Epilogue

Ghost

Wearing my favorite bikini, my wife looked at me from her lounger. "Your phone is vibrating."

"I know." I didn't care.

She glanced at my cell on the table between us. "It says no caller ID."

I knew who it was. "Doesn't matter."

"Now you have another text. No, wait, not just another text. It is also ringing again." Pushing her sunglasses haphazardly to the top of her head in that sexy way she had about her that said she didn't give a fuck how her hair looked, she frowned at the phone, then at me. "It may be important."

She was important. "It's not."

Pulling her sunglasses down, she leaned back on the lounger. "Maybe you should answer it so whoever it is stops calling you."

Internally, I smiled. Externally, I didn't let my expression shift a fucking millimeter. I liked my woman jealous. Loved it, actually. "Answer it." She wouldn't know who she was talking to, and it'd serve the asshole right for haranguing me.

She crossed her legs. "It is not my phone."

It rang again.

Letting her manners slip with an impatient exhale, another side of her I fucking got off on, she sat up, swung her long legs over the side of the lounger and picked up the phone. With two swipes, she had it on speaker and was issuing a greeting in the form of a command. "Yes?"

After a second's pause, my asshole nemesis gave my woman an order. "Put him on."

"He is here, you are on speaker, and he can hear you." Then her tone slid to innocent formality, and she delivered the cut. "But he chose not to answer."

"Give him the phone," the asshole demanded.

Refraining from verbally leveling him only because I didn't want to undermine her, I gave her the room to negotiate her own response.

And she did. Fucking spectacularly.

"As I have already said, he is here, and he is listening. You may speak or hang up. It is your choice."

I smiled.

She narrowed her eyes at me.

The asshole spoke. "I sent you a text."

"I saw," I answered.

"It's a fair number. You're retired. Take the offer."

Safiya interrupted. "Offer for what?"

I didn't say shit, and neither did he.

Her glower amplified to suspicion, and despite what I'd done to her body last night and this morning, I wasn't that cruel. "He wants to buy my company."

Her expression wiped clean of all suspicion before it flipped to shock. "You own a company?"

"Several. Holdings," the prick corrected before addressing me. "You know which division I want. One billion. The offer's fair. Take it." He hung up.

Blinking twice in the bright sun, my woman, my life, she glanced down at the phone, then dropped it like it was hot and looked back at me. "You have several companies?"

"I have a few."

Her face paled, then her voice followed. "And someone wants to buy one of them from you for a billion dollars ?"

"Yes."

"What is the company?"

I weighed the risks of giving her information that could put her in danger versus reinforcing her trust in me. "Satellites."

"Satellites," she repeated, still looking shocked as hell.

"Not for public knowledge," I warned before outlining the seriousness of what I was telling her. "A privately held satellite company is more than high risk, Safiya. I need you to understand that. Knowing its existence puts you at risk. I'll never, and I do mean never , let anything happen to you again, but this intel isn't only classified, it's life dependent."

She didn't nod, her expression didn't morph into fear, and she didn't break eye contact. "Why are you telling me now?"

"So you're well aware." Out of caution, I'd retrofitted one of the spare bedrooms into a panic room equipped with enough weapons and ammunition to arm a small army. But I still hadn't brought in any dedicated computer equipment for Paradigm. The setup I had in there now could do double duty, but I installed it to run the beefed-up security I added to our house, Raine's, and the oceanfront between the properties.

"That sounds like an ultimatum."

"It's not." It was. "It's a warning."

She held my gaze another two seconds, then she looked out to the ocean. "What other companies do you own?"

"Technically, I only own one, but like he said, it's a holding company. Paradigm Holdings. The satellites fall under the communications branch."

"Satellites, as in plural?" She glanced up at clear skies. "How many do you have?"

"Six." About to be seven.

Her gaze cut back to me in a flash. "You not only own this company that is part of another company, and it is worth a billion dollars, but you own six satellites that are in our atmosphere? Looking down on us and doing…. What precisely do they do?"

That intel I wouldn't give her, not in full. "Probably as you'd imagine."

She dismissed my nonanswer. "The satellites that the military and telecom companies have—you have six of those?"

"Yes."

"For one billion dollars," she stated in disbelief.

