I Am Justice

by Diana Muñoz Stewart

  He stumbled left and fell over.

  Justice screamed. She ran to him. “What did you do?” Skirting the dead guard, she fell to Tony’s side. She grabbed his shoulders. “What did you do? You stupid idiot!”

  Sandesh reached across Tony, pulled her hands away. “Careful. Don’t touch.”

  “He’s got your back.” Tony tucked his hands into his armpits. He gasped for breath. He’d landed oddly. His right leg bent back, caught under his ass. His body began to convulse. His teeth to chatter.

  How did she fix this? How did she stop it?

  Tony looked up at her. “I did good too? Right, J? Not all bad.” His hazel eyes, the haunted eyes that had once looked out from the face of a starving twelve-year-old boy, pinned her. Begged her. Her heart broke into a thousand irreparable pieces. It hurt to breathe.

  “Yeah, Tone.” She spoke over sobs. “You did a lot of good. You were my best friend. I love you. I will always love you.”

  He closed his eyes. “Don’t cry, J.” He smiled. A smile that twitched at the edges, then went flat.

  Chapter 76

  The energy in Sandesh’s apartment had changed. Not subtly either. Though he couldn’t think of the perfect word for it—this shift in atmosphere since Justice had begun staying there.

  There was probably a French word for the buzz of warmth, the charged peace, the surge of contentment, the electric joy of waking up every morning beside the person he loved.

  All he could think of was…blessed.

  That sort of fit. But it still didn’t describe the thrill of falling asleep with her in his arms. Or the jolt of awareness he felt, like right now, with her warm and asleep against him.

  Or the way his heart lifted every morning when she rolled over and kissed him. Then fucked him until he fell back to sleep in a satiated heap.

  Or the pleasant way it hurt when she disentangled herself from him and the sheets and left the bed in the morning.

  Or the way his heart jumped, hip-hip-hoorayed in his chest when she returned, carrying a cup of coffee as hot and dark as her eyes.

  Blessed just didn’t cover it.

  He hated the idea of her going back to her house. Not that they’d talked about them shacking up together. But she’d been spending every night for a month, every night since Mexico. She’d told him she couldn’t face her house yet, knowing Tony wouldn’t be there.

  So the move in had just kind of happened. Of course, they’d returned to the Mantua Home many times, for dinner, to work out, to hang out with her siblings. She seemed to be getting more comfortable back there, less consumed with bad memories. He was beyond grateful for the easing of that pain.

  But that didn’t mean he wanted her to go back there. She’d turned his apartment into a place he now considered a home, not just the place he paid rent on. He didn’t want that to end.

  Sandesh shifted with that sweet touch of regret as Justice, buck naked, climbed out of bed and sashayed out of the bedroom with a promise to return, “With coffee.”

  God, he loved her. He waited for her to get far enough away that she could no longer see into the room before he jumped out of bed.

  He yanked the sheets and blankets straight. Made the bed in record time, military tight. Then he got the box he’d stashed under the bed. Rose petals, a hand drawn sign that read Our Home Sweet Home, and a black bow tie.

  Couldn’t say he wasn’t classy.

  Not enough? Should he have…

  Fuck. He’d thought of this a thousand different ways. He’d decided to make it simple, offer to share himself, his life, with her.

  He sprinkled the rose petals across the bed, hung the sign across the headboard, put on the tie, and laid his naked self strategically across the bed just as he heard her making her way back.

  Shit. Almost forgot. He sat up, reached into his nightstand, pulled out the hand-carved wooden box, and settled back into position.

  She walked in, fingers looped around the handles of two coffee cups, the other hand holding an iPad. She was staring at the tablet and didn’t look up. “Cats can pretty much escape anything.”

  Cats? “What are you looking at?”

  “This video…” She shook her head, laughed. “It’s…”

  She looked up, a beautiful, seductive grin spread across her face. “That’s the hottest thing I’ve seen in my entire life.” Good. It was already working.

  He was actually sweating. Though he’d decided she wouldn’t want anything too traditional, should he have gone for a ring?

