“Let’s not fight,” he whispers, brushing his mouth through my hair, saying what he wants to say without even saying it. I’m not winning this one. Not now, anyway. But I absolutely do intend on reassessing my battle plan.
“What happened when you were there?” I ask.
“Before or after I met The Enigma?” he says, and I frown at the water.
“The Enigma?” He’s surely not talking about . . . I pull out of his embrace, looking at him with all worry I feel. “Is that who wants you dead?”
He smiles. “No, that’s who told me I wasn’t dead.”
“How did he know?” Jesus, The Enigma? I’ve heard of him. Who hasn’t? But, honestly, there was a massive question mark over whether he actually existed. Because while Danny Black, The Brit, The Angel-faced Assassin—AKA my husband—brandished his reputation unapologetically, the man dubbed The Enigma, for obvious reasons, did not.
“Spittle,” Danny snarls, knocking back the rest of his drink.
“And The Enigma’s in Miami?”
Danny looks at me, and I slowly lean back, not liking the nervous smile on his face. “No, he’s not in Miami,” he says, and I relax a little. “He’s here.”
“What?”
“He’s here.”
“Here where?”
Danny motions in the general direction of nothing. “In St. Lucia.”
“Excuse me?” I splutter, my eyes darting around us. “You brought a stone-cold killer to our home?”
“And his girlfriend.”
I blink, my hand losing the grip of my glass. It plops into the water, and I watch as it sinks to the bottom of the pool. Sinking. Dazed, I hear Danny call Keith, and I look at him, seeing him pointing into the water. I follow his pointing finger and see my tumbler on the bottom. “The Enigma has a girlfriend?” I ask, blinking.
“Well,” Danny sniffs, pouting up at the sun, “this stone-cold killer has a wife.”
He thinks this is funny? I get up, exasperated, and immediately regret it. “Ouch!” Dropping back to my ass, I clench my foot in my lap, scowling at the sharp pain radiating through my heel.
“What is it?”
“Vera missed a shard.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Danny mutters, setting his drink on the ground and turning into me, taking my foot and inspecting it. He takes my foot to his mouth and licks the arch, smiling when I solidify. Then he sucks on my heel, hard, eyes on mine, thrilling in my condition.
“Why is The Enigma here, Danny?” I ask quietly, resting back on my hands, letting him do his thing.
“Because he wants to kill whoever wants to kill me.”
“Why?”
“Because they burned his family alive,” he says, so indifferent, focusing on the sole of my foot. “There’s someone moving in on Miami. Spittle got himself in up to his neck, as usual. Been saying things he shouldn’t be saying to people he shouldn’t be saying them to.” He gives me his eyes, and I positively hate what I see in them. Grit. Hate. “The Enigma is no longer an enigma. The Brit is no longer dead.”
Chills glide down my spine. “Who is The Enigma?”
“James Kelly.” He smiles. “British.”
Typical. “All the good assassins are,” I quip, and he laughs. He laughs so hard, dropping my foot and throwing his head back. It’s the kind of laugh that takes my husband from devastatingly handsome to lethally handsome. I smile, despite it being wholly inappropriate, letting him get his jerking body under control. He eventually sighs, reclaiming my foot and taking it back to his mouth, sucking. I watch him watch me, just waiting for what I might say next. I have a million questions. I honestly don’t know where to start. “So you’ve brought him here to devise your battle plan?”
“And so his girlfriend can recuperate.”
“She’s ill?”
“No, she got shot.” He raises his eyebrows as I recoil. “She’s a cop,” he adds, as if I wasn’t struggling enough to wrap my mind around this onslaught of information.
“A cop,” I murmur. “A cop and a killer.” Is he joking?
“Sounds like a fairy tale, huh?” He leans in and kisses my stunned face. “We’re having dinner with them on Wednesday night.”
“Dinner with the killer and the cop.”
He pulls back, smiling mildly. “We’ll skip the oysters,” he says, and I shake my head to myself. In the three years we’ve been here, every dinner date involves oysters. We’ve both learned how to swallow. How to savor the taste. How to make the most of their aphrodisiac qualities. Not that Danny and I need stimulating in that area. Every encounter is explosive. Hot. Dizzying. We simply and sickly love reminiscing about that time when I was his prisoner. Being held against my will but, at the same time, not.
I frown and look down at the water. “What’s her name?”
“Beau.”
“Age?”
“Early thirties, I’d say.”
“And she’s a cop?”
“Was. She quit after her mother, also a cop, was killed by the same man that killed James’s family.”
“Fucking hell,” I breathe, looking at him, stunned. “And I thought our story was a total fuck-up.”
He smiles and pulls me into him again, hugging me close. “Our story is ours. Theirs is theirs.”
“But they’re here, and you both want the same man dead.”
Danny says nothing, and I close my eyes, trying to brace myself for the worst. “You’re not going back to Miami, Danny,” I reiterate, automatically reaching down to my rings and turning them on my finger slowly.
“Take them off, we’ll be having serious words, Rose,” he warns, his tone deadly, his body tense against me.
I drop my finger and stare at the water, hating the long-lost feeling of helplessness rising from the deepest part of me. Danny would do well to remember that I will do anything to protect the people I love. Which means this isn’t going to turn out well for either of us. “If you’re going back to Miami, I’m coming with you.”
“I know.”
I withdraw, surprised. “What?”
“You think I’m leaving you here?” He laughs. “No. You’ll be safer at the mansion.”
My mouth falls open, my reality hitting me harder. “You’re not going to let me leave the house, are you?”
“Nope,” he says, straight up and completely unapologetic.
I swallow down the anger rising before it overcomes me and forces me into doing something really stupid. Like removing my rings. I’ve been free for three years, and he’s going to make me a prisoner again? Has he even thought about where this leaves me and my son? As far as Hilary and Derek are concerned, I live a peaceful, uncomplicated life here in St. Lucia with my normal husband, who they know only as “Danny.” I wake up each morning without fear. Without hurt. Without pain. My life is simple after endless years of agony. It’s exactly what I never dared dream it could be. Calm. Undisturbed. Safe. Going back to Miami won’t only risk Danny’s life and probably mine too, it could possibly destroy everything I’ve built with my son.