Please, God, let Landon’s intel be right.

We’ve parked over a mile down the road from an abandoned dock that’s been converted to a junk and scrap yard. Landon’s files from the Crown Security servers says this is the Pilgrims’ main base of operations in San Francisco, barricaded inside an old oil tanker they’ve turned into a hideout.

I have to hope they've brought Liv here rather than taking her all the way back to Seattle.

If not, then we’ve just wasted precious hours putting together a strike team.

And one worthless minute could mean her life.

We took the last mile on foot – me, Landon, James, Sky, Gabe, plus over a dozen part-time grunts from our lower ranks, all of us in utilitarian black that lets us blend into the night, connected by mic collars and radios.

But we’re communicating by signals now, shadows in the dark moving to flank the entrance to the junkyard, each of us armed with SAR 80s and a dozen spare clips. I’ve got mine braced to my shoulder, with several other handguns stashed on me, the Ruger at my hip. Liv’s gun.

I’ve promised myself it’s the one I’ll use to put a bullet through Lion’s skull.

Landon catches my eye. He’s nothing but a glint of cold blue eyes caged by a mask and black grease paint. There’s a warning in his gaze, but he’s asking, too, if I’m ready.

This is my mission. My call.

And yeah, I’m about to raise hell.

We don’t have much time. The police are on their way, SWAT en route. We had to report this to the police, but they’re too loud. Not subtle. They’d tip the Pilgrims off from miles away, giving them the chance to get away clean.

I’m not letting that happen.

Stopping, I scan the interior of the junkyard through the chain-link fence. It’s dark save for a few small mounted lights, hulking heaps of scrap metal and dead cars and ships making it hard to see the few Pilgrim guards patrolling. The shadows give us cover, too.

Our target: a ship floating at dock, so old and broken down, it’s listing half to the side, lit up from inside, gold illumination shining through the portholes. I sweep our team with a glance, then give the signal.

Go in quiet. Don’t make a sound.

Together, we swarm forward in a carpet of seething black, barely a rustle of gear and tread of feet.

I can taste imminent blood in the air, as salty as the brine off the sea. I can see sweat beading around the eyes of a few of the grunts, but I’m cold as ice inside my gear.

Every terrible thing I’ve ever done, every moment when I’ve become a monster, has been preparing me for this. I’ve always hated the dark, ruthless thing inside me.

Right now, I’m grateful for it.

It’s the only thing that'll give me the strength to save Liv.

I catch the first guard from behind. He doesn’t get a chance to make a sound.

My hand clamps over his mouth from behind, and I drop him with a quick twist and a crunch of the vertebrae in his neck. To my left I hear the muffled thump of a silenced bullet striking flesh, and the thud of a dropping body.

I let the limp man in my arms crumple to the pavement and dash forward, arrowing toward the ship. All around me the Pilgrims drop like flies, my team lethal and swift and closing in at my back. We're too good at our jobs.

In seconds, every last one of the guards is on the ground, and there’s nothing between us and our real target.

We hit the ladder on the side of the ship hard, vaulting up over the rail, onto the deck.

There’s only one entrance. We can’t risk going in shooting, not with Liv possibly in there.

On my signal, the team rings the upper cabin, while I press myself to one side of the door. Below the hardened shell I’ve wrapped around myself for the sake of the mission, I’m struggling to breathe.

Fear hits hard and fierce.

This terrible knowledge it could end like Liv's book, with nothing left but her dead body in my arms and the pained keen of grief and loss rising up in my throat, only I’m not going to Nicholas Sparks this.

I’m not going to go on with my life lessons learned and my heart opened and her memory driving me forward day by day to live every moment to its fullest.

Fuck that.

If I find Liv’s body in there, I will break.

I'll have to find Em a babysitter.

And then I'll personally slaughter every man with a Pilgrim tattoo from Seattle to San Diego.

But I can't let that happen. If she's alive, if there's even a chance, then fuck...I know what I need to do.

I hold up three fingers, catching a dozen eyes, then fold them down neatly one at a time: three, two, one.

