Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
I stop speaking. Not even a pin drops. Not even a word is spoken. Seconds tick by, and I’m aware of Aaron next to me. He doesn’t look at me while the rest of them watch me, watching him, but he’s aware of me, too. He feels my words, my defense of him. My passion for him, and I know, I know, with every part of me, that no one has ever defended him but me. And I know he needs this. I know he needs me and that matters. I need him, too.
Abruptly, Smith curses, turns away and walks into the other room. I don’t even know what that room is at this point. I haven’t even dared to look around the one I’m standing inside right now.
I focus on Blake. “He’s one of the good guys.”
Blake levels me with a stare. “I believe you.” He looks at Aaron, leveling him with a steady stare now as well. “I believe you.”
“And how exactly,” Aaron says, “do you suggest I come to a place where I can believe you?”
“Beers to go around,” Smith says, walking back into the room with a six-pack in his hand. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need one.” He then walks to the couch and sits down. “Not bad for a couch that came with the place,” he says, shifting on a brown leather cushion.
I turn to Aaron. “I know bullets will fly before they pull us out of here, and I still want to sit down with them and talk. That’s how much I trust them.” I wrap my arms around him and kiss him. “Please.”
His hand settles on my hip, just one. He only needs one free hand to pull his gun. “You know—”
“I know,” I say, aware of what he hasn’t said. He could kill them. They don’t believe it, but they’re wrong. He could. He can. He will. “And I still want to sit down with them. So do you or they wouldn’t be here right now but,” my eyes go wide at my realization, “if they could find us—”
“I handled that problem,” Blake replies. “I uploaded a photo to your profile, a photo that looks nothing like you, Ashley. I gave you and your husband a long history and made it look like you were members of the Airbnb site for an extensive period of time.”
Aaron’s eyes light on me. “And he passed the test. Let’s have that beer.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “What test?”
“The one where he wanted to know we’d put you first,” Blake says. “And we will, Aaron. Because all of us have dealt with some dirty shit and all of us are good guys. We look out for those who are one of us.”
“And anyone who served our country with honor,” Adam adds, “is one of us.”
A sharp dark something flashes in Aaron’s eyes, and I know him. I know him beyond the name change and the lies that surrounded us and him. He wants to believe them. He wants to trust. He wants to belong, but he has not felt as if he did in a very long time. Except with me. I have never been so glad that I chose to stay with him, that I chose to believe in who we weren’t, in what his name was or wasn’t.
His eyes meet Adam’s. “And I will protect those I am loyal to with my life.”
“As it should be,” Adam replies. “And we will be men who deserve that loyalty.”
“Men who will die for you,” Blake emphasizes. “And you, Ashley.”
Smith rejoins us, and Adam and Blake make room for him. He steps close to face-off with Aaron. “If you hurt her—”
“I will die for her and come back from the dead and do it again,” Aaron declares, and while he has been cold, hard, and calculating with these men, his words are guttural, rough, emotional. This man loves me. Passionately. Completely. And I will die for him, too. Something no one in this room wants to hear, but I will say it to Aaron. I will say it the minute we’re alone, which can’t be soon enough to please me, but now—now we must face what is before us.
Now, we must figure out how to defeat our enemies, and I’m ready. I want to fight. I want to win. I want this over. I want whatever version of happily ever after Aaron and I can create together.
Chapter twenty-seven
Aaron
Astorm brews inside me, and the longer and more frequently Smith gets in my face, the fiercer it becomes. He doesn’t seem to get the point. He doesn’t seem to understand that I’m not a man who claims anything for his own except Ashley. He doesn’t seem to understand the significance of this concept. He doesn’t seem to understand that my willingness to bleed and cause bleeding in her name is not a small thing. He also doesn’t seem to understand how sadly matched he is to my skills, or he wouldn’t be standing in my fucking face yet again.