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“Done.”
She goes to Annika, and they hug for a while, talking to each other and making promises I’m not sure they’ll be able to keep.
“Finn…” I turn to him, but he’s unmoving. It fucking breaks my heart. “I’m not removing myself from your life, just from the business, fromthislife.”
“Sure, Ronan. My words don’t have any pull on you anymore, so I’ll keep them to myself.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“But it is. You chose this.”
“Even if I’m not here, this”—I point to everyone—“will always be our own sanctum. I’m not choosing to leave you, I’m choosing to go away with her. It’s different. I fucking love you, and I love her and the life growing inside of her. My blood…ourblood, Finn.”
“No, brother. This”—Finn points a circle between everyone but Annika and I—“isThe Sanctum. You are choosing to leave it, run without even attempting to find what you or Annika need, here. You are leaving… us.”
He means him–that I’m leaving him. He thinks it doesn’t fucking hurt, that it’s easy to go after all we’ve been through—what he’s been through. Although the constant stream of women warming his bed makes me believe he’s doing much better than I think. Annika, though, she can’t heal here, and I cannot leave her; it would hurt so much more. It’s a different kind of love, the kind that will leave you lifeless if it’s ripped away, and one day… he will understand. Because I have a feeling that Hanna was not his end game.
“You can’t return. If you leave, that’s it.”
There’s such coldness in his words, they don’t sound like they came from the same kid who used to follow me around like a lost puppy after he learned how to walk. It cuts deep, too deep. Even though the plan is to stay away for a long while, just in case Bartiste is still alive, to avoid revealing our location, knowing my own brother is basically exiling me is a whole different kind of pain.
“You don’t mean that.”
“If you’re out, you’re out.” He speaks with such indifference, I wonder if he ripped some pages out of Vin’s book, or even Carter’s.
“I love you, brother,” I say in a calmer tone, sadness so goddamn clear in it.
But he says nothing. A few seconds pass, and he turns and heads to the front door.
“Finnigan!” Annika calls after him, and he stops but doesn’t turn. “I am so sorry. I never intended any of this. I hope… please, remove me from your life, but not him, not your brother.”
He lingers for a moment, then rips the door open and disappears through, letting it slam behind him, the impact of it like an earthquake aftershock.
He’s my baby brother and I have no clue how to fix this.
One by one, everyone else leaves the penthouse and Annika and I are left licking our wounds. Yet with all this sadness, there is so much light, so much to look forward to. This world… it never was really mine. It was always meant to be theirs—Vincent’s, Finnigan’s, Carter’s, and Maddox’s.
I wrap my arms around Annika and revel in how she buries her face in my chest, the feel of her against my body, faint heartbeats against my flesh, little kicks in the belly pressed against me, her warmth. This is my world—she is it.
“I think it’s time to go, little witch. Away to our own sanctuary.”
But too many moments pass, and she seems to be holding me tighter.
“I fear that you will end up resenting me, that you will regret leaving everything behind, regret being with me,” she almost whispers.
“Youare the only one I would ever regret leaving behind. I choose you because I cannot make sense of this world without you in it.” I tilt her head, forcing her steel eyes on me. “You are not regret, Annika. You are the guiding light in a sea of it, and I’ll always make sure that brightness never fades.”
EPILOGUE
RONAN
Nine months later
Lilac fills my senses whenI open the door to Annika’s studio. She has at least a dozen clusters of candles of that scent dotted around the bright space. When she first started burning the candles, I argued that open flames around all this paint, paper, and canvases might not be the best idea. Especially since she started painting again, she’s been losing herself to it, totally oblivious to her surroundings. Her solution was to fill the space with enough of them that she could smell it even if she only burns one. I laughed, but the sparkles in her eyes made me drop it immediately.
She’s in that state now… lost in the brush strokes as she swipes the wide brush over the canvas. She’s turned the easel away from the door, because she hates it when anyone looks at her paintings before she’s ready, so I don’t know what she’s painting over there. But I know for a fact that the canvas on that easel is the same one she placed there at least a month ago. She’s been spending a long time on it, and even if I’m curious, I don’t want to pry.
“Little witch, it’s time to go soon.”
