“Just like any video of you that tries to get posted,” I promise.
Dimitri’s already facing her. He cups her face in his hands and presses his forehead to hers. “No one will ever see you like that again. It’s done. And we’ll make sure the police track down everyone who tries.”
She trembles and peeks down at his chest before bending over and kissing on the spot where her initials hide beneath his clothes. She does the same for Jaxon. I watch with reverence before Hope holds up the knife.
I rip my own shirt down the front. If she doesn’t put her initials on me, carve herself into my skin as a fucking reward for all of this, I’ll just have to do it myself.
“There’s no one else but you, Hope. Not for any of us. Give me a scar I want. A scar I can appreciate. A scar I’veearned,” I whisper.
She stands on her toes to kiss me and I’m happy to close the distance, feasting on her mouth as if we’re not all murderers, as if we’re not all guilty, as if we’re not all fucked-up monsters trying to survive and become something better.
I feel the first line of her cut and hiss as I draw back from the kiss. She doesn’t stop. The H isn’t perfect, but it’s her. Once her initial is on me in full, I take the knife and carve a heart around it.
Jax laughs. “Always have to stand out, don’t you, Knox? You know you’re past proving yourself, right?”
“You’re all mine. We’re alive. We’re together… We need to take care of Jax and leave this…” She looks at the fire devouring all the good and bad memories made here, burning along with the people who refused to let the worst parts of her life die. “Leave this all behind.”
“Nothing has ever sounded better,” Jax says before wincing. “Maybe a kiss to push down the nausea?”
“Let me guess, you’re asking me now that we’re in this for life,” Dimitri snorts.
I almost smile, but Hope laughs. It’s bright, it’s free, it’s wild, and most importantly… it’s real.
It took blood, fire, and time to get here, but we did.
DIMITRI
We need to wrap this up, no more loose ends. Even though I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to give him a chance to fuck things up, but Hope kept pointing out we had to close this for good.
“Tell my dad I’m in his office,” I order his secretary without stopping or explaining why half of Jax’s face is covered in gauze, or why all of us are wearing practice jerseys, including Hope.
It could practically be a dress on her, but if it was, I have a feeling that none of us would be focused on the police, and all of us would be focused on her again. Jaxon sits, only when Hope offers to sit on his lap, and I take a seat as well.
Knox crosses his arms behind us. “If this is a fucking mistake…”
“We’ll know before we hand anything over,” I finish for him.
He’s going to prove himself or out himself, one way or another.
I can’t control the hammering of my heart, my sweaty palms as I clutch my laptop tighter.
I shouldn’t care about him, it shouldn’t matter what he thinks of me.
Nothing matters.
“You’re alive,” is the first thing my dad says as he steps inside his office. His eyes shift from me, to Hope, and land on Jaxon.
“It’s done,” I say, drawing his stare back to me.
My dad sighs and sits in his black leather chair. “It’s never done.” He shakes his head. “I heard there was a fire in the woods.”
“It was beautiful,” Jaxon praises and earns a slight nudge from Hope to zip it.
I slide my laptop over his desk. “Everything is in there. All the dirt, all the names. Everything I could find after I had access to the server.”
My dad’s hand lands on the laptop, his jaw set in stone. I can see the doubt, the questions.
“Just do the right thing,” I say.
