She wakes up with my hand between her legs. Doesn't take her long to moan when I press my thumb against her clit, pushing my fingers through the sweet, hot wetness I fucked long and hard last night.

“Ryan?” she murmurs, smiling, as if she has to remind herself it's really happening.

“Say my name louder,” I tell her, pushing my fingers into her harder, teasing the spot along her inner wall that makes her legs tremble. “I want everybody in these condos to know who's fucking you, babe.”

Her body ripples, unsure, the last shred of reason on her brain trying to pull her away from me. I grab her by the waist, jerk her back, and rub her pussy until the next few moans off her lips flow like honey.

“You love it, and you love me, too. I'm done hiding, Kara-bou. Done holding anything back. We're waking up fresh and alive. Today's the last day this town ever thinks you're with him. Ruining this bed is just the beginning.”

Her lips form a circle when she hears it. My ears prickle, listening as she sucks in a fierce little breath, turning me to granite.

I need to be inside her.

Can't get enough since we started last night. I barely backed off fucking for a few hours so we could get some sleep. My jet leaves in a few hours, ready to bring us out to Seattle, just like I promised. I intend to spend every waking minute we have left in this town naked, joined, and making up for every lost night I wasn't with my wife.

Still feels like I haven't made up one one-thousandth of the time we've been apart.

My dick swells, bulging against her ass. Kara wiggles into me, urged on by lust, but also the chill in the air. Didn't allow her any clothes, not when I've waited five years to have her naked next to me again.

My heat will do. So will the friction of my frantic cock when it's buried deep inside her, promising to make her moan, scream, and sweat through the whole winter.

Her thighs twitch around my hand. She's fighting me, the little minx, so overcome with pleasure she can't stand it.

Growling, I pull her legs apart. My fingers go harder, faster, and I bring my mouth down on hers, letting my tongue mimic my hands.

In. Out. In. Out.

Fuck, yes.

We suck hungrily. She whimpers each time her throbbing clit grazes my thumb. I'm going to go insane if I can't own every hole in her body over and over and over again. My dick presses against her tight ass, and soon, I can't control myself a second longer.

I move away. Her face looks pleading and infuriated.

“Climb on top of me, baby,” I growl, reaching for her ass, helping her straddle me. “I want your beautiful tits in my face when you're coming on every inch.”

She blushes. I move my hands on her faster, aggressively, pushing her slick pussy down on my aching length.

I can't believe this. It's incredible that she fucks like a virgin after all these years.

Part of me feels touched, like I've been handed more than a second chance. It's a fresh opportunity to do everything I always wanted, but better because I've become a man.

The other part is pissed.

I hate the worm who's been laying in her bed for the past year and a half. It enrages me to know he left her wanting like this, grinding her hips in desperation as soon as she sinks down onto me, wrapping her arms around my neck and pursing her lips for another kiss.

It's like she hasn't been fucked good in all five years. She's starving, and the maggot I roughed up is responsible.

No more. She's never rolling out of bed unsatisfied again.

My lips take hers. I give her everything. My hips crash into hers with twice the fury, running my pubic bone against her clit.

Her head goes back, she moans, and everything gets hotter and wetter around my dick. I'm going to turn this woman into a permanent squirter. It's the least she deserves after being robbed of real sex, chained to a boy who never had the strength or heart to fuck her like a man.

“I love you, Kara.” I whisper the words right before I take her nipple between my teeth.

She whimpers, rocking into me faster, sweet and close to coming. It's not enough to pluck every nerve in her gorgeous body, even though that's what makes my cock howl for release.

I want her heart. I want it back. I want it bound to me like we always promised, and I won't stop saying everything I've locked up for years.

“Come, baby, come.” I grab her hair, fisting it in my palm. Then my hips pound hers, bringing her over, forcing her nails into my shoulders when she clenches them.

Rolling her head back, she screams. “Ryan – fuck!”

Her pussy squeezes my entire cock for what feels like forever. The heat in my balls becomes a second sun. We fuck like no tomorrow. Fucking to wipe away yesterday. She's barely coming down from the high when I'm snarling, quickening my speed, crashing into her so hard the bed beneath us rattles like sticks in the wind.

