Chapter 12 - After the Smoke Cleared: Healing Scars that Run Deeper than Flesh and Bone
When the armored convoy returned to the Buckhead estate, the front gates swung wide.
Megan was standing in the pouring rain on the driveway, having refused to stay inside the house. When the van doors opened and she saw me seated in my wheelchair holding Tommy safely in my lap, wrapped in his yellow blanket and sucking his thumb, she let out a choked sob and sprinted forward.
She threw herself onto her knees in front of my chair, wrapping her arms around both of us, weeping uncontrollably with pure, overwhelming relief.
“Tommy... my baby... my sweet boy...” she sobbed, kissing her son’s face a hundred times.
Tommy giggled, reaching out with one sticky hand to wipe the rain from his mother’s cheeks. “Mama! Dada boom!”
Megan froze. She looked up at me, her hazel eyes wide with sudden realization. “What did he just say?”
Frank, standing behind the chair, couldn't suppress a massive grin. “Boss took a bullet for his shoulder, stood up out of that chair on his own two feet, and put Bradley Vance in federal custody with one shot. Tommy knows who his real father is, Miss Foster.”
Megan’s breath caught in her throat. She looked at my bruised face, my exhausted eyes, and the fierce, protective way my arms were wrapped around her child.
She didn't care about the rain. She didn't care about the armed guards standing at attention.
Megan reached up, grabbed both sides of my face with her warm, trembling hands, and pulled my mouth down to hers in a deep, passionate, breathtaking kiss that tasted of rain, salt, and absolute redemption.
For twenty years, I had lived in a cold, impenetrable fortress. In that single kiss, Megan Foster set the entire castle on fire and replaced it with pure sunlight.
That night, after Tommy was safely asleep in his crib, Megan came into my private bedroom.
I was sitting on the edge of the mattress, my back and legs aching with intense muscular spasms from the immense physical strain at the warehouse. My custom titanium chair was parked nearby.
Megan entered carrying a basin of warm water, essential oils, and clean towels.
“You don't have to clean anymore, Megan,” I said softly, watching her kneel on the rug at my feet. “You never have to work another shift in your life.”
“I’m not cleaning your house, Dominic,” she whispered, gently lifting my bare foot into her lap, massaging the tight, overworked muscles of my calves with warm lavender oil. “I’m taking care of my man.”
I reached down, tangling my fingers in her soft brown hair, lifting her face so I could look directly into her eyes. “You saw the darkness today, Megan. You saw the violence, the guns, the men who want to destroy me. That is my world. Aren't you afraid of what being with me means?”
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Megan leaned her cheek against my knee, looking up at me with an unwavering, unbreakable devotion.
“I was never afraid of your world, Dominic,” she whispered. “I was only afraid of living in a world without you in it. You gave Tommy a father today. You gave me a home. There is nowhere else on this earth I belong except right here at your side.”
