Page 91 of One Filthy Kiss

“You’re a good person, Megan Walsh,” she murmurs against my chest. “No wonder Gio fell in love with you.”

“He’s a good person too. One of the best.”

I glance up at the camera. I hope he’s watching us right now, and if he is, I hope that his lip reading skills are up to scratch.

“I think I loved him from the first moment I set eyes on him.”

“You seemed pretty irate to me at the time.”

I smile. “I was in full-on panic mode, but being with Gio… I think it’s the only time in the last five years that I’ve been able to let go. I trusted him to take care of us. I still trust him.” I stare straight at the camera. “He’s the only person who makes me feel safe, Nik. He said that he would protect us with his life, and I believe him.”

“You really love him, don’t you?” she whispers.

“I’m head-over-heels in love with him.”

I only hope that, when this is all over, I get to tell him this to his face again. I don’t care about Lucia. Arrangements can be broken, but love can’t. I just don’t want our story to end like this, at the hands of a sociopathic murderer who thinks he can play God with our lives.

“This is real love, Nik. How does the song go?Seems like all I really was doing was waiting for love. I get it now. Everything that has ever happened to me, good and bad, was leading me to Gio.”

Good and bad.

Gio and I were always meant to meet this way. The realization gives me a wave of renewed energy. Amber’s father isn’t goingto win. His lack of any kind of human emotion or empathy will not triumph over love. It won’t.

I check out the clock on the kitchen wall. It’s later than I realized, and there has been no communication from Ric or anyone else since he took Nikki’s phone.

The silence makes me shiver.

Should we move down to the bunker now before it’s too late? Or is the silence a good sign? I mean, we haven’t heard any gunshots or raised voices. We literally haven’t heard anything.

“I should wake Amber up.”

Aside from the fact that it will be cumbersome trying to move a sleeping five-year-old’s dead weight through a hatch in the floor and underground to a secret bunker, it wouldn’t be fair to wake her up in an unknown place.

Nikki stands first and offers me her hand.

We’re friends again.

Nikki goes to the window. I go to the den and drop onto my hands and knees, my heart melting when I see that Amber is sucking her thumb the way she did when she was a baby.

“Amber,” I whisper, stroking her hand gently.

It’s so cozy inside the blanket den, I can understand why she’s still asleep; she has probably hunkered down for the night after the day we’ve had.

“Amber, sweetie, it’s time to wake up.”

Time to wake up, what a ridiculous saying. If she wants to sleep, she should be allowed to sleep, but I can’t leave her here.

“Okay, Amber, do you want pizza?” Nothing. “How about ice cream?”

Her eyelids flicker. “What flavor ice cream?” she murmurs without fully opening her eyes.

“What flavor do you want?”

She curls her legs up to her knees in the fetal position, getting comfortable again.

“Amber? Do you want vanilla? Raspberry ripple? Cookie dough?”

Somewhere in my consciousness, I register the cabin door being opened. There’s a rush of cool night air on the back of my neck, and I turn around just in time to watch Nikki stepping outside.