Epilogue
Sayer
Five Months Later
There she was. Barefoot, pregnant and more beautiful than I had ever seen her.
Caroline Valero was mine, finally, eternally, truthfully. And she was carrying my son.
I didn’t get to see her pregnant with our first child and I had been too naïve to know what I’d missed. Her swollen belly was the loveliest sight I had ever seen. She glowed like this, shined.
I couldn’t keep my hands off her. I was insatiable for her, like I could somehow give her more children while she was pregnant with one already.
She smiled at me from the bar where she chatted with Francesca and Cass, my bartender. She’d made this restaurant her second home after we’d landed back in Frisco. She mostly harassed Cass and angered my customers by making their drinks take forever, but I figured they could deal with it. She was in my space, she was near me, and I could take her down to the office anytime I wanted. Everyone else could fuck off.
We’d closed three hours earlier than usual and the serving staff was finally filtering out. I had told her that I’d invited our friends over for a party. Juliet, our daughter, had taken her grandpa’s hand and walked him through Gus’s installations. For as much grief as that man had caused me in my life, Colorado seemed to suit him.
Or maybe it was the grandpa life. He doted on Juliet in a way he never had with Caroline. I had asked her a few weeks ago what she thought of her dad’s transformation. She had smiled sadly and changed the subject.
I knew it hurt her to see that he could be a good man, that he could be honest and clean and adoring when he had been none of those things to her. But she wouldn’t covet her daughter’s happiness. And she was too content to hold it against her dad now.
Besides, she had me to protect her should Leon Valero go back to his old ways. Although, from the haunted look in Leon’s eyes, I knew that he was a changed man. The five years without Caro had worn him down, had destroyed that last bit of recklessness in him. He never talked about his life in the bratva, none of us did, but whatever had happened while he was there alone, had been enough to scare the bad out of him.
Gus appeared at the top of our staircase. He had been quieter than usual these past few months. Atticus’s death had been more difficult than he had imagined and he’d been sorting through unwanted emotions and anger.
He’d been the same way after his dad had died. This was a man that hated the family connection he was forced to face. The two men he hated most in life were dead, but he was left with the consequences of his actions.
He’d get over it eventually. For now, we all gave him the space he needed.
Frankie too had struggled to move on. It wasn’t that she wanted to go back to the life, more that she didn’t know what to do with herself now that she didn’t have to live in hiding.
Her uncles had suffered through their individual trials, each receiving multiple life sentences. They were transferred to separate maximum-security prisons. Aleksander died shortly after arrival. He’d been beaten to death.
We weren’t exactly surprised at the news, but it had unsettled each of us. Frankie had been called back to DC by his estate lawyers and learned that she’d inherited a large amount of money from him.
When Frankie came back, she was different… quieter… more thoughtful. I knew Mason Payne had escorted her from the airport to the meeting and back to the airport again, but she’d been tightlipped about her trip.
Caro had told me Frankie was planning to give her money to charity, but she hadn’t done that yet either.
Other than our friends and their issues, Caro and I had never been better. We were a real family now, free of the chains of our past and the restraints of the brotherhood.
We had each other. And we had our children. And that was all either of us needed.
I had no idea that this kind of happiness existed or that I could feel this free. I was comfortable and we were secure. And this was as blissful of a life as I had ever known.
Somehow, through all of my screw-ups—including trauma and a lifetime of sins—I had managed to get the only thing in life I had ever wanted. Caroline Valero.
And as soon as possible, I planned to make her Caroline Wesley. Or, rather, Smith, as our aliases were still very much necessary.
Maggie walked in the restaurant and gave me an assessing look. I smiled and waved her in. She still didn’t totally trust me, but I got the feeling that Maggie didn’t totally trust anyone. And that was okay. I had a lifetime to prove to her that I was a good enough man for Caroline.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
Now that the gang was all here, I made my way over to Caro. Frankie saw me coming and found an excuse to leave. Cass did the same thing, fleeing to the other side of the bar.
Caroline looked up at me as I took my place by her side and smiled. “Hey, you.”
“Hey.” I gave into the urge to run my finger down the side of her face. “You look beautiful tonight.”
She made a face at her swelling belly. “Liar.”
“No,” I insisted. “Never again.”
Her smile beamed, and adoration warmed her eyes.
I pulled out a ring box I had been holding onto for years and set it on the bar by her hands. “I’ve been meaning to give you something for a while now.”
She looked down at the square black box. Her fingers started trembling and my chest pinched with emotion at the honest way she lived now. She didn’t try to hide her emotions any longer. She didn’t lie and manipulate and deceive. She just lived. Genuine and totally honest.
“What is it?” she whispered.
I nudged it toward her. “Open it and see, Six.”
She looked up at me, her eyes already watering and I couldn’t help it. I leaned down and kissed her passionately on the lips. When I pulled away the box was in my hands and I had it open for her.
She stared at the simple platinum ring that had my reason, my constant engraved in tiny cursive on the band and I started to worry that it was too simple, too plain.
I should have gotten a diamond. I should have let her secret stash of stolen goods inspire me to go bigger, flashier. I should have made it more extravagant—
“Sayer, it’s beautiful!” she gasped. “It’s absolutely perfect!”
Relief and joy washed through me and I had to lean against the bar when my knees buckled from the force of it. “Marry me?” I asked her.
Tears streamed down her exquisite face and she started nodding excitedly before she could speak. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, please.”
I slid the ring on her finger while our friends and family cheered behind us. Before she could turn to them, I hauled her to standing with an arm wrapped around her waist and kissed the daylights out of her. Our friends cheered louder. Juliet ran over and hugged our legs, making our family complete.
And my heart beat in time to the excitement. Caroline was mine. She would always be mine. But more importantly, I was hers.
When we finally pulled back, she laid her hand tenderly against my jaw and stared at me with the biggest eyes I had ever seen.
“You’re my reason. For everything,” I confessed. I kissed the corner of her mouth and whispered, “And my constant. I love you, Six. And I love this life of ours.” My voice trembled with emotion, but I let it. I was also living these days open and utterly honest.
“I love you too, Sayer,” she promised. “Always. Forever.”
They were the truest words I’d ever heard. The words that healed and mended and made everything else in this life of mine worth it.
We were together at last. The way we were meant to be. And there was nothing left in this life I wanted other than this. She had given me everything. And she had made me a better, more worthy man in the process.
I had lived through hell to get to paradise. But it was worth it. For her, it would always be worth it.