Because after everything, after all I’d done for that woman to protect her, thinking it was all for nothing, it had taken her death for me to realize that she had done the same for me. She had saved me. “Because she loved you, Soldier,” Ray replied, and I realized she was crying too. “Maybe she didn’t know how to show it, or maybe she just couldn’t, but … she did. I don’t need to have met her to know that. You were her sunshine.” I nodded, the pain in my chest coalescing with all the love I felt for the woman in my arms and the woman no longer here. “Yeah”—I kissed the top of her head—“and
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