Page 70 of Ride with the Devil

“I’m yours. No chains required.”

EPILOGUE

KYLIE

FOUR MONTHS LATER

There’s no rest for the wicked-or a semi-retired hitwoman, either.

It’s my fault. I promised Luca that we’d have a phone-free day. It wasn’t a big deal. After two weeks in the cabin, I got used to going without it. It was actually a bit of a relief, not having that sucker glued to my hand all the time. Sure, I had to do some backtracking after we left it, including getting a new one to replace the phone the hotel ‘lost’ out of the locked safe while I was gone, but in case me and Luca didn’t work out, I wanted to keep my rep intact. If I wanted to keep my books open, I needed a way for my prospective clients to get in touch.

In Springfield, the Sinners and the Dragonflies took full credit for ending Johnny Winter and his criminal enterprise. Outside of the city, I slapped my name on it. The Hummingbird blew up part of the Devil’s Playgroundandmanipulated thehead of the Snowflakes into his own demise. Not to mention, whispers of Jack Donovan’s death made its way to my network.

I’ve never been more in demand.

I’ve stuck to my semi-retired status, thought. And not because I let Luca brainwash me to think ’thou shall not kill’. Please. It’s just… I was having way more fun planning my wedding than plotting to take out another target.

And, because Kylie plans and plans well, it went off without a hitch.

I had almost three months to come up with my vision and execute it. Though, to be honest, I started figuring out what I wanted to do the moment I bought my own engagement ring. Secretly, I gave Luca until the end of January to be on one knee, offering my ring back and his hand in marriage.

He made it ten days.

When it’s right, it’s right, and fucking hell, what the two of us have isright. I don’t question it. That’s not my style. I just do what feels good, and having a courthouse wedding with Lincoln ‘Devil’ Crewes and his sweet wife, Ava, serving as our witnesses earlier this afternoon was the best kind of wedding I could have.

I’ll have to tell my parents I got married. Lindy will be pissed she couldn’t be here, but I’ll make it up to them. After they meet Luca and fall in love with him the same way that I have, we’ll do the whole she-bang down in Florida.

Luca tried to get me to agree to do that now. And, honestly, for the first two and a half months, I started to plan a big wedding for the two of us. Then we both quickly realized that, for some of the things I wanted, the wait list was super far out. Like, some of the vendors wanted to book us for next year.

Luca has held firm on his ‘saving himself for marriage’ stance; of course, that’s a lot easier when he can fuck my ass whenever he wants to. But I know he’s been dying to stick his cock in me. He made it the three months before he started towaver, and that’s when I decided to hell with the whole wedding thing.

In three days, our courthouse ceremony was planned, and it only took that long because the stupid law said we needed to wait seventy-two hours to use our wedding license. As of an hour ago, I consider myself Kylie St. James, even if I still have to go through the trouble of changing my maiden name.

Bureaucrats.

Either way, I’m married now. And my horny husband is waiting in our bathroom for me to slip out of the simple white wedding dress I had him buy me for just the occasion.

Only that’s not what I’m doing, is it? Instead, I snuck my phone into the bathroom with me because I noticed the notifications coming in through the burner app on my phone and knew someone was reading out to the Hummingbird.

Ignoring the unfamiliar number at the top, I read the messages:

June deadline

Desmond James

Harmony Heights

150k

Adrian H

I whistle. One-hundred-fifty grand to off a single guy before June? It’s a two-month window, so it’s definitely doable, even with my scheduled honeymoon starting tomorrow. I don’t know who this Desmond James is, or why Adrian H is willing to pay that much to see him dead, but I’m not in the right mood to look into it.

Without a reason to catch my flighty attention, I pass on jobs. However, I’m still a petty bitch at heart. Even if I’m KylieSt. James now instead of the Hummingbird, some things never change.

And with a coy smile on my face, I screenshot the message and forward it to Nicholas Reed.

But not before I use an app I have to change the word ‘June’ in the first message to ‘July’.

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