“I saw the news reports about Shawn. So sorry for your loss, Lily or should I say Rose? After they flashed his face all over the television down at Fig’s it was interesting to discover that his missing girlfriend was going by a false identity. Naturally, I assumed you either had terrible luck with men or there was more to this story.” Danny’s attention turned to me, and I swallowed back the bile that was rising in my throat. “I stopped by to clear things up, Colt, but it appeared you had skipped town. That was when I found the file for this whore.” He yanked Amber hard toward him and she squealed in pain. “I couldn’t figure out where she fits into this equation and why you would have an updated record for her if you were no longer tied to the police force. So I decided to ask her myself. Shame you left her all alone at that shithole of a house.”

Tears rolled down Amber’s cheeks, and I wanted to take her in my arms, protect her like I had the first night I met her.

“She tells some pretty incredible stories.” He chuckled and Amber began to cry loudly. “I guess I can’t blame you for sharing secrets with the woman you’re f**king.” He shrugged, and Rose let out a gasp. “Oh, that was a secret? Lots of those going around.”

“I’m sorry,” Amber cried and I shook my head, wishing I could tell her none of it mattered or that it wasn’t her fault, but my voice caught in my throat.

Danny raised his gun behind her head with a smirk on his face.

“No!” I growled as Whitey’s fingers dug into my flesh. The sound of a gun firing blasted through the air, followed by a loud ringing sound in my ear. Amber let out a blood-curdling scream as she fell and Danny dropped to his knees, his eyes fixed on nothing. Whitey stepped around me, his weapon pointed at Danny’s motionless body, which began seeping blood.

“No!” The voice that ripped from my throat was animalistic. Amber’s fingers slowly uncurled and she lay motionless next to her killer.

“You?” I asked as I pushed to my feet, seething in anger. Whitey’s gun turned to me, warning me to keep my distance. “If you were one of us, why did you tell him about me and Lily in the first place? You put this into motion.”

“I had no choice. I had another guy with me. If he had mentioned it and I said nothing I would have been in the gutter. You should have gotten rid of her, sent her into protective custody. You brought this on. Her death is on you!” He pulled out his phone and barked a few orders. I held out a hand to Rose and she took it, completely in shock. I pulled her to her feet and into my arms. I pressed my body flat against hers, needing to feel the heat of her and the steady beating of her heart. I turned her away from Amber’s body and stroked her hair as the tears rolled down my cheeks. The walls I had built around myself had finally crumbled, leaving me buried in the rubble below.

“It’s over,” I said to her as I ran my hand over her hair and tried to steady my breathing to keep her calm. I was going numb, wanting to desperately block out everything, but I was pulled right back into the reality of the situation.

“Not quite. I just got a promotion. This deal needs to go off, and I need to make it happen. We have the potential to take down a rival mob with this, and you aren’t going to f**k it up again.”

“What the f**k does that mean? How many people need to die for you to put an end to this shit?”

“As many as it takes. I’ll be saving thousands in the long run. Every war has casualties, Bishop. This is about the bigger picture.” A small silver car with heavily tinted windows pulled up beside us and Whitey slipped his gun inside his coat before nodding once and getting into the passenger side. It pulled off in a hurry, leaving us to process what had just happened.

Several more cars approached us and I sighed with relief when I recognized them as unmarked police cruisers. Brock stepped out and glanced down at Amber’s and Danny’s bodies.

“Colton Bishop, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Daniel Abruzzo.”

“What?” Rose called out in shock as I unraveled my arms from her waist.

“Brock, you can’t do this. You know this isn’t f**king right.”

He nodded and walked toward me. I turned around, staring Rose in the eye. I had been so close to having my forever with her, and now it was being taken away again. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she clasped her hands together in front of her chest.

“See the stars, Rose,” I called out, hoping that one day I would be able to find her again. It was selfish and I knew I was giving her false hope, but if there were any way possible for us to be together again, I would take it.

Brock placed the handcuffs on my wrists and took me to his cruiser, leaning me over the back end and kicking my feet farther apart.

“No! Cole, tell them you didn’t do it! Tell them!” Rose called out from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder at her and my heart broke. She was being held back as she fought to get to me. I pulled my eyes away from her and tried to block out her pleas.

“Please don’t let them take him. Mom!” Rose cried out as she pulled on her mother’s shirt. Her mother stood with her arms folded over her chest, shaking her head.

“He stole from us. You really want to protect him?” Craig asked with a smug look on his face. The female officer tightened the cuffs around my wrists.

“I just want what’s best for you.” Craig placed his hand on her shoulder, his eyes locked on mine. I spit in his face and was jerked backward by the cold metal that bound my hands together.

“He didn’t steal anything!”

I wanted so desperately to hear her say that I was with her. It wasn’t possible for me to be the one who stole jewelry from her house while her parents were at dinner. In the end it was better she said nothing. Her safety was more important than my ego. It killed me to not be able to protect her while I was gone but, thankfully, another string of robberies had cleared my name. Rose was never the same after that. Her eyes no longer shined and she had virtually given up. I swore I would make Craig pay for whatever he had done to her while I was gone.

“You know I don’t have anything.” The hot metal of the car burned through my clothing. I watched the police officers from the other cruiser talk to Rose, urging her to get inside the vehicle willingly. She wasn’t being arrested for anything and I was thankful that at least she would not be used as a pawn for the government in this whole mess. Maybe she could finally start over. Brock rattled off my rights as he pulled open the back door to the car. I slipped inside as I watched the woman I loved get in the car in front of us. Seconds later an ambulance and a coroner arrived, along with several other police cars. I laid my head against the cool vinyl seat and closed my eyes as my head throbbed. Brock got into the car and sighed loudly.

“I had no choice but to do it this way.”

