Page 64 of A Breath of Life (Shadowy Solutions #4)

Gasping, I dropped him on the floor, frantically untangling my arm from his neck, and retreated so fast I nearly landed on my ass when I knocked into the Bishop’s abandoned chair.

No!

“Tallus?” I didn’t recognize my voice. His name came out laced with fear and regret and a metric ton of guilt because I’d been ready to snap his fucking neck or crush his windpipe. I’d been primed to kill.

He spun, rubbing his reddened throat as he continued wheezing, and planted his back against the door. “I… missed… you too.”

As I took him in. My brain hiccupped, refusing to assimilate the blond hair, freckles, and unusual slate gray eyes with the man I loved, but it was him. It was Tallus. It was fucking Tallus, and I’d almost killed him.

My knees gave out, and a second before I collapsed, a second before the sheer crushing agony of my mistake tore a hole through my fucking heart and chest, he was in my arms.

“No. It’s okay, D. It’s okay. It’s okay.” I could barely make out his whispered words.

Whispered because I’d fucking strangled him. I’d fucking strangled him!

A sound escaped me. A choked sob? A mournful cry? Both? I keened and shook. The unearthly pain originated in my soul and burned hot and fierce through my veins. It consumed me.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. Don’t go there, D. I’m fine. Look at me. I’m fine.”

But I wasn’t and might never be. My capacity for words disintegrated. I wanted to push him away. Run. Bury the knife in my stomach to the hilt and bleed myself dry. Tallus. I’d almost killed Tallus.

“Hold me, Guns. Arms around me. Squeeze. Emotions, remember? Gotta hug them out until you feel better. Don’t run. Please. ”

“No.” I tried unsuccessfully to peel him off.

“Hug me. Hold me. I’m not letting go.”

Even as everything inside me shattered, crumbled, and turned to dust, I couldn’t ignore his plea.

I would do anything, absolutely anything , this man asked.

I would dive headfirst off a cliff. I would walk into an inferno.

I would carve my still-beating heart from my chest and give it to him.

I would fall to my knees and repent, find the god my nana so adamantly believed in all her life and pray every fucking day if I had to.

I would beg the man upstairs to remove this taint he inflicted on me at birth.

I would ask him to make me a better man. Make me worthy.

Tallus lifted my bound hands and ducked under them so they wrapped around him. He rested his cheek against my chest—over my heart. “Hold me, D. Come on. Stay with me.”

So I held him. And I held him and I held him and I held him. When it wasn’t enough—it would never be enough—I scooped him into my arms and buried my face in his neck as tears rolled in rivers down my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not. I’m sorry. I love you, Tallus. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“I know, D. You didn’t know it was me.”

“I would never hurt you.”

“I know. I love you too.”

But why? Why, why, why, why?

I couldn’t let go. The flood of emotions eviscerated me.

The past collided with the present, and every pain and torment I’d accumulated in my thirty-six years surfaced all at once.

It was too much. Full and complete knockout.

I bled all that I was into the man in my arms, holding him tighter, fearing that if I let go, the world as I knew it would no longer exist, and Tallus would be gone.

“Bear hug too squishy, D. Can’t breathe again.”

It took effort to loosen my hold and set him on his feet.

He cradled my face. His long fingers traced my cheekbones, stubbled jaw, and every fine line, scar, and bruise that told the story of my life as though ensuring I was whole.

I wasn’t. I was a fragmented man, stitched together with frayed thread.

I needed the gentlest of handling, or I would unravel, but Tallus knew that about me, and he’d always been careful and kind.

When his fingers landed on the new injury, he frowned. “He hurt you again.”

“It’s nothing. I’ll live.”

“D…”

How did I tell him the pain in my heart was worse? “You shouldn’t have come.” I kissed his forehead, his warm skin and scent a comfort. If he was here, he was in danger. We were in danger.

“I couldn’t leave you here.”

“How did you find me?”

“It’s a long story, and I have done things I’m not proud of, but we can chat about that later. We have to get out of here, preferably without anyone else trying to kill me. Twice in five minutes is my limit.”

I frowned and was about to ask what the fuck he meant, but he ducked under my bound arms and stepped away.

I didn’t want to let him go. I wanted to hold him until time stopped, until the earth quit spinning, and the stars burned out. Until darkness reigned for eternity. I wanted to protect him, scoop him up into my arms, and take him far away from this shitshow of a world.

