By choosing it.
By letting it breathe.
So I take Amelia’s hand.
Her changed hand.
The one she still sometimes tries to hide.
I lift it and kiss the place where her pinky used to be.
“Maverick,” she whispers.
I lower myself to one knee in front of her.
The room becomes quiet, and Olivia gasps so hard I think she might injure herself again.
“Oh my gosh,” she whispers. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh.”
Amelia stares at me, one hand flying to her mouth.
“Bella mia,” I say.
Her eyes fill.
I had a speech.
A good one.
Long.
Careful.
Full of all the things I have carried since the moment she walked into my life with fire in her eyes and a little girl brave enough to stand between cruelty and someone smaller than herself.
But now that I’m here, kneeling in front of the woman who taught my dead heart how to beat again, I can’t remember most of it.
Maybe that’s for the best.
Amelia never needed pretty words from me.
She needed truth.
So I give her that.
“I buried the man I was with my wife and daughter,” I tell her, voice rough. “For years, I thought all that was left of me was duty. Blood. Vengeance. Power. Then you came into my home with your soft heart, stubborn chin, terrible coffee, and a daughter who looked at me like I was still capable of being someone good.”
A tear slips down her cheek.
I brush it away with my thumb.
“You and Olivia did not replace what I lost. You made room beside it. You taught me grief and love can live in the same chest without one destroying the other.”
Olivia sniffles loudly.
Spike mutters, “Damn it,” like he’s annoyed by his own feelings.
But I don’t look away from Amelia.
