Mira's injuries? I'm not so sure. It's more than her dad dying or what he did to her mother. It's what she did. Mira is a woman with a strong fucking code, and she broke it-she shot a guy. He's not dead-we've been getting updates on him-but that doesn't matter.

All those years of watching her, studying her, obsessing over her, I got to know all of her expressions. This haunted look is new. It chills me to the bone.

It comes to me, standing there, that protecting the woman I love isn't about keeping her physically safe; it's about protecting her soul. She can't be in this war, not even on the sidelines. Protecting Mira means letting her go.

The realization is a cannonball in my gut.

It has to be done. I'm not going to execute Lazarus and his guys-I'm done with that old world Albanian mountain vengeance, much to Konstantin's dismay. But I still plan to destroy him and take back what's ours. And I'll break any law to rescue Kiro.

Mira can't be anywhere near that. The look in her eyes tells me that.

She thinks it's too dangerous to go, but I know it's too dangerous for her to stay. I get that now, looking at her when she thinks nobody's watching.

I rest my forehead on her shoulder, trying to get my shit together enough to figure out a plan, because I have the resources to keep her safe now-safe from me and my world.

I suck in a breath there at the window. Maybe this is what loving a person is. Loving them enough to rip your own heart out for them.

She turns in my arms. "Baby? What's up?"

I kiss her. I don't want her to see my face. I don't want her to know I'm dying inside.

I leave her to settle in, and I head down the hall and tell Tito not to unpack. Ten minutes later we have a plan-he's going to fly out to the Bronx, rent her a high-security place near her workplace, and put together a contingency of New York muscle to discreetly watch over her. He'll get it all in place ASAP.

Once Tito's on his way, Viktor and I settle in to plan. We put together teams to watch over Noah the social worker and monitor the area for signs of Lazarus or his guys. We work on our attack strategies. We're like royalty in exile, there in that northern hotel, plotting our siege of the walled city.

The next day, Mira makes me go to a clinic and get a proper X-ray for my ankle. The doctor gives me a medical boot and tells me I'm lucky-I only have a hairline fracture.

We go out for a lavish lunch, and afterward we take a walk on a nearby nature trail, something I'm not supposed to do in my medical boot, but we don't have much time left now. It's strange-going on a date now, after we've been through a lifetime's worth of shit together.

We hike up to a bluff and admire the view. I find a flat, grassy spot to sit on, and Mira settles in next to me, lying back, looking at the clouds, skin glowing in the pale light.

"Sometimes I miss Dad so much," she says. "Sometimes I'm so sad he's gone, and sometimes I hate that I didn't get to make him answer for what he did. And then I feel shitty, because he's dead. And I miss him."

I stretch out next to her and just listen. She talks about how she's been trying to process it. How all her memories seem different now. We talk about people we used to know. About her work. We talk about everything but the future.

When we get back to the Sky Slope, we find Viktor in the waterfall lobby watching his phone. Mira asks him about it, and he starts telling her about Valhalla.

I interrupt, because the less she knows, the better. "It's part of the business that we're going to end."

But Mira sits right down next to Viktor. "I want to know. I want to see."

I'm not sure how I like that-it's a pretty harsh thing, what's happening in that place. Viktor flips through the different feeds showing the women there. He tells her about the pipelines from different countries. He tells her about our plans to figure out where the fuck it is.

Mira takes the phone from him. She scrolls through the different feeds. "What happens to these women when you shut it down?"

"We send them home," I say.

Mira frowns. "Maybe some want to go home, but what if they don't? What if they can't? Some of these women could've come from terrible or even deadly circumstances, and going home could put them in incredible danger. Some of them could even be facing persecution of some sort if they go back. No, that's not how this should happen. You need a system for them."

She grabs a fancy notepad and starts making lists. An entire legal intervention seems to have appeared to her mind the way a criminal operation sometimes appears to mine.

"You need resources, people, and strategies for getting some of the victims asylum and immigration assistance." She has all kinds of ideas. I can't believe I didn't think of it, but that's Mira. It's amazing to see her like this, in her element.

She works on it in bed that night in our own room. Doing research. Discreetly querying colleagues, asking whether they could be on standby. Immigration isn't her specialty, she explains. But she can put the resources together for us.

I scoot behind her, watching her on her laptop. I try to start up some dirty whore action with her, but she's not going for it, so I brainstorm with her on some of the logistics.

It's actually exciting to work together. We bounce ideas off each other-fuck, we're endless with these ideas, like a longtime team. I'm surprised by how natural it feels until I remember how it used to be when we were kids. Plotting various capers.

It feels good. Pure, even, in a way I can't articulate.

Fuck, maybe it's happiness. Probably it is.

She feels me drift and draws me back in. She tells me there'll be a period of time where we need to keep the women out of the hands of the authorities. Can we do that?

Hell, yeah, we can do that, I tell her. I have all kinds of ideas on how to do that.

She laughs. "Of course you would."

"Who says a life of crime doesn't pay, baby?"

She doesn't answer. The question reminds us how far apart we are.

"Is this what life is like for normal people?" I ask.

"Yeah," she says softly. "Maybe even better."

"Eh," I say. Coolly, offhandedly. Like I don't care.

