“Silas Steele. I have diplomatic immunity. You can’t touch me.” He juts out his chin, daring me.
Challenge accepted.
With a quick jab, I bust his nose and deflate his puffed-out chest. “Funny, I just touched you. Guess your diplomatic immunity superpowers don’t work in here.”
“You know what I mean, fucker!”
“I know exactly what you mean. But you don’t have that immunity anymore, Viktor Egorov.”
“My name is Viktor Sokolov—not Egorov.”
“Not according to this passport, it isn’t. You’re here illegally, and you attacked an NSA agent.”
“You work for the CIA.”
“Some days, I do. Some days, I work for the NSA. Today, I’m an NSA agent. Guess you’re shit out of luck, Egorov. Be sure to tell your pedophile brother I said I hope he’s rotting in hell beside you.”
Before Viktor can respond or even attempt to run for his life, I draw my handgun and leave a trench in his head wide enough to drive a car through.
“Roman, do me a favor? Call for a clean-up crew.”
“You got it, Silas. I’ll take it from here. Go pick up your woman and your new daughter. They’ve waited long enough for a happy home.”
“Thanks, man. I’ll talk to you later.”
Chapter 26
Kira—One Year Later
“Mr. Steele?” I call out from the veranda.
“Yes, Mrs. Steele?” Silas replies with an unmistakable smile in his tone. I’m aware a sound can’t smile, but somehow, Silas pulls it off, regardless. What can I say? The man is multi-talented.
“I seem to be out of lemonade. Do you mind fixing that little problem for me?”
“Not at all. I’m on my way.” My hunk of a man slides up beside me, shirtless, wearing his swimming shorts and flip-flops, and refills my glass.
“Service with a smile. I love it, Mr. Steele.”
“I’ll service you with a smile any time you want, Mrs. Steele.” He waggles his eyebrows at me, making me blush.
“For the love of God, please stop with the Mr. and Mrs. Steele bullshit. You two have been saying that every day for the last month since you got married.” Noah shakes his head as he passes by us, but I see the huge smile on his face despite his words.
“The new hasn’t worn off yet. We’ll stop saying it when it gets old,” Silas retorts.
“So, you mean, never. You’re never going to stop.”
“Exactly.” Silas smiles broadly, showing how proud he is of his witty reply.
The past year has held so many changes for us, it’s hard to keep up with everything sometimes. We moved from DC to Miami. We left the cold and snow in favor of sand and surf. Our friends and family were all too excited to move with us, even Nick and Savannah. Spending time with them without the constant threat of danger surrounding us made it a much more relaxed atmosphere.
Now I completely understand why everyone loves Savannah so much. She’s so giving and caring, but she’s also strong and resilient. She had a rough time with a former flame, and she gives Nick all the credit for saving her. He disagrees—he insists he only provided the muscle and she did the rest.
Mira and Brad married soon after we returned to DC. I’d never seen her so excited before. She ran into Nick’s house while we were visiting, crying and laughing at the same time, to show off her engagement ring. Brad followed behind her with a red face and a huge smile. He promised me he would love and care for her for the rest of her life. I promised no one would ever find his body if he broke that promise.
I’m positive he believed me.
The adoption of Amber was finalized, so she’s officially a Steele now. She had her name changed before I did. She was thrilled to write her new last name on all her school papers. I’m officially Mama, and Silas is officially Daddy. My parents are officially thrilled for all of us and visit as often as they’re able, doting on their granddaughter and spending time with Mira and me. In the months between visits, we have weekly video chats so we can all share our lives. They hid in a remote cabin until Viktor was neutralized. Silas wouldn’t take any chances of Viktor’s associates getting to my parents. When the smoke cleared from that fiasco, Dad returned to work and announced his retirement. They moved to Zurich immediately after and haven’t looked back since.
