Chapter 48 - The Private Gallery
He led me down a secure, wood-paneled corridor on the lower level of the penthouse—a private gallery we had never formally designated or opened to visitors. Inside, the walls were lined not with stolen masterpieces or corporate plaques, but with physical tokens of our shared history: the cracked leather notebook from my days as a low-level archivist at Vance Industries; the encrypted silver flash drive from the Geneva raid; the heavy gold pen we had used to sign the North Atlantic shipping accord; and, finally, the platinum signet ring resting in a small velvet display case.
I stared at the collection, a sudden lump forming in my throat as the sheer magnitude of what we had survived and conquered washed over me all at once.
"Why keep them out in the open like this?" I asked softly, my fingers grazing the glass of the display cabinet.
"Because men forget where they came from when the crown gets too heavy," Victor said, standing close behind me, his arm wrapping around my waist. "I wanted a daily reminder of the exact moment my life actually began—the day you walked into my office and decided to burn my world down just to build a better one with me."
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I turned in his arms, looping my arms around his neck, my heart swelling with a fierce, possessive love that defied every law of economics and human nature. "You were just as reckless as I was, Victor Costello."
"We were a matched set from the very beginning," he murmured, his lips brushing against my forehead before capturing mine in a deep, slow, lingering kiss that tasted of coffee, rain, and absolute permanence.
