Sanders set down the phone and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Becky wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.

"He's going to be okay," he said, so d.a.m.n grateful for the news his best friend's mother-Victoria Paige-had just given him. Her grandson Michael was going to be okay.

When Sanders was pulled over for speeding, he'd never expected his role as an informant would curl around and hook into the murder of his best friend from years ago. He'd had no notion that the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who ran the company had pressured Dora to commit murder. He'd thought for years, as nearly everyone did, that it was her crime. Her choice and hers alone. He never knew the men he worked for had wanted Thomas dead and had used Dora to make that happen.

It didn't mean he forgave her. Just meant that she didn't act alone.

But he could breathe easier, knowing that all her accomplices at last had been rounded up.

Becky sank onto his lap, her arms still looped around his neck, and he stayed there in her embrace for a long time.

John stepped through the ER doors and paced in front of the hospital, talking to Special Agent Reiss on the phone.

"And with the information obtained from Mr. Foxton, that's how we were able to focus in on West Limos," she said, and rattled off the details.

Agent Reiss had been looking into local racketeering activity for some time, and when Sanders Foxton had been brought in for transporting illegal firearms, he'd become the linchpin in the feds' investigation into the local crime ring that ran guns and drugs across Nevada. Evidently Sanders hadn't known what he was transporting, but the details of the runs he'd made over the years had bit by bit helped the FBI narrow in on one company.

A company that had appeared squeaky clean.

That company owned by a supposed West Stra.s.s. But as it turned out, West had been dead a long, long time. West Stra.s.s was an alias for West Stravinksy, the brother of Charlie Stravinsky who'd been killed by an unknown a.s.sailant in a poor neighborhood in his native country more than four decades ago. Since then, Charlie had moved to America and had been laundering his money through companies he set up with a fake ident.i.ty in his brother's name. Apparently West Stra.s.s had many a.s.sets around the United States-a carwash in Texas, a dry cleaner in San Diego, a limo company in Las Vegas, and for a while he'd been the owner of a limo company in San Francisco when Charlie had relocated there, working as a loan shark and running rigged poker games.

But Charlie had returned to Las Vegas and established White Box with his friend and business partner Curtis Paul Wollinsky, who he'd taken under his wing decades ago when Curtis-who went by his middle name then-managed the limo company. Seemed all the questions Paige had asked about missing rides had tipped off Paul, who'd tipped off Charlie, who'd decided he wanted Thomas dead.

That task was all the easier because Thomas's wife was in love with the man who ran Charlie's army on the street-the Royal Sinners. There was a reason they were one of the most powerful street gangs in the country. They had access to criminal masterminds, to men adept at both violent and white-collar crime. Luke was the head, giving orders on behalf of Charlie and paying the Sinners better than average money for selling and dealing.

"Did he offer health insurance, too?" John asked Reiss with a derisive scoff.

"I wouldn't be surprised," she said, then added that they'd nabbed Curtis that morning, bringing him in on racketeering charges.

Funny that their investigations had been on parallel paths for a few months, never meeting until, all of a sudden, the paths collided.

That occurred when Annalise had remembered the term that Thomas heard used years ago, which was still a favorite of Charlie's today. White Box. While waiting for Michael to wake up, Annalise had told John what happened at the diner, how someone had overheard her conversation with Michael as they'd pieced the two paths together courtesy of that term.

White Box. Supposedly, according to what Annalise had said, it meant something related to Charlie's dead brother. Everything Charlie did circled back to his brother.

John stopped in his tracks when he realized what its meaning could be. Because Annalise had told him Charlie's last words. You know nothing about my brother. Nothing about how he was buried.

John's blood chilled as he realized Charlie's brother, at age nine, must have been buried in a white coffin. And so Charlie named his businesses for him, and for the way he left this earth.

It was oddly commemorative and terribly twisted at the same time. Which described the man who'd built, raised, and run the Royal Sinners. Terribly twisted.

The ways in which people remembered the dead could turn them into killers or into lovers.