Amber had nightmares when we first brought her back home. We spent a lot of very late nights calming and soothing her and a lot of days talking to child psychologists about how best to treat her anxiety. She has more good days than bad now, so we’re making substantial progress. Oddly enough, it’s her daddy she wants when she wakes in the middle of the night. The therapist warned us his imposing male figure may frighten her more after what she experienced, but it seems to be just the opposite. She’s comforted by how he protects her because she knows she can trust him. He’d never hurt her or abandon her.
She’s definitely a daddy’s girl.
“Where’d you go?” Silas sits down beside me and lightly strokes his knuckles across my cheek.
“Just thinking about how different everything is from just a short year ago. We were only here for two weeks last time, detoxing after my stint in a Russian prison and your elaborate prison break scheme, and now we’re all closer than ever. Everything we’ve endured has brought us here, and I wouldn’t change our life now for anything in the world. It’s perfect. You’re perfect. I love our little corner of the world.”
“It only gets better from here, baby. I promise you that.”
When the sun begins to set, Silas takes my hand and helps me up from the lounge chair. We help clean up the area after our impromptu pool party with the kids and head inside as the night air cools.
“Thanks again for letting us stay here with you while the painters are working on our house. I don’t want Kira or Amber sniffing paint fumes all night.” Silas puts a stack of dishes and cups in the sink and rolls up his sleeves before loading them in the dishwasher.
“It’s no problem at all. You’re always welcome here, even if they’re not painting. You know we love having you.” Brianna pats him on the back on her way to the refrigerator with the leftover food.
“I’m going upstairs to take a shower, babe. Can you keep an eye on Amber? She’s a little daredevil, and I’m afraid she’ll jump in the pool when we’re not watching.” I wrap my arms around him from behind and squeeze him tightly.
“Shh—don’t give her any ideas.” He chuckles. “I’ve got her, baby. Go enjoy your long, hot shower.”
I do exactly that—my shower is long, hot, and thoroughly relaxing. After I towel off and put on my nightgown, I dry my hair and finish getting ready for bed. After thirty or so minutes, I finally emerge from the bathroom and stroll into the bedroom, expecting to find Silas already sawing logs.
What I find instead is unbelievable. And almost indescribable.
Silas is lying in the middle of the bed, on top of the covers, sound asleep. He’s wearing a French maid uniform, his swim shorts barely peeking out from under the frilly skirt. The fishnet hose that covers his legs from his thighs down to his toes are clipped to the hem of his shorts. Heavy makeup coats his face, complete with bright-blue eye shadow I thought had stopped being made back in the 80s. His lips are painted with very bright red lipstick. Topping it all off is a tiny cap decorated with lace and netting, held on his head with bobby pins.
“Oh, there you are. I couldn’t find you earlier, so I had to get my friend Victoria to help me out with this. Be a dear and stay out of the frame for a minute, will you?” Liz saunters by me in a full tuxedo, complete with tails, a top hat, and white gloves, as if it’s the most ordinary scene to walk in on.
She climbs up on the bed next to Silas and extends a riding crop toward him until it touches his leg. Victoria snaps picture after picture from every angle while Liz changes her position to show she’s the dominant in each frame. When Victoria’s tears of laughter flow so hard she can’t see to take more pictures, Liz decides they have enough pho
tographs. Then they’re simply done—they start to walk out of the room together with no explanation.
“Um, hold on. What the hell is going on here? What did you do to Silas?”
Liz pats my cheek. “Oh, my sweet girl. I’m sorry if you had any plans to get frisky with him tonight. I’m afraid he’ll sleep soundly until morning. He’s perfectly fine—there are no dangerous side effects, other than he’ll be hard to rouse until he’s had time to sleep it off. He’s probably forgotten the way he threatened to use sodium pentothal on me last year, but I never forget a thing. He has to pay for his crimes.”
The two ladies saunter off together, scrolling through the pictures on Liz’s phone and discussing which picture they will send to whom.
