I can't remember the last time I ever smiled looking at this asshole. It must've been for a Christmas photo years ago, when we sat for his photographer, Lizzie in my arms, fake plastic smiles plastered to our faces.

The smile today is entirely real.

“Mr. Foreman, if you'll please, kindly read this court the jury's verdict.” The Judge watches, perched like a hawk draped in black on his high bench, staring at the skinny man in the jury block who stands, holding a piece of paper.

“Your Honor, we find Victor Philips Wright guilty on all counts: first degree criminal conspiracy to commit murder, first degree conspiracy of fraud, first degree child endangerment, first degree...”

The words melt together the longer I listen. It's euphoria to my ears, and it gives me the strength to keep my eyes locked on the asshole in his rat pit. Remarkably, he stares back the whole time, his jaw clenched, grinding his teeth as it sinks in that, yes, he's going away forever.

Bye-bye, mansion.

Bye-bye, billionaire net worth.

Bye-bye, granddaughter you never gave a single shit about.

Bye-bye, chances to ever fuck with me or my family ever again.

It's quiet. The foreman finishes reading the long list of crimes ensuring he'll stay locked up until the sun goes cold.

I just wish a monster like him could understand. If he knew the pain he'd caused, if he ever regretted the kids who got caught in the crossfire while we chased diamonds through those petty warlord fiefdoms, if he was sorry for scaring Lizzie, or ripping away the woman I loved, or maybe had remorse for stuffing his own daughter away to die anonymously in a dirty fucking hospital far beneath his means...I might not feel this way.

Oh, but I do, and it's the sickest happiness I've ever known. It's the last shot of vengeance tonic I'll savor before I walk out of here and return to a normal life, where I've learned to smile at things that are a thousand times more healthy.

I hear the judge's gavel slap the wood. Then the cameras clicking as the media hounds leap to their feet, chasing their photo ops. It's the most high profile criminal case the valley is likely to see for the next decade, maybe longer.

I just sit back while the bailiff helps him up with two more guards at his side, leading him to the exit, straight past. When he gets to me, he stops, refusing to move until they prod him.

Look me in the eye, asshole. It's the last time.

“You're as guilty as I am, Carlisle. You'll never be a good man, no matter how many times you sit there high and mighty, trying to convince yourself it's true. Go to hell.”

“Move along,” the bailiff growls, giving him a shove.

Victor twists his head over his shoulder before he moves, eyes locked on me as long as humanly possible, like he's trying to make a curse stick.

There's time to mouth a one sentence reply before he's through the door.

“Here's your guilt, heartless fuck.” I bang on my chest, just once, sending a shock through the organ that's taken the biggest beating, and hasn't quit on me yet. That's the true difference between us. “Already faced mine, and won. Now, I get to watch you rot.”

* * *

Much as I tell myself it's over, I can't get the dirty, spellbound look that evil bastard gave me out of my head.

It wasn't a lie. I've faced my own demons and conquered, except for one.

Later, when I'm home, I figure out how. I have dinner like usual with Sunflower and my baby girl. It's steak, asparagus, and the best goddamned garlic potatoes this side of the Superstition mountains tonight. We all do the cooking. I even let Lizzie help do the fun part, mashing up the potatoes.

We talk about the wedding, watch a movie, and put Lizzie down to sleep.

I'm starting to feel human again. Finding it easier to move like I never had hot lead tearing through my guts. The wound is healing nicely, and my sore abs are finally able to keep up with the need in my balls, which hasn't slowed since the day I got out of the hospital, and started sharing a bed with the woman I love.

I'm not the only one who's missed hard, frequent sex, and eager to make up for lost time. Sunflower can't keep her hands off me. She's got her fingers on my chest, nails on my back, teeth on my lips as soon as we're in the hall, my little girl's door shut behind us.

I take her hand and squeeze, reaching for her lips with the other. I lay my finger across her lips. “Easy, darling. Before we fuck ourselves to Neptune and back, there's something I want to show you. Come on.”

Curiosity puts a hold on her lust. She follows me as I lead us downstairs, past my office, into the extra storage room beyond. I haven't touched the box tucked in the corner for weeks.

Before tonight, I only added to it. Never so much as held the paper inside between my fingers for years. I reach in, seeking the letters with a dead man's handwriting.

“What's this?” she whispers, the anticipation building in her fingers on mine.

