Page 116 of Cruel Kiss

"Calista Meadows," he growls. "Will you come with me? Will you run it in front of them?"

I don't have to think about it at all. "Yes."

It's the whole inversion of everything he's ever done. The man who once looked at me and saw a manipulable tool is now kneeling in my kitchen asking me to be his partner instead.

Maybe that jig is a good idea after all.

But then another cloud passes over Ronan's face.

"There's something else," he warns.

He goes to the front hall and comes back with his briefcase. He opens it and takes out an envelope. It's addressed in his handwriting.

Calista Meadows.

"I wrote this weeks ago," he explains. "It's a letter. It says everything. What I am, what I did to you, where all the money is and how to get to it, who to trust, what happens to the kids. All of it." He sets it on the island between us. "I wrote it in case I didn't come back from something. It's been in this bag ever since."

I look at it and feel horrified tears come to my eyes.

"There's one thing in it," he says. "Near the end. The thing Lev has. The thing that ends me." He doesn't look away from me, which I know must be killing him. "You may hear the worst thing about me tomorrow night, in that room, out of Lev's mouth. And it will be true. I want you to hear it from me first, or read it here, so it doesn't gut you in front of a hundred men who want to watch you crumble."

I put my hand on the envelope.

And I slide it back across the island toward him.

"No."

"Cali—"

"I'm not opening it."

"You need to know before you walk in there."

"I don't want it from a piece of paper." I push it the last inch, until it's against his chest and his hand comes up to take it out of reflex. "I've spent my whole life reading people off documents. Off scales and Spotify and lease agreements and cap tables. I got so good at it I forgot there's another way to know a person, which is that theytellyou. To your face. With their own mouth." I hold his hand there, over the letter, over his heart. "So if there's a worst thing, you're going to tell me. Not tonight, not before, butafter.When it's done and you're home and we're on the stoop with a bottle of wine to share."

He stares at me. I'm not sure if he's refusing to understand or refusing to agree.

It doesn't make a difference to me, though.

I've made my choice.

"You're coming home, Ronan. You have things to answer for. Do you hear me? That's the only deal I'll take."

His face is taut and grave. "And if I can't keep it?"

I grin at him, even as tears stud my eyes. "Too bad. You have to. It's the only way."

Nodding, he puts the envelope back in the briefcase without another word. He closes the latch. And when he straightens up, his eyes are wet, this enormous, terrifying, impossible man, standing in a kitchen full of funeral food with tears on his face.

"I love you," I tell him.

It's the first time I've said it since the lake. I've been biting it back against his shoulder for weeks, saving it, guarding it like everything else, and I'm done playing scared. If he's walkinginto a room where the verdict is whether he lives, then he's not walking in without hearing it.

"I love you," I say again. "And I'm coming with you. And you're coming home. Those are the three things that are true, and I trust my data."

He crosses the kitchen and he takes my face in both hands, the hands that shot a man on my stairs and made my daughter's pancakes and never once touched me without asking.

"I love you, too,kotyonok."