“I’ll have extra security around them for a few months,” he explains as we walk toward the training area. “They’ll need to put up with some restrictions when it comes to malls and other crowded places, but they should be able to return to work and resume most of their usual activities.”

I nod, not particularly surprised to hear that. Julian has been keeping me informed of his efforts in this area, and I know the Sullivans are no longer a threat. Utilizing the same ruthless tactics he employed with Al-Quadar, my husband accomplished what the authorities have been unsuccessfully trying to do for decades: he rid Chicago of its most prominent crime family.

“What about Frank?” I ask as we pass two guards wrestling on the grass. “I thought the CIA didn’t want any of us coming back to the country.”

“They relented yesterday. It took some convincing, but your parents should be able to return without anyone standing in their way.”

“Ah.” I can only imagine what kind of “convincing” Julian had to do in light of the devastation we left behind. Even the cover-up crew dispatched by the CIA hadn’t been able to keep the story of our high-speed battle under wraps. The area around the private airport might not have been densely populated, but the explosions and gunfire hadn’t gone unnoticed. For the past couple of weeks, the clandestine Chicago operation to “apprehend the deadly arms dealer” has been all anyone’s talked about on the news.

As Julian speculated in the car, the Sullivans had indeed called in some serious favors to organize that attack. The police chief—formerly a Sullivan mole and currently bloody goo swimming in lye—took the information the Sullivans dug up about us and used the “arms dealer smuggling explosives into the city” pretext to hurriedly assemble a team of SWAT operatives. The Sullivan men joining them were explained away as “reinforcements from another area,” and the entire rushed operation was kept secret from the other law enforcement agencies—which is how they were able to catch us off-guard.

“Don’t worry,” Julian says, misreading my tense expression. “Besides Frank and a few other high-level officials, nobody knows your parents were involved in what happened. The extra security is just a precaution, nothing more.”

“I know that.” I look up at him. “You wouldn’t let them return if it weren’t safe.”

“No,” Julian says softly, stopping at the entrance to the fighting gym. “I wouldn’t.” His forehead gleams with sweat from the humid heat, his sleeveless shirt clinging to his well-defined muscles. There are still a few half-healed scars from the shards of glass on his face and neck, but they do little to detract from his potent appeal.

Standing less than two feet away and watching me with his piercing blue gaze, my husband is the very picture of vibrant, healthy masculinity.

Swallowing, I look away, my skin crawling with heat at the memory of how I woke up this morning. We might not have had intercourse since the miscarriage, but that doesn’t mean Julian has been abstaining from sex with me. On my knees with his cock in my mouth, tied down with his tongue on my clit… The images in my mind make me burn even as the ever-present guilt presses down on me.