Noah passes them in the hall on the way to the master bedroom. He stops at our guest bedroom and glances inside. He doesn’t appear fazed at all. Then he meets my questioning gaze and shrugs. “Guess he disrespected Liz again, huh?”
“This has happened before?”
“Not this exact payback, but close enough. Whatever he did to her, he absolutely knew better than to do it in the first place. He’ll find no sympathy around here. Good night, Kira.”
Just like that, Noah’s gone too.
Silas told me stories about Liz, but I thought he exaggerated for the sake of storytelling. Now, I think there’s no way in hell he told me everything. He left out a lot of crazy details he obviously never thought I’d believe. Before I saw this entire scene firsthand, he would’ve been one-hundred-percent correct—I wouldn’t have grasped the full magnitude.
But now…I can’t let this moment pass without snapping a few pictures of my own. This is the perfect inspiration for ending possible future marriage spats.
I grab a blanket out of the closet to drape over him before sliding under the covers next to him. As soon as my head hits the pillow, I’m out like a light and sleep straight through until morning. When I wake, it’s to my husband yelling obscenities and screaming Liz’s name…in between trying to unzip the dress he’s wearing.
I have to remember to ask Liz where she found his size…
“Kira?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Do you think you can stop laughing long enough to help me out of this getup?”
“I can’t promise I’ll stop laughing, but I will help you out of it.”
“Ha-ha. Very funny.”
After I unzip it and help him out of the dress and fishnets, he stomps into the bathroom across the hall, and the cursing resumes full force. He just realized he’s wearing full stage makeup.
“Holy hell. This shit doesn’t come off with soap and water. What kind of makeup did she put on me? Get the turpentine!”
Liz appears in the hallway with a devious grin on her face. “We’re fresh out of turpentine, Silas.”
He steps out of the bathroom to face Liz head on. “Then go to the store and buy more.”
“The store is sold out of it too.” Her tone is casual, unaffected by his mounting annoyance. She huffs on her fingernails then rubs them on her shirt, buffing them to a glistening shine.
“All of them?”
“Tragically, yes. There’s a shortage of it in all of South Florida.” She folds her arms across her chest. “Every single store is sold out of turpentine.”
I feel like I’m watching an old Western movie with a showdown at twenty paces between two gunmen. It’s not even high noon yet, so anything could happen before this feud is over. I still can’t look away, though. It’s all too fascinating to leave before it’s over.
“All right, Liz. What did I do?”
“Do you remember threatening me with truth serum to learn all my secrets? You threw down the challenge, and I simply answered it. Of course, I won, as I knew I would.”
“I don’t recall that specific moment. All I can think is I must’ve been especially stressed at the time and didn’t realize what I was saying.” His reply is clearly made under duress, considering the way he’s clenching his jaw and gritting his teeth as he speaks.
“Apology accepted. Do you promise never to dis me again?”
“Dis you?” He raises his eyebrows, and it’s all I can do to keep from laughing out loud at the bright-blue eye shadow. “Yes, I promise never to do that again.”
She hands him a small bottle of makeup remover from her pocket, explicitly designed for the product she applied. He disappears back into the bathroom to shower and scrub all the skin off his face to remove any traces of her artwork. When we finally join the others downstairs for breakfast, everyone’s phone pings with text messages simultaneously. When we all look…except for Liz…I know what’s inside.
Victoria has pieced the still pictures together to make a movie of Liz’s dominatrix cosplay. Silas drops his fork on the plate and covers his bright red face in embarrassment while everyone else laughs, points, and makes crude jokes. I keep my eyes glued to my plate, but I can’t stop my shoulders from shaking or the tears from pouring out of my eyes from my stifled laughter. When the replies from Bull, Rebel, and Shadow start pouring in, I completely lose it.
“Nice legs…you should get a job as the poster boy for Nair.”
“That dress is fucking sexy. Does it come in men’s sizes?”
