Page 109 of Honor ’N’ Duty

At the bank of elevators, he pushed the up button. Voices echoed in the nearby corridors, but an awkward silence settled around them.

“I heard you figured out the code in Josh’s ledger.” Laia fidgeted with the green sweater draped over her arm. “What was it?”

“Monopoly.” He chuckled. “Remember when I told you Josh and I used to play board games? Monopoly was one of them. Josh never lost. He always wound up with all the hotels on—”

“Park Place!” Laia’s face brightened. “PP. All those two-letter codes stood for locations on a Monopoly board.”

“Yeah. I should have figured it out sooner.” The awkwardness returned, and he glanced up at the blinking numbers indicating the elevator was about to arrive. “I heard how you took out one of Colon’s men so you and Rosa could escape out the window. You made things a lot easier for us.” Although when Deck had described what had gone down in the cabin, Kade’s gut had twisted at the danger she and Rosa had been facing.

Briefly, she smiled. “I never knew I had it in me.”

The doors opened, and they waited for several people to get out of the elevator before stepping inside.

Kade indicated Laia should go first, then he pushed the button for the fourteenth floor. The elevator began an excruciatingly slow ascent.

With every second that ticked by, he wanted to pull Laia into his arms. A supremely bad idea. Though she’d been cordial, she probably still hated him for not turning over the ledger immediately the way she’d begged him to.

The elevator lurched, then slowed to a stop. Several more seconds passed before it started rising again.

“Kade, I—” She turned to face him. “I wanted to thank you for coming after us. For saving us.”

He opened his mouth to say the first thing that came to mind: I would have died to save you, but she held up her hand, stopping him.

“Please, let me finish.” She bit her lower lip. “I also need to apologize. I said some terrible things to you, and it was wrong. I guilted you into stealing the ledger, and you did. Now you’re facing the horrible possibility of getting suspended, or fired, or maybe even going to jail.”

“I don’t think that will happen.” Jail, that was. Suspension, probably. Getting fired, maybe. The only reason none of that had happened yet was because the U.S. Attorney’s Office needed him in order to formally file new charges against Colon. So at the moment, the DHS was holding back canning Kade’s career.

Laia shook her head sadly. “Rosa and I are a burden to you. I never should have called you. If I hadn’t, none of this would have happened. But you don’t have to worry any longer. As soon as I’m done here today, I’ll pack our things and we’ll go back to the duplex. Back to our own lives. You’ll never have to see us again.”

Kade couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Let’s get something straight.” He slammed his fist against the red emergency stop button. The elevator jerked to a stop, forcing them both to grab onto the silver railing. “You were never a burden to me. You and Rosa are a blessing. I didn’t do any of this out of family obligation. I did it because I love you. I’ve always loved you. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love with you since the day we met.”

He hadn’t meant to say it, but there it was. Whether he liked it or not, his heart had spoken the truth, and it was too late to take it back now.

“If you want to go back to that duplex and walk out of my life forever, I’ll let you go.” But inside, he’d be dying. A slow, painful death that would last him the rest of his life.

Instead of telling him to go to hell as he expected, she didn’t. Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened. When he expected her to recoil and tell him to pound sand, she didn’t do that, either.

The look of total and utter shock on her face morphed into something else. Her eyes softened, glistening as they filled with tears. A gentle smile turned up her mouth. “What did you say?” she whispered.

“I said, if you want to go back to the duplex—”

“No, not that part. The part about loving me.”

Huh?

She crossed the distance between them, standing so close she could probably hear his heart hammering away. Slowly, she slid her hands up his chest, pressing her body to his and linking her hands behind his neck. “Say it again. Please?”

He swallowed, feeling as if he were in another dimension. Was she asking him to love her? He couldn’t possibly be that lucky. “I love you.”

The smile she gave him was brighter than the sun. Brighter than the brightest muzzle flash he’d ever seen. “I love you, too. I’ve always loved you. Please don’t ever leave me again.”

His heart nearly blew apart. Unable to speak, he wrapped his arms around her waist, then captured her mouth and kissed her. She opened to him, and he deepened the kiss, tasting her essence, trying to breathe her very soul into his lungs.

He was that lucky. Because the only woman he’d ever loved was in his arms, kissing him back. As he continued kissing her, it occurred to him they’d come full circle. Because here they were again…

In love in an elevator.

Epilogue