But I do care. Happiness with this amazing woman is the one thing I can't have.

I keep my lips zipped and get us back to the project. She sets it up so that it runs itself-idiot-proofing, she jokes. But she knows she needs to leave as well as I do.

What's that thing they say? Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Not so sure about that one.

The next morning I wrap her plane ticket in a fucking box along with the key to the new high-security apartment in the Bronx that Tito rented for her; it was delivered via courier overnight. It's her exit visa from my violent life, wrapped up in a bow. I'll drive her out to the Duluth airport. Let her go. I have to do it fast, or I might not be able to.

I think about what I'd do if I weren't in this life. What kind of man I'd need to be to deserve Mira back. What if I took back the empire and turned it over to Viktor and Kiro? Who would I be if I weren't Aleksio Dragusha, head of the Black Lion clan?

I scrub the thoughts from my head. I can't stop being that man right now. Kiro's out there. Kiro needs us to do what it takes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.

Mira Aleksio and I are sitting in our bed watching TV like a normal couple when he gets the text.

The gleam in his eyes tells me what it is-intel on Kiro. "Gotcha, motherfucker," he says, flipping through a lot of images. A man's face. A man's profile. Full body shots. The man who took Kiro.

I kiss him, hoping with everything that the guy is in some kind of database. If he's not, the road to finding Kiro gets a lot harder. I decide to think positive. I jump out of bed to grab the champagne. I'm considering a toast, but he comes up and takes the bottle from my hand and pushes me face-first into the wall.

"Already?" I joke, because we fucked all morning.

He doesn't answer. He moves my hair aside and kisses the nape of my neck. Just a kiss-a kiss that feels more intimate than fucking.

"This is my place on you," he says, planting another kiss on the curve beneath my hairline. "Sensitive and secret. I love this place on you." He kisses it again, sending shivers up and down me. "Your hair covers it, and nobody touches it, but I do. And it's my place, okay?"

I laugh. "That's a pretty chaste place, baby. Are you sure you don't want to reconsider?"

"I won't reconsider." He turns me to him and cups that place, his secret place, and he kisses me with crazy intensity. Like he's dying inside that kiss. I hold his sweet scruffy cheeks and kiss him back slowly, thinking he's feeling emotional about maybe finding Kiro.

He pulls me onto the bed. I lose myself in him, this man who fits me like no other man ever has.

Sometimes fucking feels rushed and fun and dirty.

Other times, it's leisurely, hedonistic.

And sometimes fucking contains the whole world and all of time. And sometimes that kind of fucking is goodbye, and you don't know it.

We're in the shower afterwards when he tells me we need to go on a quick trip to the Duluth airport tomorrow. Picking up a package? Meeting a guy? He doesn't say what it is, and I don't ask. I know the drill.

The secrecy reminds me of the way I grew up. It's what I always wanted to get away from. My heart sinks at the thought.

We park in the airport lot the next morning and walk into the sweeping glass-fronted building. He pauses near the security line. "Gimme your purse."

I hand it over. "What are you up to?"

He looks through it. Takes out my hand lotion. "Four ounces. No go." He tosses it out.

"What the hell?"

He hands my purse back to me along with a brightly wrapped gift, the size of a book.

My heart begins to pound. "What is this?"

"Open it."

I tear off the paper and pull out a plane ticket and a key ring with a key on it. And a baggie of gas station English toffee. "Aleksio-"

"I'm getting you back home."

"What?"

"Getting you back to your life, baby."

I hold the stuff in my hands, blood racing. I thought we had more time.

"You'll be safe. I rented you a new place that's ultra-fortified. Tito flew down yesterday. He's setting up your security detail. You won't have actual bodyguards-don't worry. But they'll watch over you from afar. They'll know if anybody's watching you. We hired the best."

I swallow past the lump in my throat. I know I have to go, but I thought he'd fight my going. I thought I'd wait.

He nods at the departure board. "Direct to La Guardia. It's boarding in ten."

"So...just like that?"

Aleksio kisses me-hard. Then he puts his forehead to mine, and I get the feeling he doesn't want me to see his face. "I love you. I always will."

My throat feels thick. I want to say I love you back. I want to say a world of things.

"You wanted to go, right?"

Standing there, I see a possible life with him flash before my eyes. I see a life with a man who sits on top of a violent machine. I see myself looking the other way from a zillion crimes.

And maybe I have my career, but what kind of mockery would that be, involved with a mafia boss? Of course he's right. Of course I have to go. Right?

His dark eyes are deep with soul and sadness. "You need to go rebuild the sandcastles that jerks like me kick down."

My voice trembles. "Right." I kiss him again.

A droning voice over the loudspeaker announces that my flight is in preboarding. I pull out my ID, telling myself it has to be like this. "Let me know what happens with Kiro."

"Of course," he says hoarsely.

I want to say more, but he turns and walks away, dark and lethal in his suit, just the way he came back into my life. But so different.

The security line is short. Before I know it, I'm up at the front, untying my shoes.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

Aleksio I'm halfway back to the hotel when my phone rings. Relief jolts through me for a moment because I have this idea it might be Mira, calling to say she's not leaving.

It's my investigator. At least I'll have some good news, I think.

It's not good news.