“Good goddamn, you're tight, baby. Only pussy in the world that was ever made to fit me like a glove. You were mine for good the first night we fucked, baby girl. No years apart will ever change that.” I'm pulling on her hair faster, slowing my strokes until she looks at me, her green eyes flashing lust and need. “You knew I'd come back, didn't you?”

She bites her lip. For a second, I'm worried I'm going to ruin the mood, but she moans when I drive myself deep into her again.

“I knew,” she whispers. “I always believed, even when I wanted to quit. When you showed up, you saved me from the biggest mistake of my life.”

“Guess it's your lucky day. I'm about to save you from the second biggest, too,” I say, pressing my forehead to hers, my free hand palming one breast as it pulses in my hand, her lungs trying to make up so much lost breath.

“Not that.” She looks at me and my hips twitch, picking up speed again, until I see her eyelids flutter. “Jesus. I don't know if I can come again, Ryan. I –“

Bullshit. I own her now. I always did, and I'll tell her when, where, and how many times to come.

My lips meet hers, more of a love bite than a true kiss. “You're dead wrong. I won't stop taking your sweet cunt until you give it up to me one more time. You're mine, Kara-bou. Morning, noon, and night. You were mine yesterday, and you'll be mine tomorrow, sharing every last, best part of me. When I tell you to come in and see my soul, you do it. When I tell you to just come, you're going to fucking do it. Come for me, beautiful. Come like you always wanted every night you were with him, hoping it was me. We're not leaving this bed unless it's broke.”

I'm thrusting like a madman now. She bounces every time my dick plunges in to the hilt. My balls fly up, spanking her skin. There's no doubt she's heard me because her eyes are closed.

She's soaking in every last word, every sensation as I take both her hands, hold them in mine, and power fuck through every doubt she's ever had.

It doesn't take long for her pussy to tighten on my dick. The feverish sound slipping out through her teeth when she comes again gives me a rush. I fuck harder, ready to go over the edge with her.

There's a spring of fire coiling up in my balls, running up my spine, igniting my brain. When it hits the base of my dick, everything I've felt for this woman wells up in half a second, and then it ruptures.

I'm coming.

Snarling, grunting, growling like an animal who's taken control of its mate. I'm not afraid to admit that's what I've become, and I'm not letting her go, no matter how much this town wants to skin me alive when they find out who I am and what I've done.

My seed pours out in hot, dense ropes. Her mouth falls open, but she's too overwhelmed with my heat to even scream, breathlessly caught in her pleasure.

My beautiful, beloved captive. The only one I've ever wanted and ever will want for the rest of my days, and at least half of those days are going to be filled with her convulsing all over my cock, both of us crying out when my seed fills her belly again.

One day soon, my load is giving her a kid. It won't be the last one I put in her either. I'm not stopping until we've got everything we always wanted. The love, the ring, the family.

All of it.

Desire runs hot, especially when I think about her soft belly swelling with our child, her pert breasts turning full and dark.

I can't stop fucking her now. My body moves like a machine, programmed to fuck and nothing else.

I'm not exaggerating. I've just come my brains out, and I'm still hard for her.

My orgasm only weakens when I start thrusting again, ready to see if I can bring her off a third time in the same half hour.

I'll carry her onto my private jet if I have to. Spent, satisfied, and wearing a just fucked smile on her lips.

We never get that far though. Several more furious strokes in, something gives way when she crashes down on me, engulfing my cock.

There's a loud snap! Next thing I know, we're flat on the floor. The mattress bangs the designer rug underneath the bed like a bowling ball dropping on the Brazilian cherrywood.

I'm still buried in her when she starts laughing. It takes me several seconds to shake off the surprise, and then I'm grinning like a fool, chuckling alongside her.

“See that? When I told you we'd break this bed, I wasn't kidding.”

“You're insane!” she says, scolding me with a finger tapping on the lightning bolts tattooed on my chest. “He's going to kill me when he sees this, you know. We'll both catch hell for it. This rug belonged to his rich parents. They gave it to us as a housewarming present.”

