“Okay,” she said. “Knox?”
“Yeah, kid?”
She crooked her finger at me, and I leaned down. I tried not to smile when she got done whispering in my ear.
“Got it. I’ll see you at home,” I said, giving her hair a ruffle.
We watched Nash guide her over to the ambulance.
“We need that damn list,” Lucian said.
I felt my lips curve.
“What?” he asked.
“That’s not the only copy. She also uploaded it to the library’s server.”
He stood stock-still for a beat, then let out a bark of laughter. Sloane’s gaze flew to him, and I realized that Lucian rarely laughed. Not like he used to, when we were kids and everything was a punchline waiting to happen.
“You are going to hate your life when she starts dating,” he said.
I couldn’t fucking wait.
We started back toward Naomi, who was on her feet under a blanket and holding a coffee. Despite everything I’d seen tonight, despite everything I’d done wrong, the smile she directed at me lit me up from the inside out.
I slapped Lucian on the shoulder. “Hey. How do you feel about being co-best man?”
EPILOGUE
PARTY TIME
Naomi
“Mmmph. Knox. We have to get back to the party,” I murmured against his mouth.
He had me pinned against the wall in Liza’s den as the most epic twelfth birthday party happened in the backyard. And the front yard. And in the kitchen, dining room, and sunroom.
There were kids, parents, and bikers everywhere.
The man who was currently kissing the ever-living breath out of me had sat down with Waylay and asked her for a list of every single thing she could possibly want. And then he’d delivered on each and every one.
Which was why there was an inflatable obstacle course in the back yard, a petting zoo in the front yard, and not a vegetable in sight on the food table that was buckling under the weight of pizza, nachos, popcorn, and two birthday cakes.
His tongue teased its way into my mouth again, and my knees went weak. The erection he had pressed against my stomach was driving my lady parts wild.
“You have your parents, Liza, Stef, and Sloane out there playing host. Give me five minutes,” he growled over my lips.
“Five minutes?”
He wedged a hand between our bodies and slid it up my dress. When his fingers found me, my hips bucked involuntarily against him.
“Might only need four to get you there,” he decided.
He could have had me there in about fifteen seconds, but I was feeling greedy.
“Deal,” I whispered.
He dragged me with him to lock the glass doors, then guided us to the credenza against the wall and placed me on it.
“What are all these boxes in here for?” I asked, noticing a stack of them in the corner.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said.
I decided to follow his advice when he yanked my underwear down my legs until I could step out of them.
“Five minutes,” he reminded me as he hooked my heels on the edge of the wood and spread my knees wide. Before I could say something smart, he was freeing his thick, hard cock from his jeans and feeding it into my body inch by glorious inch.
We moaned together as he thrust hard to fill me completely.
“I can’t. Believe. You talked me. Into this,” I said, my teeth chattering as he began to thrust mercilessly.
“You’re already gripping me, baby.” He gritted the words out.
Knox had been insatiable since the “incident,” as I’d dubbed it. He’d barely let me out of his sight. And I was okay with it. Especially since so much of the time we spent together was naked. Well, between talking to the police. Both the Knockemout PD and the other departments involved.
It turned out that the infamous list included the names of several cops and their criminal informants spread out across five counties in NOVA.
Hugo’s father had gotten his hands on the information and intended to work his way down the list, eliminating all of the cops and their informants. Hugo, wanting to impress his father, had decided to take a shot at one of those names on the list: Nash.
But after the botched job brought his father’s wrath down on him, Hugo decided it was more lucrative to steal the information and sell it to the highest bidder.
All of this information came from my sister. Tina had sung like a canary in an orange jumpsuit and was looking at a pretty lenient deal if her information brought down any part of the Hugo crime family.
With Tina behind bars, the path toward guardianship was about as clear as it could be. It would still be a long one, but at least we’d cleared it of the major obstacles.