When Annie burst through the front door, Jericho was at home on the phone. He still looked put together – every hair still slicked back, his posture rigid, with shoulders rolled back. There was a slight worry line between his brows but other than that, there was no indication that he knew the police had found the body Bennet had supposedly disposed of. She thought Bennet was supposed to be his right-hand man. Why would he turn in Jericho? And what could they do about it?

Jericho heard her come in and his eyes flickered over to her in acknowledgment, but other than that, he didn’t react. She closed her mouth, all of her steam disappearing as she closed the door behind her and locked it. Perhaps it was a good thing she was interrupted. She had been ready to go off on him because she was embarrassed that two homicide detectives from Seattle PD had come to her job and questioned her about the murder of the woman who had killed her parents. She hadn’t even known the woman was dead let alone who that woman was. In fact, she hadn’t even thought of that part of their first conversation, where Jericho told her he would rather get revenge than wait for the cops to give her parents the justice they deserved. Until now.

“Well, that’s no good,” Jericho snapped into the phone. She had no idea how he did it but somehow, he could snap without losing his cool, which boggled her mind. “I need to find Bennet and speak to him. Find me Bennet now, alive, and I will give you a hundred grand in cash. Do you understand me?” He paused, listening to the other end. “I don’t care how. Just do it.”

He hung his phone up and tossed it on the couch.

“We have a problem,” he said.

“A big one,” she agreed.

He furrowed his brow, wrinkling his forehead even further. “Why do you think we have one?” he asked.

“Detectives came to my job today, Jericho,” she told him, her eyes flashing emerald with anger. “Do you have any idea why that might be?”

He looked like he wanted to lash out at her. To be honest, she was surprised he hadn’t. “Tell me,” he told her instead.

Annie felt herself calm down knowing he wasn’t taking his problem out on her even if she had done that to him just now.

“They asked about Gabriela Gonzales,” she said, her voice slow and even. “Apparently, she’s the woman who hit my parents and got away with it. They found her body mutilated in the lake. They told me trace residue shows Bennet was with her at some point. Apparently, his hair was still on her body in some way.”

She paused, narrowing her eyes at her husband. “What were you talking about on the phone?”

To be honest, Annie thought he was going to tell her he was talking business and that business was none of hers. She thought he would write her off or get defensive for questioning him. Jericho constantly surprised her.

“The same thing,” he said, reaching up to cup the back of his head with his hand. “One of my contacts in Seattle PD informed me that Bennet came in on his own accord and told two detectives everything in exchange for immunity. If I don’t leave now, I’m going to get charged with a lot of crimes.” He wrinkled his brow. “I probably will never see sunlight again. If I get to live the rest of my life, that is.”

“Because you committed the crimes,” Annie stated. It wasn’t a guess, nor was it a question. It suddenly hit her; she suddenly knew what she always had: Jericho was the best bad guy she had ever known. All those things that had warned her against him when she first met him were all true. “You have cops in your pocket, blood on your hands.” Her eyes dropped to those hands that held her when she was crying, gripped her hips in the throes of passion. Hands that had killed people. Hands that fit perfectly with hers. “You’ll get the death penalty, for sure.”

“Yes.” Jericho nodded once, his eyes remaining fixed on hers. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about this but she didn’t feel as though anything had changed between them.

“Can we stay here or are they after you now?” Annie asked, tilting her head to the side.

Jericho’s pale green eyes flooded with relief. She wasn’t quite sure as to why that was – probably because he didn’t think that she would be too happy with the shift in their life.

“You’re not going to leave me?” he asked, quirking a brow.

“Why would I do that?” Annie asked. “I knew what you were going into this complicated web that makes up our relationship. The one thing we have to our advantage is the fact that we’re married so I don’t have to testify against you. Granted, that means I can’t lie for you but at least they can’t use me against you.”

“They can try,” Jericho pointed out. “They already have. They visited your work to try and gauge how much you knew and how you would react if I was a criminal.”

Annie thought about it for a minute. “They did ask me questions,” she replied. “I just pretended not to have any idea what they were talking about. Which is the truth, for the most part.” She crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head to the side. “Did you kill Gabriela Gonzales?”

“I did.”

Annie’s eyes widened. Not because he actually killed the woman but because he admitted it so freely. “How do you know I’m not wearing a wire?” she asked, annoyed.

He raised a brow and smiled. “Are you?” he asked.

“Of course not,” she told him. “But you don’t know. Maybe the detectives tricked me. Maybe they forced me to wear a wire.”

Jericho gave her a look. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Not you. I didn’t marry a gullible idiot.”