“Fuck the Draytons,” I tell her. Honestly, truthfully, carelessly perhaps, I'm done holding anything back. “He deserves a lot worse for what he did to you. Whenever he gets home, he's going to find all your stuff gone, and every sheet left on this fucked up bed stained with us.”

“You're really evil,” she says, but the smile on her face tells me there's no warmth left in her heart for the cheating bastard who nearly screwed her in all the worst ways. “Luckily, I kind of like it.”

“Kind of?” I say, cupping her face in my hand, bringing it in for another kiss. “Kara-bou, you've got my whole heart, the dark and the light. Let me see everything in yours. We've got time before the jet takes off.”

She smiles. “That's what? A couple more hours?”

“Yeah, and I'm still hard.”

I roll her over, planting her hands above her head as she bends over, taking her ass in both of my hands. I mount her from behind and take her pussy to heaven once again.

She comes a few more times, and so do I, before we hit the shower together.

* * *

When I come upstairs, bringing a thermos of coffee like she asked, she's in a robe. Her face is turned to the window, and she's sitting on the chaise next to the fallen mattress, the sheets still tangled and torn in a few places from our savage loving.

“You ready?” I ask, handing her the coffee, about to head to the opposite corner where I dropped my clothes last night. “I told my assistant to get some movers out here tomorrow. Just need to drop the keys at the office when we're on our way to the airport, and they'll take care of everything. Should have your stuff in storage this time tomorrow, until we decide where it goes next.”

“I can't go with you,” she says, folding her arms. “Not unless you're ready to tell me the truth about what happened. I need to know why you left, and why you killed a man, assuming that's what really happened.”

My heart relaxes for half a second before it starts banging my ribs like mad. I'd been ready to give her the full truth the other night, before her brother interrupted us, but now I'm taken aback.

“It's a long story,” I say, moving to the chair across from her, wondering where the hell I should begin. Not that there's ever a good starting point with something this twisted. “I can give you the abbreviated version. Plane leaves in less than an hour.”

“I don't care what version you give me, as long as it's the truth. I need to know why, Ryan. Believe me, I want to go. I want to trust you. I want to rebuild what we had before. But we can't do any of that as long as it's hanging over us” She folds her hands, leans forward, and looks me in the eyes. “Please. Just tell me why you ran.”

“Okay.” Now, I know what a man under an interrogation feels like, and the stakes are just as high here.

What if the story I'm about to tell her frightens her to death?

What if she won't go? Won't look at me after she knows?

What if she can't forgive the blood on my hands, or the lies?

“I'm waiting,” she insists, unclasping her hands. They come out, reaching for mine, and I look into her eyes.

No, fuck, I can't lie to her again. I won't run away a second time when I'm one step away from having her back in my life.

“You can't hate anyone who's already dead,” I say. “That's the only thing I want you remembering before I tell you the rest.”

She blinks, confusion clouding her eyes. I don't say anything until she nods, agreeing to my terms. Then I launch into the cruelest night of my life, the one that fucked up everything.

* * *

You know about Nelson Drayton. How I buffed out the scratches on his car, made his baby just like new again, all while the dinosaur with the lifelong silver spoon in his mouth expected miracles without any time to work them.

He asked me to clean up the interior after I'd finished the main job. I was happy to do it quick and clean, just to get him the hell out of there.

I'm on my hands and knees, jabbing the vacuum in hard to reach places. There's a lot of ash everywhere, like the pig spills it all over his car, carelessly flinging ash from his cigars everywhere. If I miss a speck, I'm sure I'll catch hell, so I do several sweeps.

There's something in the way underneath his driver's seat when I reach down. I have to turn off the vacuum and pull with both hands just to move it.

It's a thick black leather folio, bloated with so much material stuffed inside it's barely held together by the metal clasp.

If only I'd been more careful pulling it out, I'd have saved everyone so much grief.

Didn't work that way. My hand catches against the steering wheel when I lift it up, banging the leather binder so hard it comes apart. A hundred papers go flying out.

“Shit!” I swear, hit the ground, and begin reaching for the material strewn everywhere, escaping underneath his car.

Halfway through gathering it up, I get a good look at what's on those pages. My brain freezes, realizing what I'm seeing.

