Sophie handled Anthony Armstrong with a steely nerve I hadn't expected, but the aftermath was messy. Not his arrest. Thanks to Sophie, they had him admitting to murder and repeated spousal abuse, on top of the charges of kidnapping.

With an irate Mrs. W as a second witness, at least to the kidnapping, he wasn’t getting away with anything. He’d snatched Amelia from the parking lot outside her doctor’s office, leaving Mrs. W tied up in her sedan with a bump on the head, but fortunately no serious injuries. Between her testimony, the camera in the parking lot, and Sophie’s wire, there was plenty of evidence to send him away.

Anthony went straight to prison, and after his disappearing act on the marshals, the judge wasn't inclined to grant bail. Her divorce was proceeding—complicated slightly by Anthony's uncertain legal status—but it was proceeding. It was the rest that was hard.

Neither of us slept much the week after Anthony shot Sophie. Her back was black and blue, and her cheek bruised from her fall, but her body was otherwise undamaged. Her mind, on the other hand, struggled to process everything that had happened.

At night, she barely fell asleep before she jerked awake, gasping and crying out in fear and pain. I was there, every time, drying the tears on her cheeks and holding her until she slept again. I had my own bad moments. I'd been doing better since I'd been home, feeling more grounded, less on edge, but seeing Sophie go down after that gunshot had knocked me off balance.

I tried to hide it from her, but the few times I fell asleep I was forced to watch the same scene play out in my mind, only this time Sophie wasn't wearing the vest. This time Amelia was dead, her throat slit, and Sophie bled out on the floor.

It was a good thing we'd scheduled those appointments. We needed them. By the time we went, Sophie was looking forward to hers. I'll admit I was still reluctant. I didn't want to talk to some stranger about all of the shit swirling around in my head, especially after Sophie's close call. It was too personal.

I didn't have a choice. Sophie needed help. She needed sleep. And when I'd suggested I might postpone my own meeting with the therapist she'd squeezed my hand and said, "I'll go if you go." Fuck.

So I went. It wasn't that bad, in the end. I was never going to be buddy-buddy with the guy. He asked way too many questions, made me explain too much, but it turned out he'd done two tours himself, mostly in Afghanistan, and he'd seen a lot of shit firsthand. He'd also worked with a lot of guys who had the same problems I did, and he assured me that if I stuck with it, things would get better.

Sophie and I both went in twice a week. It wasn't a miracle solution. That first month, Sophie’s nightmares didn't improve at all. I think they may have gotten worse, though we were so sleep deprived it was hard to judge anything. By the end of those first weeks, her skin was so pale I could see the blue veins beneath, and she had dark circles under her eyes.

Gradually, something inside her settled, began to ease, and she started sleeping for longer and longer stretches, waking less often with her breath caught in her throat. And when she started to sleep, so did I.

By the third month after Anthony's arrest, we were back to where we'd been before the day he'd taken Amelia. Still waking in the night, but mostly chasing off the nightmares with sex. If I had anything to be grateful for in Sophie's horror of a marriage to Anthony Armstrong, it was that he hadn't seemed interested in her sexually.

I didn't want to imagine what a man like that could've done to her, the way he could have destroyed her natural sensuality. He'd left that part of her untouched, and it was mine from the beginning.

We were in a waiting game. Anthony was doing everything he could to fight the divorce. Out of delusion, or spite, we didn't know. It didn't matter. He had money, so was immune to bribery. I’d tried that avenue more than once.

The only thing he wanted was Sophie, and she was the one thing he couldn't have.

Cooper Sinclair had told us to be patient. His guess was Anthony would never see trial. He'd testified against the Accorsi crime family after stealing from them. He was in solitary confinement for his own protection, but Cooper was positive it wouldn’t be enough. He'd violated his agreement with the marshals when he'd taken off, and they'd washed their hands of him. So we waited.

I was working full time at Winters, Inc. by then, slowly moving out from under Aiden’s shadow and finding my own place in the company. I still didn’t have an official title, but I didn’t care. We all owned equal shares in Winters, Inc., which made titles kind of irrelevant.

What mattered was that I was home, things were right with Aiden, and I was moving forward with my life. I’d never regret my years in the military—the last six months aside—but living in Winters House and working with Aiden, I finally felt like I could put my demons behind me.

I just needed one more thing. A wife. Not just any wife, I needed Sophie. She refused to discuss the future until she was divorced from Anthony. My girl was sweet, but she was stubborn as hell. And old fashioned. Not only did she refuse to talk to me about getting married, she wouldn’t move into my room.

