beat before answering. "I didn't know if I could trust you. Now I know that you care about me. You’re my protector."

“Fuck, Noemi.” Emotion clogs my throat. I pull her close and kiss her lips, her cheeks, the tip of her nose. “These will help us draw Anders out.”

“Good.” She smiles up at me, making me feel like I’m the luckiest fucking man in the world.

I forward the photos to Ransom without another word. Then I set the phone down and pull her against me.

She kisses me again, softer this time, then puts her head back on my chest and closes her eyes.

Chapter Twelve

Rian

She's still here, Beast notes. You finally fucked and you didn't lose control. I didn't kill anyone. It's amazing.

Noemi's sitting at the kitchen table, staring off into space, her expression faraway. Her continued presence, her not running away screaming, gives me this tight feeling in my chest that I want more of, not less.

I check my phone, making sure that everything is set for the release of the photos. Ransom ran them through every scrubbing software known to man to be sure that they can’t be traced back to my girl.

"Ransom's about to release the photos," I tell her.

She merely purses her lips and tilts her head. I glance at the photos. There are only two. How she had the presence of mind to document the whole thing while hiding behind a bookshelf with a man holding a gun ten feet away, I'll never know. It's probably the only thing that kept her from being as dead as her uncle.