Page 165 of Jay Bird

For years, Willow had feared that look. Even after escaping him, she had sometimes awakened in the middle of the night convinced those eyes were watching her from the darkness.

Now, looking at him surrounded by law enforcement with his hands restrained behind him, Willow realized something she hadn’t truly understood until that moment.

Chen wasn’t powerful. He was simply a man who had spent years making other people believe he was.

“Willow!” he shouted as the agents pulled him to his feet.

Jay Bird immediately shifted in front of her, blocking Chen from view, but Willow placed a hand against his arm.

“It’s okay.”

Jay Bird looked down at her. “You don’t owe him anything.”

“I know. That’s why I need to do this.”

She stepped around Jay Bird but didn’t move any closer. There were several armed agents between her and Chen, and she had no intention of ever allowing that man within reach of her again.

Chen stared at her with rage twisting his features. “You think this is finished? You think these people can keep you from me?”

Willow didn’t respond.

“You belong to me!” he shouted. “Do you hear me? You will always belong to me!”

Once, those words had been enough to make her tremble. Now they sounded almost pathetic.

Willow looked at the man who had stolen three years of her life. But in the last few months of freedom, she had found something Chen would never understand.

She had found Mia again. She had found Riley and the enormous collection of people who had somehow welcomed her and Lily into their lives without expecting anything in return. She had found confidence she hadn’t known she still possessed, and she had learned that the scars Chen had left on her body weren’t proof that he had won. They proved she had survived him.

Most importantly, she had found the man standing a few feet behind her who had shown her what it meant to feel safe without ever demanding her trust. Jay Bird had given her a bedroom with a lock and told her she could use it. He had offered his hand but always waited for her to decide whether she wanted to take it. Even when he had fallen in love with her, he had never once tried to decide what she should feel in return.

Chen had spent three years grabbing whatever he wanted.

Jay Bird always waited for Willow to choose.

And she finally understood how enormous that difference was.

“This is over, Chen.”

His face twisted with rage as he started shouting again, but Willow didn’t listen to the words. She turned her back on him.

Jay Bird was waiting for her exactly where she had left him, his dark eyes watching her as he held out his hand.

Willow looked down at it, and despite the tears still dampening her cheeks, she smiled.

Then she placed her hand in his. His fingers closed gently around hers, and he pulled her against his side as the paramedics came toward them.

Somewhere behind her, Chen was still shouting her name as agents led him away, but for the first time in more than three years, the sound of his voice didn’t make Willow afraid.

She never looked back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The living room looked like a toy store had exploded in the most beautiful way possible. Wrapping paper formed a colorful mountain near the tree, and Lily’s new dolls sat propped against her brand-new art easel-the one Jay Bird had spent twenty minutes assembling before dawn while Willow made coffee. The kid had stamina, that was for sure. Five a.m. on Christmas morning, and she had been bouncing on their bed, shrieking about Santa until they had both stumbled out half-asleep.

Now, at just past nine, Lily had finally crashed. She lay curled on the couch with her favorite new stuffed unicorn clutched to her chest, mouth slightly open, dead to the world. Ellie Two, the black lab Jay Bird had surprised her with just before Thanksgiving, was sprawled on her back in the middle of the rug, legs in the air, snoring softly.

Willow stood in the archway, watching them both, and felt Jay Bird come up behind her. His arms slid around her waist, and he rested his chin on her shoulder. He smelled like cinnamon and the pine candle she had lit earlier.