Page 88 of Killing Emma

“I’m sorry,” I grab his arm, desperate to stop him. “I’m sorry, Luca. I just needed to do this. It had nothing to do with my feelings for him… I needed to make him pay.”

Luca stills. “I heard the phone call.”

“Oh.” My face flushes with embarrassment. “I thought you left me again, and I couldn’t wait. I needed to—”

He spins around and jerks me to him, our bodies colliding with a thud. “This is by far the fucking worst I’ve ever been done.” He pins me against the Tahoe, his fingers wrapped around my throat. “But I’m so fucking turned on right now.”

“So does that mean you forgive me?”

He squeezes, cutting off my air and running his lips across my jaw. “You’re my biggest fucking failure, Little Red.”

I begin to panic, my hands flying up to his fingers, desperate to pry them from around my neck as I struggle for air. “I’m sorry.”

“You owe me for this,” he murmurs into my ear. “You’ll spend the rest of your life paying me back.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, and suck in a sharp breath. “No.”

“What did you say?”

“I said no.” My eyes flutter open, meeting his. “I’ll spend the rest of my life loving you—and I think that’s better than pay back.”

His eyes soften, his forehead pressing to mine. “And I’ll listen better next time. Though, I think our biggest relationship issue has been taken care of.”

I can’t help it. I laugh.

He chuckles and then presses his lips to mine. “I love you, too, Emma. But next time let me know before you go on a murderous rampage across the country. Please.”

I lean forward, pecking his cheek. “Promise.”

Epilogue

Luca

One year later…

“Take a left at the next hallway,” Emma chirps in my ear. “You need to exit out the side door.”

“Right,” I mutter, slinking past another security camera with my head down. This hit has taken way too fucking long, and the fact that Mr. Christianson, the sex trafficker, is now dead, makes everyone feel better.

“No, I said go left,” she giggles. “Not right.”

I shake my head at her goofy humor, something that’s blossomed in the last year of our relationship. It took a lot of cover up when it came to Jared—but once Jude uncovered his bad debts, it wasn’t that hard to write it off to the rest of the world. Emma’s return was uneventful. She called her attorney and said she had taken a vacation.

And that was that.

We put the past behind us. All of the past.

Fucking ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as the size of diamond on her left hand—or the fact that she’s found her career as my partner.

“What do you want for dinner? I’m starving,” she mumbles into the headset.

“Order takeout,” I tell her, finally catching sight of the exit of the hotel. “I’ll pick it up on my way home.”

“Lydia’s coming over tomorrow.”

“Lydia comes over almost every fucking day,” I groan. “But fine. I get it. they’re moving to Oregon soon.”

“Yeah, I know,” she sighs. “It would be a good place to raise kids.”

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