Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.
“I’ve missed so much,” she whispered, pain evident in every word. “Can… Can I hug you?”
Dimitros and Aria glanced at Lykos and me, then back at my mom before they nodded in unison. Mom let out a shaking sob and pulled them both gently into her arms, holding them tightly.
I watched the scene, leaning into Lykos’s warmth and strength. It was a scene I never imagined, yet it was more beautiful than I could have possibly hoped for.
We found each other again, right here in front of Lily’s grave. She brought us all together.
Mom took a step back, her eyes locked on Aria and her lips trembling when she whispered, “You look just like her. My Lily.”
Aria’s own eyes filled instantly. “I know. Mom told me.”
Mom nodded, her eyes darting to the grave. The pain and loss would always be with us, but it was no longer unbreakable.
“She would’ve loved you,” Mom said. “All of you.”
We all turned toward Lily’s grave.
For a long moment, we stood silently. The wind stirred softly through the branches overhead, scattering a few leaves across the grass.
“I finally have my family back,” Mom whispered softly.
“She’ll always be a part of us,” I murmured as the breeze brushed gently across my face, cool and soft like a familiar hand. I reached out and brushed my fingertips against the cold stone and closed my eyes.
Love you, Lily,I thought silently as I opened my eyes and touched the pendant around my neck. Maybe I should have thrown it away, but I couldn’t. That necklace never reminded me of my father. Instead, it made me feel closer to my sister. Every time I thought about discarding it, it felt like I was throwing a piece of my sister away.
So I held on to it.
I turned around, hearing commotion. Mom was hugging Aria again, speaking softly to Dimitros and Lykos. She even chuckled at something Dimitros said and my heart swelled.
Family.
This was what we should have been all along.
And now we were. Forever.
BONUS EPILOGUE
-UNKNOWN-
Iwatched from the shadows as the adoption papers were signed.
No one noticed me.
That was the first rule of survival in this world: stay unnoticed. It wasn’t very hard. People only saw what they expected to see. A devoted husband. A happy wife. Powerful men smiling beneath cathedral light while pretending their hands weren’t stained with blood.
No one ever looked beyond that.
The ceremony unfolded beneath low amber chandeliers inside the old courthouse hall, all polished marble hundreds of years old with a touch of suffocating elegance.
Rain tapped softly against the stained-glass windows overhead, muting the city beyond into little more than blurred light and ghosts.
Violet Freud sat at the center of it all.
An elegant purple dress clung to her frame, her wedding ring catching gold beneath the light whenever she moved her hand. She looked composed from a distance, but I noticed everything else—the tension in her shoulders, the way her thumb brushedabsentmindedly over her ring. The exhaustion hidden beneath her careful smile.
People always underestimated exhausted women.
