Page 130 of Falcon's Prey

I took a second to marvel at her beauty. My hands went to the crown on her head; it was black, adorned with red and white diamonds.

Come tomorrow, she would be in front of another magazine cover, and I would be along with her. The media was obsessed with her, and in return, they were obsessed with me. I stayed out as much as I could, but it was hard, so I just went along, feeding a sorry past to the paps and praying they never dug too deep.

Then again, no one would expect Ember to date a killer.

As the elevator made its way down, she pulled out a joint.

“Ember.”

She turned to look at me as she lit it up.

“Never change.” I kissed her nose.

We made our way to my new car, a gift from Ember’s father. I’d refused it, but the fucker was persistent.

“I know who you are and what you do. He hated you.”

He didn’t have to tell me who “he” was.

“I don’t care because you saved my little girl. I heard you in the hospital. You wanted to wake up so you could show her how to soar… Let me do this for you, for her… Take it, because what you’ve done for my family and for me I could never repay.”

I’d grown up with nothing, learning to claw my way out of the gutter, and now I was fucking a princess every night and driving a crimson matte Ferrari Spider, and my life was somewhat my own.

Life was fucking perfect.

Once at the parade, I made my way to where the floats were kept and parked there knowing the crowd would watch over my car. Not that I cared about materialistic things. They didn’t get me hard like they did other people.

As soon as I grabbed Ember’s hand and we started to walk, I felt people pointing their phones at us. Ember didn’t even notice anymore, and she never made an apology about it. I knew what I had the moment I decided I wanted her.

For it being the Day of the Dead, Ember looked happier than I’d ever seen her. She was full of life, talking to Mrs. Rosales and her nephew, Jorge, as they asked her about the new homeless shelter she was helping build.

Keeping her in my sight at all times, I gave her the space to talk without me hovering around. I put my hand in my pocket to pull out a cigarette when my fingers met the round object.

Michael had been all too happy to help me with my request.

When the parade started, I held on to her waist as she watched the dancers. When the fireworks began, I bent my head so I could kiss her lips.

“Let’s get you home,” I whispered in her ear.

She grabbed my arm and rested her head on my chest. As we walked to the car, she pulled back, held my hand, and walked toward the alley where I had shot Gio.

“It all happened so fast.”

Her words were low, but I heard them.

“You asked me once if I believed in fate. I do.”

She turned to me, her hands cupping my cheeks.

“I had been praying for so long for someone to save me, and then stopped. Instead I asked God to give me strength, and that’s you…” Her head tilted to the side. “You’re the steel in my spine, the strong arms that have held me at my weakest. You’re the redemption I didn’t know I was looking for. Because you saw something in me when I could barely look at myself in the mirror and not be disgusted.”

Fuck, I felt those words in the pit of my stomach.

I grabbed her hips and pulled her to me. “You stood by me, Ember, when everyone else ran from me.” With one hand wrapped around her hip and the other on her chin, it was now or never. “I’ve never had anything that’s been just mine. All my life, I have had to fight, lie, cheat, and steal to make ends meet. We made our vows in blood already in your shower…I’m not going to get down on one knee because I think that’s stupid. A tradition of men feeling like they need to kneel when they feel superior. You’re my equal, a fearless fucking queen, and I’m in awe of you.”

Ember blinked furiously, and her mouth parted and then closed until she whooshed out, “What are you saying?”

“For the first time, I want something that’s just mine, something that when everyone looks at it, they know they can’t ever get it.”

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