This is it, I thought in wonder. This is how I die.
My eyes blurred, focusing on the texture of the tiles in front of me. The scuffling shoes of my attacker approached, echoing like thunder claps. I can't give up. What a strong, useless thought. I was fighting tooth and nail, and still, Florian had broken me down.
But I wasn't done.
Not yet.
“I'll kill you,” he huffed, finger-tips digging into my shoulder. “I never planned to hurt anyone, but fuck if you haven't changed that, you dumb bitch.”
Spinning, I swung at his temple with the full strength of every bad thing that had ever happened to me behind it. The edge of the heavy metal base on the toy cut into his skin, colliding off of his skull.
Florian toppled to the ground in a giant heap.
Breathing in great swallows of air, I stared down at him savagely. My grip on the big red dildo was bone-white. I'd done it. I'd actually done it. For the first time in my life, I'd faced down someone trying to hurt me...
And I'd won.
“Here,” I mumbled, tossing the toy so that it bounced off of his temple. “Have one of those cocks you won't shut up about.”
“Alexis!”
Whipping my eyes up, I stared in disbelief. The man I loved, his hands bound by metal cuffs, was coming my way in a hurry. Did I have a concussion?
“Silver?” I asked, swaying on my feet.
Impossibly fast he crossed the room, catching me in spite of his bound hands. “Pet!” he growled, cradling me where he knelt. “Are you alright?”
Blinking, I reached up to touch his cheek. “How are you here?”
Pushing his hips to my forehead, he embraced me furiously. “You can thank your friend over there for that.”
Vermont approached Florian. Another pair of officers entered the room, bending over the fallen man. Their loud chattering said his injuries were mild. I'd hit him as hard as I could, but he wasn't in critical health.
Sensing my stare, Vermont looked at me. His ears were glowing red; the pen was tugged free, waving between his knuckles. “Your guy there wouldn't shut the hell up about us turning around once he heard you on the phone with me. I thought he was going to smash his face through the damn window just to get here.”
My chin swung like a pendulum. “How did you know where I was?”
“You tripped the alarm,” Silver said. “I heard it go off in my pocket.” Briefly, he glared at the detective. “I told him something was wrong, to check my phone and see the cameras, but he ignored me.”
Vermont shrugged uncomfortably. “I thought he was looking for a way out.”
From the corner of my vision, I saw them cuffing Florian and pulling him to his feet. He was groggy, his head lolling. Still watching him, I spoke softly to Silver. “You got here so fast.”
He cupped my cheeks, tenderly feeling the swelling above my eye. “We were still on the road when we turned around.”
Vermont crouched beside Silver, reaching for his wrists. “Let me get these off, they're pointless now.” The cuffs slid free, and while I saw his skin was raw from struggling, Silver didn't bother checking out his injuries. He was too busy fixating on mine.
“He could have killed you,” Silver whispered hotly. His hands held me tighter, there was a good chance he'd never let me go. “Why would you put yourself in danger like that for me?”
I ran the pad of my thumb across his brow, then down to the dip of his cheekbone. “When you're in love, you stop caring about the risks.”
Silver looked down at me with his mouth fixed in a perfect line. I had a minute of feeling ridiculous. Had I really said that?
Burying my worries with his lips, the man I loved... the man I trusted... kissed me until I knew nothing but that moment. There was no pain, no fear, no torment. All that existed was the two of us wrapped together.
What more could I ever need?
- Epilogue -
Silver
The next few days were a funny blur.
Florian was, of course, charged with hacking the security systems of all the banks. Even Old Stone, a crime that belonged entirely to me. I didn't mind; it meant I could finally stop looking over my shoulder.
It was hard to feel sympathy for my old friend. He'd intended to let me take the fall for every robbery. The automatic system he'd buried in my computer was set on a timer. It would hack each bank one by one, tucking the money safely away in encrypted bits in overseas accounts.
Every bit of evidence would point to me.
But then, I'd been arrested before he'd expected me to be. And the next timer was too soon, if it went off, it would make it harder to prove I'd done everything—because I was in cuffs at the time.
He probably could have said I'd been using an auto-timed system, but his fingers were all over the code, the damn calling card. He'd been too cocky... he always had been.