Page 6 of The Prizes We Win
“Don’t encourage him,” Luca says to Mac before looking back at me. “And yes, you can order dinner.” Then he winks at me and makes his way over to the couch.
A second later I feel Seb at my side, and his lips graze against my ear. “Beef and broccoli, please.”
“Who said I was getting Chinese?” His teeth clamp onto my earlobe, and a hiss leaves my lips. “Alright. Chinese it is.”
Seb plants a soft kiss on my neck just below my ear and whispers, “Good boy.”
Thank god the two of them didn’t die.
5
Dante
Twenty minutes later, Finn, Mac, and Ronan have been given the CliffsNotes version of our pasts and what we currently do as The Horseman, bringing us to the present day just as the Chinese food is delivered.
“I’ll go get her,” I say, quickly volunteering to go get Joe from Sebastian’s room.
The door to his room is halfway open, and I can hear the sound of Chris Stapleton’s voice singing “Tennessee Whiskey” softly playing from her phone. Entering the room, I close the door behind me and walk toward the partially open bathroom door, where I can see Joe’s reflection in the mirror. Her black strands are perched in a ridiculously messy bun on top of her head, which is resting back against the edge of the tub. Her eyes are closed as she quietly sings along with the music. And, despite the traumatic events of today, she looks entirely relaxed.
I swear to god, I could stand here and stare at her like this all day. From the moment Clara put that envelope in my hands, I was terrified at the thought of never seeing her again. Every cell inside of me wanted to wreak havoc on the streets of this city until I found her. To kill anyone that got in my way. To go off on my own and not stop until I found her and Sebastian. The thought of something happening to them made me want to slip into the darkness and never come out. But that burning desire only lasted for a split second, and then I remembered who the fuck we were.
The Horsemen.
And there is no place that anyone could have hidden them that we wouldn’t have found.
Enzo, Luca, and I would have searched the deepest corners of hell to have brought them back to us.
Thankfully, the furthest we had to go was The New York Bay.
This time.
As the song enters its bridge, Joe starts to sing along, and as her slightly raspy voice hits my ears, it’s almost as if I can physically feel the sound working its way through my body before making a place in my soul.
And as I stare at her, letting the essence of who she is seep inside the very fiber of my being, I’m struck with an entirely unfamiliar, unavoidable feeling.
Because here she is, this incredibly smart, strong, brave, resilient, and beautiful woman, who has created a life for herself that others could only dream of. One that she had to crawl out of the deepest of trenches to obtain… and yet…here she is. With us. Four men who she should have stayed as far from as possible. But instead, she sees each of us for who we truly are, not just the people that the world sees plastered across magazines or walking down the halls of Vittori Enterprises, and definitely not just the people who we hide from the rest of the world.
She sees us forus,and she isn’t afraid.
Here she is.
Just a floor above the man who made her childhood a living hell. The man who has made it his life’s mission to disrupt her happiness whenever possible. The man who kidnapped her for god knows what reason. The man who, despite everything that has happened to her, she’s nothing like.
Here she is.
Relaxing in a bubble bath, listening to one of my favorite songs of all time, with dried blood on her cheek and a spine made of steel.
Here she is.
Mybrave girl.
Mybeautiful, strong, brave girl.
And when her steel gray eyes finally open and meet mine, she doesn’t jump in fear. No. She smiles warmly up at me and motions for me to come closer with her finger.
It’s in this moment that I know that this feeling, one I’ve never felt as deeply for another person as I do right now looking at her, will be one I’ll never be able to recover from.
Pushing the bathroom door open the rest of the way, I go to her.