Then, weapon on my shoulder, I kick the door open before dodging out of the way of any retaliatory gunfire.

There’s nothing.

No blowback.

Just mad, eerie silence.

Only the faint slapping sound of water on an empty hull, and the echoing hollowness of quiet.

Carefully, I lean around to look into the room. There’s nothing. Just a chair with a pair of bloody handcuffs swinging from the back. Blood spattered on the floor.

And a pretty little woven straw sandal, speckled in red and lying forlorn on the bolted steel. Unmistakable.

Fuck!

Landon sees my panic and takes over. Quick hand gestures split the group up into teams.

I recover, just in time to start barking orders.

“Search the ship. Top to bottom. Check every closet, every room. Turn out the fucking galley cabinets if you have to.”

I’m not giving in to despair yet.

Not until we’ve turned this ship inside out.

Even as the team peels off, footsteps storming over the ship, I step into the cabin, sweeping my gaze left to right, searching for clues. I drop to my knees next to the chair and press my gloved fingertips to the spatters of blood drying there. It's still wet, just barely, soaking into the thick weave, the smell hot. Fresh. Not enough for a kill shot or fatal cut.

She was just here, dammit. She was alive just minutes ago.

“Hold on, Liv,” I murmur. “I’m coming.”

Just as I push to my feet, I catch the sound of tires squealing and an engine revving close by. I throw myself to one of the portholes and look out.

Just in time to see a black car pull out of its hiding place in the piles of junk, taillights flashing red as it careens toward the gate. I don’t stop to think, to hesitate, to calculate.

I kick through the door and stagger out onto the deck, catching myself against the railing and bracing as I lift my SAR 80 to my shoulder.

Half a second to aim.

Just a touch of pressure as my hand tightens.

Then that calm I’ve honed over the years settles, takes over, and time stops. I have one chance.

One chance to stop them. One chance to save her. One chance to get her back, and I can’t afford to miss.

I pull the trigger, and the automatic slams back against my shoulder with recoil force.

Time jumps forward again. The bullet zings out, a furious hornet, and finds its target for a fatal sting.

The rear tire of the car punctures with an explosive retort, and with a scream of rubber on pavement the vehicle spins out, slamming violently toward a tower of junk.

I’m over the railing before it can even hit, leaping down to the dock and taking off running. A vicious impact bursts over the night as the car crashes into rusted heaps of metal.

Then the entire tower of broken, jagged parts comes tumbling down in an explosion of dust, the roof of the car caving in as a broken crane arm stabs into it. It’s the last thing I see before the car disappears into a cloud of debris.

“Liv!” I roar, my chest constricting, and dive into the billowing dust cloud.

I can’t see. Can’t breathe, but I don’t let that stop me, forging through the choking puffs of rust and dirt toward the dim shape of the car.

I hear coughing – soft, feminine, and call again.

“Liv?”

“H-here!” she calls. “I...I can’t get out, my wrists –”

The sound of her voice lights a fire inside me. “I’m coming!”

I fall against the side of the car and wrench at the rear passenger door. It’s crumpled inward and won’t come loose. I can see several shapes inside, struggling in the front and back seats, one slumped over the steering wheel, but the only one I care about is the slim figure kicking at the very door I’m yanking at.

I have to get her out. I have to get her away from them, especially when I can hear the creak and moan of more scrap getting ready to tumble down on us. Especially when the hood of the car is crumpled in, billowing smoke, and I can smell gasoline.

Fuck, gas!

“Get back,” I say. “Now!”

Liv scrambles backward. I catch a glimpse of wide eyes and her shoulders working clumsily with her arms behind her back before I reverse the SAR 80, flick the safety on, then bring the butt crashing down against the car window.

The glass shatters inward, and I quickly sweep the jagged shards aside with my Kevlar-lined sleeve before reaching in for her.

“Come on.” My fingers hit soft flesh, and I manage to snare her around the waist. “Come on, I’ve got you.”

Quickly, I haul her out. She slumps against me, her full weight in my arms.

