Page 116 of Beautiful Dangerous

“You know we didn’t have to come back here, don’t you?”

Olivia leans back against the counter, crosses her arms and fixes me with a look that tells me she’s getting tired of hearing me say that now.

“Okay,” I sigh, heaving another box of liquor up onto the countertop. “You won’t hear me say that again. I promise.”

She smiles and shakes her head, leaning in to drop a quick kiss on my mouth. But she doesn’t get away with quick, I catch her waist and pull her against me, kissing her deeper and slower until she falls against me.

“I just wanted you to know that we could’ve stayed in Finland.”

“And Finland was beautiful. It was perfect, and I loved every second of the time we spent there, but we needed to come back, Lucca. This restaurant, the hotels and bars, the casinos, they’re ours, all of them. They belong to us now, why should we walk away from them? We had the power to make them exactly what we wanted them to be, and that’s what we’ve done. It was the right decision, to come home. It was the right decision to change things. For the better.”

I smile and tuck a strand of dark hair behind her ear. “All legit now, huh?”

“All legit.” She smiles again, her face lighting up as it always does when she realizes what it is we’ve achieved in just a couple of years.

The night of the explosion; the night Javier Delgado finally died, for real this time, we flew to Canada, spending just one night there before heading to Europe. The first flight we could find was to Finland, which is why we ended up there, holing ourselves up in a small but cozy house in the middle of nowhere while we tried to make sense of everything.

The Devil’s Creed took a lot of the shit from the fallout caused by my trying to save Olivia from a man who was willing to do anything to keep us apart. And I felt guilty, for a long time, but Eddie bore no grudges. He’s a good man, he knew the score, so he was ready for any eventuality. But what none of us were ready for was for Hawkins to be brought down on corruption charges, man, that was one thing none of us saw coming. Harry – our man on the inside – was the one to finally expose him, landing himself a promotion and a stronger position on Eddie’s payroll. Not the cartel’s. Because the Delgado cartel was thrown into disarray the night Javier died. Technically, I was in charge, but I had no inclination to deal with any of that shit in the beginning. I gave that responsibility to Miguel, who ran things out of Mexico until I decided I was ready –wewere ready to take back control. Which Olivia and I did, not long after we returned from Finland. Our aim? To make this business legitimate. To make it legal. To turn dirty money clean, and we already had a head start with the hotels, bars and restaurants. I’m not going to lie and say our decision went down well with everyone, but anybody who wanted to leave our new-found family was free to do so. And some did, some liked living on the edge too much to stop doing it, but many stayed with us, including the bikers.

After Hawkins was brought down, and Harry elevated to a higher position, any shit on the bikers; any lingering crap they might’ve had on me and Olivia regarding that night and Javier’s death, it was all dropped. The slate was wiped clean, which made it easier for all of us to get on with our lives. And although the Devil’s Creed will always be outlaws, they do a lot of work for us. Everything they do, it isn’t all bad. There’s a lot of good in those men.

“What are you thinking about?” she asks, cocking her head slightly, her eyes locked on mine.

“How everything can change in a heartbeat.”

Her smile widens, because she knows it took a little longer than that, for things to change. But we got there. Eventually.

“Yeah. I guess it can.” She steps out of my arms and glances at her phone. “I’m due at the Orchid Resort in an hour.”

The newest of our hotels. The one we’d been building just as the shit hit the fan, it’s brand new. About to open, tonight.

“I need to make sure everything’s ready for the opening party.” She looks at me, and I can see it in her eyes, the fear that still lives there. Still haunts us. “All eyes are going to be on us, Lucca.”

“We have nothing to hide anymore, Olivia. No secrets. We can hold our heads up and know that everything we’re doing, it’s okay. It’s good.”

She drops her gaze, and I know that she still thinks about Javier. About the life they shared, the loss she suffered; the shock of his return. His death. I see her sometimes, go off into this state of reverie and I know she’s thinking about him, and the woman he made her. I know she feels pain at the way he eventually died, because somewhere deep down she still loved him.

“It’s hard, baby, I get that. Which is why the option to go back to Europe…”

She lifts her head, her expression determined, but the smile is back on her beautiful face. “No, Lucca. These businesses, we helped make them what they are now. They belong to us, and we have a duty to make sure they stay ours. To make sure they remain under our control, just because we’ve decided to go legitimate doesn’t mean to say there are people out there who won’t respect that. We still have to be on our guard.”

“We have few enemies left, Liv. And we still have the bikers on-side.”

“I know.” She checks her watch again. “I should go. I’m meeting Celine, and I don’t want to be late. She’s overseeing the food and drink, along with Katy and Reuben.”

Celine didn’t take Javier’s death well. She was the one who found him, after I’d shot and injured him, the night Olivia and I fled. And to this day we still don’t know how much she really knew about that night, but we do know that she mourned Javier a second time, far harder than the first. Far harder than either I or Olivia did. But she’s remained in post, although the house she’s running now is far smaller than the Delgado estate. That’s sold now, to an oil tycoon and his Vegas showgirl wife. Olivia didn’t want to be surrounded by memories she doesn’t always want to be reminded of, she wanted a new start. A new home. And that’s what we have, a beautiful, two-storey ocean-front house with views of the beach and the mountains. It has two terraces, a small infinity pool that faces the ocean, and a myriad of trees and shrubs and colorful flowers that remind us every day how lucky we are to be alive. Tostillbe alive.

“What time will you be home? I assume you’ll want to shower and change before the party?”

“I should be back around five.” She stands up on tip toes and kisses me quickly, squeezing my hand. “I love you, Lucca. Don’t ever forget that.”

“Never,mi reina.”

I watch her walk out of the restaurant and across the street to her car, and I can’t stop smiling. It took a lot of pain and hurt; death and destruction, to get to where we are today, so looking back isn’t something we do all that often. The past is gone. Maybe it can’t be forgotten, but it’s gone.

I’ve loved Olivia Delgado for a long time. Too long. Most of the time it was a battle I didn’t even know I was fighting, but I won, in the end. I fucking won…

Olivia

---