Jerry melted back into the crowd. Ezio picked Samantha up. He wanted her outside so she could get immediate care.

“Ezio?” she whispered as he started walking.

“What, Baby?”

“I love you so much.”

His step faltered.

“Love your timing, Samantha.”

He heard a soft giggle. “Say it back.”

In the darkness of the warehouse, he stopped walking and got down on one knee, holding her close. “Love is such a paltry word for what I feel. When you were taken, my life stopped. I was nothing. Do you get that?” He breathed the next words into her neck. He felt the tears coming. “You’re the light to my darkness. You’re the stars in my sky. You’re my next breath. No way will the words, ‘I love you’ ever be enough. You’re the missing piece of my soul, Baby. My heart can’t beat without yours.”

“Ezio, I can’t get close to saying such pretty words, but you’re my world too.” She coughed. “Thank you for saving me. Thank you for always being here to love me and protect me.”

“Always,” he whispered softly against her cheek. “Always, Samantha.”

Leo drove Ezio’s truck for him as they followed the ambulance to the Richmond hospital. They had to do emergency surgery to remove the bullet in her arm. Kane and Asher were the first to arrive in the waiting room. Eden was next, followed shortly by A.J. By the second hour, half of Night Storm was in the waiting room.

The second hour! Why was it taking so fucking long?

The third time Ezio got up to ask the question of a passing nurse, Cullen yanked him back down to his seat and Carys went to do magic doctor stuff.

It took her forever to come back and when she did, she came straight to Ezio who immediately stood up.

“What? What’s going on?”

“Samantha is fine. The surgery is almost done. They are finishing repairing one more ligament, then they will be closing the wound.”

“What took so long?” Ezio demanded to know.

“If I had to guess, it was that they were being thorough and making sure that they repaired as much muscle and as many ligaments as they could so she wouldn’t lose any range of motion. It didn’t hit the bone, so no hardware.”

Ezio closed his eyes. He could breathe. He hugged Carys.

“Get your hands off my woman. You’ll have your own back soon enough,” Cullen teased.

Epilogue

“He’s going to propose,” Toni said as she took a sip of her sparkling water.

“Only if that’s what’s right for them,” Eden said as she twirled the wine in her glass.

Samantha smiled at her two friends. They had shown up unannounced at her door, or Ezio’s door, an hour ago. The men were on the tail-end of a week-long training operation in California; Samantha was just thankful that A.J. and Carys hadn’t shown up as well.

“Ladies, I’m content the way things stand,” Samantha said.

“How can you be?” Toni wanted to know. “It’s been a month since you’ve gotten out of the hospital, and your arm’s been fine for a week now. How can you be fine just living together?”

“Toni, leave it be,” Eden admonished.

“Yeah Toni, I want to hear about Phil,” Samantha said. “What’s the latest?”

“Phil is in rehab again. This is the fourth time. Sharon has filed for divorce.”

“Oh no.” Sam cringed. “Isn’t she like five months pregnant?”

“Seven,” Toni answered. “And this is a good thing. I will always love my brother, but he can’t be depended on, not like this. Sharon’s parents are going to help her out. So are David and I.”

“And Phil?”

“He needs to figure things out on his own. David said I can’t be a crutch anymore, and he’s right.”

Eden laughed. “You’re listening to David?”

“He had some creative ways of convincing me. Plus, there’s the fact he’s right.”

Sam sighed. She hated seeing a marriage dissolve, but she understood.

“Hey, I have scoopage,” Eden said.

“Let’s hear it. Make it better than Toni’s news.” Samantha pleaded.

“My brother Pete got that big contract he was after when he came to Virginia. He’s probably going to move out here and open a branch of Force-Tactical and leave his partner to manage the one in Vegas.”

“That is good news. All the boys will have somebody else to have playdates with,” Samantha giggled.

“You’re bad,” Eden laughed. “Playdates, I like that. Playdates with guns you mean.”

“I don’t care the age, they all end up playing hide-n-seek,” Samantha laughed harder.

“David will want in on this. He likes hide-n-seek.”

“How would you know? You’ve only played peek-a-boo with him.” Eden was laughing so hard she had to put down her wineglass or end up spilling it on the couch.

By the time Eden and Toni left they had finished off a large Sicilian pizza and a dozen chocolate chip cookies. Samantha was just glad that Toni had ended up dropping the whole thing about Ezio proposing. She’d been proposed to once in her life. Was she ready to do the whole big wedding thing again? Probably not.

She grinned as she started cleaning up the mess.

But a big Italian family?

Heck yeah.

Chiara for a girl and Lorenzo for a boy.

He better hurry up and propose.

The debrief was taking for fucking ever. Ezio was ready to jump out of his skin. Kane looked over at him and smirked. The fucker knew he had a ring in his pocket. The whole damn team knew about it. He’d spent the whole damn time in California mentally going over his proposal, and Leo had finally called him on the fact that his head wasn’t in the game. So, he’d confessed.

Leo had howled with laughter.

“Told you that you were tagged and bagged

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