Being able to feel her whole and alive and safe is everything I could ever call heaven.

She’s bloody, bruised, torn, her hands tied behind her back with plastic zip ties...but she's here.

She's safe. She's mine. And now she stares up at me with her eyes wide and confused and frightened, as I drag her fully free from the car and stagger back until we collapse on the pavement together on our knees.

“R-Riker?” she breathes. “I told you not to come...”

“Think you were dreaming, sweetheart.” I rip my mask off, then stroke her hair back from her brow.

It's a relief to see her, but it also makes me furious. I want to savage the animal who did this to her.

A strip of her sweet hair is matted with blood. There’s a deep, narrow gash above her eyebrow that looks like it came from a blade, rather than the crash.

I can’t stand that look of fear in her eyes. I'd do anything to soothe it, holding her close, cradling her against my chest. “I'm here. There's no world where I’d never come for you.”

With a broken sound, she buries herself against me, shaking and pressing closer.

I take a step back, starting to stand with her in my arms, when a heavyset, gasping shape struggles free from the car. A snarling man I recognize from the dossier photos, clawing his way out of the wreckage, bleeding but whole.

Not for long.

Carefully, I set Liv down. “Sweetheart, stay here for me for just a second,” I say, pausing only to slip the utility knife from my belt and slash through the zip ties cutting into her bloodied wrists.

Every scratch on her builds my itch for vengeance.

Then I rise to my feet and stride forward. Lion is still pulling himself through the shattered window.

He doesn't get far.

I slam my elbow down on the back of his head with a satisfying crack!

The raw impact twists up my arm, and I take deep, deep pleasure knowing as much as it hurts me, it’s hurting him ten times more. He falls with a furious howl, hanging half-in, half-out of the car, cursing wildly.

“Surprise, asshole! Not so tough when you've got a trained man at your throat, yeah?” I'm snarling, barely forming words.

I grip up a handful of his wild hair, pull back, then slam forward with all my strength, grinding his face into the car door. He’s big, forceful, desperate. Trying to fight, trying to lash out, but I’ve got him in the worst position possible, and I’m not letting go.

Instead, I keep him trapped as I bend to scoop up a long, deadly shard of glass broken off the car window, my gloves protecting my hands so I can grip it at the wide end like a knife.

I'm smiling, grinning something feral when I press the point to his throat.

Asshole immediately goes still. I jerk his head up just enough so I can meet him eyeball to glowering, resentful eyeball.

“If you die,” I say, “every problem you’ve ever caused goes away. Everything you’ve worked for. Everything you’ve built. All the fear people live in thanks to you. I can’t bring back the people you’ve killed, but I sure as fuck can make sure you never hurt anyone else. Ever.”

I can see something new in his eyes, something that hasn't ever been there before – terror.

Still, he’s a piece of shit to the end. He grins, a heart chomping leer.

“Go the fuck ahead. Even if you kill me,” he slurs, his mouth swollen with a split lower lip, “I still fucked your bitch up. No taking that shit back. I'll take her screams into the next world.”

Kill him, that black thing inside me whispers, and it feels right and perfect and pure.

Kill him, kill him, kill him now!

But even as I tighten my grip on the glass shard to drive it into his throat, fingers gaining their hold, Landon’s voice rings loudly out over the yard.

“Riker!” he calls. “That mess is about to collapse! Get Liv out of there. Now! I’ll get Lion and the rest of his trash into custody.”

The beast I am in this moment strains at its leash. I could do it anyway.

One push into his throat. End this scourge. For an eternity, I can’t move.

Not until Liv whispers my name. “Riker.”

Then her voice reminds me who I am. Reminds me that I’m human. Reminds me who I'm not. Not anymore.

Reminds me I’m the man who loves her, a father and a lover, and not a cold, remorseless killer.

I drop the shard of glass. Then swing the stock of the SAR 80 around hard enough to crack across Lion’s skull. He lets out one last, angry growl, then slumps forward unconscious.

That'll do. Let the justice system deal with his demon ass.

I hope he rots for the rest of a very short life that ends in a syringe in his arm, but that’s not my call to make.

