I gave his hand a squeeze and then released it so I could get out of the car. No way in hell was I going to have this discussion with him with a damn console separating us. I went around to the passenger side and opened the door. I helped Micah out, then closed the door and pressed him back against it.
“Wherever Brady is, he’s at peace. I’ve never been big on religion and God and all that, but I like to think there’s something bigger than us out there. That there’s a life beyond this one. This place is about giving the living a place to find their own sense of peace. It’s a place to say goodbye for some and a place to feel connected to their loved ones for others.”
Micah nodded and then his arms went around my waist. I returned the hug until he was the one to step back. “I want to say goodbye,” he finally said.
I reached for his hand and was pleased when he took it. As we made our way to the spot where Brady had been laid to rest, I thought back to the last time I’d been there. I still couldn’t believe how much my life had changed for the better since that day.
After telling Micah about what my brothers and I had been doing behind the scenes after Gio had been taken from us, I’d been terrified that despite what he’d said, he wouldn’t be able to accept it. But he had and when I’d told him that I wasn’t ready to give up what my brothers and I had started so long ago, Micah had immediately asked what he could do to help.
In the past couple of months, we’d been toying around with the idea of starting a foundation that would help support kids in the years after they were saved from the sex-trafficking industry. My celebrity status would come in handy when it came to getting donors and sponsors and we’d be able to help a lot of kids either go home or find homes after their recovery.
While my fighting career hadn’t officially ended just yet, I was still planning on retiring once my final fight, which had been postponed after news broke of what Richard Willis had done, was over. I’d briefly considered pulling out of the fight altogether, especially when I’d realized how much it scared Micah that I would be risking my health, but we’d talked about it a lot and in the end, I just wasn’t willing to walk away from something I’d worked so hard for. While I was confident that I could defend my title in the ring, the fight wasn’t like the illegal ones where pretty much anything went. If there was any point where I lost my focus and I felt like I couldn’t beat my opponent, I had the option of tapping out. While that had made Micah feel better, he’d made it clear that no matter what, he’d support my decision.
Although I still officially lived in Las Vegas, it wasn’t where Micah and I had decided to set up house. Right after the fight had been postponed, my brother Lex and his fiancé, Gideon, had announced that they hadn’t only come to Vegas for my fight. They’d decided to take my suggestion that they get hitched Vegas style. So less than twenty-four hours later, we’d all found ourselves in a tacky little chapel with a portly Elvis impersonator performing the ceremony. I’d stood at my brother’s side as his best man as he’d married the love of his life while Rory had gotten to play the role of flower girl. As soon as the vows had been spoken and Gideon and Lex had sealed the deal with a kiss, Elvis had broken into song. It was the cheesiest thing I’d witnessed in a long time, but there’d been nothing funny about the way my brother had promised to love Gideon for the rest of his days, just like there’d been nothing funny about the tears that had slipped down Lex’s cheeks as Gideon had slipped that ring on his finger. That part had made me wonder about the day it would be me and Micah standing before our family making those same promises.
I’d made it official that very night after Micah and I had gotten home and put the exhausted kids to bed. We hadn’t made it more than five steps out of Rory’s room before I’d dropped to one knee and asked Micah to be mine forever. He’d said yes before I’d even finished the question and about twelve seconds after that, Rory had come flying out of the room screaming in excitement because her knight and her prince were getting married. Micah and I had laughed and held on to each other as our daughter had then proceeded to dash into her brother’s room to wake him from a dead sleep so he could celebrate the news.