Page 144 of Between Passion and Revenge: Part Two

He finally removes his palm from my face and grabs my hand again. I let myself analyze the feeling of his flesh against mine—how rough his hands are now, where the new scars are along his knuckles.

He jumps a fraction, and I bring his fist closer and notice the open skin.

“That looks like it needs stitches,” I reply, trying to break the intense mood between us.

“Nah,” he says, “but you can kiss it better.”

I lift my head to meet his expression, his smirk back on his face.

“Oh really?” I say, and I lift his fingers to my lips, pressing a delicate kiss to the split knuckle.

“Not there,” he says, his voice sounding rough. The rasp has my heart rate picking up, and the look on his face delivers competing, intense messages.

“Then where?” I ask.

He doesn’t hesitate. All he does is move forward and place his lips on mine. It’s a gentle press, unhurried and not at all like the inferno that’s blazed between us in our past few encounters.

This kiss says, “Thank you.”

This kiss says, “I have hope for us.”

This kiss, terrifyingly, says, “I love you.”

And when he finally releases me from his embrace, resting his forehead against mine, all I can think is one word.

Yes.

THIRTY-TWO

STORM

This moment feels like it should be bigger. As if there should be a montage theme song playing like in theRockymovies.

Instead, it’s quiet. No trumpets. No slow-mo walk. Just me, pacing like a caged animal in the office I’ve spent the last week in, watching drone and body cam footage from a team across the country.

“Do we know why he’s in D.C.?” I ask the room, my voice a grumble. Axel leans over his keyboard, his earbud emitting a low squawk as the person on the other end speaks to him.

Misha Hroshko leads the Ukrainian Mafiya, and to hear Axel tell it, he hates Lakeland and the fuckers who run on Isla Cara more than I do. Something to do with Daddy issues, apparently.

But the guy’s weird, and the first time I spoke with him over the triple-encrypted video chat, he stared at me for long moments before answering any of my questions.

“It looked like he had a meeting with some senators,” Axel says. “Anyway, it tracks that he’d stop at what amounts to a brothel on his way out of town.”

I hum. Even as I watch the operation unfold moment by moment just as planned, I can’t help the unsettled itchiness beneath my skin. Out in the high-end suburbs of Northern Virginia, Lakeland Sandoval walks into a mansion on several acres of land—essentially the East Coast’s version of the Bunny Ranch. Intel says it’s where senators, diplomats, and the like get what they can’t ask for in daylight.

“He’s inside,” Axel says when Lakeland enters the home, caught on the hijacked security camera pointing toward the front door.

“Everyone’s in place,” comes another voice, not Misha’s, through the speakers. “The girls are escorting the johns to the rooms.”

“And then someone will get them all out?” Riale asks. Axel nods.

The plan is too simple; this is too easy.

I grit my teeth to take my focus off my thoughts.

“Showtime, baby!” Axel shouts, his excitement filling the tense room. Riale grunts as Axel flips from camera to camera, showing the stream of workers fleeing the building on silent feet. Dark panel vans speed away, and a few four-by-fours sprint into the woods.

“When—”