The men rush to me. All three of them converging at once.
Hands on my face, warm and gentle. Artan kneeling beside me, tilting my head up, checking my pupils. Erion swearing under his breath in Albanian, a steady stream of curses and prayers. Luan gripping my jaw gently, his green eyes searching mine for signs of serious injury.
"Zemra ime," Artan murmurs. "Look at me. Focus on my voice."
"I'm okay," I manage to say, though my voice sounds distant to my own ears. "Just shaken. Groggy from whatever they gave me."
I look around, trying to make sense of what just happened. "Was that Cormac?"
"It was Cormac," Luan confirms. His voice is tight. "It's a long story. I'll explain everything later. Right now we need to get you out of here."
Erion is furious, his eyes burning with rage. "He better keep running because I'm going to kill him for taking that shot when Henry had a gun on Lily. One wrong move and she'd be dead."
Artan doesn't wait for further discussion. Just slides his arms under me, one beneath my knees and one behind my back. Lifts me with easy strength.
I protest weakly, my pride fighting through the drug haze. "I think I can walk."
He looks down at me. His dark eyes are intense, unwavering. When he speaks, his voice is low, certain, almost broken with relief and something deeper.
"No. We’re not letting you go, Lily. Not now. Not ever."
44
EPILOGUE - LILY
6 MONTHS AFTER
I pull the door shut behind me and listen to the lock catch.
The click is small and final and somehow louder than it should be. Like the house heard it too and understood what it means.
The key is cold in my palm, heavier than a piece of metal this size has any right to be. I stand on the front step and don't look back through the window. I made that decision before I got here today, driving through familiar streets in Erion's car with the autumn light striping the road gold. I was not going to look back through the window like I was trying to memorize something.
I said goodbye to all of that before I came. In the quiet of our bedroom at six in the morning when the men were still sleeping and the city was still dark and it was safe to grieve without an audience.
I said goodbye there. Then I let it go.
So I don't look back.
The afternoon light is soft and low, the kind that comes in late autumn when the sun runs out of conviction early and leans toward the horizon before the day is done. Wind moves through the dry leaves on the sidewalk in short restless rushes, scattering them and resettling them into configurations that look the same. Someone nearby has mowed their grass recently and the smell of it hangs in the cool air, clean and unpretentious. Cut grass and faint exhaust and the particular quiet of a neighborhood where nothing dramatic is supposed to happen.
Down the street a car door closes. A dog barks twice, sharp and decisive, and stops. A child's voice says something indistinct and a parent answers in a murmur I can't parse.
Ordinary sounds. Sounds that have nothing to do with me anymore.
I step down onto the front path.
"Are you sure?"
Artan is standing at the bottom of the steps, watching me with those dark eyes that have always seen more than I intend toshow. He's not pushing. He never pushes. He just asks, steady and quiet, and waits to hear what I actually mean rather than what I say.
I think about the question honestly, the way he deserves.
I've given this house away once before. Told myself it was the right thing to do. That the sacrifice mattered. That Henry needed it more than I did and giving it to him meant something about the kind of sister I'd chosen to be.
It meant nothing. It cost me everything and gave me nothing back. Not gratitude. Not closeness. Not the repair of a relationship I'd already been mourning for years without admitting it.
This time is different.
