Page 93 of When Kings Fall

I shored up my conviction.

He’d suffered because of his own crimes.

I’d been used and abused and so much of that in my life had come down to Malcolm Lynch and his acolytes.

Tommy Dixon was just another one of them.

And now he’d been defeated like all of them would be soon enough.

“I love you,” I breathed to Levi.

“I love you. No one will ever hurt us again. It’s our time now, Brianna. All ours.”

It really was.

And soon we’d both be able to feel that once this last mission was completed.

Soon there would actually be peace for us after all.

23

~Mason~

I swam beneath the surface of the warm water, seeing Colt in the distance.

He was sprawled out on one of the sun loungers sipping at his daiquiri and soaking up the sun in his tiny swim trunks.

It was the calm before the storm for us.

Before everything came to a head.

Before the strike took place and we were awash in violence and bloodletting.

And unlike my usual protocol where calm and relaxation was concerned, I was making sure I enjoyed the brief downtime and soaked up every second of it.

While Colt was with me on that, Levi had gone the other way with keeping himself really busy. He’d compiled all the data into his tracking program to discern patterns of movement and dealings for Malcolm Lynch, and now it was only a matter of time before it churned out what we needed—the location of that son of a bitch. So, in the meantime, Levi was at Knightsridge Engineering with Roman learning the ropes. Or at least on track to doing so.

Bree was due to come out here any moment with us. She was just finishing up a call with her dad. She’d told us all about her first contact with him in years wherein she’d promised him she wouldn’t be a stranger anymore. And she was keeping that vow.

I picked up speed and power and then, when I was close enough, I surged up, dousing Colt all over.

He jumped up, now drenched, and put his glass down.

“Oh, darlin’, you’re in for it now,” he warned.

In the next second, he was leaping at me.

I laughed and caught him, then ducked him under the water.

That laughter got a whole lot wilder when he resurfaced and his perfectly-styled mohawk was all flat and soaked.

He splashed me, getting it all in my eyes.

As I was wiping it away, he shoved my head into the pool, dunking me right back.

And then we were pretty much wrestling in the pool, getting lost in the moment, the lightheartedness and the fun ridiculousness of it.

“Wait,” I choked as I resurfaced again after accidentally swallowing a ton of water. “Need a second to catch my breath.”

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