“I love you,” he tells me, not like a confession, like a law. “Always.” His hand slides to the back of my neck, not to cage, to anchor. He glances at the others, then back at me. “I’ll share you withthem.No one else.” The words land in me with the weight of a crown. “You are ours.”
“Say it,” Storm murmurs at my ear, softer than a threat, harder than a plea.
Atticus’s fingers lace with mine. Maverick nuzzles my shoulder, a smile against my skin.
I could play. Tease. Make them earn it again and again. I don’t. I’m done pretending I don’t know what I want.
“I belong with you,” I say, voice low but steady. “All of you. I’m not leaving. I love you.”
Conrad’s eyes close for a heartbeat, something savage and relieved moving through him. “Again.”
I don’t mind giving it; I like how they look when I do. “I belong with you,” I repeat, and then: “I choose you. Every day.”
“Good girl,” Storm says, satisfied.
Atticus exhales like he’s finally solved a proof. Maverick presses a kiss to my temple and whispers, “Queen of hearts,” like he just named a drink he’ll serve me forever.
We end up in a tangle—knees and hands and gratified smiles, the kind of mess that looks like home. Zeus thumps his tail once, then goes back to sleep, confident he has personally overseen the harmony of the realm.
Later, when the room is quiet and the day leans toward the kind of gold this city does best, I stand at the window with Conrad at my back, Atticus’s arm around my waist, Storm warm at my side, Maverick’s chin on my shoulder. The river moves like it always has. The Wynn glitters. Somewhere below us, staff change shifts on a schedule I wrote.
I think about the container. About metal walls and a lock and the way a girl can teach herself to breathe through steel. I think about the lobby yesterday—how the staff lifted their chins and I was allowed to write my own ending.
“Princess.” Conrad says quietly. “I have to talk to you about Collier.”
The name still lands like a dropped wrench. My chest tightens on reflex. Atticus’s arm firms around my waist, a small adjustment that says he felt the way my body went sharp. Storm’s hand finds the small of my back. Maverick stops breathing against my shoulder.
I keep my eyes on the river. “Okay,” I say. My voice doesn’t shake. That feels like cheating.
Conrad’s breath warms the back of my neck. “I went through Masterson senior’s systems,” he says. He doesn’t call him Father anymore. “All of them. Personal, corporate, offshore. Everything he thought was clean.”
Of course he did.
“I found the transfers he made to the Broker,” Conrad goes on. “The shell companies. The payments that line up to the manifests for the ship they put you on. Every receipt for what he did to you and who he paid to help.”
“Did it explain why?” My voice is thin.
Conrad’s expression tightens, and he and Atticus exchange a look.
“Tell me.”
“After the DNA results came back, Collier received instructions to dispose of you. Masterson did not want anything that would prove your existence, apparently.”
My fingers curl over Atticus’s forearm. He doesn’t flinch. Maverick swears under his breath, a soft, furious word against my skin. Storm goes very, very still.
I’m not surprised, and yet it hurts. Having two fathers so willing to sell me down the river.
“Conrad,” I whisper. “What did you do with it?”
“I packaged it,” he says. “Every document. Every account. Every message where he called you an asset.” His voice roughens. “I built a trail even Rafe can’t talk circles around. And then I handed it to the FBI.”
The room tilts. Not like panic. Like something big just shifted under the foundation.
“When did they get him?” I ask.
He swallows. I feel it in the way his chest moves against my spine. “They arrested him this morning. Federal custody. Multiple counts tied to trafficking and kidnapping. Conspiracy. Fraud. Murder. Conspiracy to commit murder. They’re still adding charges but it’s gonna be a long list of felonies he can’t get out of.”
The Titan-Wynn glitters beneath us. Somewhere on the other side of the city, the man who thought he owned my story is in a cage with fluorescent lights and no river view.
