40. Thomas

CHAPTER 40

Thomas

Clara doesn't let me walk too far ahead of her. Jogging to catch up to me, she surprises me by taking my hand and squeezing it. "Where are we going?" she asks.

I slow my step to match her pace. "The bunker. It looks like Derrick is riding ahead of his people, but I don't want to assume that means he's not going to make some show of force. You and Raleigh will stay there until I come get you."

"I want to stay with you," Clara argues, and there's an earnestness in her voice that makes me stop entirely and face her.

"I might be walking into a firefight, Clara," I tell her. Unwillingly, my eyes stray to the bruises that have only darkened on her cheek. It will take weeks for them to fade. I've already sworn to myself that I'll never let her be that helpless again, no matter what her decision is in regards to us.

Clara licks her lips and takes a deep breath, steeling herself for something. When she speaks, her voice is low. Just for me. "I wish I'd stayed ten years ago. I don't care what the danger is, I'm not making the same mistake again. I'm staying with you. Always . "

I open my mouth- but there's no time for a response. Iris appears at the end of the hall. "Thomas!" she calls. "Lindman's at the gate. He's alone."

Fuck Derrick Lindman all the way to hell. The man has a talent for showing up at the worst possible moments. I squeeze Clara's hand and pull her down the hall after me.

"Hey, I'm coming too!" Raleigh yells, hurrying after us.

I open my mouth to argue, but if Clara is with me then I have no good excuse not to let Raleigh stay by my side. If anything, I owe her this, and a lot more.

We leave the house and make our way down the drive to the front gates. There's already a crowd of my people set up on top of the wall and just inside the gates, all armed and ready for the raid that has to be coming. Iris is already there, gun in hand. Paul is at her side- I don't think he's left it since they collided last night.

At some point, Iris and Paul and I are going to have a conversation about how and when and why they're together.

But right now, I've got much more irritating fish to fry.

Iris must hear my footsteps on the gravel, but she doesn't take her eyes off of Derrick, standing by his car where it sits a safe distance outside the gate. For a moment, I'm shocked at the sight of him. I'm so used to the politician's smile on TV ads and billboards, that even though I did the damage to his face myself, it's hard to take in.

His face is covered in bruises. There's a split in his lip that's still red. His left eye is black and swollen shut, and his nose is crooked.

And still, he's smiling, showing off his perfect teeth.

Damn, I should have hit him until I knocked an incisor loose. Hindsight.

"He's cute," Raleigh says dryly from my left. Clara lets out a strangled little sound on my right.

"Good morning, Thomas!" Derrick calls, raising a hand in a far too cheerful hello. At least he's smart enough not to step away from his car. "I appreciate you coming to see me."

"Are you talking about right now, or last night?" I can't help but ask.

Derrick's lips close, but he's still smiling. "Either? Both?"

"You're thirty seconds from becoming an unfortunate accident in the headlines," I tell him. "What are you doing here?"

"I just thought I should congratulate you," Derrick says, as if I'm being thick. "I heard that there was an unfortunate fire and a series of accidental explosions at Morgan Speare's estate across town. It seems like the fire department got there too late to save any part of the structure. I can't imagine anyone here will be surprised when they find Mr. Speare's body under the debris."

I only remember Clara's still holding my hand when she squeezes it in a vice-like grip.

"All right, you've said your piece," I tell Derrick. "Now unless you have a warrant, I'm going to have to ask you to get off my property."

"Whoa, hold on, hold on," Derrick chuckles. "If that was all I had to say I could've left a voicemail. No, I wanted to make sure you understood that my services are still very much at your disposal."

Is he fucking serious?

"And why, precisely, do you think I have need of you anymore?" I ask, struggling not to grit my teeth around every word.

"Well, we never did get around to those co-op raids, did we?" Derrick asks, and I suddenly wonder if he's trying to convince me to kill him. "There are still plenty of pockets of Speare influence in the city. Thanks to your shared roots, these stragglers have insider information on your people, information that Morgan was using to make cracks in your walls. Who's buried in the worst gambling debts, who's having an affair, who's accidentally killed someone- those kinds of things. And maybe these people aren't called Speares anymore, but that doesn't matter. By the end of the week, they'll be following a new boss. You cut the head off the hydra, but a dozen more will come back in its place."

I can't believe I'm hearing this. " And ?"

" And you need my help to track them down. So why don't we let what's past be past, and work together toward a brighter future?"