Murdering him isn't worth putting Liv in danger. Not for a second more.

And even as Landon and the others come sweeping in, I sling my automatic on my back, then turn back to Liv, lift her up against my chest, and duck through the wreckage to get her out of there. She’s soft and small and so warm even through my Kevlar.

I hold her close, reminding myself over and over again that she’s safe. She’s really safe, I found her, I have her.

But after everything that’s gone wrong, after how terrible I’ve been, there's one question still weighing on my mind.

Will she ever let me call her mine again?

She’s pulled away from me when the authorities sweep in.

Suddenly she’s wrapped up in an emergency thermal blanket and sitting in the back of an ambulance while an EMT fusses over her, dabbing away the blood and checking her bruises, cuts, and scrapes, wrapping her wrists in bracelets of gauze.

In the meantime, I’m with the team, debriefing the police, recounting what happened.

This is going to get rough. We killed people.

Even if they were bad, murderers and criminals, we still killed people. We’ll have to justify it as protection and part of our jobs, but that’s for another day and another court date.

For now, it’s all about getting the details out while they’re fresh in our minds. I feel like I’m in shock as the adrenaline comes down and I slip out of that cold, numb battle fog.

I’m able to at least recount the sequence of events leading up to this point enough to satisfy the officer taking notes and looking between me and Landon.

Finally, the cops leave us to go start taking inventory of the scene. I can’t help watching Liv and the EMT, but I feel like there’s an invisible wall between us.

Landon drifts to my side, watching Liv as well.

“If that was my girl,” he says, “I wouldn’t be standing over here watching her.”

I stiffen, darting a startled glance at him. “My girl? You know?”

He smirks tiredly and scratches at the edge of a bruise on his cheek. “How stupid do you think I am?”

“Yeah.” I sigh. “Sorry, Landon. It just –”

“Happened. Yeah. I know how it goes. You’re not fucked. Not yet.” With a weary chuckle, he claps a hand on my shoulder. “Get over there and talk to her. Then we'll have our chat later.”

I give him a brotherly nod.

I should move, yet there’s still an invisible force field holding me back, whenever I remember how she looked at me at the cabin.

How must she see me now, after witnessing the violence I’m willing to commit to keep her safe?

How much does she trust me, to believe that the animal inside me lives only to protect her and Em?

I scrub my hands against my thighs, then force myself to take that first step. It’s the hardest, and after that, it’s suddenly like the gravity of Liv has me, drawing me in.

As I approach, she looks up, watching me with wide, sparkling eyes that don’t have the slightest bit of fear in them. They’re warm, soft, and fuck, I hope that light in them is hope.

I stop in front of her, fumbling for something to say.

“Riker,” she says, offering a shy smile. She reaches up to touch the line of medical tape stretched over her eyebrow. “Five stitches. I don’t think the scar’s ever going to go away.”

“I hope it doesn’t.” I can’t help myself. I need to touch her, to feel her, and I rip my gloves off before offering her my hand. “Badge of honor. So everyone can see how brave you are.”

Slender fingers slip so trustingly into mine.

“I don’t feel brave,” she whispers. “I feel like a mess.”

“Liv.” I use that grip to gently draw her to her feet, then pull her into my arms. “I don’t know what he put you through, but you need to know – you’re here now. Here with me, and you endured all of this, and you're the bravest person I know.”

“Riker.” She clings tight against me, her arms around my shoulders, her body trembling against mine. “God, I thought I’d never see you again.”

“I know. That’s my fault. I’m so sorry, Liv. So damn sorry I let my fear take over. I’m sorry I pushed you away. I’m sorry I shut you out. I’m sorry I didn’t listen.” I hold her tighter, curling my fingers in the back of her ripped, dirtied dress. “And yeah, you'd better believe...I’m sorry as hell I ever let you go.”

She looks at me then, assessing my litany of regret, this small, soft thing wondering if she should let me in. Give me a second chance.

Liv, come on, I think to myself, clenching my jaw.

Then she speaks.