"They're worth more." A lot fucking more. But the asshole was right. It was a fair offer. Even though I'd only paid for five of the six satellites, all of them were purchased with cartel, terrorist, or reappropriated funds.

Her throat moved with a swallow, and she nodded like she was still processing. Then she asked the other question I was waiting for. "What other companies do you own under this holding company?"

"Real estate, transportation." Mostly. Technically.

The sexy suspicion in her expression came back. "What type of transportation?"

I smiled. "Looking for something specific?"

Her finger shot up. "No. You do not get to smile at me right now. And I know that smile."

I wiped my expression. "Do you?"

"Yes. It means you are about to do something you should not."

"That's not what you said last night." I winked.

"Grayson Ryker Gautier, what sort of transportation?"

"Planes, helicopters, boats, yachts. A few cars." Over the past eight years, when stealing or borrowing shit wasn't practical or feasible, I bought it. Then I created shell corporations around everything to bury ownership and disguise my movements.

Her swallow was hard as she leaned back in her lounger and crossed her arms.

"You're angry." I'd fuck her out of it.

"I am not angry."

She was, but I knew what it stemmed from. "What exactly is making you feel insecure?"

"You are very, very rich."

"Doesn't change who I am. Same as you, I grew up with practically nothing." Also same as me, she was very, very rich. She just hadn't realized what communal property was yet.

"That is not the point."

It was, but I didn't argue.

"Who was that man on the phone?"

The other question I'd been expecting. "I can't tell you that, but not because I give a damn about protecting his identity."

She nodded. "You care about my safety."

"Unequivocally." Done with talking, I reached for my wife and lifted her onto my lap.

"Grayson," she chided, but her voice had gone soft.

I was already pulling down her bikini top and tracing her nipples before I sucked one tight bud into my mouth and lathed the peak with my tongue.

Her back arched, and she moaned. Pushing into me, she ground her hips.

My cock surged, but I gripped her waist and held her back. "Feeling needy this afternoon?" I'd come inside her twice this morning. My releases had still been dripping out of her sweet cunt when I'd put her in her bikini.

"Do not tease me," she ordered.

I leaned back and eyed her.

She instantly flipped. "I meant please." Whispered, soft, submissive. She could do better.

"And?" I prompted.

"Sir."

I preferred husband , and she knew it. English or Turkish. I didn't move. I didn't speak.

She amended. " E?im ."

" Karim ," I replied, still holding her back.

Heat hit her face, and her smile, the shy one she gave me when she looked at me like I hung the fucking moon, tipped her full lips up. Then she placed her hand flat against my heart, where I'd drawn my commitment to her in her blood, and her voice went quiet. " Kocam ."

That's right. I was her husband. " Seni seviyorum ."

"I love you," she whispered back in English.

I pushed aside her bikini bottom and thumbed her clit before I sank two fingers inside her wet heat and stroked deep. "Do you have cramps?"

Sucking in a sharp breath as her eyes closed, she tipped her head back. "Your mother."

Raine had been better since we'd moved her into the new house a month ago, but not that much better. "She's not going to walk over here, and we're not going to discuss her while I'm fucking you. Answer my question."

She ground her sweet cunt into my hand as she gripped my shoulder. "I…." She bit her lip. "I do not know."

I pulled my fingers out.

Her eyes popped open with surprise.

I studied her. "You don't know?"

The hand on my heart moved to my shoulder as she kneeled over me. "No?"

I slowly pulled the strings on her bikini bottom and repeated myself. "You don't know." This time, it wasn't a question.

"Grayson—"

"You don't know?" I spread her cunt open with one hand, then pushed two fingers back inside her with the other. "Or you don't want to say?" I wanted to breed her. I had been fucking breeding her. Every day since I first sank inside her because I'd been dead fucking wrong.

Claiming her, taking her virginity, making her mine—it wasn't enough.

I wanted this woman bonded to me so damn permanently that everywhere she looked, she'd see us. Her stomach swollen with my child. Her gaze locked in mine. Her blood on my chest. Her ocean at her feet.

I wanted to give her the future so she'd forget the past.

I wanted to give her that peace she said she wanted to give me.

And I wanted to give her the fucking world because she deserved it.