“These belonged to my old man. Secrets he left behind. Probably dirty ones, judging by how he did them. I've avoided it for too long, but now I want the truth. Hell, I need it,” I growl, staring into her eyes, jade green as unsettled as the blue in mine. “I can't go on not knowing, darling. Everything I'm doing is a reset, wiping the slate clean, so we can start our life the only way we ought to.”

I kiss her hand. She nods, urging me on. My thumb slides over the seal. It's addressed to Judy, the bitch I think is dad's mistress when he went through his mid-life crisis.

“Never showed these to ma. Never opened them. Too busy running from whatever's inside,” I say, slicing the edge with my pocket knife. “She can't know what's in here. Me, on the other hand...it's time. Can't go through life wondering how bad he was, how fucked up I have the potential to be at my core. If he was screwing around behind ma's back, I need to know. I'll do what it takes to avoid his mistakes, even if they're ugly as hell.“

I stop. My eyes scan the very first sentence, and that's all it takes to drive home how wrong I've been.

Judy,

You've got to stop him. We've wasted too much time trying to catch him red-handed. No more chasing the circumstantial.

I can't let him do another diamond run. He's enriching killers for our product.

I've told him over and over, there are better ways. Costlier, but cleaner ways to get our product, and easier ways to make up what we lose on acquisitions in better marketing.

He doesn't listen. And he's about to go behind my back, breaking my veto as full partner.

We can't let him.

Can't leave this mess for my son someday. Can't let him come after me, or my family, because I think he knows we're after him, closing in.

You know how many nights I've sat up, wired, wondering how far he'll go to get his way?

Victor doesn't even look after his own daughter. She's a troubled kid, going down a bad path, and I'm scared as hell she'll never have the heart for this business, should he ever step aside.

Not in her condition. Maybe not ever.

Go the Feds. I'll fax you the secret ledger he keeps for funding his raiders. Hurry, Judy, before it's too late.

“Knox?” Kendra's angelic hand curves, tracing my neck with her fingers.

It's the only thing that keeps the pressure in my skull from causing an explosion. My heart hasn't slammed against my ribs like this since the night Gannon shot me.

“Knox, are you okay? Talk to me!” She squeezes me harder, bringing her lips to my skin.

Without saying anything, I drop the letter and turn, pulling my beacon back to this world into my arms. “I was wrong, Sunflower. So wrong it aches like it fucking should at its best and worse. So wrong for so damn long, and I've never been happier.”

“I was worried,” she whispers, smiling when our lips brush.

“I still am,” I say, sifting fingers through her hair, fisting those gold locks like precious silk. Her eyes question mine, searching a way to help.

We kiss for a good minute. My hands move, gripping her skin, sliding to her ass. They jerk her against me, fitting her hips snug against mine, my cock hard and ready in my trousers.

“Down,” I tell her. “Hit the floor and spread 'em.”

I couldn't be more serious. There's a storm rolling through my bones I barely understand, but I know weathering it involves her tight cunt wringing my balls dry. There's no time to go upstairs.

Fuck the bed tonight, the spa, or even the kitchen counter.

There's a thousand words I have no language to say. I just need it out of me, the same way I need to be inside her this very second.

The low growl in my throat slips out when I push my fingers under her belt. She gasps when I pop the clasp, the zipper, and rip them down her legs. Her lush little ass falls out under me as we go down, her on all fours, wet spot calling every inch of me through her panties.

My pants disappear easy, and so does the last scrap of fabric hiding her sweet pink. Kendra moans, panties twisted around her knees.

“You know what this means? Why I'm having my way here and now?” I push inside her on the last word. Her back arches and a shrill cry spills out of her. Music to my ears.

Her pleasure is the only answer I get. Only one I need. Kissing her neck, right above the shoulders, I thrust harder, bringing her to me, fist tangled in her hair.

“This is it, Sunflower. The only fucking therapy I'll ever need. I should've had you years ago, put our first kid inside you, made you this promise.” She sinks across my cock, swallowing it up to the hilt. My free hand brushes her side, traces her arm, and stops to bundle my fingers in hers. Another gasp. Another moan. Another wicked pull of my lips, becoming a carnal smile. “I will wife you as hard as this fuck, darling. I'll burn like the blood in your finger under my ring. I'll let the past die, knowing our future's as loud and precious as your heart strumming in your chest this second. No more bullshit. No more lies. No more secrets. Let's do forever, Sunflower, because that's all we've ever had.”

It's a strange time to have an epiphany when I'm crashing into the woman I love, grunting each time her ass connects with my skin, turning to embers as the fire in my balls reaches to my throat.

