"So anyway," Izzy said, gesturing with her wine glass, "I told him that if he wanted his painting hung at that particular angle, he'd need to hire someone with a degree in advanced geometry, because I wasn't about to break the laws of physics for his ego."
"You did not say that to a client," Kate groaned, though her eyes sparkled with amusement.
"I absolutely did. Life's too short to coddle pretentious assholes. Right, Cece?"
Before I could answer, a small weight landed in my lap as Millie, who'd been quietly eating her dinner beside Kate, climbed onto me with the uninhibited confidence of a child who knows she's loved. She settled herself carefully, studying my bruised face with solemn eyes.
"Aunt Cece?" she whispered, her small hand reaching up to hover just above the darkest bruise on my cheek. "Does it hurt a lot?"
"Not too much," I lied, smiling down at her. "The doctors gave me special medicine."
She nodded seriously. "When I fell off the monkey bars, Tristan gave me ice cream. It helped more than the Band-Aid."
"Tristan’s a very wise man," I told her, catching his eye over her head. He looked momentarily flustered by the compliment.
"I'm going to draw you a picture of Jimin," Millie announced, as if conferring a great honor. "He's the best dancer in the whole wide world. Even better than Wooyoung, and he's really, really good."
"Wow, even better than Wooyoung?" I managed to keep my face appropriately impressed, though I had only the vaguest idea who these people were. "That's quite something."
Millie nodded vigorously. "You can put the picture by your bed, and when you look at it, you'll feel better right away. That'swhat happens when I look at my Jimin poster before bedtime. All the bad dreams stay away."
The simple, earnest kindness of her offer—this child offering the protection of her beloved K-pop idol against nightmares—made my throat tighten painfully. I pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
"That sounds perfect," I told her. "Thank you."
As conversation flowed around me, I took a moment to simply look at each person around the table. At Edward, who'd put aside his butler formality to sit among us as an equal. At Lucia, directing the serving of second helpings with her good arm. At Tristan and Kate, so clearly in love despite the complicated beginning of their relationship. At Liam, whose hand rested protectively on Evie's rounded belly. At Izzy, whose bright laugh filled the room like a shield against darkness.
And finally at Rafe, whose eyes hadn't left me all evening. When our gazes met, he didn't even try to hide the depth of emotion in his. The raw vulnerability I saw there—the love, the fear, the fierce determination to protect what was his—made my breath catch.
In that moment, surrounded by these people who had dropped everything to be here when I needed them most, I felt something unexpected break open inside my chest. Not fear or pain or the lingering trauma of the day. But gratitude. Pure, overwhelming gratitude for this patchwork family we'd created—some bound by blood, others by choice, all tied together by something stronger than either.
I'd always thought of myself as someone who stood apart. The dancer, the second sister, the one who didn't quite fit. But looking around this table, I realized I'd been wrong. I belonged here. With them. With him.
"What are you thinking?" Rafe asked quietly as his fingers threaded through mine beneath the table.
I smiled, ignoring the pull of my split lip. "That I'm the luckiest person alive."
His eyes darkened, and he leaned in to press the gentlest of kisses against my temple. "No, tesoro," he whispered against my skin. "That would be me."
Epilogue
Rafe
Itraced the silhouette of Cecelia's body in the darkness, memorizing every curve and hollow as if my life depended on it. Maybe it did. Two weeks since I'd almost lost her, and still I couldn't close my eyes for more than an hour without jerking awake in a cold sweat, hand reaching desperately across the sheets to make sure she was still there.
Sleep had become my enemy. Every moment unconscious was a moment I couldn't protect her. A moment when I might wake to find her gone, taken from me again by that bastard who'd somehow managed to slip through every layer of security we'd built. It didn't matter that he was locked away, awaiting trial. It didn't matter that Mac had personally guaranteed the fucker wouldn't see daylight again for decades. The fear remained, coiled tight in my chest like a viper waiting to strike.
Cecelia sighed in her sleep, turning slightly toward me, and I held my breath. The bruises around her throat had faded to asickly yellow-green, no longer the violent purple that had made me sick to my stomach every time I looked at her. Her split lip had healed to a faint line. All signs she was recovering. All physical evidence that time was passing, that we were moving forward.
But I remained frozen in that moment. In that elevator ride up to the penthouse. In that gut-wrenching second when the doors opened, and I saw her gasping for air.
I'd never been a man prone to nightmares. I'd seen my share of darkness, carried my own weight of guilt and grief, but those demons had always stayed firmly in my waking hours. Now, they visited me in sleep. Visions of Cecelia broken and bloodied. Visions of arriving too late. Visions of life without her, gray and meaningless as a world without light.
"You're doing it again," Cecelia's sleep-rough voice cut through the silence, startling me from my thoughts.
I hadn't realized she'd opened her eyes. They were luminous in the dim light, those green irises watching me with a mixture of concern and tenderness that made my chest ache.
"Doing what?" I asked, though I knew exactly what she meant.
