Safe.
Loved.
Home.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
RJ
One week.
It's been one week since I put a bullet between Solveig's eyes.
One week since I carried Dalla out of that farmhouse, her blood soaking through my shirt.
One week since we heard our baby's heartbeat for the first time.
One week, and I'm still not used to waking up next to her.
The morning light filters through the basement windows, painting gold stripes across the bed.
Dalla is curled against my side, her head on my chest, her hand resting on my stomach.
She's still asleep—she's been sleeping a lot lately, which the doctor says is normal for early pregnancy.
Her body is working overtime, building a tiny human from scratch.
Our tiny human.
I brush a strand of hair from her face, careful not to wake her.
The bruises have faded to yellow-green shadows.
The cut on her throat is healing nicely, just a thin pink line that will eventually disappear altogether.
She's getting stronger every day.
And I fall more in love with her every morning.
The last week has been quiet—deliberately so.
The club has handled the cleanup from Solveig's operation.
Tor tells me the farmhouse burned to the ground the night after the rescue, along with any evidence that might connect us to what happened there.
The bodies have disappeared.
The trafficking network is being dismantled piece by piece, with anonymous tips to law enforcement helping to take down the parts the club can't reach directly.
Solveig's empire is crumbling, and no one is coming to save it.
There's a certain satisfaction in that.
This woman spent thirty years building something monstrous, and in the end, it took us less than a day to tear it all down.
The girls she was trafficking have been rescued.
The buyers she was selling to are being hunted.