Maybe a third of the mess are ordinary papers, lists of names and numbers. The rest, the other two thirds...

They're pictures. Violent, sadistic, unspeakable photographs burned forever in my head. And the poor women in them, the girls, they're all too young.

I swear I recognize a couple faces from the orphanage. The place was tied to his charity, which he used to bring me to a foster home in Split Harbor. Apparently, I wasn't the only one he freed, but nobody's seen the girls since.

Certainly not around town.

While I left hell, got on my feet, and found a life here, they've been God knows where, serving this animal and the other brutes in his hideous photos.

My first instinct is to vomit. The second is to race for the phone, call Bart, and ask for advice because I don't know what the hell to do.

I can't just call the cops on a Drayton. Nelson has everyone in this town in his back pocket, and its his word against mine.

These sick, gruesome pictures are the only evidence I have that this man – this fucking monster – isn't the paragon of respect and charity everyone believes him to be.

There's no other explanation. It's him in the photographs, leering at the girls. A decent man wouldn't be caught dead with what I've got tucked under my shaking arm.

I have to get out of here. Need to bring it to someone, anyone who knows what to do with it. There's got to be some way to get Nelson Drayton, bring him to trial, and lock this vampire away where he'll never hurt anyone again.

I'm pacing, trying not to let the panic win. I can't freeze up, damn it.

Absent-mindedly, I crinkle up one page with names and numbers – probably other criminals involved in bringing him fresh victims – and stuff it in my pocket.

There's no time to spare.

I'm heading for the office, wracking my brain for options, when the asshole himself walks through the back door. He stops near the wall, stubbing his cigar out. He doesn't see me at first.

Too bad I have to walk by him to get where I'm going. I try to make it, but he hears my footsteps, whips his head around, and stares at me like a wolf.

“You done yet, kid?” he asks, taking a full second to notice the mess tucked under my arm. Then his old, evil eyes go wide. They darken, black holes full of fury, desperate to swallow me up. “Christ. That doesn't belong to you.”

No shit. He's coming toward me, and he's pissed.

I've been in bad places before in foster homes and orphanages, thrown in with unsavory characters from every corner of the Midwest. This is the first time my heart leaps in my throat, and beats so hard I freeze.

He's almost got his hands on me when I start backing up. I hit the corner and I look around, shaking because there's nowhere else to run. Nelson stops in front of me, quietly seething.

He's still trying to keep his composure. It's like watching a wild animal wearing a person's mask, the illusion hanging by a thread.

“That isn't yours, boy. You took it from my car. Need you to give it back.” His voice is like ice. “Give it the fuck back to me. Now.”

“No,” I tell him, standing up taller and straighter than I ever have in my life. Maybe if I can scare him, he'll back off, retreat, buy me some precious time. “You're not getting it again. I saw what's in here, Mr. Drayton...the girls...torture. You're seriously asking me to give it back, look the other way, pretend I never saw it?”

“That's what I'm telling you to do, you stupid little shit.” Anger curls his lips into a wretched smile. He cocks his head, the blackness in his eyes deepening. “What do you think you're going to do with it, anyway? Run to the police? The FBI? I swear to God, I'll pay them whatever it takes to let me off the hook. I'll burn my treasures in front of their eyes. You've got a lot to learn about how this world works, kid, but let me give you a primer. I'm on top. You aren't. I can get away with shit that'll curdle your stomach. Don't make this a fight, or you'll find out what kind of damage money and a name can do.”

I don't say anything. I look him in his wicked, beady eyes, clutching the leather folio tighter, my eyes scanning everything around us.

There's Mickey's tall, messy toolbox, just a few feet away. All sorts of blunt objects laying out on top of it, right above the Playboy bunny sticker he's got slapped on the side.

“I don't want to fight you,” I tell him. My voice crinkles in my throat, harsh and dry as autumn leaves. “But I can't give this up, Mr. Drayton. I won't.”

“I'm not asking your permission, fuckwipe,” he growls, two vicious fists forming at his sides. “It seems you're confused. Let me help you out. You want to give me my property, go home, and pretend we never had this conversation. Only chance I'm going to give. Go ahead and stick your nose where it doesn't belong, I'll damned sure bite it off, boy. I'll burn you to the ground, and that'll just be the start.”

