"Stubborn as hell."
"Dangerously charming."
"A complete nightmare for anyone who tries to mess with him."
I grin up at my husband—this man who walked into my life as a bodyguard and became my everything.
Who saw me at my worst and my best and loved me through all of it.
Who killed for me without hesitation and cried over an ultrasound image.
Who makes me laugh when I want to scream and holds me when I want to fall apart.
"Sounds perfect to me," I say.
"Yeah." He kisses me one more time, soft and sweet and full of promise. "Perfect."
Outside, the summer sun is starting to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink.
Through the window, I can see the backyard where Revna and I have started planning a garden—tomatoes and peppers and herbs, things we can grow together, things our kids can play in someday.
Somewhere in the house, a phone buzzes with a message we'll check later.
Probably my mom, asking about doctor's appointments.
Or Greer, with another exciting opportunity.
Or one of the countless people who've become part of our life in ways I never expected.
The world keeps spinning, full of danger and uncertainty and a thousand things we can't control.
There will be challenges ahead—sleepless nights and difficult conversations and moments when we have no idea what we're doing.
There will be times when the past catches up with us, when the shadows of who we were threaten to darken who we're becoming.
But there will also be this.
Lazy summer afternoons with nowhere to be.
A baby who kicks when his father talks to him.
A family that spans two continents and two cultures and a love that somehow holds it all together.
I think about everything that led us here—the danger and the fear, the kidnapping and the rescue, the moment when RJ stepped into my life and everything changed.
I think about Solveig and her thirty years of hatred, about how easily it all could have ended differently.
But it didn't. We survived. We found each other. We built this.
And now, lying in my husband's arms with our son growing inside me, I know that everything we went through was worth it.
Every moment of terror, every tear, every sleepless night.
It all led here, to this moment, to this life.
To this family.
"Hey, RJ?"
