Chapter 102 ONE LAST TIME
Chapter 102 ONE LAST TIME
Dominic's POV
We got there at two in the morning.
Roan had given an address in the Meatpacking District, a private building that had been empty for months, and we went in two cars, Adrian and Elias in the first, me and Ava in the second, and I kept my hand over hers the whole drive and she kept hers steady under mine.
The building was dark from the outside and unlocked when we got to the door and we went in and Roan was already there, standing in the center of the empty ground floor with his hands at his sides, and Kade was there too, sitting on a crate near the far wall, and three people I didn't recognise stood at various points around the space.
I stopped and Ava stopped beside me and I looked at Roan and said, "you brought him here."
"Yes," Roan said.
"You made a deal," I said.
"Yes," Roan said again, and his voice was very calm.
Kade stood and looked at me and then at Ava and there was something assessing in it that made my jaw tighten and I stepped slightly forward and he said, "Mr. Hayes. You've caused me a considerable amount of inconvenience."
"That was the intention," I said.
He almost smiled and said, "Roan tells me you won't negotiate a trade. That he's not something you'll hand over."
"No," I said.
"Then we have a problem," Kade said.
"No," Roan said, and he said it quietly but everyone in the room heard it, "you have a problem. I do."
He looked at me and I looked at him and he said, "I'm going to ask you to trust me one last time, Dominic. Step back. Both of you. Step back and don't interfere with what I'm about to do."
I looked at him for a long moment and every instinct I had was pulling in two directions simultaneously and Ava's hand tightened on mine and I looked at her and she looked at me and said quietly, "trust him."
I stepped back and pulled Ava with me and Adrian and Elias moved back too and Roan turned to face Kade and the room went very quiet.
What happened next was difficult to describe clearly. Roan had been holding something in reserve for decades, something that had cost him significantly to develop and would cost him significantly to use, and he used it now, standing in that empty building in the Meatpacking District at two in the morning, and the air changed and Kade's three people sat down suddenly like their legs had stopped working and Kade himself went very still and his face went through several expressions very fast and then settled into something that looked like recognition.
It wasn't violent. That was the thing. There was no fight, no confrontation, nothing dramatic. Roan spoke to Kade in the old language and Kade listened and the thing Roan used moved through the room and when it was done the faction's operational structure was neutralised at its core, the network collapsed, and Kade stood there looking like a man who had just had something taken from him that he couldn't get back.
He looked at me and said, "this isn't finished."
"It is for you," I said.
Adrian had already called the people who would take Kade and his group into the kind of custody that would hold them and they arrived in eight minutes and the building emptied and then it was just me and Ava and Adrian and Elias and Roan standing in the quiet.
Roan looked older. That was the only way I could describe it. He had used something he'd been carrying for a very long time and the using of it had cost him and he stood there and I could see it in the set of his shoulders, something diminished, not gone, just quieter.
I went to him and stood in front of him and he looked at me and I said nothing for a moment and then said, "you should have told me what you were planning."
"You would have tried to stop me," he said.
"Yes," I said.
"I know," he said, and almost smiled.
I put my hand on his shoulder and he put his over mine and we stood like that for a moment and the thirty years and everything that had happened in them sat between us and neither of us tried to resolve it with words because some things didn't resolve that way.
Ava came and stood beside me and Roan looked at her and said, "take care of him."
"He takes care of himself," she said. "But yes."
He nodded once and then Elias came and said they had a car and would get Roan somewhere safe and they left and the building was empty and quiet.
I looked at Ava and she looked at me and the bond between us was warm and settled and permanent and the thing we had been moving toward since a night in Club Obsidian when she walked back across the floor toward the bar and I watched her and knew she was mine was done, finished, over, and we were still here.
Adrian was talking quietly on his phone near the door and I watched him for a moment and thought about twenty years and what it had cost him to be in my world and what he had never once asked for in return and I made a note to fix that when everything settled.
Ava took my hand and we stood there for a while in the empty building and then walked out together into the New York night and got in the car and I looked at her profile in the dark and thought about everything I had almost lost and hadn't and the ring I had been carrying in my jacket for three months and the question I had been waiting to ask and thought that this was the moment, not planned, not staged, just this.
"Ava," I said.
She turned and looked at me.
"Marry me," I said.
She looked at me for a long moment and the city moved past outside and Adrian was in the front seat and absolutely did not exist right now and she looked at my face and her eyes went bright and she said nothing for a full ten seconds and then said, "yes," and it came out steady and certain and I pulled her toward me and kissed her and she kissed me back and Adrian very professionally turned the radio up.