“Riker...just...never again. I need you to stay.”

Stay? She shouldn't have to ask.

I'm on her, wrapping her up so tight, saying more than words ever could in every touch.

“Shhh.” I stroke my fingers through her hair. She’s shaking so hard, and I’m afraid she’s about to collapse. “Not here. We’ll talk at home. If you'll come back.” My heart’s never been in my throat this way, so big I can barely breathe or swallow it again. “If you’ll come home with me. Back where you belong, I mean.”

She looks up at me once more, and Christ...how could I ever think this woman feared me?

How could I have been so incredibly blind, so stupid?

There’s so much trust in her eyes, and in the way she holds me close.

“Of course,” she whispers, offering a shaky, but sweet smile. “Nowhere else I’d rather be.”

“Then let's go home, beautiful. Together.” I bend down and sweep her up against my chest, lifting her off her feet, savoring her low, startled laughter as she fists handfuls of my shirt. “Hold on tight.”

I don’t put her down for the entire mile walk back to my Wrangler.

When a man has his whole world in his arms, he knows.

When a man has a second chance, against the odds, against even death itself, he knows.

When a man has the woman he's meant to keep forever if he wants to hang onto his own damn sanity, he knows.

And I know it now, I know it all. Just carrying her, loving how her eyes never break from mine for a single blink.

We don’t say a word, just move together under a silent night sky that once smelled like blood.

Now, there's just reflected sea and stars.

It’s like communion, this insane moment when we’ve found each other again.

And I don’t need to say a thing.

I only let her go to settle her into the passenger seat and stow my gear in the back. On the drive home, she stretches the limits of the seatbelt to lean against my shoulder.

I risk one-handed driving to wrap my arm around her. The only time I speak is when I call Em’s grandparents and ask them if they can meet me at home and give them an ETA.

They’re just parking in the driveway when we pull up. A sleepy Em climbs out of the back seat of the car, followed by the slim, slightly stooped figures of her grandparents. Crystal’s parents.

I haven’t seen them much in ages, shutting myself off out of some strange sense of guilt even though they’ve always said I'm still welcome. Still consider me family.

In some ways, they’re the only parents I have left, with mine passed over two decades ago – my father in a work accident, my ma from sudden illness. It was strange, even after Crystal passed, for her parents to still include me in that familial warmth I’m so unaccustomed to.

Maybe that's why I’m completely unprepared for Grandma Em to pull me into a surprisingly strong hold the second I get out of the Wrangler, hugging me tight and murmuring “Riker, my dear boy!”

While at the same time, my daughter launches herself at Liv, nearly flattening her back into the Wrangler. They bang into it together with an audible noise, the door almost denting from the force.

“Liv!” Em cries. “You’re back!”

My little girl clutches at Liv hard, almost overbalancing them both. Her face is hidden against Liv’s stomach, but I know what it sounds like when my daughter’s screwing her face up, trying not to cry. “Please don’t go away again...pretty please?”

Liv stands there helplessly, looking at me over Em’s head. There's a question in her eyes she never should've had to doubt, waiting for an answer.

Am I going away again?

Then she folds her arms around Em, bowing over her, hugging her tight. “Em...oh, Em.”

That's when it happens.

Something builds inside me, something pushing to a breaking point.

Something that almost snaps at a soft, wizened hand on my arm. I jerk back into myself, looking down into Grandma Em’s kindly smile and warm eyes.

“And who's this nice young lady?” she asks. There’s something knowing in the way she looks at me, something amused and sweet.

It’s like the question's just a formality. She already knows.

It’s like everyone knows, and I’m the last fool to figure it out, the last one to know this is right.

Now that I do, it’s choking, overwhelming.

My voice strangles. “Em, meet Liv. My –”

Little Em pulls away before I can finish, proclaiming firmly, sniffling the whole time, “She’s my friend!”

I flash my daughter a smile. “Where's my hug?”

Em shakes her head fiercely, wrinkling her nose at me in a mock scowl and clinging even harder to Liv. “Not you, Daddy. Not now. You need a shower.”

