Stolen from the Hitman: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance(80)
I let the handle slip from my fingers as I turn to meet Max, who’s rushing forward to catch me in his arms as we melt into one another, his strong muscles lifting me off my feet and swinging me around as he squeezes me tight into that strong, comforting grip.
“Oh my god,” I sob into his chest, “oh my god, Max, I thought I’d lost you.”
“Liv,” he says back, his own voice choked with joy as he sets me back down and looks into my tear-stained eyes, “it’s over, Liv, truly over. He’s gone, my love.”
“How did you-”
“I leaped from the car before the gunmen started firing,” he said, “into the ditch, then dashed to the forest. I killed one of the men I landed near and started from there.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Only that your wedding day was ruined, lyubov moya.”
A smile tugs at my face involuntarily, and I hug him back as hard as I can, meeting his lips for a kiss. “Alongside you, Max, no day can be ruined.”
We look at each other a long time, our hearts sailing together out of the darkest storm of our lives, and even in the smoke-filled forest, tattered and battered, for the first time in so, so long, we share in each other’s peace. “Come on,” he finally says, his voice low. “Let’s get out of here.”
I glance back at Will’s car, by now a shot-up mess. “I’m not sure bullet holes are street legal in France.”
“No,” Max admits, glancing at the road behind us, then flashing me a coyly raised eyebrow, “but didn’t you mention wanting to take a walk through the French woods some time?”
My smile broadens, and I burst into laughter, punching him playfully in the side of the arm before giving a yelp as he sweeps me off my feet, carrying me back down the road and through the autumn woods, leaving everything else behind us at last.
Epilogue
When I first came to Paris, it was something like a dream come true, some kind of wild fantasy I’d only imagined being thrust into. My outlook might have changed a lot since then, but that doesn’t stop me from appreciating the surreal beauty of Monaco from the balcony of our hotel suite any less. Over the past few minutes, I’ve been losing myself as I gaze out onto the sunset that’s casting a pink light over the Mediterranean, thinking about what a storm the last month was, and what a breath of fresh air these past few days have been.
The firefight in the forest is still burned bright in my memory. The first few nights afterwards, I woke up in a cold sweat next to Max, forgetting he was right there beside me just like that first night we spent together. Remembering that first night always dispelled the night terrors, though, as I recalled the feeling of him curling around me protectively. I smile, remembering how embarrassing that felt, asking him to sleep beside me. He was my teacher, for goodness’ sake! My towering, muscular Russian teacher. That all seems so far away now.
“What are you smiling about, lyubov moya?” Max’s voice is like silk behind me as he strides out of the open glass doors to the balcony, slipping his arms around me to give me a hug and stroke his hand over my stomach, feeling the baby that’s yet to start showing visibly. I smile as I turn my head to kiss him, letting out a soft moan as he presses into my back and slides his hands to my shoulders to start massaging gently.
“Hm, just you,” I say, turning my eyes back to the glittering water out there. I hear him chuckle as he rubs my back. That sound has been a pleasant new experience — a genuine, mirthful chuckle, free of all the worries that burdened him down back in Paris. Not that the city itself held too many bad memories to bear. Our little house on the outskirts of the city is a testament to that.
We even had the wedding in the city, both to enjoy the living spirit of the city that could at least for a little while be free of the pall it had cast over us and to send a message to onlookers that we would never be cowed by our enemies. And now, all of that is put to rest. The second ceremony was even more beautiful than the first one was going to be, and it was everything I could have hoped for. The light at the end of the darkest tunnel of my life is turning out to be the brightest, now.
Well, almost. I’m having to put a hold on my gymnastics career, largely thanks to the child I’ll be carrying for the next eight months, but after everything that’s happened, a break is more than welcome, and Max has taken steps to ensure that as soon as I’m ready to get back out there, I’ll have a place at the university waiting for me.
Maggie, meanwhile, seems to be channeling her trauma into a kind of renewed energy in leaps and bounds — literally. Max says he sees something in her that supersedes even the potential he saw when he recruited her. She’s excelling so quickly that she’s already helping tutor some of the other students, and as a trauma survivor, getting out there and being physically active again has done wonders for her mental health. Of course, we’re around each other nearly all the time she isn’t at school — you don’t go through something like that with someone and not feel a special kind of connection.