I let go of Castle and try to scramble backward, but it’s too late. I’m sliding faster than I can climb. There’s no way to save myself. Until something seizes my sleeve. I see Aida, clinging to the doorframe with one hand, and my wrist with the other. Her teeth are bared with effort, her face a rictus of pain as she tries to hang on to the frame with her broken hand.

I don’t grab her arm, because I can see how weak her grip is. I’m not dragging her down with me.

“I love you, Aida,” I say.

“Don’t you fucking dare!” she yells back at me. “You grab my arm, or I’ll jump in after you!”

With anyone else, it would be an idle threat.

Aida is the only person I know who’s stubborn enough to actually do it.

So I grab her arm and I haul myself upward, right as the joists give way and the whole room collapses. Oliver howls as he tumbles down into the flames. Aida and I fling ourselves through the doorway, scrambling down the hallway hand in hand. There’s no going down the stairs again, that much is obvious. We run to the opposite end of the house instead, finding a child’s room with sailboat decals still stuck to the walls. Oliver’s old room.

I wrench up the windowsill and climb out, letting out a fresh pillar of dark smoke. I hang from the window frame and then drop down. Then I put up my hands to catch Aida.

She jumps down into my arms, still only wearing one shoe.

As we sprint away from the house, I can hear the distant wail of sirens.

I’m pulling Aida down the drive to the Jeep. Aida yanks her hand out of my grip, yelling, “Wait!”

She runs in the opposite direction, past the inferno of the house, out on the sand toward the water.

She pauses, stooping to pick something up—her purse.

Then she runs back to me, her white teeth brilliant against her filthy face as she grins at me.

“Got it!” she says triumphantly.

“I can buy you a new purse,” I tell her.

“I know,” she says.

I’m about to start the engine, but there’s something I can’t wait another second to do, either.

I grab Aida and I kiss her, tasting blood and smoke on her lips.

I kiss her like I’ll never let her go.

Because I won’t. Not ever.

29

Aida

Callum and I turn onto the main road right as the fire truck comes roaring up the lane, headed for the Castle’s beach house—or what’s left of it, anyway.

I can see the firemen’s faces as our car passes their truck—they’re looking down at us, eyebrows raised, but unable to stop us fleeing the scene.

“What a fucking trip!” I shout, my heart still galloping like a racehorse. “Did you know Ollie was that crazy? I thought he was just normal crazy, like ‘I don’t want my food to touch,’ or ‘talking to yourself in the shower’ crazy, not like full-out Shining.”

Callum is driving way too fast, hands locked on the steering wheel. Improbably, he’s grinning almost as much as I am. Could my uptight husband actually be starting to enjoy our adventures?

“I can’t believe I found you,” he says.

“Yeah, holy shit! Did you find my shoe?”

“Yes, I found it! And I remembered.”

He looks over at me, his blue eyes brilliant against his smoky skin. I don’t know how I ever thought his eyes were cold. They’re fucking beautiful. The most stunning eyes I’ve ever seen.

Even more striking is the fact that he understood me, that he remembered our conversation. It almost means more to me than the fact that he came to rescue me.

“Actually, I’ve got the other one in here somewhere,” Cal says, twisting around to search the back seat.

“Eyes on the road!” I tell him. I find the sneaker a minute later, slipping it back on my foot. It’s comically cleaner than the other now, so they no longer look like a matching set.

“There,” I say. “Fully dressed again.”

Cal’s eyes alight on my bare left hand.

“Not entirely,” he says.

“Oh, fuck,” I say angrily. “I forgot about that.”

“Is it back at the house?” Cal asks.

“Yes. But Oliver smashed it.”

“I don’t think it would have survived either way,” Cal says. He squeezes my thigh with his hand. “Don’t worry about it. I wanted to get you another anyway. You know I didn’t pick that one out.”

“I know,” I grin. “I’m getting to know Imogen’s taste pretty well.”

Cal turns onto the highway, heading north toward the city again.

“You better call your brothers,” he says. “They thought Zajac stole you.”

“I might have been better off if he did,” I say, wrinkling up my nose. “Honestly, I think his villain speeches were better. He’s a proper badass, you know? Whereas Oliver was so whiny, putting on the guilt trips . . . like Jesus dude, get on Tinder, get over it.”

Callum stares at me for a second, then he starts laughing so hard that his shoulders shake.

“Aida, you’re out of your fucking mind,” he says.

I shrug. “Just a helpful critique.”

I dial Dante’s phone, but it’s Nero who picks up.

“Aida?” he says.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Thank fucking hell. I thought I was gonna have to drive over there in a second.”

“Why, where are you?”

“At the hospital. Dante’s been shot. He’s alright though!” he hastens to add. “Zajac got him in the side—he didn’t hit anything crucial.”

“That filthy shit!” I seethe. “He’ll pay for that.”

“He already did,” Nero says blandly. “He’s dead. Dante’s got better aim than the Butcher.”

“Dead? Are you sure?”

Cal looks over at me, following my side of the conversation, but equally disbelieving.

“Totally sure,” Nero says firmly. “Unless he’s got a spare head laying around somewhere, he’s done for.”

“Well, shit,” I say, leaning back against my seat. This really was an eventful night.

I look over at Callum, whose face looks pale beneath the soot. He’s got a nasty cut over his right eyebrow, and he winces a little every time he takes a deep breath.

Come to think of it, I’m not exactly in tiptop shape myself. My hand is throbbing in time with my heartbeat, and my ring and pinky fingers have swollen up again. I’m probably going to need another cast.

“What hospital are you at?” I ask Nero. “We might need to join you.”

It takes a couple of hours for Callum and me to get cleaned up and patched up at St. Joseph’s. Dante will be there a few days at least—they had to put three pints of blood back into him. Jack and Nero are keeping him company. I’m shocked to see their bruised and battered faces.

“What the hell happened to you?” I ask them.

“While Dante was having a shootout at the mistress’s apartment, Jack and I were NOT finding the Butcher and getting our asses kicked by his lieutenant instead.”