Page 103 of Bound

“Lucian.”

He points. “Cream.”

“Try to relax.”

“I am trying.”

“Then leave.”

He looks personally offended.

We are in the bridal suite above the restored Village ballroom. Cass and Ryan are currently on Fifth Avenue, chaperoned by Mack, shopping for his ring bearer suit and her Maid of Honor dress.

On the Bachman tarmac in New York, I started crying before the door of their jet even opened. Ryan hit me at a run, all elbows and decked out in superhero paraphernalia, and Cass, too, was obviously crying before that door opened.

Lucian stood behind me, one hand on my lower back. We watched the two people I had once sold my soul to save, the two people who helped me save my cold, dark Lucian from himself…

Arrive to complete our family.

The Village is finished.

Not exactly as it was.

Better.

The houses are brighter. The security is stronger. The old stone remains wherever it could be saved, threaded into new walls as if the family decided scars deserved architecture.

Cass’s bakery opened last month.

Bachman Jewelers reopened beside it.

The old gate is standing.

Not hidden the way it once was.

Still private.

Still protected.

But no longer built like fear itself.

Two days after we left the Hamlet, Rafe moved Isobel to a protected coastal house under Freya and Bayne’s network, far enough from the Village that Lucian could breathe and close enough to testify when needed.

Apparently, Isobel made an impression on Freya during her short stay with us in Iceland. Freya told Rafe, “Blondes with impeccable taste in clothing must look out for one another.”

The next evening, Gregory enacted his plan.

By morning, three Moretti Swiss bank accounts were frozen. That got their attention. Our spies informed us that they immediately emptied three of their safe houses in New York and Glasgow.

Once Rafe saw that we had their attention, Blaze and his brother, Haze, met with one of their Moretti contacts. I was able to help arrange the meeting, organizing a neutral ground: the apartment where Cass, Ryan, and I used to live, Bambi’s place.

The brothers with the rhyming names delivered the Bachman message:

If Isobel dies, Marina’s archive goes public.

If the Morettis move against the Bachmans, it goes to their enemies first.

If they don’t bother us again, the files stay quiet.