"The fuck are you talking about, Ilya? Bryn has depth perception problems!" As pissed as I am, I think it's wiser to keep it to myself that she also complains whenever her car is acting peppy.

He holds my stare, something very dead lurking behind his eyes. Did I think they were baby-blue? Wrong. That's the gray of steel.

"It has to be her," Ilya says. "She's the driver, we two are fighters. We have to jump Irene's forces together to maximize our odds."

Damn him, if he isn't right.

"Damn you, Ilya." While I flap my lips, searching desperately for an actual objection that doesn't sound like Kassan's rant—don't pick a blind woman to do a man's job—Bryn sticks her head inside the cabin.

Then she glances over her shoulder at Ilya. "Do you have Tylenol in this Cave of Wonders?"

"Tylenol? Do I have Tylenol, she asks! I'm hurt. I'm insulted. I'm devastated." He scoffs, but a boyish grin pushes the pretend frown out of the way. He throws his arms wide, preparing to hug the world. "Lady, this is like a bazaar in Istanbul. We have everything you want, and some things you'll want once you see them."

"Good God, does he never shut up?" I mutter while I bring the bike to the cargo hatch.

Ilya claps me on my back, but I dodge it. He's a long way yet from earning the right to you-dawg! me. Then he fishes a bottle of painkillers from a bulging bag and hands it to Bryn. She pops a couple of pills, winces and hops into the pilot's seat like a pro.

"Alright, Ilya. Come here and tell me how to start this glorified hairdryer."

The flight won't be long, so I settle in the backseat and close my eyes while Ilya takes the instructor's seat. I've just restocked my ammunition, and I grabbed a few more toys from Ilya's boxes, so there's nothing to worry about.

The low rumbling of Ilya's explanations in the headset, Bryn's chuckles in time with it, and the inconvenient calculation that she's two years older than him, but eight years younger than me... I block it out.

Nothing to worry about, I repeat, while bile trickles into my throat. I should have asked Ilya for antacids, but it's too late now.

I have nothing to worry about. I'll take care of Irene. I'll marry Bryn. She already picked a dress. The rest are small caliber problems. Peas. Poppy-seeds.

Let the calm to insulate me before we go in, guns blazing. Some say in a desperate fight, going berserk is a winning strategy. Then, there's the correct way.

My way. I push all thoughts out of my mind until it's blank as a piece of slate on the bottom of a well. There's nothing to worry about. Nothing.

Then, my stomach flies up since the chopper drops a few feet.

"Oops!" A trill of Bryn's nervous laughter fills the headset, then the growing void in my gut. Good thing I don't require my stomach right away!

"Easy, easy now, Bryn," Ilya coos. "Mind the paint job!"

I touch the handle of my Glock, then peer at the fast-approaching helipad. Despite our plunge or, maybe, because of it, dark shapes scoot across the concrete. "I count five."

"Uh-huh," Ilya concurs in a flat voice. It seems he also subscribes to the cold-headed school of suicidal charges. Great, I don't need a hot-headed companion against five.

"On three?" I ask, and start the count as soon as he nods. "Three, two..."

Three, two... screech!

Bryn lands us with the sounds of a garbage truck setting down the dumpsters. God, I love this girl, and I wish I had time to tease her about this parking job.

"Duck!" I yell to the love of my life.

I roll out of the chopper onto the pad, to come to a crouch in the shelter of the blades and the chopper's hot, vibrating body.

The Glock jumps into my hand and so does his twin. I blast off both, getting a satisfying yelp in return, then a screech. Another man flails his arms frantically, crawling and trailing a wide swath of red on the concrete.

Ilya's gun booms from the other side and another figure falls backward off the edge of the platform.

The blades above my head slow down, chirping more than whistling.

Flexing knees, bending at the waist, as low to the ground as I can, I dash for the pad's edge.

Cover, I need cover, any cover.

I'd take a garden gnome, but this lawn is too fancy for plaster. It's shaped like a teardrop around the helipad, with flowering shrubs in symmetrical banks for a border. Trees parade ten yards behind them. Ye fancy mother-fucking lawn!

Ilya stays by the chopper, shooting a guy who popped up from the shrubbery, seduced by the chance to nail me. They both miss, but I dive into the headlong roll, brush the grass with my shoulder and come to my feet right on top of my bushman.

In the same move, I hit him with the butt of my gun, drop on top of his stunned form and break his neck in the elbow grip. Ilya packed a lot of bullets, but the worst is yet to come. It doesn't hurt to save ammo.

The first guy I dropped on the pad, doesn't stir except to issue long, semi-conscious moans. That's three of five.

Ilya pops a cap. Judging by his growl—no, you don't!—our fourth out of five tried to sneak up on him, and paid for it.

"Come away from there!"

Get away from Bryn.

When bullets fly this close to her, I lose focus. And I can't, because the fifth motherfucker is... is... where is this son-of-a...

There!

Making a run for it, are we? "Nice try, asshole." One squeeze of a trigger—and the landing pad is clear.

I hoof back to the chopper to hold the door open for Bryn, like it's a limo. Then I offer her a hand, like I'm a gentleman. "How are you holding up?"

She climbs out, a little green around the gills, a little wobbly, but still standing. "What's next?"

"Next, you climb back inside the chopper and lock the door behind you." That set of instructions comes from Ilya, who's joined us, chewing off a bloody fingernail.

"No," I say.

"It's the safest place to stash your woman, Matty."

"Correction: it's the safest place to stash a woman."

Ilya has no idea what my Bryn is like.

"The last time I left my woman in a safe place, she ended in a shootout."

Actually, the last time was last night, and it worked out okay, but I stayed close. Very close. Like, I was almost on top of her the entire time in every conceivable sense.

While here, it feels different. I can't explain it, okay? But there's a big difference.

The big Russian chuckles. "Was that when she freaked out and offed Sal? I've heard things."

"Yes. Prior to that fuck-up, I'd left Bryn in another really safe place." A really safe place is an understatement. It was a fucking bunker underneath a honking medieval castle.

Ilya cocks a brow, as I trail off and wince. "And?"

I sigh. "She blew up a historical landmark. A castle to be precise."

Ilya whistles, eyeing my blushing bride with a new respect. "Where the fuck did you find a castle, little lady?"

"That's your follow-up question?" I blurt out, but Bryn's smiling. Her smile is a little shaky, but given that she's just landed a chopper, and there's five fresh bodies piling around us, oozing warm blood, I'll take it.

"In France, of course." She says, popping the bottle of Tylenol open again and throwing another pill back. "Matteo's idea of a romantic getaway."

"It wasn't," I protest. "I was inside that fucking castle."

"Hey!" Color creeps into her cheeks. "For the thousandth time, Matteo, it wasn't supposed to be a gigantic explosion. Just a signal. Like a reminder."

"And, for the thousandth time, I prefer sticky notes on the fridge door!" A grin cracks my face. "Such as btw, honey, I want a long, romantic trip for our honeymoon." Preferably in Antarctica, far away from both the civilization and mafia.

Her smile then reaches its full strength and I gape, dropping into a void. It's like the fighting one, but I get it when she's like that before me. A funnel, with an opening big enough to take all of her in and the pointy tip just below the belt. Time stops for me.

It stops for her too.

I perceive it in the tremors of her real eye, next to the flatness of the artificial one. The eyelashes, the lips, the nostrils—they absorb me and neglect everything else.

Bryn and I would jump into each-other's arms, but Ilya clears his throat. "Pull your socks up, lovebirds. The welcoming committee is here."