EPILOGUE

##Epilogue

Emily

One day later... I still can't talk about what happened, I killed a man, I killed him because I wanted to, I killed him because he wanted to kill the love of my life and I would be capable of anything to prevent that from happening. I cried a little, intending to feel remorse or something human, but I just felt happy knowing that he would be safe and I would be in his arms. What's left is to accept that I'll never be the same after that, that I haven't been the same for a long time, Joe turned everything around for me.

I smile remembering our times together as a normal couple, my heart feeling lighter than it has the last few weeks. The shadow of what I did will still be with me, but the darkness is not all-consuming. I know our troubles are not over, cannot be over, being who we are, Joe a murderer with many enemies and me his weakness, his wife. But the future doesn't scare me. I trust those who protect me.

Two weeks later. I'm in the tub soaking up the hot, bubbling water from the jacuzzi Joe bought for our new home in England, it's cold here most of the time so the water feels wonderful and automatically massages my aching skin. Yesterday my husband took my second virginity, I can say that I enjoyed the experience, but I don't want him to know that I intend to repeat the dose.

Minutes later, almost asleep, I feel a body joining me, familiar lips begin to explore my burning skin.

"Oh, Joe…" I moan and feel his breath in a laugh.

"I love it when you're like this, so ready for me. I'm crazy about you, crazy..." He says and enters between my legs, without wasting time he penetrates me deeply into my wet pussy.

With continual kisses, hickeys, and a frantic in-and-out of the water, I'm racing toward orgasm when Joe starts talking to me, snarling that he'll forever keep me, that I'll never belong to anyone but him

There's a dark threat hidden in his words, a promise he won't stop. His cruelty should terrify me, for he has returned to kill, but as my body explodes in a pleasurable, intense orgasm, fear and regret is the last thing I can think of.

With my orgasm, he also releases hot jets inside me. We look at each other in silence, and it's weird I know, but in that moment, when we're in our intimacy, I understand. I can see the man behind the monster, the man who needs me so badly he'll do anything to keep me with him.

The man I need so much, I'll do anything to keep him.

"Do you love me, Joe?" I don't know what's going on, but these past few days I've had this compulsive urge to hear him say it.

"Yes, Emilia," he says in a husky voice. "I love you. I fucking love you so much it hurts. I've spent most of my life trying not to feel, trying not to let people get close to me, but I fell in love with you from the start." I take a deep breath and close my eyes feeling the pleasure his words cause in me.

"Can you say it again?" I whisper, my heart aching with joy. Until that moment, I didn't know how desperately I needed those words every day.

But I'm addicted to listening.

"I tried to stop myself from loving you so it wouldn't destroy me. Only it was too late. I was already in love with you. Obsession, addiction, love, it's all the same thing. I can't live without you, Emilia, mi amore , losing you would shatter my dark soul, and I can take any pain, any loss but losing you."

"Joe...You'll never lose me. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. I don't want to go." I speak looking into his eyes and feeling the pain of the size of my love for him too.

"I know you won't." His eyes narrow but he smiles. "Just because I love you doesn't mean I'm going to let you go. You're mine." I let out a shaky laugh.

"Yeah, and I know that too."

"Never, do you hear?" Emphasizes.

"I heard." I answer.

He looks at me then, his hands holding mine, and with his look I understand, he wants to hear me say what I feel too.

"I love you, Joe." I say, looking into his eyes so he'll see the truth. "I will always love you, and I don't want you to let me go. I love you more than I love myself." I declare.

Next thing I know, his mouth is on mine, his lips and tongue, devouring me as he holds me possessively in his arms. We unite once more in pain and pleasure, in violence and passion. We unite in our kind of love. The only one that exists.

Our sick and insane love, where reason is not present.

Joe

I look out the window and see my wife, perfectly gorgeous, in a flowered dress hiding the small, but already visible, bump on her belly, guarding the third child that we are looking forward to, as on other occasions. She is beaming, playing in the garden with our first child, Joseph, the little three-year-old boy looks amazingly like me. Looking at the scene, I smile feeling my heart ache from burning with so much love.

Three years ago, when Emília got sick and then we discovered that inside her womb there was a baby, our son. It was so strange and different, the joy and the new feeling that took over me, despite the fright and fear, of not knowing what to do with an innocent child, being who I am, I broke all the barriers inside me and I'm managing to do it a good role as a father to my children, as the following year, my wife gave birth to Joan again, another boy.

I never imagined myself being in a situation like this, I never imagined Legend Joseph, a terrible murderer that few people know exists, squeezing fat cheeks and lulling babies to sleep, running around in the backyard, taking them to play ball on the beach, passing hours in the pool, obsessing over looking at them all the time, and feeling like you want to give the world away, protect everything and everyone.

She looks over at me and catches me watching her through the window, her pale face gleaming in the morning sun, she smiles at me, more beautiful than ever, I look over my shoulder and pat her sleeping little head.

Around our house there are several camouflaged security guards, although we have been living in total security for the last few years, with the arrival of our children, we have become a little paranoid, determined to do whatever it takes to ensure the safety of the boys and our daughter who will be born, Amélie.

When Joan wakes up, I go down with him to the garden, where my wife and my other little boy are, they look at me and I give them a warm smile, Joseph comes running into my arms and I pick him up, keeping them both in my arms. lap. My wife walks over to me with her hands on her belly, she smiles so pure it makes me even more in love.

She is beautiful, even more beautiful than when I met her almost five years ago. As she approaches, our eyes meet, and I feel my heart swell, swell, filling with the mixture of dark possessiveness and love that she always stirs in me.

My Emilia. My amatha. My addiction. My obsession. My wife. My whole world. I will love her until the end of time, and I will never, ever let her go.

END.