Annie felt her heart warm at the compliment. “So,” she said. “Are they going to come after you?”

Jericho pressed her lips together. “Bennet doesn’t have anything except details of the crimes and what he did when he was the one responsible for the murder,” he explained. “Even my contact says there’s no direct evidence linking me to the crime. The cops can bring me in for questioning, which they’ve done before, but Bennet’s story isn’t enough to throw me away. The only thing that might do me in is Gabriela Gonzales.”

Annie pressed her lips together, her arms tightening across her chest at the name. “Why do you say that?” she asked him.

“Because there’s absolutely no reason why I would kill her unless I was getting revenge for you,” he said. “The evidence is weak. I know enough not to leave evidence behind and I pay my friends well enough to know if I did, they would make it disappear. But the fact that I married you and her dead body has turned up makes this all extremely suspicious.”

“What can we do?” Annie asked.

“Annie, until this blows over, your life with me is not going to be a happy one,” he told her. “This house is going to get ransacked by the cops because, even though there’s not enough evidence to arrest me, the circumstantial evidence will definitely be enough to get a warrant to search all of my homes.”

“Did you put your name on the deed?” Annie asked, raising a brow.

“What?” Jericho asked, confused by her question. “No, but that doesn’t matter. I still stay here. Bennet knows that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Annie told him. “If it’s still Bruce’s house, they can’t just get a warrant with the same evidence they used to search your place. Maybe they’ll be able to eventually but Bennet doesn’t know if you stay here on a consistent basis or if you returned back to your penthouse. I know you’ve been doing a lot of business in the city before we got married. He might not even mention this place.”

“I don’t know,” Jericho said, placing his finger on the tip of his chin. “Bennet is thorough but he also doesn’t like innocent lives to get caught up in the crosshairs. He probably figured Gonzales was innocent, despite what she did to your parents, and decided this wasn’t what he wanted anymore.” He shook his head. “What a shame. He was my second-hand, my most loyal employee.”

“When did you kill Gonzales?” Annie asked him in a quiet voice. It wasn’t important information but she was curious as to when this happened. And a quiet, morbid part of her also wondered how it happened but she chose not to ask that.

“The night I met you,” he told her. She knew he was telling the truth. “I tracked her down to a one-bedroom apartment. No kids. No spouse. No surprise. She let me in easily. And I choked her after making her admit she killed your parents. I had Bennet dispose of her body.”

"Why did you do you that?" Annie asked, awed and slightly fearful. Not that she thought he would do anything similar to her but that he was capable of such brutality simply because someone had unknowingly hurt her. There was no way for Gonzales to have known about Annie and Bruce. All she was thinking about was herself. Did that make her a bad person? Annie couldn't say and she didn't feel comfortable judging. It did make Gonzales human. Did that mean she deserved to die?

Annie wasn't sure. She didn't think she was allowed to decide that. But staring at Jericho in front of her, it seemed he thought he could decide that. There was no regret, no doubt, about what he did. He was right and he truly believed that. Annie couldn't fault him for that, though. She knew, in his head, he was only thinking about her, about protecting her, about extracting revenge and eliminating someone who had eliminated the two most important people in her life. That was who he was. Did that make him right? No. perhaps not. But could she hold it against him? Did she want to?

"Because she took your family away from you," he told her in a soft voice. "And I loved you from the minute I saw you so I couldn't let that go. Not seeing the way you looked knowing Bruce had given up the house."

Annie clenched her jaw.

"Where do we go from here?" she asked, sliding her eyes back into his.

"Like I said," Jericho said, running his hand through his hair brown hair, "we lay low."

"And how do you suppose we do that?" Annie asked. "Do I call my job and say I'm not coming in for the foreseeable future? Do I throw away my cell phone? Do we leave the country? I've never been on the run before, Jericho. I don't know what to expect or how to handle something like this."

Jericho walked over to her and gently squeezed her arms with his hands, trying to reassure her.

"Don't worry," he told her. "I'll take care of it."

Annie's head snapped up and she stepped out of his grasp. "No," she said, shaking her head. "Not just you. We. We. You and me are a team, no matter what."

"I don't want to bring you into this. Annie," he told her. "These are decisions I made that have nothing to do with you. You shouldn't be forced to deal with them just because you married me. That isn't fair to you."

"I married you," Annie told him. "That's it, the end. Your problem is my problem and vice versa. I'm sure you have a plan in case things go wrong, don't you?"

"Well, yes," Jericho agreed with a nod. "The problem is, Bennett knows all my backup plans and probably told the cops everything."

