Page 139 of The Beast

Watching the end of Sterling Hart’s empire play out in real time.

“What happens now?”

Gabriel squeezed her hand. “Now we go home. We sleep for about a week. And then we go on.

“Together?”

He turned to her. Cupped her face in his hands. Looked into those dual-colored eyes that had haunted his dreams for five long years—first with hatred, then with longing, now with love so fierce it burned.

“Together, Izzy,” he said. “Always.”

She rose on her toes and kissed him, soft and sweet. Like a promise. “Day by day,” she whispered against his mouth.

“Day by day.”

The sun broke through the clouds, spilling golden light across the wreckage of everything they’d survived.

It wasn’t a happy ending. Not really. But it was a beginning.

And it was theirs.