He pinched the sides of my shirt and touched his forehead to mine. He smelled so good, musky and clean. Just the tiny touch of his fingers on my clothes made me want to melt into him.

I scanned his eyes, unable to respond.

“You want me to say that I’m over her? I’m over her,” he said, his voice growing more desperate with every word.

I shook my head, glancing down the dark street. “I don’t just want you to say it. I want it to be true.”

“Liis.” He waited until I looked up at him. “Please believe me. I did love someone before, but I have never loved anyone the way I love you.”

I sank into him, letting him wrap his arms around me. I allowed myself to let go, to give control to whatever forces had brought us to that place. I had two choices. I could walk away from Thomas and somehow tolerate the heartache I felt every day from being without him. Or I could take a huge risk on just faith with no predictions, calculations, or certainty.

Thomas loved me. He needed me. Maybe I wasn’t the first woman he’d loved, and maybe the kind of love a Maddox man felt lasted forever, but I needed him, too. I wasn’t the first, but I would be the last. That didn’t make me the second prize. It made me his forever.

A loud popping noise echoed from across the dim street. The brick behind me splintered into a hundred pieces in every direction.

I turned and looked up, seeing a small cloud of dust floating in the air above my left shoulder and a hole in the brick.

“What the hell?” Thomas asked. His eyes took in every window above us and then settled on the empty road between us and our building.

Grove strode across the street with his arm outstretched in front of him, holding a Bureau-issued pistol in his trembling hand. Thomas angled himself in a protective stance, covering my body with his.

He glowered at our assailant. “Put your sidearm on the ground, Grove, and I won’t fucking kill you.”

Grove halted, only twenty yards and a parallel-parked car between us. “I saw you sprinting out of your building to catch Agent Lindy—in your bare feet. I doubt you thought to grab your gun. Did you tuck it into your shorts before you left?”

For a greasy-looking, pudgy, short man, he was awfully condescending.

Grove’s mustache twitched, and he smiled, revealing a mouthful of teeth well on their way to rotting. It was true. Evil ate people from the inside out.

“You sold me out, Lindy,” Grove sneered.

“It was me,” Thomas said, slowly bending his elbows to hold up his hands. “I brought her here because I was suspicious of your intel.”

Two men walked around the corner and froze.