He pauses, doing a slow turn, looking around the garage before he's facing me again. “I can, and I will, make everything go up in a puff of smoke. I'll close Bart's Auto. Ruin this place with liens and lawsuits so fast your stupid, righteous head will spin. Believe me, I'll make sure that you and everybody who ever worked here are done in this town, and their friends and families are done, and you're packed away in a state pen doing time for threatening an old man before your young life's gotten off the goddamned launch pad.”

“No. No,” I say it again, instinct taking over, ready to fight and kill if I need to just to put this disgusting bastard away. “You don't scare me.”

“No?” His feet are moving again, heading toward me, closing the narrow gap between us. “Then you're much stupider and selfish than you look. I'm not asking again. Give me my book!”

He lunges. I have just enough time to whirl out away, race to Mickey's toolbox, and grab the first thing I see.

Nelson charges me, hits me in the spine, and knocks me on the ground before I can turn around. His strength shocks me for a man his age, but the asshole's fighting for his life.

He knows how fucked he is if I get this out. We both do.

His weathered hands go around my throat and squeeze.

There's no second guessing this. No time to find a legal, just way out that doesn't involve someone getting hurt. The look in his eyes tell me he's serious. He's going to kill me if I don't stop him in the next ten seconds.

I hesitate for two more. Everything grows louder, like a violent, throbbing roar in my ears. It's my own blood, seething with adrenaline.

My hand moves automatically, clenching the wrench. I put everything I've got into the swing, my one and only chance to take him out.

There's a wet crack, like someone tossing a pumpkin on the street. The killing hands wrapped around my throat loosen, just as everything goes hazy and black.

I think he's going down, falling on top of me, but I'm too weak to kick him off me.

I pass out, the wrench falling out of my hand, overwhelmed with everything that's happened. Blackness drowns me.

There's no telling how long I'm out. When I come back, the old demon's body is off me. In fact, he isn't anywhere to be found. There's no sign it ever happened, except for a rusty red stain drying on the ground next to me.

Shit. Did he get away? I stagger to my feet, suddenly noticing the black folio, and all the hell tucked inside, are also gone.

“You're lucky I didn't have to throw water in your face, son. That was going to be Plan B.” Bart's voice causes me to jump.

I turn around and see him wiping his hands, cleaning them with some chemical that makes my nostrils pucker. He's watching me sadly, like I've done something irredeemable. It hits me that, Jesus, maybe I have.

Did I kill him? Murder the old man?

I have to explain everything before it's too late. I rush up to the man who's been like a father to me, grab him by the shirt, and stare into his eyes, hoping maybe they'll give me a shred of peace and sanity.

“Where did he go? And the pictures, the wrench...? Please, tell me you didn't let him get away.”

“He's finished, Ryan. Doesn't take a genius to put two and two together. I saw the photos. Then I saw the wrench with your fingerprints on it and the blood pouring out of the crease in his skull. I'm looking at the bruises on your neck right now, son. I know you had no choice.”

“Is he...dead?”

I honestly don't know what answer I want. Is it worse knowing I've killed a man, or that the sick fuck got away?

Bart's expression turns stone cold. He nods. “Caught him trying to get up when I walked in. We're all very lucky on the timing. You hit him hard, enough to do some serious damage. Just not enough to put him away for good. You don't have to worry about him anymore. I finished what you started.”

“Finished?” I realize I'm not looking at my boss or future father-in-law anymore.

I'm staring at a man who used to be special forces more than twenty years ago. Cold blooded, efficient, and always accurate.

Nelson is done. Thank God. That's all I need to know.

I don't need the details, and he isn't offering them.

“What about the folio, Bart? We've got to bring them to someone who knows what to do. I'll tell them how I got them, who was in those pictures with the girls. I don't give a damn if I'm testifying against the mafia. Dead or alive, people need to know. Maybe they can help his victims, if they're are still out there.”

“You're in no condition to throw your life away, son. Frankly, neither am I.”

