I nodded.
“Why would he…?”
Part of my initial conversation with Trent came back to me. He had taunted me with the suggestion that I had been working for the insurgents and had given them information—the same thing Kevin Davies, the private who had given up our position, had been accused of doing. At the time, I assumed it was just a tactic to get to me, but now I wondered if there was more to it.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m going to find out though.”
I wrapped her hair in my hands and pulled our heads together. I inhaled her scent through my mouth and nose, wanting to capture it forever in my memories. Everything in my head made so little sense, I was half afraid it was still nothing but a dream. I felt wetness in my eyes drop down the sides of my face and into her hair.
Something was happening inside of me, and it was strong and powerful. I didn’t have a name for it, only that I equated it to more of an unexpected, physics-defying sunrise rather than a left hook to the jaw. It was like it had always been there, lurking around my body, but was blocked by everything else. Before I
nearly lost her, I couldn’t see it for what it was.
Now it was blinding.
“I love you,” I heard myself say right before I started babbling. “God…I just…I…I love you, and if you had…if he had…fuck…I can’t be without you. I love you, Lia.”
Her hands were on the sides of my face a moment later, and her lips pressed to mine. I returned the kiss with hunger.
“Did I hear you right?” Lia whispered as her eyes looked to mine. “Did you just say what I think you said?”
I ran my tongue over my lips and nodded.
“I love you,” I said again. “I love you, Lia Antonio.”
Her eyes brightened with her smile.
“I love you, too, Evan Arden.”
I took a shuddering breath and listened to the words play over and over again in my mind. The sound was the most beautiful music I had ever heard.
“No one’s ever said that to me before,” I said as the realization bounced around inside my head.
Lia’s eyes widened.
“No one?”
I shook my head.
“I remember a lot of shit about how God loved me,” I told her, “but no one ever saying it…not like that. The God shit, well…let’s just say that considering what He’s put me through, God can pretty much fuck off.”
Lia’s fingers ran down my cheek with a sad smile.
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I think maybe He brought me to you, so I can’t be too mad at Him for the other stuff.”
For a long moment, we stared at each other without speaking.
“No more of this shit,” I finally said. My hands cupped her face, and I stared into her eyes. “I’m done with it—all of it. We’re getting the fuck out of Chicago as soon as possible.”
Lia nodded her agreement, and I kissed her again. That action led to another kiss, and before long, I had to force myself to part with her to make good on my promise.
“I have to get you somewhere safe—somewhere you can be protected.”
I instructed Lia to get her seatbelt back on as I picked up the phone and tapped a couple of numbers on the screen.
“I have her,” I said when Rinaldo answered.
“She’s alive?”