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Candace is barking commands.
The tunnel is closing as someone begs, “Hold on. Hold on. Help is coming.”
Then I hear Tav. A beastly roar of agonized terror. It slips through the quickly closing tunnel to follow me into a darkness so black, so dreamless, there’s nothing but me and the roar for what feels like eternity.
epilogue
Olympia
Six Years Later
They say fate works in mysterious ways. I can’t say that they’re wrong. I spent three weeks in a coma after Ophelia did what she did. The damage was extensive, the surgery was long, and the effects would alter my life forever.
After marrying the love of my life in a cliffside ceremony that overlooked a calm blue sea, he took me away from our life in L.A. where we spent an entire three months living a dream come true in a villa in the Maldives. I came back sun kissed and more in love than I thought I could possibly be in love with another person.
I spent the next six months working hard at Laurier Lines, culturing a relationship with my father, who endured his own trauma after he saw one of his daughters attempting to murder his other. We never speak of Ophelia, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think of her from time to time, wondering what it was that happened to her—or what she was missing to make her into the person she became.
She’s served six years of her lifetime sentence, a sentence ensured by Kane’s brother, Ilya Volkov, who apparently had the ruling judge in his pocket—because the book had been thrown at my sister. And I didn’t do a single thing to stop the weight of it slamming into her hard. Cutting her down.
What she took from me—I’d never get back.
What she took from me when she put those two bullets into my stomach—I’d never recover.
I hadn’t been pregnant when the bullets sank into me, thankfully. But when I woke, it was to find that I would also never be pregnant. As a result of the trauma the bullets had done to my body, the surgeon had been forced to give me a complete hysterectomy.
I’d mourned the loss for an entire year before I began to make peace with my fate.
Now, with the spring sun shining on my face, the six-year-old boy and his three-year-old brother strapped into their seats in the back of Tav’s SUV, I smile big.
“Mommy, gween,” Landon, my youngest son, waves his green Hot Wheels car enthusiastically as I toss him a smile and a wink.
“You’re right, buddy. Grrreen.” I accentuate the R.
Chubby cheeks push up in a baby-cute smile, darker in color than his older brother, who has a different father and paler coloring. Both my boys share their birth mother’s honey brown eyes and full heads of hair. They’re so handsome. And boy, do they have the biggest hearts.
“Mommy, when we get home, can I swim?” Maverik, my oldest, asks. He’s always asking to swim. If the boy could, he’d go back into the place all souls begin and choose to be a fish, I’m certain.
He’s going to study the ocean one day. A marine biologist, I suspect. The sea just seems to call his little soul like nothing else.
“I think that can be arranged.”
“Pool Pawty!” Landon cheers, his exuberant nature ever on display. Unlike his brother, who is more reserved, thoughtful, and calm, Landon is going to be my troublemaker. I can see it now. He’s so passionate and full of life’s chaos.
Mav smiles shyly. Coming to us from care at five, he’s only been ours for the past year. He has memories of his previous life that I’m not sure Landon has. They affected him. Sometimes, he has nightmares that we’re going to send him back. I hold him and assure him that he’s mine, and I’m his. His daddy is his, and he and Landon are his daddies. We love him and we’ll always love him. There’s no giving anyone back.
Still, my little boy doesn’t let his smiles free quite as easily as Landon.
Flipping down my visor, my eyes connect with Mav’s in the mirror. “Definite pool party!” I exclaim with excitement, loving when Tav drops his hand to my thigh, squeezing lovingly. “What do you think, Daddy?” I bring Tav into the conversation.
“Looks like I’m going to find my swim shorts when we’re home.”
“I’ll cut up some fruit and maybe pour a bowl of chips.” I sweeten the pot.
“Juice, Mommy,” Landon reminds. “Juice.”
“Of course.” Emotion tightens my chest, because Mav’s eyes are starting to shine with excitement, too. It’s such a beautiful sight. Magical. “Any special requests Mav?”
He shakes his head.