  No. Dada had told him—nothing she’d have to take off for missions. It would bother Justice, doing that. And nothing too expensive. To her, it would mean less. Dada had given him another idea. He opened the box, revealing two smooth garnets and a series of light and dark leather cords.

  Justice came closer, placed the coffee cups and iPad on his nightstand. She peered into the box. “Arts and crafts? Kinky. I can definitely use the leather cords.”

  He tried to bite back his eager smile. Tried and failed. He cleared his throat. “These stones are from Syria. From a jeweler I met in Zaatari. They represent hope and strength and perseverance. And they’re red because Choctaw brides traditionally wear red.”

  He stopped, tried to judge how she was taking this. She pumped her eyebrows at him.

  He swallowed. “And the leather, light and dark, for good times and bad, for us to braid together, to braid the gems into. I wanted something that represented us, symbolized us. Something you could wear on your wrist. Something.…” God, stop babbling. “That’s if…” Don’t be a fucking coward. “Justice, will you marry me?”

  She launched herself onto the bed without warning, causing him, the flower petals, and the box to bounce. She took the box and moved it gently onto the nightstand, straddled him, kissed him.

  Heat shot through his body. “Yes,” she whispered against his lips. “Fuck, yes.”

  She kissed him, long and deep. She pulled back, stared at him. Stared at him with eyes like a cool, starless night, so endless not even the gods could imagine the edges.

  “I want to meet your mother.”

  Not exactly where he’d thought that was going. “Okay. It’s just—”

  She shook her head. “I get it. But you’ve met my family. I’ve met your dad—”

  “Most awkward lunch ever.”

  She laughed. “Yeah. But I’m serious.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  He nodded. For her, anything.

  “I love you, Sandesh.”

  “I love you, Justice.”

  She grinned, squirmed on top of him. “Oh, I can feel that.”

  “Cocky.” He rolled and she cried out. He maneuvered himself so she was under him and he was pressed hard against her. “Pun intended.”

  She laughed, lifted her head, and kissed him until his head spun and his body raged.

  Fucking blessed.

  * * *

  It’d been a good day. A great day. Any day spent entirely in bed with Justice, eating, having sex, talking, laughing, making jewelry—while she cursed like she’d stubbed her toe on a cement block; woman was not crafty—was a great one.

  His hand tightened around hers as they walked up the stone stairs to the private nursing home where his mother lived. His heart picked up its pace. He wanted the two women he loved most in this world to meet. But he couldn’t be sure Justice would get to meet Mom. She might be someone else today. Scratch that. She might be somewhere else today.

  “Don’t do that, Sandesh.”

  He looked over at Justice. Her eyes serious. Clothes casual, black jeans and a button-down top. Hair pulled into a long ponytail. “What?”

  “Worry.”

  “Just don’t expect much. I can never be sure how she’ll be with a stranger. Sometimes, it can be hurtful. But sh
e’s…she’s a good person.”

  She squeezed his hand. “I know enough of you, the man she raised, to know that however she appears now, she is a good person. She provided the shoulder you rested on, the heart that comforted yours, the soul that taught you to love. The disease might keep her from us, but it can’t diminish who she is in my eyes. Ever.”

  A sudden, weighty presence lodged in his throat. Made it hard to swallow. They pushed through the front doors and entered the brightly lit corridor. Didn’t matter what time of year it was; this place always smelled of pinecones and cinnamon.

  After they stopped at the front desk and checked in with security, Justice pointed to the hall lined with amateur paintings. “It’s rather elegant. Are these done by the people living here?”

  He’d stopped seeing the paintings long ago. This hall had become a place filled with worry and sometimes dread. “Yeah. I brought Mom here after I met the head of the community. A kind woman who knew I was concerned about Mom’s quality of life. On the day I met her, she said to me, ‘Talent, joy, love of life, and creativity don’t have an expiration date. That’s a limit placed by smaller minds.’”

  Justice grimaced. “Sometimes pain makes you feel that way too—limited.”

