Page 193 of Empire State Enemies

The unmistakable dark mane of hair in the back of the cab.

Damn.

Lexi.

My heart kicks into overdrive, and I can’t even see her damn face yet.

Turn around, I find myself silently willing, my hands clenching the railing so hard it’s cutting into my skin.Just turn around. Just once. Let me see your face.

The universe decides to throw me a bone.

Lexi turns to hug her sister. That moment—catching sight of her heart-shaped face, the one I’ve tried to shove into the deepest corners of my memory—it hits me like a punch to the gut.

There she is. In the flesh. So damn close.

She smiles at Grace, says something that makes her laugh, and then throws her head back in laughter—a sound I can almost hear in my head.

Then she’s gone. She’s gone before I can do something reckless like vault over the balcony and shatter both legs getting to that taxi.

I slump against the railing, feeling this sharp pain in my chest, like I’ve been shot. After all this time, just catching a fleeting glimpse of her undoes me completely.

It felt like hours, drinking in every detail. But it must’ve only been a minute, maybe less.

I don’t have many regrets in life, but the haunting memory of letting her walk away that night at Killian’s house might just be my biggest.

It’s a deep cut that won’t heal, keeping me up at night as I stare at the ceiling, my vision swirling with what-ifs.What if I hadn’t been so stubborn.

I wonder what Lexi would think of the path I’ve chosen, of the projects I’ve poured my soul into. I wonder if she would be proud of me. It’s ironic—out of everyone in my life, she’s the one person I desperately want to share my triumphs with.

She looked so damn happy in the back of that cab, her smile lighting up her face as she laughed with her sister. Relaxed and glowing. A stark contrast to the exhausted, stressed woman I last saw, dark circles under her eyes from the toll of dealing with my bullshit.

I know she’s happy. I still have some light protection on her, from a distance, making sure she’s okay. And she’s hiking, jogging, going out to bars.

She looks like that because I’m out of her life. Even when she was giving everything to helping me, I threw it back in her face. I took and took and gave nothing back but the superficial promise of money.

And as much as I want to jump in my car and track her down and tell her that I love her, that I made a terrible mistake . . . that vision of the sheer happiness on her face as she saw Grace, as they drove off together—that’s the final proof I needed that she’s better off without me.

I fooled myself into believing I was letting her go to spare her disappointment. But the harsh reality I refused to face is that I was never worthy of her love or her time. She was always too good for me, and I was too fucking arrogant to see it.

I was a complete asshole. Took me too long to realize I viewed myself as superior, believing she should feel honored I let her into my world. That’s the message I sent embarrassing her in front of my family. As ifshewas the lucky one.

The way I humiliated her in front of my family rather than the treating her like the incredible woman she is . . . yeah, it makes me sick to my stomach.

Now, she’s free to live her best life, the one she was always supposed to have.

Maybe there’s something worse than losing my hearing. It’s losing Lexi permanently, knowing I have no one to blame but myself.

But if I genuinely love her, the most selfless thing I can do is step aside, let her find someone who truly deserves her. The thought of her with someone else kills me, but I can’t be that selfish, arrogant jerk to her again.

“Sir,” Jim interrupts, materializing at my side. “There’s a situation that requires your immediate attention.”

FORTY-NINE

Lexi

“What are the bubbles made from anyway?” Grace asks as she stares into her giant mango bubble tea, her eyes wide with drunken wonder. “What’s the point of them? It’s weirdly satisfying when you suck ’em up the straw, right?”

I give her a smile, the kind you reserve for kids who ask why the sky is blue for the millionth time. I’m not sure if she’s expecting me to reply to any of those deep questions, or if she’s just drunkenly philosophizing.