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Kaidence kept inching closer to the gates, trying to see past them like something on the other side was pulling at his curiosity.

Lakelyn shut that shit down immediately.

She caught the back of his hoodie and guided him away from the entrance before he could get any farther, fussing the entire time about jumping out of cars and wandering toward property that didn’t belong to him. I almost laughed. She was still stubborn as hell, still protective, and apparently motherhood had only made that side of her worse.

Then Kaidence asked if they could come back one day.

I went still.

Lakelyn hesitated before answering him. “Maybe one day.”

Those three words hit harder than they had any business hitting.

I remained behind the rain-streaked glass, watching the woman I loved stand outside my gates with the son I had never gotten the chance to physically meet.

A slow smile pulled at my mouth. “Sooner than that, baby.”

The words disappeared into an empty room because she couldn’t hear me from where she stood. Hell, she couldn’t hear me at all yet… but that was going to change.

Lakelyn had spent six years believing I was the one who never came back. Soon enough, she was going to find out I had never left.

I had spent six years waiting on Lakelyn, waiting on my boy, and waiting on the ones who thought a few bullets and six years of silence would keep Caspian Black gone.

They thought the dead couldn’t remember… they were dead fucking wrong.

I remembered every face in that room, every hand that helped pull the trigger, and I had spent every hour of every quiet year putting my retribution together piece by piece.

I watched Lakelyn hustle Kaidence into the Range Rover and climb back behind the wheel.

Before she hit the gas, she looked up at the window one last time.

I didn’t move or step back. I let my presence press against the glass, letting the heavy velvet curtain settle under the invisible weight of my hand.

Lakelyn couldn’t see my face through the pouring rain, but the terror and hunger in the way she stared told me everything I needed to know.

She felt me.

The truck pulled away from the curb, tires hissing against wet pavement, red taillights fading into the gray sheet of the storm.

I watched until the road was empty. Then I stepped back into the shadows of the master bedroom.

Lakelyn thought the house was a mausoleum of memories. She thought I was gone. She thought the life we were supposed to build together died the night I never came back. What she didn’t know was that I had been there the entire time waiting, keeping the scavengers and caretakers from defiling what belonged to us… keeping what was mine untouched. And sooner or later, her and my son were going to walk through those front doors and come home… for good.

Chapter five

Lakelyn

By the time I pulled into my old driveway, the rain was coming down in thick, relentless sheets.

The wipers slung water across the glass with a steady, rhythmic thrum, and Kaidence had finally rubbed the last bit of sleep from his eyes after sleeping through half the drive, destroying every single snack Yonas had packed, and asking me if we were there approximately forty-seven times.

The second I shifted the Range Rover into park, the front door flew wide open.

My sister, Willow, came flying down the porch steps barefoot on one side, an oversized faded graphic tee hanging off one shoulder, a silk bonnet tilted slightly sideways, and exactly one pastel-pink fuzzy house shoe on the other foot.

Just one.

I rolled down my window, the humid, rain-soaked air rushing in against my face.