Annie pressed her lips together. "You know," she said. "I still don't understand why Bennett would turn you in in the first place."

"Bennet is a peculiar sort of guy," Jericho said slowly. "Like me. It's why I like him so much, why I trusted him so quickly. I thought the two of us understood each other. Maybe we did." He paused, pressing his lips together, and tilted his head to the side in that awkward way he favored. "He has a riotous sense of justice, one I always related to. When he found out I killed Gonzales, he wasn't happy about it. Instead of turning me in right then, he waited, planned his escape. He built up his case, built up the evidence against me. I gave him everything he needed."

He shook his head. It was the first time Annie had ever seen Jericho's face ashen before. Even before she met him, even before they became acquainted, she had never seen him look startled or rattled or even surprised. Jericho was always confident, always certain of what he wanted and how to attain that. There was arrogance sprinkled in, however. He walked around like nothing bothered him, like nothing could touch him. And that was how he lived. Up until now, it would seem.

"What's the plan, Jericho?" she asked him, her voice firm. "I know you. I know you have some kind of plan of what to do if you were ever in this situation."

"Yeah, yeah I do," Jericho said, nodding his head. "Bennett knows all of them, though. That's the problem. I'm sure if my contact is right, the detectives already have tabs on my property down south. I'm sure they've grounded my jet. There's nothing I can do."

"There had to be something," Annie told him. "There has to be something we can do, somewhere we can go that they don't know about. We just have to think about it."

They were silent for a moment. Annie felt her mind race. This was not a good thing because when her thoughts were rushing around, it was hard to slow down and really focus on the right answer. She pressed her lips together. Bruce was so good at things like this; if he were here, he would know exactly what to do.

Something started tickling her brain, something that had to do with Bruce.

"I might be able to get in contact with some friends," Jericho said but he didn't sound particularly hopeful. "They might be able to bribe some TSA officials to get us out. The problem is, it's getting way to strict to sneak out of the country."

Annie didn't immediately respond. She was trying to figure out where the Bruce thing would lead. Bruce would be able to figure this out, yes. But why? Because Bruce knew how to calm down and focus. His ideas were odd and not what Annie would think was logical but he still made his decision and he still somehow made it through another month. Annie had no idea how investing in a cabin in the middle of the woods would make him money when there was no one around for miles and miles and -

"I have an idea," Annie said, snapping her eyes up to Jericho. "I know what we should do."

Jericho pushed his brow together but didn’t say anything.

“The cabin,” Annie explained. “Bruce’s cabin. No one knows Bruce has it except for us. We can hide out there and no one would even know. Bruce could bring us food and supplies.”

“I’m sure they would watch him,” Jericho said. When he saw Annie reaching for her cell phone, he grabbed her hand to stop her. “Don’t call him. They’ll trace our phones once we disappear and if they see that you’ve made a call to your brother, they’ll suspect him and start looking into him. Actually, they’ll look into Bruce no matter what.”

“Do you think they’ll find out about the cabin?” Annie asked.

Jericho was silent for a moment and Annie knew it was because he was thinking. “I don’t think so,” he replied after a moment. “But we can’t call him and ask. We have to pack up and go to his place and hope that he’s there.”

“Do we have time to pick up supplies?” Annie asked. “I know you can’t be seen at Costco but if I went and used my credit card, that wouldn’t be terribly suspicious, would it?”

“Anywhere you go now is going to be scrutinized,” Jericho told her. “The detectives might not know now that you’re my wife but it will come out, sooner or later. You should go now. Take your car and return here like nothing weird, that you don’t know anything other than what they’ve told you. I’ll get in touch with your brother. His shift is starting soon and I think I have at least one cell phone I can use without it being traced back to either of us. We’ll meet back here in a couple of hours, okay?”

Annie nodded and Jericho gave her a hard kiss on the lips.

“Be careful,” she told him.

“You, too,” he said, and with that, he vanished.

An hour and a half later, Annie returned with three hundred dollar’s worth of items from Costco that should last three to four weeks, since she and Jericho would be hiding away, just the two of them. Jericho was nowhere to be found. Annie tried not to let it worry her; he still had a half hour before he was supposed to show up, and the extra time would give her the perfect excuse to load Jericho’s Jeep with all of the food. She would pull her car into the garage so no one would notice it sitting on the street for an indeterminate amount of time and look into where she might be.

It took her another twenty-three minutes to move the supplies from her car to the Jeep. Once she was finished, she pulled her car into the garage.

