Player (A Secret Baby Sports Romance)(265)

I’m already dead. This is, in fact, death, and this is my afterlife. This is my judgment standing right in front of me, and when he pulls out a large, wicked looking knife, I find myself nodding and setting my jaw; “Let’s do this, devil,” I mutter, my vision swimming in and out of darkness; “Let the purgatory begin, demon!”

The Logan Archangel in front of me frowns and rolls his eyes before hauling back and slapping me hard across the face. The hit jolts me back into the now, and I blink; holy shit, it’s actually Logan.

“You’re not dead, Toro,” He shakes his head as he slips the blade through the ropes tying me to the chair and cuts me loose; “Not yet at least.” He yanks me roughly to my feet, and I groan at the the pain lancing through me from the beatings and from the burn marks of the electric nodes.

“Look, shithead,” Logan growls, hauling me upright, his eyes piercing mine; “I haven’t decided that I like you, or if I forgive you.” I swallow, eyeing the knife in his hands. He nods at me; “But you saved her life, and you showed honor; more than I’d have given you credit for.”

I nod my head, wincing when he yanks me closer; “If you fuckin hurt her, I’ll bury you. You know that, right?”

I grin, raising my hand to clap him on the back; “Irish, if I ever hurt that girl, I’ll dig the hole myself, comprende?

Logan’s face splits into a grin right back at me. He’s nodding as the rest of them come crashing into the room; Bryce and Hudson, and some older guy holding a Goddamn revolver, and-

-And her.

I let myself drop into her as Chelsea shoves Logan out of the way and wraps her arms around me; “I love you.” She whispers, hugging me fiercely and crying into my neck; “You never let me say that at the airfield.”

“I love you, too,” I say, for the second time ever, feeling like the world is somehow aligning right; like somehow God and fate and karma are giving me a second shot.

“Ready to get out of here, princess?”

“You gonna steal me if I say no, criminal?”

I grin at her: “Definitely.”





32





Chelsea




E P I L O G U E



Change is a funny thing, and it comes in ways and shapes you’ll never see coming.

As it turns out, Javier was a wealth of information on illicit activities in the Americas; in particular, the drugs and weapons traffic routes through the Caribbean and Florida. So much so, in fact, that the State Department was willing to forgo all pending charges in order to put him on task forces with the D.E.A.

Yeah, bad-ass, criminal, smuggler, thief, extortionist Javier Toro is working for the good guys now; who would’ve thought?

“Informant? Fuck that,” He declared during the initial sit-down meeting with D.E.A. Commissioner on the offer; “Informant sounds like a fucking weasel.”

Yep, that’s the man I love; pushing buttons and trying to get cute at a meeting that literally determines his fate for the next twenty-five years to life. But I’ve gotta say, the man knows what he wants, and he won’t stop until he gets it.

And he does, of course. In the end, he even got them to officially grant his title as “Master of Secrets”; I swear I could not make this stuff up if I tried.

Family is family, and after they forgave me for all the secrets surrounding my job stuff, they slowly started to get on board with the Javier thing as well. My sisters - well, I mean come on; those two really don’t have a rock to stand on when it comes to getting involved with men they shouldn’t. It’s worth pointing out that things worked out just fine in those circumstances too, and I think once they realized I knew exactly what I was doing, they took it just fine.

“Will it be hilarious or awful if I get him a neck warmer for Christmas?” Quinn says with wicked grin. Yeah, we’re going to be just fine on that front.

Bryce oddly enough ended up being the first of the guys to warm up to Javier. Apparently, a mutual love of the Barcelona soccer club has a way of mending fences in ways I couldn’t - and honestly still don’t - understand. Hudson moved from standoffish to indifferent, and then eventually to casually friendly with him; Reagan’s helping me out there.

Logan we’re still working on. Life isn’t a cutesy movie ending, and saying that everyone just decided to be best friends after everything that’s happened would be a lie. Logan and Javier have some serious history to work through, though they’re trying. They’re apparently going to start boxing together, which should be, well, interesting.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner too, and we’re actually going to have all of us together under one roof for the first time ever. The mercenaries, the soldiers, the politician, the mother, the doctor, the spy, the philanthropist, the recovering alcoholic, the ex-addict, the long lost sister, the princess, and the criminal. Because sometimes family is who we choose it to be, and I couldn’t have picked a better one.