“We could always use the castle as a vacation home,” he said. “As I told you, my love. I will be happy wherever you and Liam are. Wherever the two of you are is home. Which reminds me,” he muttered, and pulled out his phone. “I promised him I would call the minute we got you back.”

Allie’s eyes widened and then a smile began to pull at her lips as he punched in the number to the house and spoke briefly to Stephanie before asking for Liam. Magnus put the call on speakerphone as they waited for Stephanie to fetch Liam and they both smiled when his young voice greeted them with, “Did you find her?”

“Yes. We found her,” Magnus assured him. “And we are on our way back.”

“Yes!” Liam shouted, and then, “I knew you’d save her. Now we can be a family, Dad.”

Allie felt her heart stutter when Liam called Magnus that. It was so unexpected . . . and sweet.

“We are a family now,” Magnus said firmly, and then smiled wryly at her and admitted, “But I fear I did not save your mother so much as she saved herself . . . and me.”

“But Magnus saved me first,” Allie said at once, not willing to let him diminish what he’d done. The man had pushed her out of the way of the machete, knowing it would leave him unprotected from the coming blow.

“That’s what families do,” Liam said solemnly. “They save each other.”

“Yes, they do,” Allie said quietly, and decided she must have brain damage from that blow to her head, because tears were welling up in her eyes.

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, son,” Allie said softly, and then cleared her throat and added, “You go on and play with your friends. We should be home soon.”

“Okay,” Liam said at once. “Can we have pizza when you get back? Teddy says pizza is awesome. Why have we never had pizza?”

Because we didn’t have money for things like that by the time you were old enough to eat it, Allie thought, but Magnus said, “We can have pizza. Tell Stephanie to order enough for everyone and we will celebrate that you and your mother are free of the bad men and never have to move again.”

“Really?” Liam squealed. “You smoked them?”

“Smoked them?” Allie whispered with disbelief.

Where had her son heard words like that? she wondered as Magnus said, “Well, actually, Basha smoked one.”

“Yeah, Teddy says Basha is badass.”

Allie’s jaw dropped at that. Liam had never sworn before in his life. She reached for the phone, ready to give him hell and threaten to wash his mouth out with soap, but Magnus turned so she couldn’t take it and said, “Yes, well, so is your mother, son, because she smoked the other one.”