Her heart was hammering in her head. She could feel the adrenaline rushing through her bloodstream and she knew her body was going into survival mode. She needed to calm down. If she didn't, she was going to have a tough time relaxing and having a clear head. Jericho did not need a hyperventilating princess who couldn't help him make a decision or think rationally.

The problem was, Jericho still wasn't here.

Once her car was parked, she headed into the house and tried to keep herself from pacing the length of the front room. As of right now, Handen and Powell only had their suspicions. They didn't have any evidence. 

Annie let a slow breath slip out of her mouth. She bounced on the balls of her feet and shook her arms, trying to rid herself of the anxiety that had accumulated during her Costco run. She needed to have faith in Jericho. She needed to believe that wherever he was, he was all right.

"He's probably with Bruce right now," she murmured to herself quietly. "He's probably with Bruce and he's grabbing the keys and getting directions. Everything is going to be okay."

At that moment, the door burst open. When Jericho saw Annie, he swooped her up in his arms and pulled her into a deep kiss.

"When I didn't see your car," he began but let his voice trail off and shook his head.

"I'm okay," she promised him.

He nodded his head once. "I know," he told her. "I know you are." He pressed his brows up. "You ready to go? You can go through the rooms one last time. I don't know when we'll be back."

Annie shook her head and took a step back from him. "I'm okay," she repeated. "This place... this is my past. You're my present and my future. I'll go wherever you go and I'll leave everything else behind."

Jericho was silent for a moment but kissed her, a long, lingering kiss that sent goosebumps all throughout her body. He didn't say anything else. Instead, he took her hand and led her out the door and opened the passenger side of the Jeep for her. Once she was in, he locked the front door and headed to the driver's seat.

"Where are we going?" Annie murmured as they pulled out of the small neighborhood and hopped onto the road to get into the city.

"The Red Door," he explained, not taking his eyes off the road ahead of him. "Your brother is expecting us."

Annie nodded. She wouldn't lie and say she wasn't nervous about heading back into the city, closer to the cops, to one of Jericho's prominent businesses.

If the cops were smart - and she hated to admit it, but the majority of them were - they would be parked right out front of Jericho's businesses waiting for him to return, under the assumption that he really was as arrogant as he looked. Worse, they could send in people undercover and he would never know. They would look like ordinary club-going citizens who talked in their purse or cufflinks a lot and didn't like to dance.

Annie placed her hands by her thighs and sat on them as a way to keep from toying with her seatbelt or tugging at her shirt. She needed to calm down but it was difficult to do.

Traffic was just as bad going in as it was going out, so they didn't reach The Red Door until an hour later. Instead of turning into the parking structure or driving up right to the front on the street, Jericho made a right just before the club and pulled into a narrow alleyway.

"This is where the cooks take their cigarette breaks and where we get our food deliveries," Jericho explained in a low voice. "No one knows about it because the general public doesn't even know we have a kitchen. They're not aware we serve food."

Annie's brow pushed up and she leaned forward in her seat, trying to look around in the dark. It was just starting to sprinkle. Hard rain was promised for the night and through the weekend. She wanted to be in the cabin by the time that happened.

Jericho turned off the headlights of the Jeep but kept it running. He wanted to hide in plain sight but be ready to run when the time called for it. At that moment, a figure emerged from the back entrance of the club. Annie hadn't noticed before that the door had been propped open slightly nor did she notice someone waiting for them to pull up.

I would make a terrible lookout, she thought to herself.

Bruce came up to the passenger side window Jericho had rolled down and threw his arms around Annie.

"Jesus, Annie," he murmured in a low whisper. As he hugged his sister, Bruce handed Jericho a small keychain. "Be careful, okay? I'll take care of the house while you're gone."

"You know what's going on?" Annie asked in a soft voice, slightly confused.

"Jericho came to see me," Bruce said. "To make a long story short, yeah, I have an idea of what's going on and I know that you'll be gone for however long you'll be gone for and I don't know when I'll see you again." He glanced over at Jericho and for the first time, Bruce had a serious look on his face rather than ignorant admiration. "I know you're my boss but I'm counting on you to take care of my sister. She's the most important person in my life right now and the only family I have." He pressed his lips together. "If anything happens to her, I will kill you. I don't care who you are."

Annie's mouth dropped open at the fact that Bruce had just threatened Jericho without so much as blinking. Jericho was Bruce's idol. When he first started working for him, Bruce couldn't shut up about him. He had borrowed money from Jericho and didn't flinch when he found out Jericho had corrupted his straight-laced little sister and got her to marry him. He constantly supported Jericho through anything. Loyalty was one of Bruce's strengths and Annie knew Jericho knew how lucky he was that Bruce liked him so much. 