His words make me blink. I don't understand. I'm shaking my head, slowly releasing his shirt, pacing back and forth over the blood stain on the floor.

“What are you saying?”

“You're leaving tonight, Ryan. I've done everything I know how to prep his body to be laid out just the way I want, to take the flak off both of us. But I can't work miracles, son. They're going to think it was one of us who did him in, and if I turn over those pictures, it's going to be pinned on us.”

I can't believe I'm hearing this. I'm not sure whether it's the defeat in his words, or the coolness in his voice that turns my stomach the most. “He's dead, man! Gone. There's no way he can come back and twist the truth. Why in the hell wouldn't we do the right thing?”

“Because there's plenty more where he came from, Ryan. The Draytons are a powerful family. You don't just kill their head and expect them to take the fall. They'll stomp us like ants with their money and connections. I've lived in this town a lot longer than you, son. Long enough to know people like us don't win when we take them on through the system. We've done the right thing, the only thing we can, taking it onto ourselves and putting him away like this. That's the best case scenario, son. Unfortunately, with everything else, the damage is done.”

My head's about to explode. Next time I turn around, stop moving, and plant my feet firmly on the ground, I point my finger. “I can't let it go! It's insanity. You saw what was in those pictures, right?”

He nods.

“Then you also know what a sick fucking pervert we're dealing with. I don't care how corrupt he is. We'll go to the Feds. There's got to be somebody who'll look at all this, bring it where it matters, and end them all if they're in on it, without costing us our livelihoods!”

“There's nothing to show them, Ryan. I took the entire folio out behind the shed in the back, and burned it. I'll be vacuuming up the ashes later.”

“You did...what?!” My ears are ringing.

It's like the world is imploding on itself because I can't comprehend what's happening anymore. Burying my face in my hands, I back into the nearest wall, and start sliding down. It's impossible to stand with the only thing that might save our lives, gone to the seven winds.

“I'm sad that you're going to hate me, son, but I'd rather save your life. Even if we got the evidence into the right hands, the Draytons would have you in the hardest, dirtiest prison they can find.” He grabs a mop, and sloshes another acrid chemical over the blood stain on the floor, calmly scrubbing it with a brush.

“I don't care!” I mutter. It's weaker than it should be, words like lead pushed through my teeth.

“Well, I do. I'm not going to let them bring you up on murder charges, Ryan. I'm also not going to throw Bets, Matt, Kara, and all my employees under the goddamned bus. You'll have to trust me on this, son. You're leaving tonight to make a new life for yourself, and that's the way it's got to be.”

I'm hunkered down in disbelief, my face buried in my hands. At least a half hour blurs by with Bart cleaning the blood.

When he's finished, there's no sign a man ever died on the floor, and I'm no closer to answers.

“Let me talk to Kara,” I tell him, standing, reaching for the landline attached to the wall.

He runs up and tears it out of my hand before I can press a single button. “You still don't get it. When I said you're leaving tonight, son, I meant for good. You're vanishing like a ghost with no goodbyes. I can't allow it.”

I don't know if it's the confusion, or the horror of what he's saying. It takes all my strength to lift him up, throw him against the wall, and scream in his face.

“What the fuck are you talking about?! I have to tell her what's happened here! Or, at least, somebody does.”

“She'll never know a thing. I'm taking this to my grave, Ryan, and it's the way it has to be.” The same green eyes on my beautiful fiancee drill into me. They're hard, sad, and determined. “You need to keep quiet, too. The entire town is going to think you killed him, regardless of what we say or do. I told you, I can't work miracles. When I lay his body out, I'm going to tell them I found him like that. The wrench, they'll find in the dumpster out back, but it won't have your fingerprints.”

“You're not telling them anything, you selfish, backstabbing sonofabitch. I'll tell them my version.”

“Son, please.” His eyes turn dark, desperate. “I'm trying to reason with you. Hate me, call me every name in the book if it makes you feel better about what's going to go down. But I'm driving you down to the docks and putting you on the first boat I see. You've been out with the crew enough times to know how to get anything with a motor out on Superior, or near enough.”

No, no, no. Fuck no.