She said it was inappropriate for her to move bedrooms, never mind that I slept by her side every night. As long as she was legally married to another man, she wasn’t moving in with me. Like I said—stubborn.

Finally, four months after Anthony Anderson was arrested for kidnapping Amelia and trying to shoot Sophie, Cooper got word that he’d been found by a guard with his throat slit, despite his seclusion in solitary. It might have been the original locked room mystery, but no one wondered who’d killed him. Testifying against one of the biggest organized crime families in the Southeast, after stealing a chunk of their cash, was a death sentence. I was only surprised we’d had to wait for so long.

I wasn’t quite sure how to tell Sophie. I wanted to celebrate, but I knew she wouldn’t find that funny, no matter how relieved she’d be that her tormentor was dead. After a detour with Cooper to verify that Anthony wasn’t going to come back to life this time, I headed home.

I found Sophie in the library with Amelia. I have no idea what they were up to, but from the guilty look on their faces and the scramble to hide what looked like dark fabric in a shopping bag, I guessed I’d find out soon enough.

Amelia had dialed back the pranks in the first few months after the kidnapping when Sophie and I were exhausted and jumpy, but now that we were better she was back to her old tricks.

Just the week before she’d talked Sophie into putting bubble wrap beneath the hall carpets, so they popped with every step. To be honest, no one really minded that one. I even caught Mrs. W doing a little dance down the hall by the kitchen when she thought no one was looking, each step punctuated by cheerful little pops.

Sophie’s eyes brightened when she saw me come in. She was off the couch and in my arms before I’d cleared the threshold, her sweet, sultry scent filling my lungs as I kissed her temple. I wanted to kiss her mouth, but not with Amelia looking on, an avid grin spread across her face.

Stepping back, I said, “I need you to sit down, Angel. I have some news.”

Sophie’s eyes darkened, and she bit her lower lip, sitting obediently and waiting, braced for bad news. I hated that the life she’d lived left her assuming that any news was automatically bad. Now that Armstrong was dead, that was finally going to change. I sat beside her and took her hand.

“Anthony was found dead in his cell this morning.” Sophie just stared at me, disbelieving. I went on, “Cooper got us in to see the body, Angel. He’s dead. It’s not a trick.”

“He’s really dead?” she whispered, taking a quick, deep breath. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” I promised.

She still looked unconvinced. I could understand why. The last time someone told her Anthony was dead, he’d knocked on our door two years later, very much alive. After going through so much, my Sophie was afraid to hope it was really over.

She blinked and took in another quick, deep breath. She was fighting tears. I wished she’d just let go, but she had this idea that crying made her weak. She couldn’t have been more wrong. Sophie was one of the strongest women I knew.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and brought up the last pictures I’d taken. It was gruesome and totally against regulations, but I’d known what I’d need to set Sophie’s mind at ease. Without a word, I handed her my phone, a picture of Anthony’s dead body filling the screen.

He lay on a metal tray that had been pulled from a wall of similar trays, his skin grey with death, his eyes closed. His neck gaped in an open wound, bloodless and dark, like an obscene grin beneath his chin. Sophie cradled my phone in both hands, staring down at the picture.

Amelia leaned over and took a quick look, grimacing and saying, “Couldn’t have happened to a better man.”

I expected Sophie to scold her, but she remained silent, still staring at the picture of her dead husband. She stared so long I started to wonder if I’d done the right thing in showing her Anthony’s body. Just as I was about to reach for my phone, she clicked the screen off and handed it back to me.

“You saw him? You took that picture yourself?”

I knew what she was asking. She’d been fooled once, the last time by the police. She had to be sure. So did I, which was why I’d asked Cooper to call in a favor and get us a first-hand look at Anthony’s dead body. I slid my phone into my pocket and wrapped my arm around Sophie, pulling her tight to my side.

“I took the picture myself. He’s dead, Sophie. Ice cold and very, very dead. They said he bled out in his cell. He’s not coming back this time.”

Sophie let out a long breath and slumped against me, winding one arm around my waist and holding me tight. It felt like we’d been waiting forever for her to be free. Divorce had been one solution, but this was much better. Finally, Sophie’s nightmare was over. For good.

“If you two don’t have other plans,” I said, “I was thinking we could go get a hot chocolate at Annabelle’s and stop by to see Charlie and Lucas’s project. Charlie said the kitchen is done and we need to see it before the painters cover it up.”

Sophie straightened and smiled. “Sure, just let me change.”

I caught her hand in mine before she could leave. “You okay, Angel?”

Sophie gave me an absolutely brilliant smile and said, “I’ve never been better.”

As soon as she was out of the room, I turned to Amelia and said, “I have a plan, and I need your help.”