  He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. She meant her own pain over Tony’s death. And her father’s. The further they got from the shock of it, the more she was able to talk about it. He liked that she trusted him with her memories of her brother, her regrets, and how his death had changed her. Changed the whole family.

  She asked questions too. She didn’t remember a lot about their escape from Mexico. Shock and grief could do that to a person. He had to admit, for a long time, everything had felt unreal to him too.

  The escape from the compound had been rushed. And awful. Justice rocking, sobbing over Tony’s body. Then Gracie had returned, taken in the scene, and had totally lost it. Her screams…

  Crap. It had been all he and Dusty could do to organize them and carry out Victor, who’d been passed out.

  Dusty had turned out to be a good man. He’d stayed behind to take care of Tony’s body. Since then, Justice occasionally asked questions about how they’d escaped, questions that let him know she remembered very little. But she never asked where Tony was buried. It was like she didn’t want to know.

  Not that he could’ve told her. He had no idea what had happened to the body. Or Dusty, for that matter. He strongly suspected the guy had gone underground.

  “Sandy!” His mother’s voice whooped through the hallway.

  Justice pulled her hand away. Made sense. Best not to confuse Mom with their relationship until they got a feel for how she’d react. In truth, he’d forgotten he’d been holding it.

  Sandesh grinned as his mother shuffled down the hall with a fist full of balloons bobbing above her head. In one hand she clutched the string. In her other she held a stuffed teddy bear.

  He bent and greeted his mother’s frail body with a gentle hug. “You look great, Ella.”

  She kissed his cheek. “Did you see my balloons?”

  “I did.” He stepped back. “Did you see my friend?”

  Ella let out a delighted squeal, tossed up her hands. The balloons flew into the air. Justice grabbed the string and brought them down with a flourish.

  His mother clapped and Justice handed the balloons back to her.

  His mother yanked the string away. “The balloons are mine.” Justice nodded her understanding and Ella’s face became sly, almost predatory. “So is that young man. So treat him right.”

  Sandesh moved to intercept the awkward, to guide the conversation, but Justice cut him off. “I will, Ella. In fact, I’m taking him to a family dinner tonight. As my date.”

  His mother smiled. “He’s very handsome, isn’t he?”

  Justice gently kissed her cheek. “Yes.”

  His mother, his mother who had been lost to him off and on for five years, flushed. Her eyes grew slightly more aware. “What’s your name, dear?”

  “Justice Ramona Parish.”

  She nodded. “Justice Ramona Parish.” She repeated it as if chewing on it, tasting it, savoring it. “See, Sandesh? I always told you there was Justice in the world.”

  Sandesh’s eyebrows shot up his forehead and he laughed—hard. She had. Repeatedly.

  Justice reached out and hugged his mother, laughing softly. His mother laughed along with her. And the two of them…

  He had to tell his heart to settle. And then tell it twice more.

  Didn’t work. How had this happened?

  How had a gun-wielding assassin, a smart-ass vigilante with a nose for trouble and a yearning for intrigue, captured his heart so completely?

  Maybe that’s just the way blessings worked. Mysteriously.

  Chapter 77

  “She’ll give in,” Justice reassured her scorching-hot and somehow doubtful fiancé as they strolled hand in hand through the Mantua Home’s wide, sunlit corridors. “It’s a wedding present.”

  “China is a wedding present. A toaster oven is a wedding present. Hell, a wedding is a wedding present. You’re asking for her to allow you to return to Jordan. With me. For the IPT. Something that could lead to a deeper investigation of your ties to that mission in Syria.”

  She smiled, kept pace with him as they walked. “Yeah, you people at the IPT are trouble.”

  “I’m serious, Justice. Why draw more attention to your time there? The feds are already suspicious.”

  Understatement. But they were the suspicious sort. And, sadly, not stupid. Kept asking after Tony. The party line was that he’d simply run away, disappeared.

  A big coincidence that Sandesh had also been released by his captors. All of this was why Leland wanted them to stay away from Jordan and Syria until things quieted down.

