“Stop fucking whining,” I teased, nuzzling his hair as I pulled him gently to my side. “You lived. Let me celebrate the man I loved getting out of fire for more than ten minutes, yeah?”
He grumbled something in Spanish—definitely an insult—but he melted into me anyway, the tension bleeding from his shoulders as I held him.
His forehead pressed to my chest, right over my heart. Then, slowly, he turned his head and pressed a soft, lingering kiss there—so gentle it nearly undid me.
With a shaky exhale, still resting against me, he whispered, “I love you too.”
Epilogue
ALEJANDRO
1 YEAR LATER
A yearafter the smoke in my lungs and flames in my dreams, I stood in a life I barely recognized.
The clinic—my clinic—was set up in a back room at Reed Way Hostel, the place Mickey Gillespie, a friend of Killian’s, ran for kids and young adults in need. It was where the Cave had quietly planted me to help the ones who slipped through every crack. Nothing official. Nothing licensed. But it worked. A clean cot, medical supplies the Cave “acquired,” noise-canceling headphones for jumpy kids, blankets for runaways, gear for injuries no one wanted to report to an ER. The kind of place I needed once when I’d had no voice and no choices.
I’d never intended to build anything like it. But people kept coming. And I kept helping. And somewhere along the line, the Cave started sending the hard cases my way—the young ones, the scared ones, the ones who reminded me of who I used to be.
Today was quiet. No emergencies. No trauma bleeding into the walls. Just a teenager sleeping on the cot, rescued from a gang by Frank and Tess, who were now a team since Tess hadresigned after Levi and joined the Cave. The young girl was recovering from her most recent panic episode that had knocked her flat. She’d be okay.
I’d make sure of it.
I wiped down the counter, my burns pulling tight across my forearm—faded now, old scars layered over older ones. A reminder. Not of Raven. But of surviving him again. I’d gotten a new tattoo over the remains of the Raven, a heart that had initials along one side for my sister, the twins, and Levi.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel outside. Only one person walked like that—steady, impatient, too familiar.
Levi.
He ducked into the clinic, hair mussed from the wind, a coffee in one hand and a bag of food in the other.
“Mickey called and said you forgot to eat again,” he said, not a question.
“I was busy,” I muttered. “And Mickey is an asshole.” He wasn’t—he was a good guy with silver hair and kind eyes, and he worried about me almost as much as he worried about every kid who stumbled through this place.
“Eat the food,” Levi ordered, and stepped closer, eyes scanning me automatically—habits he’d never break. “How’s our newest addition doing?”
“She’ll be fine,” I said. “She just needed… a place.” Then the insecurity hit. “I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing for her. Fuck! I want to kill someone for her. Want to fix things.” I sighed. “I thought about calling Novak.”
Novak still worked with me, indirectly, slipping in and out of Cave operations like a shadow—still a killer, still a cleaner, but good at what he did, and loyal in all the ways that mattered once I paid him. Or rather, the Cave paid him, skimmed from the accounts of the assholes we shut down and dismantled.
Caleb hated it. Hated that I kept a man he called mypet psychopathon the payroll. The first time Novak surfaced in Cave traffic, Caleb had shut the system down mid-run, locked Novak out, and told me flat out he wouldn’t route data through a man who solved problems with knives. He’d said it to my face, jaw tight, hands already flying over the keyboard to undo Novak’s access before I could stop him.
We’d argued. Quiet, ugly, and unresolved. But when the job needed someone who could disappear without a trace—someone who didn’t leave bodies for others to find—I called Novak. And every time, Caleb swallowed his objections, reopened the door, and let the shadow do what shadows do, because as much as he hated Novak, he hated leaving the Cave exposed even more.
Levi touched my back, warm and grounding. “Babe,” he said quietly, “you’re doing all the good things.”
I swallowed hard. Looked at the sleeping girl. Then at him. “She reminds me of Marisol,” I admitted.
He nodded. “That’s why you’re great at this.”
We stood there for a moment, and I caught the way he looked at me as if he already knew every version of me and wasn’t afraid of any of them. Heat curled low in my gut, and I reached up without thinking, fingers brushing his jaw. Levi’s touch went from my waist to the back of my neck, tugging me closer.
The kiss started softly. Careful. His lips warm, testing the moment and testing me. But when I opened my mouth for him—just a fraction—Levi deepened it instantly, as if he’d been waiting all damn day. His thumb stroked the line of my jaw, steadying me and undoing me at the same time. When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against mine, breathing unevenly.
The door opened hard enough to make the hinges complain, and I spun around, ready to tell off whoever thought barging in was a good idea—only to find Jamie waving a hand in the air asif he owned the place. “Doc! You got any burn spray? I kinda—sorta—maybe lit myself on fire.”
I groaned. “What did you do?”
