Page 91 of The Air You Breathe

“No, I refuse to believe this is how it ends. This is not our fucking ending, Evan.” Fire lit in her eyes. “I will not sit quietly while you sit in jail.”

“Darcy, think about Mary and everyone else. He doesn’t care and will kill you if he has to.” I wiped her tears with my thumbs. “I fucking love you, even if our time together was fleeting, I don’t regret any of this.”

“Police!” I heard commotion.

“Evan, no, don't say goodbye.” She panicked.

“Hands in the air!”

“Don’t let this hold you back Darce, live a full fucking life with Dev.” I kissed her. “Don’t do anything stupid, ok. I love you so fucking much, and I hate that I won’t experience all that life offers with you, but I’m glad I get to keep you safe.” I kissed her again full of all the love I felt for her, savoring her lips one last time.

“Hands in the air,” an officer yelled, closer this time and I was yanked away from Darcy by an officer who I recognized was on Lucio’s payroll. My arms were yanked back with handcuffs slapped on quickly.

Darcy was pulled away by another officer.

“You're safe,” he said to her, but she pushed him away, launching herself at me.

“I love you, Evan, and you deserve my love even if you think you don’t. You're worthy of my love and so much more and I’m so sorry I’m just saying this now.” She kissed me as tears streamed down her face. “I should have told you every day. My life will never be full without you.”

“Alright.” An officer yanked her back roughly. I snarled at him trying to pull away, but the two guys had a good hold on me.

“Freeze DEA!”

“Freeze FBI!”

The officers who were holding on to me froze, while my eyes stayed locked on Darcy. Memorizing her face and everything about her because it looked like things were going to get so much worse.

35

DEV

1 year later

“Guilty,” the juror said as she continued to read more charges that they had concluded he was guilty of.

Darcy’s grip on my hand was so hard that I was starting to lose feeling in it. Tears were flowing down her face as I brought her closer to me. I knew what the verdict was going to be because there was so much evidence stacked up against him; it would have been a miracle if they didn’t find him guilty.

The last charges were read, and he was found guilty of those too. The judge ordered him to be taken away immediately, telling him he was going away for a long fucking time, and concluded the session.

“Darcy—baby, are you ok?”

“I knew this was going to happen but why can’t I stop crying?” she asked, leaning against Evan’s chest.

“It’s a relief, Darce, we can put this shit behind us,” Evan said to her. “Lucio will be behind bars for hopefully a really long fucking time. We are free Darcy.”

She cried harder as we left the courtroom. I knew after everything went down, Darcy was a mess. It was a memory that would haunt us for a while.

I had arrived at the club just as everyone and their fucking mom showed up. When I ran in through the side door, Evan was being taken into custody and Darcy was screaming bloody murder. The officer who had her was on my father’s payroll and as soon as he saw me, he let her run to me.

She cried in my arms telling me what had happened as I watched everything unfold with my dead brother in the middle of the fucking chaos. Everyone was arrested except my brother, Darcy and me. To see my father in handcuffs should have been a relief but I couldn’t appreciate it just yet.

I eyed him suspiciously after what Darcy told me, but he kneeled in front of us, telling us he faked his death because he knew Lucio was going to kill him. He didn’t have much time, so he threw a plan together, without letting anyone know. Then he went to the feds telling them everything. So, this was a setup to get a confession from Lucio; Giovanni was wearing a wire.

I was relieved that he wasn’t dead, but I was angry that everyone had to suffer his loss to make it believable to Lucio.

It was the longest few days of our life, but they let Evan go with a deal that he would have to testify. His information would put Lucio and the men who had organized the sex trafficking deal behind bars.

Evan also helped the investigation with all of the information he had sent in. The cherry on top was that he had threatened Candy to go to the feds with evidence about Lucio or he was going to tell Lucio she had been stealing from him and that she was embezzling money from her job.

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