- CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR -
SCOTCH
There were tons of cop cars waiting outside the warehouse.
Costello’s hand was wrapped around mine, firm and tight. I didn’t want him to let go. It was crazy to think that this mess could finally be over. I clung to the words my uncle had said earlier:
“The Valentines won’t keep chasing you if we can get clear evidence that you never attacked their son.”
“What about Darien himself?” I asked.
My uncle laughed. “Him? If we do this right, he’ll be in jail for a long, long time.”
“And there’ll be no war? No one will have to die?”
His eyes were shadowed under his thick brows. “I’ll be right outside. You’ll be fine, I promise.”
“This is about more than me.” Remembering my standoff with Maverick, I spoke as carefully, as seriously, as I could. “Costello and his family can’t suffer for this.”
“When this is over with,” he whispered, “they won’t.”
Breathing in the cool air, I laid my head on Costello’s shoulder. We’d stopped walking, lingering by the warehouse as the police ushered Horace and Darien and all the others out in cuffs. None of the men looked our way; I was glad. “Go on,” I chuckled. “Tell me I’m a genius for solving this.”
He smiled down on me indulgently. “You’re more than a genius. I can’t imagine what else you’re capable of. It’d be wonderful if I got to see it.”
A tickle of unease made my words catch in my mouth. “Ha, you make it sound like you won’t.”
Costello’s attention went over my shoulder, to the cop cars with their flashing lights. I followed his gaze and saw my uncle staring at us without even pretending to hide it. Suspicion turned my guts into snakes. “What’s going on? Costello . . .”
“He expects me to leave,” he said grimly. “He’s watching to make sure I do.”
“What? He can’t make you do that!”
“Your uncle is a stubborn man . . . stubborn and smart.” Costello’s smile was bleak. There was no warmth, only the eternal pain of a man who’d suffered and thought he was fated to suffer more. “He laid it out for me that night in your kitchen. He’d work with me to help you, but when that was over with, he wanted me gone. Everything he pointed out about me and my family putting you at risk was the truth.”
My hand fell from his like a dead branch in an ice storm. I couldn’t touch him, I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t believe him!
He knew he’d have to leave.
He’d known and still he’d held me . . . touched me . . . kissed me.
“Don’t give up on this,” I said, the words wet in my mouth as tears slid from my cheeks into the corners of my lips. “Don’t say goodbye. You fought tooth and nail to keep me alive, and I fought with you, and after all of that you want to say it was worth nothing?” My voice cracked as I came undone. “Look me in the eye and tell me you want us to end!”
I knew people had to be watching us. I was shrill in my disbelief. No one could be angrier in this world than me. It wasn’t possible.
Then Costello spun his fingers in my hair, facing me down—and I knew I was wrong. His eyes were furious, a sea no one could swim in and survive. “Of course I don’t want us to end! You make me feel like I’m enough. I’ve never felt that way, not once in my whole damn life. I can’t lose that.” All the ice in his eyes melted away, and through them I glimpsed his fragile soul. “I can’t lose you.”
He hung his head until his face was all shadow. “I love you. God help me, but I do.” His stare returned to me. There was no more anger; he had nothing to fight now that his secret was out. “I’m in love and I don’t want to give that up. Not for anyone.”
“Then don’t,” I said, smiling through my sobs. “I love you, too. I love you so much and I don’t care what anyone thinks about that.”
“Not even me?” Shoes crunched nearby. My uncle loomed over us where we huddled, his mustache hiding only some of his frown. I was sure he’d overheard everything. The distress in his eyes was scalding. “You’d really break your word?” he asked Costello. “I shook your damn hand. Guess that meant nothing.”
They shook hands? I couldn’t imagine that. Costello was frozen, but I felt the energy that burned in his core. He reluctantly let me go so he could stand toe to toe with my uncle. “I know what I agreed to. But I can’t do it. Scotch is too important to me. She means more than the most unbreakable promise I could ever commit to.”
The detective was a wall of rocks. I expected him to crumble on top of me and Costello, leaving us and our love in pieces. His knuckles glinted whiter than the snow around us.
He breathed in, he waited, and I waited with him. “Your whole family is a pack of liars. Don’t know why I expected any different from you.”
It was the most deflated insult I’d heard from his lips.
Uncle Jimmy turned away, storming toward the police and shouting orders. I was stunned. Could it really be that simple? No. It wasn’t simple at all. He’d hated the Badds for . . . well, forever. The disgust ran through his veins. For him to walk away from Costello and me, accepting our love, he had to truly believe in us.
Costello had proven his heart wasn’t stained.
Smiling in wonder, I whispered, “He finally realized what I already knew.”
“And what’s that?”
Casting a sly look up at Costello, I wove my fingers with his. I never wanted to let go of his hand. Not for a second. “That you’re a hero.”
His eyes strained with how big they got. I’d never witnessed him so shocked.
“Oh my gosh,” I said. “Are you blushing?”
“Of course not!”
“You are!” Sweeping me up in his arms, Costello marched me toward the cars. “Hey! What are you doing?” I squealed.
He kissed me deeply and said into my ear, “Making you blush.”
I promptly did, but I also snuggled into his chest. This was safe and warm, and I’d endure the humiliation of multiple officers gawking at me. For Costello Badd, I think I would have endured anything.
His arms wove tighter around me, then set me in the passenger seat of his car; he’d parked it out of view of the warehouse, behind a small hill. It wasn’t until we were alone, his hands on the wheel and the tires rolling over the asphalt, that he spoke again. “What you said earlier, it meant more to me than you could know.”
“What did I say?”
I could only see his right side, one perfect blue eye as round as the moon, his scar a mountain range from high above. It made me feel so very far away.
“You called me a hero. And for the first time in my life . . . I believed it.”