Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 102942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Nothing but the road ahead.
And forever looks a hell of a lot better with her walking it beside me.
EPILOGUE
KIARA
SIX MONTHS LATER
The world thinks we’re dead.
According to both of our agencies, Raiden and I went down on the same night, casualties of a very unfortunate series of events that left a warehouse full of bodies and no survivors worth questioning. The files have been closed, the reports signed, and our names crossed off whatever quiet little lists those people keep in the dark corners of their databases.
Officially, we no longer exist. And honestly? I’ve never been happier.
From what we’ve been able to gather through the occasional whisper on encrypted channels, both agencies are still operating, though apparently not very smoothly. There’s been a lot of scrambling behind the scenes—contracts slipping through the cracks, jobs taking longer than they should, entire operations falling apart because the people they’ve tried to replace us with simply can’t do what we did.
Turns out, finding contractors capable of stepping into our shoes isn’t exactly easy.
A small, very petty part of me enjoys that, while Raiden pretends he doesn’t, but I’ve caught him grinning to himself on more than one occasion. What can I say? He’s a smug bastard who gets off on knowing he’s the best, and watching people attempt to claim his throne has been pure entertainment for him.
We’ve talked about starting our own agency eventually. The idea lingers between us like a loaded weapon sitting on the table—dangerous, tempting, and probably inevitable. I love what I do. Always have. The rush of it, the strategy, the way the world narrows down to one objective, and the clean satisfaction that comes with finishing the job.
I miss the thrill, but for the first time in my life, I’m not in a hurry to chase it, because right now, life has never looked so good. Right now, life looks like the South of France, and I fucking love it.
Our home sits along a quiet stretch of coastline where the air always smells like salt and the citrus trees growing along the property. At night, the only sound is the waves rolling in against the shore. Every morning, the sun rises slowly over the water, turning the whole sky orange and pink in a way that still feels a little unreal after spending most of my life in the darker corners of the world.
Most mornings, I wake before Raiden, slipping out of bed just long enough to watch the sunrise from the balcony with a cup of coffee in my hand. He usually finds me there a few minutes later. Always shirtless. Always perfect. And always ready to rock my world.
Life has slowed down in ways I never thought possible. We cook together. We swim in the ocean. We argue about stupid things like whose turn it is to buy groceries or whether Spikezilla and Needles are achieving world dominance or barely surviving under my care.
Every now and then, when things get a little too quiet around here, Raiden looks at me with that look in his eye and says something like, “So, how would you feel about running our own operation?”
I usually smile. Not because I’m ready to dive back into that world just yet, but because I know when we do, we’ll do it together. If the past has proven anything, it’s that the two of us are damn near unstoppable.
For now, though? The world thinks we’re dead, the agencies are scrambling, and Raiden is currently in the shower . . . which means I’ve got about five minutes before he comes out, dripping wet, acting like I’m personally responsible for distracting him from whatever plan he was pretending to make. But let’s be honest, the only plan either of us has is to have him buried inside of me, screaming his name.
Fuck, life is good.
I take another sip of my coffee and smile out at the endless sea.
The bathroom door opens, and Raiden steps out in a cloud of steam, dragging a towel through his hair before letting it fall around his neck. Water droplets slide down his chest and over the hard ridges of his stomach, tracing the familiar paths I’ve memorized more times than I can count.
A loose towel hangs low on his hips, barely doing its job, and he looks entirely too pleased with himself for a man who just walked into the room half-naked.
My gaze drifts slowly from his shoulders down over his chest, lingering for a moment on the lines of muscle running across his stomach before dropping just a little lower. The man looks like he walked straight out of a goddamn sin catalog.
Then my eyes drag their way back up to his face.
I don’t even pretend to look away. Not subtle. Not embarrassed. Not even a little ashamed of the full-body inspection I’m giving him. Because shit, why not look at something so incredibly delicious if it’s presented to you like a goddamn snack? Honestly, at this point, it would be rude not to admire him.