  It felt wrong. “I don’t need dishes or a toaster oven, not even a wedding. I need to fix the things I’ve screwed up.” She cringed, thought of Tony, thought of how she couldn’t fix everything. She looked up at Sandesh, at all his blond, beautiful self. “As much as I can.”

  He started to say something, maybe about how she hadn’t screwed things up, how everything had worked out, how he didn’t hold her responsible—all of it, but he simply nodded. And that, right there, was another reason to love him.

  Every day added one more reason.

  She pulled up short before the wide, arched doorway leading into the library.

  Inside the brightly lit room, Romeo sat at one of the long tables in front of a computer, typing like a lunatic. Maybe feeling her eyes on him, he glanced up. Such a cute kid.

  She smiled at him. “You available to train tomorrow, around noon?”

  He turned left and right in a Who me? kind of way. No one else in the library, kid. Registering this, his lips twitched into an uncertain smile. He gave her a tight nod.

  Yeah. Couldn’t blame him. She turned away, met Sandesh’s alert, blue eyes. He bent and rubbed his nose against her cheek. “It’s a start.”

  He was right. She’d continue to reach out to Romeo, make sure he was okay, find a way to talk to him, so that he knew—no, so that he felt he was respected here.

  She’d read Tony’s letter. Finally. He’d spoken of his pain, never feeling accepted, never feeling good enough, listened to, cared about. Reading it had changed her as much as losing him had. Things here had been unfair to him and to Romeo.

  Sandesh squeezed her hand. “You okay?”

  The flip thing to say would be, “Yeah.” But it wasn’t the real thing to say. She swallowed the regret and sorrow. “I’m going to make it up to Tony. He might not be here to see it, but I’m going to. And you and Salma and the IPT. Got it?”

  “Yeah. But if your mother says no—”

  She shook her head, continued down the hall. He kept up. “She won’t. Trust me. I ca
n convince anyone of anything. I am a kick-ass public relations specialist. Remember?”

  Sandesh snorted, bit his lip, and nodded at her, nodded like he wanted to say something else. He didn’t.

  Smart man.

  They moved down the hallway, passing an intersecting hallway, the one with the elevators. Someone called out, “I see it worked.”

  Justice startled. Dada. So stealthy. And gorgeous, especially with a baby bump. Wait. “What worked?”

  The elevator doors opened and Bridget stepped out. She took in the scene with a raised eyebrow. Dada pointed at Justice’s wrist, at the braided band of light and dark leather with the garnet woven within it. “Look. It worked.”

  Bridget smiled at Sandesh. “She said yes?”

  He nodded, not looking half as guilty as he should have. “I appreciate the suggestions from both of you.”

  Seriously? She should’ve recognized Dada was in on the whole weaving bracelets thing. “So, what, is this some kind of conspiracy proposal?”

  Bridget flushed; she actually looked bothered. That didn’t happen every day. Or ever. Huh. She felt guilty. Looks like letting her keep her memory had another upside.

  Dada moved closer, lifted Sandesh’s hand to examine his band. Ugh. Justice cringed. She’d made his. He’d made hers. His band was more roughly woven than hers. By far. Who knew arts and crafts were so fucking hard?

  “I can show you how to fix this,” Dada said, looking at Justice.

  Justice glared under a heating face. Not like she cared. Okay. She did.

  Sandesh pulled his hand away. “No. It’s perfect. Thanks.”

  Aw. Love for him, sharp and steady, fired another neuron, stored another cherished memory.

  Dada looked like she was about to argue the fact, but Justice interrupted with, “Just saw your baby daddy in the gym, surrounded by munchkins playing soccer. You might want to rescue him,” then turned and led Sandesh down the hall to the open doorway on their left.

  His warm hand loosely held in her own, she slipped into the drawing room. The drawing room. Momma’s idea of a joke. It was literally a room for drawing—more accurately, painting—not the traditional drawing room for greeting guests. Hardy. Har. Har.