Page 77 of Montana Falls
Before I knew it, I was moving.
I grabbed her—pulling her into my arms, holding her as tightly as I could, my face burying in the crook of her neck. I felt the warmth of her skin, the softness of her hair, the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. And I broke.
“Sapphire,” I choked out, my voice cracking as the tears came. “Jesus Christ, you’re alive.”
Her arms wrapped around me, holding me back just as tight, and I could feel her trembling. I wasn’t sure if it was from fear, or guilt, or relief, but I didn’t care. She was here. She was real. And that was the only thing I could focus on.
I hadn’t lost the only woman I’d ever love.
Behind me, I heard the guys shifting, their breath catching in their throats. No one spoke or moved for a second. Until all hell broke loose and they all converged, a pile of limbs and curses and sobs that we loud enough to wake the dead inside.
“I’m here,” she whispered against my shoulder, her voice barely audible through it all. “I’m so sorry.”
I couldn’t let go. I didn’t want to. All the anger, the grief, the hours of screaming at the sky—it all crumbled away as I held her. I felt like I’d been drowning in a sea of rage and sadness, and now, with her in my arms, I could finally breathe again.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I pulled back just enough to look at her. My eyes were red, swollen from hours of crying, but I could see the same raw emotion in her eyes. She wasn’t faking anything now.
She smiled, just a small, tired smile, and took a step back, her hand still gripping mine like she was afraid I might vanish. She did the same for the others, as she was passed around and kissed, hugged, cursed at. Lincoln vowed a lifetime of punishment for her shit. Kody offered the same. Price was violently promising that she couldn’t get out of being his wife, and he’d been fully intending on marrying her ghost. Misha had just been sweet, and kind and all the same as usual, until eventually Sapphire pulled back, and stepped aside.
“Come inside,” she said, her voice gentle. “I’ll explain everything, I promise. I just needed… I needed to be sure that Cassie didn’t know my plan anymore. I had to end it, and I couldn’t have her knowing the truth.”
None of us said anything. We just followed her into the darkness of the funeral home, on a day where everything had fallen apart, and how, somehow, it had all started to come back together.
My girl was alive, and I had never been more grateful.Happy.
Never been more than willing to do whatever it took just to keep her forever.
Chapter Twenty Six
When John was dying, he told me something bad.
He said, tell your mother that I’ll miss her.
He said mom was… was her. That she was Cassie.
That’s what Lincoln had told me, in a hospital that smelled like death and pain, as my uncle went through surgery and Widow and Delilah were checked out by other staff.
It was Retta who took us – she’s Cassie.
She’s your stalker and I know how fucking insane that sounds, but you have to trust me.I swear to fucking god it was Retta,and I asked Darius to find proof – and he did… he found proof, Saph.
That’s what Widow had said to me. The second I stepped into his hospital room and found him conscious and irate about being separated from Delilah.
That night I’d changed my plan. The plan that Retta knew to get her to show her face purely because she was mad about me getting married.
That night I’d sat next to her in the hospital waiting room, holding her hand. I’d listened to her kindness, allowed her to offer me comfort until I waited for a doctor to tell me Beau was going to be okay.
I’d let Retta hug me tight and kiss my cheek before I headed home and spent the night sobbing into a pillow on my own, unable to be near Misha or the others when they either didn’t know the truth, or I hadn’t wanted to hide it from them.
Retta had held me when I was little, crying after her sadistic brother had tortured me and my mama.
She’d told me she loved me. She’d insisted I was family – that I was not alone anymore.
She said she loved Malone. She claimed to care for him, need him. Want him as her family.
She’d let her brother murder him in cold blood.
She’d murdered his soulmate in cold blood, as she was pregnant with their child.
