Page 72 of Text Me, Take Me

“I shouldn’t have looked,” she murmurs. “I thought it’d be like the movies, but it was… How do you live with that, Dom? With that in your head? With countless memories of that?”

“Don’t worry about me,” I tell her fervently. “This is about you. I’m taking you back to the estate. Rafe and Tash are going to meet us there. We’ll lie low until we’re sure The Vultures have backed off.”

“Without Mason, they won’t keep this up,” she whispers.

“If they do, I’ll kill them all,” I snarl. “All they had was the video. That was the only thing stopping me from ending their miserable lives. If they flee into the cave systems again, I’ll hire the best security forces money can buy and hunt them down. Nothing will stop me now.”

When I feel Father looking at me with pride, I glance at him. “This means nothing. I’m not a mafioso just because I’m willing to do anything to keep my woman safe.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you were thinking it.”

“Don’t fight,” Evie murmurs, and that defuses the tension immediately.

After all she’s been through, she’s still had the voice of reason.

“What are you doing here, Father?” I ask, my tone softer.

“I had to make sure you were safe. My son. My future daughter-in-law.”

I remember what Evie said about love–or, more accurately, didn’t say. “Don’t jump the gun. It’s early days. The last thing Evie needs right now is pressure.”

He holds his hands up. “My apologies.”

Evie smiles at me, gratefully, regretfully, her expression clashing. She’s been through too much for me to press her for answers now.

She needs peace and support. I sit beside her as the van bumps up and down, wrapping my arm around her and pulling her in for a hug.

“Thank you,” she murmurs.

“What for?”

She laughs darkly. “Not missing.”

When this started, I never thought the five of us would sit around a table: me, Evie, Tash, Rafe, and my father. We sip lemonade as the fire flickering in the grate lights up the night, Meatball reclining on the cat tree nearest to the flames, lazily licking his paw.

Rafe and Tash hold hands, Rafe looking more peaceful than I can ever remember seeing him, like a man who’s ready to leave behind the darkness of his old life and find something new.

Father has taken off his suit jacket, looking somehow more… well, like a person. A man instead of the dark figure he’s been my entire life.

I clutch Evie’s hand tightly under the table, feeling her fear blazing up her arm.

“Our tech guy used Mason’s phone to trace all copies of the video,” Rafe says. “They’re all gone, Evie, every single one. You don’t have to worry about it ever again.”

“Thank you,” Evie replies. “You’ve all done so much.”

“It’s the least we could do,” I tell her fiercely. “I mean that. It’s less than you deserve.”

That’s not saying a lot, because she deserves the world.

“What happens now?” Tash asks.

“I’ll keep my feelers out for The Vultures,” Father says. “But if they know what’s good for them, they’ll go to ground. They’ve lost their only leverage. I’d recommend that you ladies stay with your men for the time being.”

“That’s their choice,” I growl.

Evie turns to me sharply with clear shock on her beautiful face.

---