“Good.”
I bit my lip. “Wyatt, listen.”
He held up his hand. “I don’t need you to say anything. I just want you to listen.”
I nodded, surprised.
He cleared his throat. “Your father wants me dead, and for good reason. He knows I was working with you now. How he figured that out, I have no fucking idea, but he sent an assassin to kill me two nights ago. Obviously, he failed.”
He came a few steps closer, crossing his powerful arms. I took a sharp breath as my heart started to beat hard in my chest, a strange ache running up along my thighs.
“So now I’m back in the city, and I don’t plan on leaving. What I plan on doing is taking your fucking father down so that I don’t need to keep worrying about him trying to kill me.”
“How are you going to do that?” I asked him.
“He’ll meet with me. I know he will. Maybe it’ll just be to kill me, but he’ll show up because that’s the kind of man he is. I want to set the meeting, and I want your people to be there to kill him.”
I bit my lip. “How do you know he won’t just send more assassins?”
“Because I’m going to offer him you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What?”
“I’m going to tell him that I’ll flip on you in exchange for him letting me live. I’ll even grovel a bit, and I know he won’t pass that up. Your father is too egocentric to miss that sort of thing. He’ll come, maybe with a small army, but he’ll come. And your only job will be to kill him.”
“Sounds easy,” I said.
“It won’t be. But it has to be you, Louisa. It has to be.”
I bit my lip, not sure what he meant. “Why?”
“Nobody else can pull it off. And I don’t trust anyone else.”
“Why would you trust me?”
He smirked. “Good question.”
“Seriously Wyatt. After what happened, why would we trust each other?”
“I wasn’t the one who threw you under the bus,” he said.
“I know. You’re right.”
“But trust is all we have.” He walked closer to me, and I felt like throwing myself at him. I knew that was insane, but the way he was looking at me made me want to give in to everything that I wanted. “We can’t get out of this without each other. You need to win this war, now more than ever. And I’d love to continue to breathe, if possible.”
“My people aren’t going to like this.”
“You won’t need them all. Choose the best of the best and use them. Only people that you trust. The others will fall into line when your father is dead.”
“Killing him doesn’t beat the mob,” I pointed out.
“True, but your brother will step into the power vacuum.”
I nodded. Lucas was the clear favorite to lead the mob after my father was dead. I could work with Lucas, come to some mutually beneficial arrangement. We didn’t hate each other like my father and I did; in fact, Lucas was the only one in the mob that I actually liked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I put trust in you once before and it backfired.”
“I know. But believe in me one more time, and we’ll win. I know we’ll win.”
“Why did you come back?” I asked him.
His smile never faded as he stepped closer to me. I crossed my arms and looked away as he stopped inches in front of me, his smile locked on his face. He took my chin and pulled my face toward him.
I stared back, defiant. I wasn’t going to just give him whatever he wanted, no matter how strong it was ringing through my core.
“This is why,” he said softly.
And then he kissed me.
That was all I needed. As I kissed him back, wrapping my arms around his neck and pushing myself against him, I knew I was going to do exactly as he asked. I turned my back on him once, foolishly, and I wouldn’t do it again.
I wasn’t going to give in to the pressures of my position or fear. I wasn’t going to fail myself, or Wyatt, or the girls ever again. I was going to step up and do the right thing, even if that right thing wasn’t popular.
And I was going to kiss Wyatt as hard as I could. Not because it was necessary, but because I wanted it.
Slowly, our kiss broke apart. My lips were buzzing with warmth from his mouth.
“This is why I came back,” he said softly. “For you. I could live on the run, but I’m not that kind of man. I had to finish what I started.”
“So you came back to beat my father?”
“No. I came back to finish what I started with you. As much as you don’t want to admit it, Louisa, you need me. And I need you.”
“I need you,” I whispered to him.