" Husband ," she whispered softly.

Not pregnant. "You have cramps." Her period was due.

She said nothing.

I drew my fingers out, stroked her clit, then pushed them back in hard and deep. "Yes?"

Her inhale breathy, her nipples hard, her hands dug into my shoulders. " Evet ."

If fucking fate didn't give me children, I'd understand it. But if it forsook her? That, I wouldn't understand. Or accept.

Focused on stroking her, watching my fingers disappear inside her, seeing her arousal coat my hand, I didn't notice her shift until she drew a finger between my eyebrows.

"?yi misin?"

I met her dark-eyed gaze. "I'm always okay, hayatim ."

"You are enough."

I didn't need the reassurance. That wasn't what this was about. "You are my life." I didn't use or say hayatim lightly. "I don't need more. I want more for you."

Sexy, coquettish, and fucking mine, my wife smiled. "Then maybe you should give me more."

I was Oscar Tango Mike before she took her next breath.

Flipping her onto her back, shoving my board shorts down, I drove into my wife to the hilt.

She gasped, and I turned fucking primal.

Then I gave my hayatim exactly what she asked for.

That fucker Ghost didn't pull off the second largest terrorist takedown in history single-handedly.

I didn't care how good his strike teams were or how many Delta Force Operatives he'd had, or whoever the fuck else was boots on the ground. The mission had been a massive fucking undertaking, and Ghost'd had help.

Inside help.

Brass, Langley, someone.

I waited till November left the command room to go talk to Alpha, then I let myself in and went to his triple-monitor setup. Hoping to hit paydirt and grab his cell because November was more attached to his laptop than his fucking phone, I struck out.

Waking up his screens, I made one last ditch attempt to get what I was looking for without having to ask. Which was the whole point of my stealth bullshit.

I got fucking lucky.

November was still logged in to the network.

I could log into AES's servers. Everyone who worked for Alpha could. But November wasn't only the mastermind behind every invasive cyber-tracking, cyberstalking software program AES had, he was the keeper of the kingdom.

Not all logins were created equal, and his was gold.

Aiming for the call log I knew November kept on all landline and cell traffic for every one of us, hopefully including himself, I found the program and started scanning.

Two minutes later, I saw the number for one of November's recent burners. Tracking the calls, both incoming and outgoing, against the timeframe AES had been retrieving, housing, then relocating Ghost's fucking harem of trafficked women, I found one repeat number.

After quickly memorizing it, I walked back my steps, erased my digital footprint, and sent the monitors back into dark mode. Then I grabbed one of the extra burners November kept in his bottom drawer and headed out.

Before I made a clean exfil, the door opened, and November walked in.

"Blade." Not glancing up from his laptop, November bypassed me on his way to his desk. "Can I help you with anything?"

"Grabbing a clean burner."

"Copy." November sat down at his desk.

I walked out of the command room, hit the elevators, and went down to the garage level. Thirty seconds later, I was in my company Range Rover with the AC blasting, dialing the fucking number.

Ghost answered and mistook me for November. "Busy, Rhys."

"Not Rhys. Need a favor."

"How'd you get this number? You don't hack."

Correction—I didn't use to hack. I didn't use to have any fucking time for computers. Now I made time. "I do what I have to. I need a contact."

"Ask your boss."

"It's not that kind of contact." Alpha was honorable.

"Can't help you." An engine turned over in the background.

I called him on his bullshit. "You didn't handle your shit solo, and that coordinated hit on Baccalaureate's operation took more than some strike teams outfitted with guys from the Unit." He had fucking contacts.

"Conversation's over. I'm retired." Ghost hung up.

Fucking pissed, I threw the SUV into reverse, and the burner rang.

Not about to take more of Ghost's bullshit, I answered and headed him off. "Go fuck yourself."

Pause.

"I hear you're looking for your brother."

Not Ghost. Racking my brain, analyzing every word the caller had said—American accent, not old, not young, monotone. Could be anyone, but it wasn't. His voice had that distinctive cadence. Military. Spec Ops.

"Who is this?" I demanded.

"I have a proposition for you."

I threw the SUV back into Park. "Tell me who the fuck this is, and I might listen."

THANK YOU!