Page 109 of Reckless Woman

I tore myself in two for the truth.

“I think it’s time we said hello to Eve, don’t you?” I hear him say.

No.

Not more agony.

“Instruct the teams to move in. Shoot to kill.”

Blind rage lifts me from the floor. Sprinting at the bars of my cage, I try to prise them apart with my bare hands. “Get away from her!” I roar at the security footage.

But nothing’s happening. The feed isn’t changing.

There’s no screaming.

No storming of my compound.

That’s when I see it…the tiny tic at the corner of each screen. It’s recorded footage and they’re all scenes on a loop from a previous time.

I owe you Joseph Grayson.

I drop to the floor again and brace myself.

A beat later, a massive explosion is ripping through the building.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Dante

Inever pictured in my head what my reunion with Isabella would look like.

Before I was given the false evidence that she’d died at the age of twelve, I’d never dared to assume that one day that light would re-enter my life.

God knows, I didn’t deserve it...

Then, there she was—my past and my one regret finally converging—with the dust settling and the remains of the building now under Joseph’s control.

As my brother is dragged out and stored up for his final, bloody reckoning by my hand later, I see her walking toward me. I see myself in her face, her eyes, her movements, like I did subconsciously that first time we’d met in Leticia, all those months ago.

She slots a key into the lock of my cage and turns it, and I reflect on the symbolism of the moment with a grim smile. I’ve been locked in a different cage since the time she was stolen from Gabriela’s arms at the age of four. Now, here she is, finally setting me free.

She goes to speak, but I beat her to it with something I’ve been wanting to do for twenty-three years.

Within two strides, she’s finally in my arms.

I hold her as she cries her years of suffering into my shoulder.

I hold her as her feet give way from her pain.

I’ll be holding her in my arms like this for the rest of my fucking life.

Above her head, I see the tall figure of Joseph watching us from the distance. I give him a nod, and he gives me one back.

A thousand words unspoken.

A thousand more understood.

Epilogue