When I lose control, when I’m clawing and fighting him for his reassurance, he wraps his huge body around mine, and we sink down into our grief together.
CHAPTER 33
FRANKIE
We wrap the night around us, and then we own it.
We fuck for hours. I take her pussy and her mouth—filling her up with as much of me as I can—and when she cries, I hold her close, making a cage out of my arms that neither of us can escape from.
Outside, dawn is fast approaching, This is my cue to get dressed and get the hell out of here. Instead, I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, head turned towards her, watching her watching me.
“I can’t picture his face.” She reaches out to take my hand, wrapping her fingers around my clenched fist and squeezing gently. “I think the nurses let me hold him, but it’s all such a blur.”
“Do you recall how it felt?”
“Like love. Like what we feel, only different. It was softer, somehow. Purer.” She frowns at the memory.
“Make a snapshot of it in your mind before it fades again.”
She smiles the most broken fucking smile. “I did that the night we stole a car and ran away. You were talking on the phone, and I remember thinking that life was finally a game worth playing. I think that’s the moment I fell in love with you.”
“I will give you more children, Ada.” My voice thickens as I say it. “I’ll give you as many as you want. Not to replace Alex, but to build on his memory.”
In response, she presses her naked body to my back, snaking her arms round my neck to anchor us together. “That same night I saw a boy become a man.” She rests her cheek on my tattooed shoulder. “When I saw you in the club yesterday, that man was a king.”
“A king for you. A fool for you.” Swivelling my hips, I slide her onto my knee. “We’ll mourn and then we’ll rebuild. We’ll come back so fucking strong, Ada… And you’ll do so as my wife. My equal. My queen.” I kiss her mouth to taste her answer before she says the words.
“Yes.” She’s crying again, but these tears are different. They’re not so sharp and sore. “Yes, I will marry you, Frankie Lastra.”
“Like I’d ever give you a choice.” With one last lingering kiss, I tip her off my knee and reach for my shirt.
“I don’t want you to go.”
“I’m not. This time you’re coming with me.” I make the snap decision, then and there. Everything’s changed and I refuse to lose her, too. “I have a private jet on standby. We’ve run before. We’ll run again. It’s much easier to hide with two hundred million in offshore accounts.”
“What about your agreement with the cartel?” she says quietly.
I don’t answer her. I can’t. This decision is like tossing a grenade up in the air and hoping one of us doesn’t get hit.
“Wait.” My silence has driven her to her feet. “If we do this, we’ll be hunted as well as haunted, so you need to make me understand.”
I tug her closer, breathing her in. Filling my lungs with light and vanilla, and a place called home. “O’Sullivan knows I’m coming for you. That’s why he’s dragging you all over London and parading you as bait. We’ve been keeping a spotlight on the obvious, so he hasn’t seen the play behind. So long as you’re right where they want you to be, they think they’re in control.”
“What's the play, Frankie?”
What’s the true price of my freedom? That’s what she’s really asking.
“There’s a gang of Brigăzi who want to smuggle women into the country for profit. They’re cutting the Red Compass in on the big deal in exchange for them using their territories to sell the women on and exploit them.”
She pulls back in horror. “Does this have anything to do with Mario Zaccaria?”
I grit my teeth at the name. “He’s the one who brought the deal to O’Sullivan. The Santiago cartel have been hunting these men for years. The plan was to intercept the trucks, free the women, and bring down O’Sullivan and Semenov at the same time, and it’s happening in—”
“Four days,” she finishes for me.
A beat later, she’s turning away and climbing back into bed.
“What the hell are you doing? Get dressed.” I chuck a T-shirt at her, but it falls back to the mattress unclaimed. “We have ten minutes before sunrise and then twenty Bratva boys will be kicking down that door.”
“I can’t.”
I pause, certain I’ve misheard. “This is it, Ada,” I say slowly. “This is the moment we’ve been waiting for, for fourteen fucking years…”
“Four days,” she repeats, pulling her knees up to her chest with a wince and wrapping her arms around them. “You need to help the cartel rescue the women. I’ll keep the spotlight on me as much as I can.”
“Are you insane? These sharks aren’t just circling you anymore—”
“Then let them come at me with their teeth. I’m not scared. There’s nothing they can do to me that they haven’t already done. This isn’t just about us. Can’t you see? It’s about Alex, Roisin, and every other woman and child that the Red Compass has and will destroy. The other night you told me how you’d felt every kick, punch, and bad word I’d suffered from them. If we go now, if we miss this opportunity to stop them, then all I’ll feel for the rest of my life is the pain of a thousand strangers.”
“I can’t keep you safe.” My grip on this situation is slipping. She’s made up her mind and there’s nothing I can say or do to change it. “I can’t be here twenty-four-seven to protect you.”
“Then give me a knife and a gun so I can protect myself.
I stare at her. Needing her. Torn apart by her. Seeing the queen I just touted her as ascending to her throne.
“You’re killing me, Ada,” I say with a groan, yanking her to her knees and pulling her into my arms again.
“How will you get out?” she says shakily.
“Same way I came in.” I catch her face between my hands. “Love isn’t enough for what I feel for you. It’s a poor imitator…a hoax. You can’t label hope and salvation, grit, and perfection. Just know that when they cut me open, it’s you that I’ll bleed. We’re one and the same, but we’re more than a circle, more than a Catch-22. We’re the whole fucking universe now.”
“No regrets,” she says, choking on the words.
“No regrets,” I echo, fiercely.
Once dressed, I go to pick up my gun from the mattress. She blushes and averts her eyes, but I catch her chin between my thumb and fingers, forcing her to look at me. “That particular memory will make it so much sweeter. I might even share it when they’re dying at my feet.”
“I want them to suffer.”
Fuck, I love her fearlessness too. She’s light for me and dark for them.
“Not as much as I want to make them suffer.” Removing my spare Beretta from my ankle holster, I place it on her bedside table next to my knife. “It’s fully loaded. Do you know how to use it?”