Page 170 of Handsome Devil

“Heard that too,” Dylan confirmed.

“Oh, lovey.” I placed my hand on Tate’s cheek, even though my head pounded angrily, and I was freezing despite being bundled in several blankets.

He leaned into my touch instinctively.

“I contemplated dying, but the need to give you shit for all you’ve put me through won out in the end.” My voice was so brittle, so thin, it reminded me of a crème brûlée, ready to crack under the slightest pressure.

My husband was a wreck, his dark hair unkempt and curling around his ears and forehead chaotically. He was pale, his cheeks sunken, with dark circles around his eyes. His lips were chapped, and he was wearing the same suit he’d brought me to the hospital in. I blinked, taking him all in.

For a moment, he simply stared as though I were a mirage, something he couldn’t trust to be real. Then he grabbed my cold hands in his warm ones, rubbing my skin back and forth with his thumbs, tears pooling in his eyes.

“Apricity.” His voice was fractured. “You’re never allowed to leave me for this long again.”

“How long have I been out?”

“Four days.”

He hadn’t showered in four days? Hadn’t left my side? Hadn’t brushed his teeth?

That was…adorable.

Unsanitary too.

“W-what happened to me?”

“Internal bleeding. They managed to stop it in time. Just about.” His jaw ticked, his gunmetal eyes darkening, and I knew exactly what was going through his head.

“No, Tate.” My fingers wrapped around his. “No more revenge. No more Callaghans. I beg you. I told you I’d leave. I meant it.” The mere thought of going through this vicious cycle again made me even more exhausted than I was, which seemedimpossible. “I love you, Tate. More than I love myself. But never more than I’d love our children. I won’t stay with a vigilante who prioritizes his thirst for blood over his family.”

Tate buried his head in my lap, breathing me in with a groan.

“I was serious when I said I was done,” Tate clarified. “I promise you, my dealings with Tiernan Callaghan are over.”

“Can you give me your word?” I asked.

“I give you my word.”

“Then you’ll consider the next thing I need to ask you…”

It was a big ask, I knew. An ask that would change both our lives forever. Something so far out of his comfort zone, I never thought he’d agree to it. And still, I wanted it. For my safety. Forhis. For a fresh start and hope. For a chance at normalcy.

When I told him what it was, he didn’t even blink.

Didn’t even take a moment to think about it.

“I’ll do it, Gia, for you,” he promised. “Everything I do is for you.”

“Okay, am I gonna be the one to say it out loud?” Dylan looked up from her burrito bowl, sucking the straw of her skinny margarita. “Gia, you have no business looking this good three days after you woke up from a freakingcomaafter being kidnapped by Hottie McBadson and almost thrown off a cliff.”

Snorting, I covered my mouth to prevent myself from shooting refried beans directly into her lap.

“Did you just call my captor handsome?”

“What? I didn’t say he was nice or anything.” Dylan pouted. “And I’ve a feeling the Ferrantes are going to punish him. Butobjectively speaking, yes, Tiernan Callaghan is not a chore to look at.”

We were sitting at a small Mexican place in the Bronx, and it was the first time in a long time I didn’t have bodyguards hovering over my head. I could say whatever I wanted withoutfeeling embarrassed. The feeling was almost akin to being reborn. I could totally be myself again.

When I insisted on meeting Cal and Dyl for brunch in public and without security, Tate had objected but later relented when I told him I was desperate to get my life back to normal.