John chased away the philosophical thoughts, pushing his sungla.s.ses up the bridge of his nose as he refocused on the call. "Crazy to think this all started from a speeding ticket," he remarked as he paced the other direction.

"Right? But that's how it goes. Nothing happens for a long time and then one misstep and all the dominoes fall."

They were falling indeed. In the last few weeks, the most notorious street gang in the city's history had been effectively dismantled. John would never have been able to do his part without the help of the Sloan family-each of them had played a role.

That was fitting.

As he finished the call, he stared briefly at the sky, the sun poking through clouds.

Today was something like justice, and that was all he could ask for in this line of work.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE.

Gently Annalise pushed open the door to Michael's room, nerves thrumming through her body. Instantly, his eyes swung to her, the blue irises sparkling as he lay in the hospital bed.

"Hey," he said, his voice scratchy from the anesthesia.

"Hi," she said, unable to contain a crazy grin, or the relief that flooded her heart. She crossed the few feet to his bed and drank in the sight of him. An IV drip snaked out of his arm, and his chest was bandaged. His face was tired, but a gorgeous smile tugged at his lips.

"You look beautiful," she said.

"I'd laugh, but it would hurt too much."

"Are you okay?" she asked, wonder in her voice, still amazed, still overjoyed that he was here.

"Yes, and that's what they tell me, too. But I suspect the morphine helps that feeling."

She smiled once more and raised a hand, wanting to touch his face, his arm...him.

"You can touch me," he rasped, answering her unspoken question.

She bent forward, touching him first with her lips, brushing them across his cheek. A quiet sigh escaped him. "I thought you were going to die," she whispered, the words spilling out with a fresh round of tears that fell on his cheek. She'd hoped to be strong. She'd told the other women she would be. But it was hard, so d.a.m.n hard, and now all the relief and happiness bubbled up and poured out of her in these salty streaks along her face and his.

"Evidently, a lot of people did," he said wryly, his sense of humor as robust as ever. "The doctor said she wasn't sure if I was going to make it through, either. Can't say I'm b.u.mmed that I don't remember a thing that happened after I hit the parking garage floor."

"Do you want me to tell you?"

He nodded, and she pulled back. He patted the side of the bed that wasn't tangled up with his IV. "Sit with me, and tell me about the last six hours of my life."

She didn't need to be asked twice. She perched on the side of his bed and held his hand in hers. She cleared her throat, took a breath, and met his gaze.

Then she told him everything that had happened.

His mouth fell open as he took in the enormity of what happened after Charlie had shot him. But that moment when Charlie's gun had aimed at Annalise still played before his eyes. He gripped her hand tighter. "He was aiming at you. My only thought was to protect you."

"I know." She ran her finger across his hand.

"And then you...you finished it," he added, wonder in his voice.

She winced, her face squeezing as if in pain.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded. "Yes. Just processing it all still. But I'm more than okay."

"Wow." He shook his head, trying to make sense of everything. "You killed the man who tried to rip my family apart."

She nodded, tears slipping from her eyes. "You're the first man I loved, and the last man I'll ever love. I wasn't going to let anyone take you away from me."

Even though it hurt, even though he wasn't supposed to move, he lifted his arms, reached for her face, and held it in his palms. "I'd die to save you," he whispered softly, reverently.

With fierce eyes and a strong voice, she answered, "I wouldn't let you. Because I'd kill to protect you, and to protect us. I've got plans. I'm planning on loving you for a long, long time."

As she pressed her soft lips to his once more, he felt her love deep in his bones, all the way to his soul.

Love had once been an all-or-nothing thing to him, but with her, love was more than all. Deep and intense, it echoed across time, reverberating to the past, soaring to the future, and, vibrant and bright, love lived in the here and now.

CHAPTER FIFTY.

