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I look at him. At all of them. Kipton at the stove, his hands finally still. Noah beside me, his expression carefully blank for once, all the teasing humor packed away. Ryker in the center of it all, the gravity well that everything else orbits around.

They let me go, not following. They stand in the kitchen and watch me walk upstairs with my sister, and I feel their eyes on my back like a physical weight, like hands that aren’t touching me but could be, like a promise I’m not ready to hear.

In my room, Bailey bounces on the bed—my too-soft bed, the one I couldn’t sleep in—and talks about the pool and the gardens and how nice Malcom was in the car. I sit on the floor, the wool blanket bunched behind me, and I listen to her fill the silence with words that don’t mean anything.

She doesn’t ask why I’m on the floor. She doesn’t ask about the brothers, or the parking lot, or why we can’t go home. She talks about rainfall showerheads, and I think about Ryker’s voice saying we’re not going anywhere, and I wonder what it means that I believe him.

Not that it’s good. Not that it’s safe. Just that it’s true.

Bailey falls asleep on the bed, her face relaxed in a way mine never is. I stay on the floor and watch the afternoon light move across the ceiling, and I practice wanting something for myself without immediately calculating the cost.

I’m not good at it yet. But for the first time in years, I’m trying.

EPILOGUE

FAWN

The house is quiet when I wake, which means I’m alone.

I don’t startle at the emptiness anymore. I don’t reach for a weapon I don’t own nor brace for footsteps that don’t belong. The silence here is different… It’s safe, it’s mine…and it still surprises me, even now, months after I stopped flinching every time a door opened.

I stretch under sheets that cost more than my old monthly rent, and I smile at the ceiling because I know where they are.

Ryker has meetings on Thursdays, and Kipton goes with him because Kipton doesn’t trust anyone to watch Ryker’s back but himself. Noah’s probably in the gym, beating the heavy bag until his knuckles split, then taping them and starting over.

They’ll be back. They always are.

I shower in the bathroom, which is bigger than the one in my old apartment, and I don’t rush. I used to rush everything… showers, meals, sleep… because there was always another shift, another bill, another fire to put out. Now I stand under the hot water until my skin turns pink, thinking about nothing, and it’s the most luxurious thing I own.

The closet greets me with rows of clothes I didn’t buy. Dresses and jeans, soft sweaters in colors that don’t fade after three washes. I used to have three work outfits I rotated until the seams gave out. Now I have options, and I still don’t know what to do with them most mornings.

I pick out a sweater the color of oatmeal, something Noah once said looked good on me, and I pull it over my head without checking the price tag.

Downstairs, the kitchen smells like coffee someone left brewing for me. Mrs. Chen has been doing that ever since she realized I can’t operate the machine without setting off the smoke alarm. I pour a cup and add too much cream, the way I like it, and I carry it to the window that overlooks the garden.

The grounds stretch out like a painting…green and deliberate. Maintained by people whose names I’m still learning. Three acres of manicured lawn, and beyond it, the iron gates that used to scare me. They still should, maybe. They say keep out to the world, but to me they say stay in, and I’ve learned there’s a difference between a cage and a home.

My phone buzzes on the counter. It’s Bailey.

Lunch today?? followed by three bunny emoji. She still thinks it’s hilarious because she doesn’t know what happened that night and she never will.

I type back.

Yes, my treat, even though I don’t have a job anymore, and the money isn’t really mine. Ryker set up an account months ago, and I finally stopped arguing about it the day I realized mine and ours had become the same word.

She sends back a string of exclamation points, and I can picture her… twenty years old, living her best life. Unburdened in a way I made sure she’d stay, even before I understood the cost.

The coffee’s still warm when the front door opens. I don’t turn around. I know the footsteps…heavy and uneven, the slight drag of Kipton’s left boot where the leather’s worn through from the way he walks. He comes up behind me and rests his chin on my shoulder, his arms wrapping around my waist, his stubble rough against my neck.

“You’re wearing my favorite,” he says, and his voice is gravel and satisfaction.

“It’s my favorite, too.”

He makes a sound against my skin, something between a laugh and a growl, and I lean back into him because I can. Because I choose to. Because every morning I wake up in this house and decide to stay, and no one makes me. That’s the part that still feels like a miracle.

Noah finds us like that, and he doesn’t pause…putting himself against my side, his hand finding mine where it rests on Kipton’s arm. He smells like sweat and soap, gym and shower, and he presses his mouth to my temple without saying anything. He doesn’t need to. Noah saves his words for when they matter, and I’ve learned to hear everything in the silence between them.

Ryker’s last. He always is. He stands in the doorway and watches us with dark eyes that used to terrify me, and I meet his gaze over Kipton’s shoulder, and I don’t look away.