I'm shaking my head, and then I start shaking him. He never fights back, just stands there and takes it. Hot, crazy tears stream down my face as I'm slamming the only man I loved like family into the wall, raging because he's telling me everything I'll never accept.

I don't care about the truth.

I care about seeing her, fulfilling our promise, making her my wife. One brutal, but justified murder shouldn't fucking change that.

“Please,” he repeats, when I've lost the will to throw him into the brick again. “If you go behind my back, you refuse to listen, I can't stop you. But you'll do it knowing you're ruining your life, and Kara's too. You'll wreck the whole family's.”

“We can all leave. Find another town. They can't keep me in prison forever, and I'll send every damned dime straight to you, if that's what it takes to support the family. I'm supposed to be a part of it, remember?” My eyes search his, looking for the same acceptance I saw the day he gave me his blessing to date his daughter.

“And you always will be. I love you, son, because you're always willing to do the right thing, after all the shit you've suffered. You've got a good heart. There's no man I'd rather hand Kara off to. If it'd been anything but this, you know, I would've walked her straight down the aisle, into your arms.”

I see the familiar spark in his eyes, behind the sadness. It hasn't changed. He puts his hands against my chest, gently pushing me away, and gives me the saddest smile in the world.

“Think about her for a second. She'd want you to be happy and alive, Ryan. Not stabbed to death by some punk in the shower because he's pissed you won't join his gang for protection. You're too good a man for prison. You'll wind up dead if you go there. I don't care if we ever clear everybody's name, including yours. It's no good if you're gone, and my girl will never forgive me if I had a way to stop it. Well, I do. If you come to your senses, we'll get in my truck and go right now. I'll hand you all the money I can spare, and make it up to whoever's boat we steal later, one way or another.”

He won't stop stabbing me in the chest. I've stopped resisting because he's right, damn it, he's so right it's killing me worse than Nelson's evil hands ever did.

There's a boom in the distance. Loud and mournful, dense enough to shake the ceiling. Bart puts his hand on my shoulder, giving me the most fatherly squeeze I'll ever get.

“Go, son. Leave the rest to me. You have to get on that ship and go now. It's your only chance. Remember – and it's going to be an absolute bitch – you can't come back. You can't call her. You can't write, phone, email, or send a note by fucking pigeon to anyone here. Because if you do, and they realize where you are...”

I get it. Fuck, do I understand, like a blow to the face.

Defeated, I follow him out to the truck. It's raining by the time we get to the marina. He leads me over to the best boat docked there, the new thirty foot baby with the little cabin old man McCoy bought when he sold his land in Wisconsin last year.

He's trusting, like most people still are in this little town. It doesn't take us long to find the spare keys he's tucked into the ship's rear storage.

It's bigger than anything I've ever piloted before, but the controls seem familiar. Bart stands over my shoulder in the cabin. He doesn't leave until I've started her up, done a few checks, and taken down the tether from the dock. Then he takes an envelope and shoves it into my hand.

There must be two thousand dollars stuffed inside, maybe more.

I look at him, nodding glumly, hating how it feels when I jam it into my pocket. The money is a curse, a one-way ticket to a lonely new hell. I already want out.

“Take care of her,” I say, throwing my arms around him for the last time. “She's going to need everything to make it through the heartbreak. If you won't let me give her the life she deserves, I'm counting on you to do it. Make it right. Make her happy.”

“That's all I ever meant to do, son. Curse me when you're on the other side of the country if it helps. Best thing you can do is forget. It'll take time, but you can make it happen. Just forget about this town, about Nelson, about the family, and me. Forget her. Forget everything, and live your life.” Every time he says forget it's like another rusty blade digging through my ribs. “Because if you don't, if you ever come back, and you get busted...”

He doesn't finish his last thought. I push him away, turning back to the ship's controls, watching a bolt of lightning crackle through the sky.

“I'm sorry it has to be this way, Ryan,” he says, stopping one more time on his way out. “You deserve a second chance, and so does she. I'll fall all over myself to give it to you. I'll die, if that's what it takes.”

By the time I watch his dark shape climb onto the dock through the rain, he's already dead to me. I'll never have as much love and hate warped together as I do for him in this moment.

