Out of Love(91)

I knew what he was trying to say. I knew it all too well. “I loved the monster because I loved the man first.”

He nodded, bravely giving me his emotion-filled gaze. “I need you more.” He swallowed so hard my own throat felt the pain and suffocation.

More …

He needed me more than my dad or Jessica, or my friends, or Timothy and Tricia … or anyone else needed me.

Family. Who is my family?

The world was too unreachable. Everything was too unattainable.

So I couldn’t have the world, and I couldn’t have everything. That was life. I had a baby in my tummy and a man who loved me. Losing the rest would hurt like hell for a very long time.

The decision wasn’t right or wrong.

It wasn’t easy.

And it was so very far from fair.

But it was necessary.

When my incessant thoughts dragged out in silence, he turned his back to me and dropped his chin, interlacing his fingers behind his neck. “It’s too much to ask.”

I took cautious steps toward him and pressed my lips to the center of his back. “It is too much to ask, but if you love me, you’ll ask it anyway.”

When my hands snaked around his torso, he covered them with his and whispered, “Choose me, Livy.”





Chapter-Forty




Jackson Knight


We buried Livy Knight between her mom and some guy named Jude Day beneath a hill not far from the Golden Gate Bridge. Friends and family mourned her tragic death—a shark attack that left only part of her body and half of her surfboard.

Jessica wiped real tears because the reality of the situation was … Livy was gone. I left my sobbing daughter collapsing in the arms of a man who everyone swore was just like me. She tried to claw her way free for one more kiss, one more hug, one more time of nuzzling her face into my chest.

“You’re emotionally dead,” Jessica said after everyone left the cemetery, leaving just the two of us staring at the empty casket being lowered into the ground. “You will never see her again, and yet … not one single tear.”

“She’s all I have left. I think you underestimate what I would do to have her in my life. Like you underestimated what I would do to keep you safe, to save your life.”

Jessica shook her head. “You’d have to take down an entire army. Kill probably a dozen people still loyal to Abe and Knox. And they could be anywhere. You’re going to hunt all of them down? Kill all of them?” She grunted a laugh, punctuating the insanity of it all.

I leaned down and kissed her head. “Please stop underestimating me. Now … go home with your family.”

As I made my way toward my car, she called, “Where are you going?”

Without stopping, without looking back, I murmured only to myself, “I’m going to kill them. All of them.”





Epilogue




Wylder


“Where are we?” Livy (Emily James) opened her tired eyes as the small plane landed, coasting up to the shore.

It took months to plan her death, months to plan the death of Alex Obermeier. That meant months apart.

Months of not being with her at her doctor’s visits.

Months of not hearing the heartbeat of my child.

Months of the most torturous patience.

Then we spent another month apart as we were moved to multiple temporary locations (separately) while it was determined if anyone was following us … suspecting we were still alive.

At seven-and-a-half months pregnant, we were transported to the same airport to be reunited and then put on a sea plane for the final leg of our journey to a new life. With a doctor who would stay with us until the birth of the baby, we took an hour flight to an island off the coast of Livy-would-never-know. And that was where we were to live out the rest of our lives.

“It’s home.” I unfastened her seat belt and kissed her belly while I was in the vicinity.

“It’s an island.”

I chuckled, taking her hand to guide her off the small plane as the doctor grabbed her bag and followed us along with Jericho. “Good observation, Mrs. James.”

“What island?” She slipped on her sunglasses as our feet hit sand.

“Our island.”

“What does that mean?”

I took her hand and led her toward the two ATVs that had been delivered a few weeks earlier along with all of our new belongings. “It means I bought an island for us. It’s small. No one else lives here. All of our supplies will be delivered once a week. And we’ll never have to do stupid shit like work or wait in traffic.”

“Can I be president of our island?” She climbed into the passenger seat of the first ATV.

I leaned in and kissed her slowly for a few seconds before pulling away and smiling. “No. Our island doesn’t have a president. It has a queen.”

“We’re a monarchy.” She grinned.

I helped the pilot and the doctor with the bags, tossing them in the back of the second ATV.

“Up.” I nodded to the seat for Jericho to hop up there as the doctor climbed into the driver’s seat and grinned at Jericho and his reluctance. Hope Faber (previously Gemma Blair) was weeks away from finishing her fellowship to become an OBGYN when her father was killed by Abe, and she was shot and left for dead.