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Fuck.
“What happened?”
Shara huffed. “We were out getting lunch when they cornered us. Clocked Ash good before I even knew they were there. They were about to stick us with something when these two swooped in.”
She rolled her eyes at Christian, but I could see her fondness for Adrien a mile away, and I didn’t understand where it came from. She’d mentioned dating again but never followed up with anymore information. Had she downloaded an app and landed on him? No, that was too coincidental. It had to be something else. “You’ve met before?”
“He was a dancer at my bachelorette party.” Ash waggled her eyebrows, and mine rose to the ceiling even as my breaths tightened at the way she grinned. She won’t be smiling like that for long.
“I assume that was planned.” I narrowed my eyes on Adrien. There was no chance in hell I believed he’d been there by coincidence.
Shockingly, Shara answered. “It was, but he told me before anything happened.”
“What?” Christian and I said at the same time, though he was obviously more irritated than shocked.
Adrien shrugged, keeping Shara’s hand tight in his grasp. “I didn’t want to lie to her.”
“So you outed us to?—”
Christian was going to say an enemy, but we weren’t really adversaries. We weren’t allies either.
“No, I outed us to Shara. Just her.” The haughty tip of his chin screamed I don’t regret it, and I had to say, it was nice to see someone fight for Shara again. The faintest color in her cheeks meant she agreed.
A part of me hated seeing her move on because it meant that Antoni was really gone, but she deserved happiness. If my brother had had one last wish, it would’ve been that. So, I took the grief that tried to swallow me and let it go.
It was time to live again, and if Adrien made Shara happy—and the glimmer in her eye said he did—then who was I to stand in the way of that?
“Where are the men who attacked them?”
“Dead.”
“Where were you?” Grey asked Aislynn, and I knew he’d send our own men to make sure the scene was clear and the girls had gotten out fully unscathed. I didn’t want either of them to end up in jail again.
Only when we verified with one of our men patrolling the area that everything was sorted did we move on.
“What happens next?” Shara knew things with Cash were getting bad. I’d been begging her for ages to leave the city. She had family in another state she could visit, places that Antoni had set up for her to be safe, and that was what I needed—for her to be safe while I took out the threat to our existence. I couldn’t handle it if he went after her or Ash to get to me. Not again.
“We should put them in a safe house.” It didn’t escape my notice that Christian said we or that he hadn’t moved his eyes off Shara once. Rafael had mentioned she was Christian’s type at Ash’s wedding, but I hadn’t really thought much about it. Now it was glaringly obvious that my cousin was interested, and I didn’t know what to think about that.
Greyson, focused as usual, nodded. “We have plenty of places to hide them.”
Adrien cleared his throat. “It would be better if they were somewhere even you couldn’t find.”
My laugh sounded on edge even to me. “You’re out of your mind.”
Christian shrugged. “Maybe, but I wouldn’t scoff at the offer outright.”
“What exactly are you offering?”
“Safety for both of them.”
I waited for him to continue, but there was nothing. No stipulations, no rewards for him. Christian was prepared to give them sanctuary indefinitely with no payoff for himself.
“Why?”
He stared me straight in the eye and refused to answer, but I had a good idea of what—or who—had influenced the decision.
Christian wanted Shara, and from the surreptitious glances she was giving him, she was just as interested. When I peeked at Adrien, he looked between them and gave me a big grin. Yep, Shara was going to end up with a little family of her own, just like I had.