Even when I didn’t deserve his love.

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“I see you, Guns. I always see you. You’re worth more than you give yourself credit for, even when all we do is fight.”

I winced, but Tallus smiled. “The fact that we’re able to argue like a normal couple actually says a lot about your progress. Once upon a time, it was like pulling teeth to get words out of you. Now, you don’t shy away from telling me when I’m out of line.”

“You’re never out of line.”

“Guns, I am so fucking bratty sometimes, I disgust myself. We’ll be okay.” He stroked a hand over my cheek. “But we’d better get moving.”

Tallus tenderly kissed my lips before spinning and picking up the fallen hat.

He brushed it off before fitting it on his head.

I was once again facing a version of my boyfriend I barely recognized.

It wasn’t so much the changed hair and freckles, but his eyes, the windows into his soul, were different somehow.

The absence of his glasses always made me sad, but it was more than that. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Before I could say anything, another crash from above reminded me of the ensuing chaos and the reason I had been left alone in the first place.

“What’s going on up there?”

Tallus puffed out his cheeks and propped his hands on his hips.

“Well, where to begin? Long story short. Costa broke me out of the courthouse, and in our escape, we narrowly missed Converse Guy, who I think might have been Creepy Bathroom Guy, but I’m not sure.

We did a vehicle swap and ended up at a restaurant, where he fed me noodles and forced the truth out of me before that freak called from your phone.

From there, we contacted Memphis, kidnapped Joshua, and enlisted Kitty to play the good Samaritan cleaning lady who broke Echo out of the office.

She’s fine, by the way. Kitty’s watching her .

“From there, Costa finagled a bit of a distraction so we could infiltrate the underground casino, but as you can hear, it’s gotten out of hand.

Your friend, the Bishop, is having a little nap because he pointed a gun at my face, but when he wakes up and finds he’s weaponless, he’s going to come looking for you. Or me. Probably both of us.

“Backup is on the way, but until they get here, my cousin is basically holding off an army of pissed off nineteen-twenties gangsters by himself. He has twenty-first-century technology and a witch on his side, but we need to hurry and get the fuck out of here because the goal is to be gone before the police show up so Costa doesn’t get fired for breaking the rules.

” He considered for a minute. “Yep. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.”

“That’s… a lot to unpack. A gun in your face?”

“I knew you’d focus on that. We’ll chat later.”

I frowned. “Ruiz is here?”

“Yes. He and his alter ego, James Bond. Guns, I’m telling you, if he loses his job with the department because of this, we should consider hiring him. He would be a valuable asset. He and Kitty. Enough chitchat. Where’s the key for those?”

Tallus nodded at the cuffs as I tried to comprehend the sheer volume of word vomit that had spilled from his mouth. Was he talking fast, or was my alcohol-drenched brain processing slowly?

The chaos upstairs was Tallus’s doing? Who the fuck was Joshua? Why was that name familiar? Why was fucking Memphis involved? My brain was too scrambled for this.

“Diem.” Tallus snapped his fingers. “Keys, keys, keys. Focus, focus, focus.” He accompanied every word with a clap of his hands.

“I don’t have keys. Here. Use this.” I located the wire I’d discarded in a panic. “It should work, in theory, but I can’t get the right angle. You can do it, Tallus. I believe in you. I’ve always believed in you. ”

He smirked and wiggled his brows. Pure sultry mischief hit me right in the balls. Bubbles of heat fizzed in my lower belly. Good fucking god, I loved this man. Even amid a gangster war, or whatever he’d called it, he didn’t flinch. I should have known all along he would work a miracle.

“You’re sweet, Guns.” From a pocket, he withdrew my lockpicking kit. “This should work better, though.”

I almost fell to my knees in relief. “You’re amazing.”

“Like a Boy Scout, I came prepared. My phony Costa-made keycard didn’t work on that door, but I didn’t expect it to.

Joshua’s dad isn’t a spade and, therefore, doesn’t have access to the lower level, but a man can hope, right?

Anyhoo, guess how I got in here?” He swung the handle of the kit on his finger as he bit into his lower lip and waited for a beat before continuing.

“That’s right. I picked the lock. In under a minute, I’ll have you know.

I’m getting better. Someday, you might even be proud of my skills. ”