“I’ll never look at a French mail costume in the same light again. Or in any light, for that matter. Ever. Again.”
“Liz. You coerced a surrender without telling me about the pictures?” It’s not really a question, obviously. I think he simply needs a second to digest everything.
“You didn’t ask about any pictures. Our agreement wasn’t contingent on anything.”
The stare-down occurring across the table tells me this competition isn’t over by a long shot.
Looking around the table at this crazy bunch of people, I realize this is the family I never knew I wanted but always needed. They give love so freely, accepting and embracing one another’s differences and similarities. When one is down, the others rally around until the situation passes. When one is in trouble, everyone takes it personally and doesn’t walk away until the job is done, regardless of the personal costs. Their lighthearted banter is the perfect complement to the stress of everyday life.
I couldn’t have picked a better man, husband, or best friend to spend my life with. Our love continues to grow stronger every day, with every passing hurdle we clear, and with every failure we overcome together. Our daughter is healthy and happy and keeps urging us to give her a little brother or sister. We’re not quite ready for that yet, but we know it’s in the cards for our future.
We somehow finish breakfast without further incidents then make plans to spend time with my in-laws for the rest of the day. The whole family will be there—that includes friends we’ve claimed as family.
Just over a year ago, this would’ve been more than I’d ever dared to dream about, to hope for, or to expect.
Today, I’m living my dream life to the fullest.
Epilogue
Roman—Three Years Ago
“I can’t do this anymore.” Tawnee places her hands on her hips and burns a hole through me with the anger in her eyes.
“You can’t do what anymore?” I know she isn’t saying what I think she’s saying.
“Us, Roman. I can’t do us anymore. This isn’t working for me. I’ve put up with too much, and I can’t do it one more day. I’m sorry, but this is over between us.” She snatches her bag off the bed and starts toward the door.
“You’re breaking up with me? Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“No, I’m absolutely not kidding you at all. I’m done. I’m so done.”
“What do you expect from me, Tawnee? I mean, I gave you a drawer and everything.”
Ah, shit. That was the wrong thing to say apparently. She’s seriously considering drawing her gun and shooting me right now. She’s weighing the pros and cons at this very second. I can see it in her expression and the way her muscles are tensed. I don’t know what I’ve don
e this time to piss her off so badly. All I know is whatever we fight about always ends up being my fucking fault.
“You gave me a drawer? Yeah, let’s talk about that drawer, Roman. Let’s examine that gesture for a minute. One, it’s the smallest fucking drawer in the whole house. Two, why the hell would I put a few items of clothes in that drawer when I still have to go back home for all the rest of my shit anyway? And, most of all, three.” She walks over to the drawer I gave her and yanks it open. “You haven’t even noticed I’ve never used the fucking thing!”
She releases it with a jerk, and it crashes to the floor as she walks away, leaving it where it landed.
We’d been dating on and off for a while before that eventful fight. I don’t even remember what started the fight now. It was probably something stupid, like I said green is a better color than blue. Who the fuck knows or cares? The point is, she left me and said she was never coming back. I gave her two days to change her mind and her attitude. When I didn’t hear a single peep from her within that time, I decided it was time to move on.
And that’s exactly what I did. I went out the next night, I met someone new, and I enjoyed the pleasure of her company. Repeatedly.
I haven’t seen the same girl twice since the day Tawnee walked out, and I haven’t regretted one minute of living my life to the fullest.
* * *
Present Day
“Roman, I swear to God, if you tell me that fucking story one more time…I’m going to take this plastic knife I just used to smear cream cheese on my bagel, and I’m going to slit my wrists with it.” Blake holds the knife at his wrist and pretends to saw his skin.
“I’ve told you that story before?”
“Only once or twice…a week…for three fucking years, man. Listen, I’m going to tell you this one last time as your friend. If you’re my friend, you need to listen to what I have to say because I’m as fucking tired of repeating myself as I am of hearing you repeat yourself.
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