Even Jericho seemed surprised by Bruce's outburst but he didn't say anything on the subject. It was like he understood. Marriage was one thing but now, Jericho's past had caught up to his present and it involved Annie's welfare as well. Of course, Annie didn't have to agree to run away with him. She could have turned him in, could have told the cops everything she knew, but she didn't. Did that make her crazy? Probably. But she didn't mind as long as it meant that she got to be with Jericho.

Jericho nodded his head. His eyes were steel - not because he was upset with what Bruce told him but because he was determined to do just that.

"I would do anything for Annie," he told Bruce.

Now, Bruce nodded. Annie could clearly read his eyes that he believed Jericho.

At that moment, Bruce pulled out a key and handed it to Annie. "Here's the key," he said. "I already wrote Jericho instructions on how to get there when he stopped by an hour ago. There's freshly chopped wood outside so you can make a fire. There are electricity and hot water and a fridge and a freezer. If you guys hunt, there are two rifles in the second bedroom, hanging on the wall. They’re meant to be decoration but they work. Ammo is in the desk in the bottom right drawer. You guys can stay there for as long as you need."

"Thank you, Bruce," Annie said, throwing her arms around her brother. "I'm so sorry for all the things I said and did to you. I didn't mean them. You know I didn't mean them."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Bruce says, gently easing Annie's arms off of his neck. "You're talking like you're never going to see me again. I have an idea that maybe you're gone for a month, two, tops. Things are going to blow over. The cops are going to realize they don't have anything on Jericho, you guys will come back, and that will be the end of it."

Annie looked at his brother with a placating smile. "You always were the optimist," she murmured. 

"I like to think I'm a realist, thank you very much," he told her with a grin. "You always believed me when I told you everything was going to be all right. Do you think you can do that again? For your big brother whom you aren't going to see for a couple of months?"

Annie rolled her eyes but she felt a gentle smile tug at the corner of her lips. How was it that Bruce could make her smile, even under these circumstances?

"Okay," she told him with a nod.

"Okay," he replied.

He reached in and hugged her once again before stepping out of the car window. He locked eyes with Jericho, his face suddenly solemn, and they exchanged another cryptic nod.

Jericho shifted the car out of park and slowly turned out of the alleyway. He laced his fingers through Annie's and brought her hand up to his lips so he could brush his lips across her knuckles. A shiver slid down her back and she felt her eyes darken.

"You're crazy," he murmured as his eyes shifted over to the road.  "Leaving with me."

"Yes," she agreed with a single nod he did not see. She could feel him smile against her skin.

"Good," he said. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

--

The cabin was perfect. Annie was surprised at how nice it was. It was quaint and warm, with double-panes windows, one-bedroom, and a small kitchen. There was no television but there was a nice radio that picked up a bunch of channels where they could listen to the news or put on music. The bathtub was wonderful and Annie and Jericho took care to break that in more than once. Whenever they needed food, Bruce would swing by Costco and pick everything up. No one suspected he had a cabin in the middle of nowhere, literally. It was surprisingly easy to get used to this, a life where only she and Jericho existed, where television wasn't around to show them what was happening in the world because who cared, really.

One day, Annie and Jericho were laying tangled up with each other after a moment of passion when he reached across her to the nightstand and flipped on the radio. He kissed her shoulder before he resumed his position on her shoulder, his arm tossed around her waist, holding her hip possessively.

"...storm coming in for the next few days," the radio deejay announced. "It's a big one. Expect lots of thunder and lightning for at least seventy-two hours. So grab a partner, make a fire, and get close because it's going to be a long weekend."

Annie smiled to herself. He didn't have to tell her twice. She loved the rain, the storms, everything that had to do with the danger and the romance combined.

"In other news, the body of notorious organized crime villain, Brody Bennett washed up on the shore of Union early this morning," he continued. "Not much is known about when Bennett was actually murdered but we're hearing the coroner is dating the murder roughly two months ago - the same time Jericho and his new wife left for a European holiday. Bennett was the only person in recent years who came forward against his former employer, but now that he's gone, it doesn't appear as though the police have much of a case against Jericho Steel."

Annie flipped the radio off, her eyes going wide as she stared at Jericho. She didn't even have to say anything. Instead, he took her in and gave her one nod.

Annie pressed her lips together. She didn't know what to think about the admission. He probably killed Bennett while she was waiting for him to get home the day he left, not because he was going to see her brother.

"Now what?" Annie said, her voice raw.

Jericho smiled. "Now," he said, "we get to go home."