Michael leaned against the bar, drinking a scotch and surveying the scene. The waterfalls at Mandalay Bay hummed, splashing down gently along the rocks, while a man at the black baby grand piano played Billie Holiday. The man was Sophie's ex-husband, who was still one of her closest friends, and Michael thought it was pretty d.a.m.n cool that the guy was at her wedding.

What was also fantastic was that the piano player was just a piano player, not a camouflaged front man for crime.

Well, at least Michael was as sure as he could be that Holden was one of the good guys. Everyone here was, even Sanders, who was grabbing an appetizer from a waiter. He handed it to Becky, and she nibbled on it with a smile as he brushed a kiss to her cheek.

Michael turned to Colin, who nursed a Diet c.o.ke next to him at the bar. "Think you'll be next down the aisle?"

His brother shrugged, but he had a sheepish look in his brown eyes. Michael stared at him. "That seems like a yes."

Colin laughed and set down his drink. "Maybe," he said evasively.

"C'mon," Michael teased. "I got myself shot. The least you could do is get married."

Colin frowned. "Wait. What does you getting shot have to do with me getting married?"

It was Michael's turn to laugh. "Nothing whatsoever. I just like milking this for all it's worth," he said, tapping his chest where the bullet had gotten acquainted with his body one fine day a month ago.

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Colin muttered with a smile, as they scanned the crowd once more. Over in the corner, John snagged what looked like tuna sashimi on a fancy potato chip from a waiter's tray. He pretended to feed it to Mindy and then stuffed it in his own mouth as she laughed. Nearby, Ryan and Sophie chatted with a group of his hockey buddies from the league he played in. Sophie looked stunning, and Michael had no clue what kind of dress it was or anything like that, but she seemed like a 50s movie star, all Marilyn Monroe and radiant, while Ryan looked like the happiest guy on earth.

Nearby, Annalise snapped a photo of them. She'd taken the official wedding photos, and was also shooting candids throughout the day, from Sophie getting ready, to her arriving at the hotel, to the reception.

Michael nudged Colin with his elbow. "Seriously, though. Are you thinking about asking Elle? Or are you happy with how things are?"

"I'm happy with how things are, but I wouldn't mind marrying her, either."

"Is that so?"

Colin's eyes widened when he realized Elle had just appeared by his side. Michael cracked up. He hadn't seen her coming, either.

Colin pulled her into an embrace. "I meant it in a good way."

She swatted his chest. "You better have meant it in a good way."

"Fine," Colin said. "Wanna marry me?"

Elle laughed, tossing her head back, her long hair spilling down her back. "Nice way to ask a girl."

"Well, would you say yes if I asked you?"

She narrowed her eyes. "You'll have to ask and find out."

Colin pressed a kiss to Elle's neck, then turned to Michael. "Thanks for getting me in trouble," he said.

"That hardly looks like trouble to me."

"Want me to go ask Annalise if she'll marry you?"

Michael gestured in the direction of the woman who'd saved his life, in more ways than one. "Be my guest."

He had no worries in that area. Maybe they'd get married. Maybe they wouldn't. But he didn't need a ring or a piece of paper to know she was his forever. He had the confidence in his heart, and the faith that he'd always find a way to take care of her, and give her everything she'd want and anything she'd need. "But hey, maybe our little bro will be next."

Michael cast his gaze to Marcus, who cleaned up well. The kid wore a gray suit and a tie and had brought along a date-a dancer named Ca.s.sidy, who worked for Shannon's Shay Productions. Marcus was heading back to Florida to go to school there, so this date might be a one-time thing, but judging from the way he looked at her, held her hand, and listened when she talked, maybe it would be more.

After all, sometimes long-distance relationships had a way of working out. When Ca.s.sidy pointed to the ladies' room and excused herself, Marcus scanned the tables until his eyes locked with Michael's, then he headed in his direction.

Michael clapped him on the back. "Hey there. Seems like you're having a good time."

"I am. First wedding I've ever been to."

Michael nodded toward Colin and Elle. "Probably won't be your last."

Colin rolled his eyes, and Elle slugged Michael on the shoulder.