This, listening to Derrick fucking Lindman not only reiterate the logic behind my own plans back to me- plans he ruined by stabbing me in the back- but also compare us to each other, is exactly too much.

And yet, I called a truce with Morgan Speare for the sole purpose of giving myself more time to build up men and weapons so I could crush him for good. That, I suppose, makes us similar enough to make me uncomfortable.

I won't make that mistake again. And now I've got a second chance to do what I didn't last night. I could shoot Lindman right here, and, as I warned a minute ago, it's well within my power to make it look like a tragic accident.

But if I did that, a new Sheriff would need to be elected, and how likely would it be that I could find a second Derrick Lindman? A man ambitious enough to share my vision but spineless enough to accept bribes? Not to mention a born politician who can lie so goddamn convincingly.

No, for now, it does me more good to keep Derrick around, if on a much shorter leash. Besides, it'll gall him to know that he was in my mercy not once, but twice, and I spared him.

"Crawl back into your hole, snake," I say, as airily as I can. "And I suggest you pray that I don't call on you again."

Derrick is quiet for a moment, no doubt calculating whether to push his luck or take the loss. When he recovers, he only smiles and throws me a jaunty salute. "Always a pleasure, Thomas," he says, and climbs back into his car.

"Please let me shoot out his tires," Iris murmurs, as he starts up his car. Quickly she amends, " Tire . Just one. He'll still be able to drive away."

"Next time," I promise.

Paul snickers, drawing my eye to him. When he sees me watching him, his expression sobers. Iris looks between us, then to me.

"Thomas," she starts, then seems to change what she planned to say. "Allow me to introduce my husband, Paul Zakharov." She puts a hand in his, and suddenly I can see it- love, unbroken between them even after all these years. Iris looks expectantly at me, and for the sake of my friendship with her, I can't bear to do anything but smile.

I hold out my hand for Paul, and he hesitates for only a moment before taking it and exchanging a firm shake with me. "It's been a long time, Paul," I say, and force myself to add despite my uncertainty, "I'm glad to have you back with us."

Paul smiles, and it makes his rugged face look younger by a decade. "Not as glad as I am, sir."

I don't think I've seen Iris beam so brightly in all my life.

I step away from them quickly. They have years of catching up to do. Besides, Derrick Lindman interrupted a conversation that I'd very much like to finish.

When I turn, Raleigh is already gone back into the house, bored now that the scene is over. But Clara is still at my side.

I'm staying with you . Always .

"You meant it," I say.

She takes my hand in hers once again. Instead of just entwining our fingers, she presses my knuckles to her lips. Her brown eyes glow golden in the morning light .

"I've loved you all my life," she says softly. "Even when I was a kid and didn't understand what it meant. I froze last night because I- well, I'd only ever imagined you asking me to marry you in crazy fantasies. I couldn't believe I was hearing the question in real life. And besides that, I didn't know if I had in me what you were looking for. Would we get married, only for me to realize I don't want to be a mafia wife at all?"

Of course. She never wanted this, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want me . The only problem is that I can't leave the life I have. There are too many people relying on me, and there's too much that I expect from myself. Last night, I didn't just ask her to marry me. I asked her to be a permanent part of a world she doesn't want to live in, maybe even to give up on the life she's been trying to get for herself since we were reunited.

Clara takes a deep breath, and when she exhales, it shakes just a little. "But I'm sure of one thing, Thomas," she says, speaking clearly and firmly. "I want to be with you. So yes, I meant it. I'm staying with you." Her eyelashes flutter, ever so slightly. "I'm going to be your wife."

My hand tightens in hers. "I shouldn't have left you last night. I was so fucking cold to you, when all I should've been doing was telling you how much I-" God, even now the words seem unreal to me. They're words I never imagined I'd say to anyone, much less someone who's already said them to me. "I should have told you before you felt like you had to throw yourself into danger for my sake. But I was trained since I was a child that emotions were things to be manipulated, not things to embrace. If I told you my true feelings, someone could use them against me. My best defense has always been silence." I bring my free hand up, my knuckles brushing down her cheek to her jaw. "I'm not staying silent any longer. I love you, Clara. I love you so fucking much. And you… you are go ing to be so much more than my wife. You'll help me lead the Warwick estate. And you'll be an extraordinary artist."

Tears shine in her eyes. I bend to kiss them before they fall, and against her skin I whisper, "Now let's go make you my queen."