Soon, I can't think about anything at all, except how much the ship is about to break apart. It's dark and terrifying among the high waves. They kick me around, tip the entire ship, barely let me stay on the GPS course.

I'd be scared, if I weren't numb to everything. I'm drifting further into the night, remembering the last flash of lightning over Armitage Lighthouse, as brief and harsh as seeing Kara herself ripped away from me.

I can't remember how I made it near Superior in one piece, grounding the ship on the rocky northern shore sometime before sunrise, or how I hitchhiked all the way to Saint Paul to get on the train going west a few days later.

Somehow, I made it. I got to Seattle through the horror, the fury, the loss, and then I broke my promise to Bart on the first day. Standing there by the ferry terminal, looking out across the Puget Sound, I swore I'd see familiar waters again.

I wouldn't let her go, or Split Harbor.

I'd come back someday. Bigger, stronger, and better equipped to marry the only woman I ever loved. I'd find a way to erase the nightmare that went down that night, even if it meant stopping Bart from taking the dirty secret to his grave.

* * *

“I'm going to be sick,” Kara says, arms pressed tight, clutching her belly. “I can't stop thinking about the Draytons. Jesus, I was going to fucking marry one of them!”

“You aren't anymore,” I say, pulling her onto my lap, running my fingers softly through her hair. “That's all that matters, babe. You didn't know. Your father was hellbent on making sure you'd never find out.”

“I'm not sure that's true.” It takes her a moment to look at me. “I knew something didn't add up. He always walked away whenever I tried asking questions, told me he wouldn't talk about it. But the night he died, before he slipped into his coma for the last time...he wanted to tell me the truth, Ryan. I know he did. He regretted it. Knew he made a mistake. He knew I never stopped loving you.”

I've forgiven Bart for what happened over the years. He saved my life, even if he had to become one of the biggest bastards in the world to do it.

But hearing her tell me he cracked, almost confessed...I'm floored.

It's too much to take in all at once. There are no words.

So, I just sit there with her wrapped in my arms, rocking her on the chair next to the bed we just crashed. Entire worlds split apart, burn, and start to make sense.

The alarm on my phone goes off, the last warning I set to get going to the airport, jarring us out of our emotional trance. She throws her arms around me, wiping the tears that have already begun falling, burying her face in my chest.

I kiss her, hold her, rock her like the miracle she is.

Christ, I've taken her back, against the odds, and I'll never, ever let her go.

“You have to come clean,” she says, looking up. “Jesus, Ryan. We have to find the right authorities, clear your name, tell them what really happened. There has to be some kind of statement we can make, something to lead them in the right direction, even if there's no evidence.”

I nod, knowing there's only one way we've got a chance. She's still shaking, and it takes me a minute to calm her, folding my embrace tighter.

“God, what was he thinking?” she snarls, banging her fists on her knees. “I can't believe daddy burned the creep's book.”

“Not everything,” I say, smiling when I see the hope sparking in her eyes. “I stuffed a single page in my pocket. Forgot about it until the first driver gave me a break the next morning, taking me out of Wisconsin. I've kept it after all these years, and had a P.I. take a look at several of those names.

“And?” I can tell she's holding her breath.

“One's behind bars, busted for sex trafficking in Chicago a couple years back. The others are like him – entitled, heartless bastards who believe they can do the sickest shit in the world and never get caught. One good lead will bring them down, soon as we bring it to the right place. I would've done it already, but bringing you back into my life was more important. Plus the town might've beat me alive if they realized who I was the day I came in to cut the banner, opening Punch Corp here.”

“We shouldn't wait,” she says, standing up, her hand still grabbing at mine. “We should go now, or as soon as we land in Seattle. If we talk to the police there, surely they won't be corrupted by the Draytons.”

“It's time to go, Kara-bou,” I tell her, planting one more kiss on her forehead. “I have a few ideas, and we're going to discuss everything on the flight out there. Then we're going to forget all this, enjoy some alone time, and remember why every fucking punch we've taken is absolutely worth it.”

When we're finished dressing, I take her hand. There's hardly a moment her fingers leave mine the whole way to the airport.