“What is going to happen to her?” I kept my eyes closed as I spoke, not wanting to break down.

“It’s possible some of Danny’s friends will try to come for her, now that you have been named his murderer. I will get her into witness protection.”

I nodded to myself and my chest tightened. I was thankful that she would be taken care of. That was all I ever wanted for her.

“We knew it could end this way, Bishop. This way she is safe.”

“And me? What happens now?”

“You go to jail; we get you put in solitary, which will be the best way to get you on the outside with no one knowing. We report that you committed suicide and Colton Bishop ceases to exist.”

“My life ends with me looking like more of a criminal and Rose thinks I killed myself.”

“So you start a new life. You fall into a new job. At least she knows you aren’t a murderer.”

My eyes met his in the rearview mirror as he put the car into drive and pulled out of the dusty lot in the opposite direction as the other car.

“The government will really protect her when she knows their secret?” I wished I could explain to her what she had just witnessed; she was a smart girl, but I know I still came out of this looking like a criminal.

“They aren’t animals, Bishop. They know she will be scared for her life and she won’t have you to protect her any longer. She isn’t going to be making an appearance on Fox News anytime soon. They will make sure she has a great new start. She will move on. Isn’t that what you want?”

I nodded, feeling the tears begin to form. This is what I wanted for her. She deserved a real second chance.

“What sort of new job?”

“You f**ked this one up royally. The way they see it, you owe them.”

Epilogue

It had been four years since Colton Bishop hung himself in his cell. I looked in the mirror and saw my shorn hair and clean-shaven face. I looked older, weathered and tanned from the hot California sun. I was a new man in a new town, using my connections to get what I wanted. Now I stood at the mirror rubbing sunscreen on my shoulders.

“If you’re not ready in ten minutes we are leaving without you, Cam.” Mindy leaned her head in the doorway, her soft blonde curls framing her face. She was your typical California girl, never wearing anything but a bathing suit if she could help it, and today she had blessed us with a white bikini that looked amazing against her tan. She winked at me with blue eyes that matched mine and smiled, revealing deep dimples in her cheeks.

“I’m waiting on Drake.” I grinned and turned off the light and stepped into the hallway.

“The wait is over my friend,” Drake yelled as he wrapped his arm over Mindy’s shoulders. She laughed and put her hand on his stomach before kissing his cheek.

Drake had short chestnut hair that stuck up in every direction like he had gotten f**king electrocuted. He actually styled it that way on purpose. He wore board shorts like mine, with a polo shirt that had the collar popped. Fucking douchebag. He and Mindy had been together for six months and because of their mutual love for money they were the perfect couple, even if she did eye-fuck me every chance she got.

“The guys will be meeting us at the boat,” he said as he raised his free hand. I cringed inwardly as I gave him a high five. I had been putting up with this shit for nearly a month. I was in between jobs and taking the time to reinvent myself for the next task sent down from the suits. They wanted me as part of the in crowd. I would be off to Miami in only a few weeks to immerse myself in the drug world of the overly privileged. I’d get to party with models and have all the money I could ask for and I wanted none of it.

“Who all is coming?” I asked as I walked out of the front door of his overpriced mansion.

“Everyone!” He laughed as he set the alarm and pulled the front door closed.

“You gonna let your little brother tag along?” His brother was sixteen and on his way to becoming a full-fledged tool just like Drake.

“Yeah, but if he gives me any shit he’s going overboard.”

I smiled as I slipped into the passenger seat of his white Land Rover. Jimmy coming meant his tutor would be coming. I hadn’t met her yet and Drake went on and on about how much he wanted to f**k her.

“I just want to go to the spa.” Mindy was in the back seat inspecting her nails.

“You’ll get your chance, baby. I want to get on the water for a few hours. Then we can party all night at the villa. You chicks can do whatever you want from there.” He craned his neck to watch her in the mirror.

I put down my window and inhaled the salty smell of the ocean. Drake cranked the air conditioning and it brought me back to Amber yelling at me for letting all the bought air out. My cell phone rang and I pulled it out of my pocket, rolling my eyes.

“Yeah?” I answered and looked over at Drake. “Some chick from the club last week,” I whispered to him before focusing on my call.

“Some chick? I thought I was more special to you,” Brock joked.

“This important? I’m kind of busy.” I looked over at Drake, who was flipping through the satellite radio stations for a decent song.

“You think I called you to talk about the stripper I banged last night? She was f**king kinky and the shit she did with her tongue…mind-blowing.”

I laughed and shook my head, glad to have thousands of miles between myself and that f**king pervert, but he was the only connection to my old life. Part of me missed him because he reminded me of the fact that Rose was real, not just a figment of my imagination.

“Get to the point.”

“Where are you? You are supposed to check in at Las Vegas in two days.”

“I’ll be there.” My tone was less playful. I knew they still didn’t trust me after what had happened in New York, but I had more than proven myself to be loyal in the last four years.

“Don’t be late.”

I hung up the phone and slid it into my pocket as I turned up the radio and let the noise drown out my thoughts.

My only goal in life was to find Rose and make sure that her life had changed for the better. I needed to know that her story didn’t end back in New York. There was only one place I knew that she would come, but so far all of my leads had been dead ends. I drifted in and out of memories until the car finally pulled to a stop by the water.

As I stepped onto the boat, it swayed in the water. I preferred to keep myself on dry land. No need to test fate more than I already had.

“Hey, Cam.” Jimmy was sprawled out on a lounge chair on the deck of the boat, his hands behind his head.

“How’s it going, Jimmy?”

He shrugged and gave me smile, his mouth full of braces. He looked exactly like I would picture Drake at his age.

“He’s living the good life.” Drake patted me on the shoulder as he boarded the boat.