But I'd be a fool to ignore it.

I'd be mad to second guess.

I'd be blind, deaf, and dumb all at once to ignore the spark kindling my heart.

Because it's not really a spark. It's a starscape lightning up the blackness inside me, melting it, shining on the path to my forever like never before.

She's whimpering, shaking at the knees, a beautiful mess under me whispering the same mantra.

Yes, yes, yes!

Knox!

Please!

“Come for me already,” I whisper in her ear, slowing my strokes so she can hear me loud and clear, even as I'm pumping her harder. Her divine ass ripples from the power I'm giving every thrust. “Come like you were meant to since we found our stars.”

I don't try to hold back when her fingers pinch mine, her knees quake harder, and the drawn out mewl in her throat becomes steady, shrill ecstasy. I'm her willing prisoner.

I'm growling when I hitch forward again, hold myself deep, and feel my spine ignite. Come floods out in vicious bursts, into my forever, so swift it steals my breath.

Even when I can't breathe, when I'm balls deep and out of my mind, I'm happier than I've ever been because I'm with her.

With her.

Around her.

In her.

Forever, unbelievably, hers.

* * *

My biography has a dozen parts. Soldier, father, son, brother, lover, and even fool.

It's man that never sat right with me until the last few weeks flash by like a monsoon.

Now, there's no question.

I'm whole. Complete. Crazier than I've ever been in all the best ways.

I walk out of that room holding dad's letters in one hand, and Sunflower slung over my shoulder with the other.

We head upstairs. I take her three more times that night, exhausting our pent up lust in my bed, the same mattress I can't wait to wear down once she's finally my wife.

In the morning, I read the rest of his letters. All six. The last was written just a couple weeks before dad's heart attack, when life got real, and I started to fear finding out who he really was.

There's no more doubt.

My old man never cheated on ma. He never put a black mark on this family, or on me.

He tried sparing us a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.

He thought he had Black Rhino's CFO on his side. But Judy Winds cracked and couldn't carry their plan through after he dropped dead.

The woman wasn't strong like him. She confessed everything to Victor not long after dad died. He gave her a fat severance and accepted her resignation.

A little detective work in the corporate records tells me everything. It also says she died a footnote in Albuquerque a few years into retirement, just a couple years ago.

If I had a regretful bone in my body, I'd wonder why cowardice and bad luck fucked things up for years. I'd dwell on it, wish like hell it'd happened differently, sparing us the misery.

But I don't. Not anymore. It's time to put the past to bed.

I march the letters outside and tuck them in the fire pit next to my citrus trees, except for one. The old lighter I still carry gives its flame. It's habit, keeping it in my pocket from when I used to smoke.

I haven't had a cig in years. It's a thousand times more satisfying watching dead worlds burn.

The breeze ruffles the last letter in my hand. Kendra saw plenty when I pulled them out in front of her, but this one is for two sets of eyes only.

It's two pages. There's a brief note from Judy, promising she'll keep the enclosed safe, in the event 'something terrible' happens. Then on the next page, a confession.

Son,

What do I even say? You're grown up, finding yourself, and you're a bigger hero than I'll ever be by heading off to boot camp soon.

I don't have a crystal ball. No magic words to pass down from the Carlisles who came before. No litany of wisdom because I'm not that arrogant.

I just have the truth, and here it is: some very serious affairs with Black Rhino are coming to a head soon. I don't know what will happen.

If I wind up in jail, or dead, or even worse, here's what I want you to do in one simple word.

Live.

By your terms. By your passion. Find the love of your life and have a few kids. Spend more time with them than the days I got with you and Jamie.

Forget the money. There's always more somewhere and it's never worth it if it makes you dirty.

Honor me by having a good life, and making sure your sister has the same.

Live. With love always.

I read his words over and over before I slip it back in its envelope, and keep it safe for Jamie.

The irony should gut me, thinking my father left me with a lot of doubts, when all he's left is his very best.

No. I take it like a man standing next to the fire.

I'm still smiling the very second Kendra comes out, Lizzie hanging on her hand, both of them laughing over some lighthearted chatter I missed.

I don't know what dad's words would've meant if I'd read them a year ago.

Instead, I've been living his advice without knowing it, renewed in every heartbeat, every breath, every time I lay eyes on my family, and know they're a finer treasure than any I ever asked for.

This is my life on this rock. And for the first time in ages, I love it.

Cinderella, Prince Charming, and the Fairy-fucking-Godmother combined never had it this good.