Everyone bursts into laughter, and I can’t help but join in.

This is so right. This is so us.

My family, my love – all here, together.

And even if I’m a mess and covered in hurt and grime and the scent of gunpowder, I feel less like the killer I once was and more like a man than I ever have before.

A son, a father, a lover. One warmed by the sweet, naked emotion in Liv’s eyes when she looks at me. This is what I fought for. Everyone I care for, together, safe, home.

Forever? I'm looking at it.

Everything I need to hang on to.

And I need to do it now, before those walls of fear and doubt and loss slam down to choke me off again.

Maybe it’s the adrenaline ramping down. Maybe it’s something crazier.

Fuck, I’m not questioning it anymore as I step forward, closer to Liv.

“Em's right. I do need a shower,” I say firmly, no hint of what's next. “Which probably makes it a bad time to do this. I still haven’t gotten a ring. It's not what I pictured, but damn if I could live my life wasting another second not in the know.” I sink down to one knee, looking up at her. “Liv, listen...”

Liv stares at me, her breaths catching audibly, and she covers her mouth with both hands. “Riker? Riker...what are you doing?”

“The right thing. Everything I should've done weeks ago.” I hold out my hands for hers, and after a shaky moment, she slips her fingers into mine, gripping so tight.

I hold hers just as strong, a solid, concrete reminder that she’s here, she’s safe, and I want so much to make her mine forever. “Tonight I almost lost you, and not just thanks to the Pilgrims. I never should've let you go in the first place. I can’t bear the thought of letting you disappear from my life again just because I was too damn afraid.” I glance at my daughter. “Can't bear you being out of our lives, and if it’s all right with Em...”

Em lets out a nervous little giggle, blushing. “Oh my God, Daddy, you’re so embarrassing. Ask her.”

At my side, Grandma Em lets out a fond, indulgent chuckle. “She’s right, dear.”

Liv laughs. “I think the popular vote has it.”

She leans in toward me, as if sharing a secret, all dramatic stage whisper. She’s smiling so bright, her cheeks flushed pink, and even though we’re both filthy and exhausted and disheveled, I’ve never seen her more beautiful. “Quite an audience. You'd better get it out.”

“All part of the show, Liv.” An unplanned show that couldn't be more perfect, now that it's here.

I grin, stroking my thumbs over her knuckles. Here we go.

“Olivia Holly.” I pause. No – Olivia's that girl who belongs to her father. Liv's the woman who belongs to herself, and who I'm hoping soon belongs to me.

“Liv,” I correct myself. “Will you marry me?”

Just like that.

The whole damn world tilts on its axis.

It's not rational, it's hardly prime optics, and it's right.

I can barely get out the words marry me before she’s exclaiming “Yes!” and throwing herself against me.

I catch her, then wrap her up in my arms and hold her so tight, there’s hardly room to breathe between us.

Yes. Fuck. She said yes.

That one word was the key to unlock everything.

I’ve been shut away inside myself for so many years, and every emotion goes flooding through me with the force of the raging waters coursing over a shattered dam. It’s overwhelming, building up inside me until I’m ready to burst my skin, my blood burning, my smile so wide, it hurts my face.

Little Em's half laughing, half crying. Her grandparents are both smiling, looking at each other with the kind of love that can only come from decades together.

The kind of love I hope to have with Liv for the rest of our lives.

I pull back to look at her, stroking her cheek, threading my fingers through her hair. “I love you, Liv,” I whisper.

Her smile only widens, and she leans in, resting her brow to mine. Just me and her in our own little world.

“Most people,” she teases softly, “say the love part before the marriage proposal. Those three simple words can do an awful lot.”

I beam like the sun, remembering what I wrote in her notebook.

“So you’re not going to say you love me too? Bull.”

“If I have to say it...” She touches her lips to mine, just the sweetest promise of what’s to come. “Then you haven’t been paying attention, sir.” Then she laughs, a happy silvery sound that lights up the night.

“I love you, Riker Woods. With all my heart. I can't wait for you to be my husband.”