“Then it’s over,” Matt mutters, the fury in his voice replaced by the sharp, clean edge of victory as he helps me stand.
Brennan pushes off the wall to free Isabella’s restraints, stepping back without ceremony. No threats or posturing. Justquiet finality. She folds in on herself, shaken, free in a way she’s probably never been before.
The door opens behind us.
Ciaran and Declan return, faces grim, but looking a touch more relaxed. Declan gives Jonathan a brief nod. Ciaran’s eyes flick to Isabella, then to Matt, something vulnerable passing over his face before he looks away again.
I realise then how violently my legs are shaking. How badly I need space—air—distance from the weight of what we’ve just unearthed. I move away from the group and slide down the far wall, knees pulling in instinctively, like my body knows how close I am to coming apart.
My chest still heaves, breath catching and stuttering as every emotion collides at once, jagged and uncoordinated.
Matt is there immediately, settling beside me without a word. His shoulder presses into mine as he takes my hand—not tight, not possessive. Just there. Steady. A quiet promise that I’m not alone in this.
“It’ll be okay,” he murmurs, so low it barely exists outside the space between us. “I’ve got you.” His thumb moves slowly over my knuckles, grounding, deliberate.
I swallow hard. “I just—” My voice fractures. “Everything hurts.”
“I know.” He leans in slightly, close enough that I can feel the warmth of him, solid and real. “You don’t have to carry it all at once.”
I rest my forehead against his shoulder, eyes closing, letting the unyielding presence of him hold me upright when I can’t do it myself.
For the first time since this began, I stop forcing myself to stay intact.
His lips brush my temple and something in my chest finally gives. I lean into him, the tension in my shoulders easing in slow increments.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” I admit, the words breaking as the last few hours crash through me all at once.
“You won’t have to find out,” he says quietly. “Not now. Not ever.”
Something inside me loosens. Not relief—not yet—but the absence of panic. The space where breath can exist again.
Around us, the others move in low voices, quiet orders, the methodical work of ending something rotten and making sure it never finds roots again. But here, in this small pocket of stillness, none of that reaches me.
I lean into Matt, shoulder to shoulder, breathing him in. Letting myself believe one fragile, impossible truth.
We made it through.
The girls are safe.
And for the first time in a long while, survival is no longer the only thing holding me upright.
Matt’s hand tightens around mine—warm, steady, unshakeable. I close my eyes against him and let the weight fall away, knowing that whatever comes next, I won’t face it alone.
Chapter 50
Aweek later, Lyon feels smaller.
Not lesser, never that. Just… finished. Like a chapter I’ve read all the way to the last page and folded closed with care, the spine still warm from my hands.
My flat is chaos in the way packing always ends up. Open boxes gape at me like mouths mid-confession. Half-packed suitcases crowd the narrow hallway. Garment bags hang over the backs of chairs like the ghosts of every version of myself that lived here—bold, broken, hungry, hiding.
Sunlight pours in through the windows, catching on dust motes and fabric swatches and stray pins left behind on the table. The room smells faintly of starch, coffee, and somethingfloral I never learned the name of. It smells like Lyon. Like survival. Like the home that helped me grow confident enough to stand on my own but also be strong enough to accept help and support when it’s offered. To be wholly and unapologeticallyme.
Jamie stands in the centre of it all, hands on his hips, head tilted as he surveys the mess.
He’s wearing paint-splattered jeans and a ridiculous knit jumper that looks like it was bought from a thrift shop with questionable taste. His blonde hair is pulled back with a headband that absolutely should not work, but somehow does, because Jamie exists in defiance of rules.
“Well,” he says lightly, clapping his hands together, “if this were an installation piece, I’d call itThe Aftermath of Genius.”
