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Epilogue
Gunner
Diamond-studded wedding gowns. Extravagant flowers. Fancy church and expensive suits. This wedding is attended by Fortune 500 money, and pro athletes who’ve fought for tens of millions per bout.
Lawyers, doctors, security. And cops.
There’s money in every pocket. Money in every bank.
I sit in the very back row of Jay Bishop’s wedding ceremony in a black suit that blends in with everyone else’s. Collar on, coat over that, none of my ink showing, except for that on my hand.
Two baby girls sit mere feet from me. Black hair. Icy blonde hair. Sweet little smiles and bright blue eyes. They play with teething rings, and have no clue that today marks something big in their short lives.
Their Uncle Jay is getting married, Aunt Sophiafinallysaid yes, and the fact their father trusted me and Libby to mind the girls during the ceremony doesn’t go unnoticed by anyone in this church.
Luna and Rose Bishop are Kane’s most cherished possessions. His daughters, the very thing he would go to war for, have been trusted with me – the bastard brother – while he’s busy helping Jay get hitched.
It’s humbling, considering only a few months ago, he would have run me down and felt no remorse when my obituary turned up in the newspapers.
Lunagah-gahsand smacks her sister with a rubber ring, but instead of screaming about it, the smaller baby turns around and smacks her back.
“Here.” Libby reaches forward and grabs the black-haired baby, then she turns and dumps her in my lap so the red dress with little white dinosaurs floods over my thighs, and the wriggling baby giggles and draws her father’s eye.
He stands all the way at the front, and we sit in the very back. It was an attempt to keep the clingy babies from following their mother to the altar and stealing the show. But despite the distance, Kane’s ears are finely tuned to know his girls.
Jay speaks his vows, he promises himself to Sophia and agrees not to be a hotdogallthe time. But Kane’s eyes stay on us for a moment. He studies Rose in my lap, then studies Luna in Libby’s lap. Once he’s satisfied with his scan, his eyes come back to me and smile.
We’re… brothers.
Reluctant, perhaps. But the suspicion is gone, as are the bad attitudes – mostly. Jay seems inclined to get over the fact I hit on his girl, especially now that she wore a dress that looks an awful lot like a tutu on their wedding day.
She’s his dancer, and she’s obliging his fantasies in front of everyone they know.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Angelo, their officiant for today, grins and gives a flick of his wrist, as though to say ‘off you go.’ “You may kiss your bride.”
* * *
Libby
Jay is a married man,which means Spence is back to being our class clown. Jay has to remain dignified – for a minute, at least – so it’s Spence that makes a dick of himself and his sweet girl, Abigail, on the dance floor. Her brothers are in attendance today, and Spence gives absolutely zero fucks about their disapproving glares as he fondles her and makes her giggle like a school girl. His seven-foot stature dwarves her tiny body, but she controls her giant, and with thecome-hithereyes, forces him from the center of the room and out the double doors so they can disappear to… well, I suspect they’ll continue fondling someplace else.
Kane dances with all three of his girls. The Bishops create a tiny dance circle; he holds one baby, and Jess holds the other, and together, they press close and sway.
And not so far from them, Jay moves with Soph and whispers things in her ear.
With my arms wrapped around Gunner’s neck and my toes aching from standing on them so I can reach him, his arms wrap around my hips and his lips press to my skin. Chest to chest, we move together, and round out the circle of brothers.
For the first time ever, three Bishop brothers are in the same room, happy, dancing, and carefree.
None of them were given a life where this could be such a thing. Forever in fight mode, always watching their backs, for the longest time, they were three separate entities. Three separate brothers who had to do their very best to survive, because their father drove them in different directions in hopes to fracture their strength.
It wasn’t until now, once Colum was dead and their enemies laid their arms down, that the three of them could truly be together again, without threat, and with genuine happiness shining in their eyes.
One could say that they all look like their father. And it’s true; they have the same jaw, the same shape to their eyes. Two of them have Colum’s eye color, but all three have the hair and nose. They all have this deep belief in kill or be killed, but they fight it back, they beat the poison Colum Bishop pumped into their veins, and by being here today, they prove their emancipation from the hell Bishop Sr. created.
All three are happy. They’re surrounded by people that love them, and though it is most certainly an army they control, it’s an army of love. An army of respect and brotherhood.
It’s the very thing Gunner silently hoped for, and everything he now has.
