Any Day Now - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,72

asked as we started to lift off.

I gave him two thumbs up and put the headphones over my ears a little better.

And together we flew for what felt like hours.

“You ready to go home?” he asked.

I yawned. “Yeah,” I sighed. “I’m ready. I’m hungry, anyway.”

Something on the ground caught my attention then, and I leaned forward in my seat to catch a better look.

Then I gasped.

“Holy shit!” I breathed.

In the grass way below us, there was a fire.

Only, it wasn’t any ordinary fire.

“I had to get my mom to help me with a few of her friends from the fire station. The SWAT team, your family and mine spent the majority of the day getting this ready.” He paused. “This is on the acreage that I bought last week.”

My breath hitched.

On the ground, written in fucking fire, were the words ‘will you marry me?’

I looked over at the man that never ceased to amaze me.

“Of course, I will. You didn’t even have to ask.” I wiped away tears. “I really love you, Adam Stoker.”

And for once, I controlled the urge to throw myself into his arms.

Because I had hella control.

That, and I didn’t want us to crash and burn where he asked me to marry him.

“Love you, too, Amelia,” he rumbled. “Let’s go home.”

Chapter 24

Fuck him.

-Text from Silas to Sawyer

Silas

“You got it done?” I asked the two men.

Hunt looked up from his computer, grinned widely, then shrugged. “He’s successfully donated all of his proceeds to the battered women’s and children’s center in his hometown, in Kilgore, Texas. In Benton, Louisiana. Mooresville, Alabama, and a few other places where the Dixie Wardens are most prominent.”

Bruno sat forward on his seat and rested his elbows on his knees. “He’s got three more days of his seventeen-day prison sentence to go,” Bruno spat. “But I’ve impressed upon him, multiple times, what it would be like for him if he ever hurt, came near, or otherwise bothered anybody directly tied to Amelia Mackenzie ever again.”

“How do you know that he won’t talk? He could find a hacker like me, do just as much damage,” Hunt interjected.

“He could, yes.” Bruno nodded. “But I made a deal with a guard during one of his last rounds with the inmates. When they shot him up with sleepy juice, I embedded a couple of trackers. Anything happens to our girl, we’ll know, and go looking for him.” He paused. “And, he’s been blacklisted from Hollywood. After you took all his money, he has nothing else to work with. All his royalties were rolled over, too, right?”

“Right.” Hunt nodded. “He’ll never make another penny from the first thirty years of his life.”

“Then he’ll have to work a regular job just like the rest of us to live.” He paused. “And next time, if he decides to be stupid, I’ll impress on him how much easier it would’ve been to follow the rules the first time.”

I snorted and patted Bruno on the back. “You’re kind of a scary motherfucker.”

Bruno’s eyes caught mine. “Learned from the best.”

The best being me.

Shortly after I’d retired from my job, I’d been asked to stay on as an independent contractor to help train other guys to do what I did.

And I had.

I’d been doing it for years now.

And Bruno was definitely one of my most star pupils.

He could be anyone. Do anything.

And he’d always gotten away with it.

See, I’d considered having this all over and done with by taking their lives, but that would’ve been too easy of an out.

I didn’t want easy.

I wanted justice.

“And Hilton?” I asked.

“Hilton got knocked off in his prison cell a few hours ago.”

I looked up to find Lynn standing there.

“Yeah?” I asked. “How?”

“Whoever was pulling his strings didn’t like where his strings led.” Lynn shrugged. “There’s nothing as of yet, but suspiciously all cameras stopped working during that hour that his face ate a bullet. And the bullet and the gun weren’t registered to anyone at the prison. It was just ‘in his cell’ and nobody is talking. He did the deed himself.”

“Son of a bitch,” I grumbled, looking to Hunt. “Any luck yet on who he was working for?”

Hunt shook his head. “No, but if he’s out there, I’ll find him. I won’t stop until I do.”

Hunt was a good guy.

I liked him a lot.

And I believed him. He wouldn’t stop looking until he’d done what he set out to do.

“All right then.” I offered my hand to the men. “Then we’ll see each other next week? Same