And he was finally ready to believe that the light would always win.
Had already won.
Would keep winning.
Forever.
Epilogue
Teague stood at the edge of the overlook, watching the last rays of sunlight paint the canyon walls in brilliant shades of orange and purple.
Beautiful.
Breathtaking, even.The kind of view that usually cleared his head.Made problems feel smaller.
But his mind wasn’t on the view.
It was on Eden.
Always Eden.
It had been just over a week since the rescue, since Jeremy’s arrest, since everything had gone down.A week of watching Noah and Meg find their way back to each other.Of seeing Liam and Nimue stronger than ever.
A good week for everyone but him, apparently.
Eden had been avoiding him since the day he’d taken down Jeremy.
No—since before that.
Since the moment he’d hung out of that helicopter.Since she’d watched the video of him spray-painting those coordinates with the ground literally crumbling beneath him.Since she’d seen how close he’d come to dying.
They’d all been gathered in the conference room.The guys laughing and cheering his heroics.But he’d seen something shift in her expression that day—fear bleeding into anger, anger hardening into distance.And she’d been pulling back ever since.
It hurt more than he wanted to admit.More than made sense for a friendship.
He didn’t understand it.They were just friends—technically, officially, on paper—but the friendship had been getting closer.Deeper.The way she looked at him sometimes.The conversations that stretched longer than necessary.The spark he felt whenever she was near.
He hadn’t imagined that.
He couldn’t have.
But now?
Every time he tried to talk to her, she found an excuse to leave.Every time their eyes met across a room, she looked away first.She’d even stopped scheduling herself for the same shifts as him.
She was shutting him out, and he had no idea why.
Chase after someone who clearly didn’t want to be caught?Force a conversation she was actively avoiding?That wasn’t his style.
But letting her go without a fight didn’t feel right either.
The sound of boots on gravel made him turn.Liam approached, holding a piece of copy paper, his expression serious.
“Got a minute?”Liam asked.
“Yeah.”Teague pushed thoughts of Eden aside.Compartmentalized.“What’s up?”
“This just surfaced.Seems to be legit.”Liam held out the paper.“It’s a poem.About the Roosevelt gold.”
