Epilogue
KADEN
“Delete it,” I order Cassie. “Show me you've learned there's more power in your hands than any AI.”
The three of us stand at the top of the stairs leading to the server room at Siren’s Call. It took me days to even get Cassie to admit the AI that started this whole mess was ready and waiting to be activated. Honesty is taking her much longer to learn than deceit ever did.
I stare at Cassie, waiting. Her eyes narrow against mine, a silent battle of wills before we descend.
“Cassie,” I warn. “Don’t make me tell you again.”
Layla's hand slips into mine, steadying me. Her throat tattoo peeks out from her black turtleneck—once a mark of captivity, now a sign of her power. At her touch, some of the tension eases from my shoulders. The bite of her engagement ring, a three-carat black diamond with a ruby halo on a white gold band, cuts into my palm when I squeeze. I smile, glad that both the ring and my Wraithling can draw blood.
With a huff, Cassie turns on her heel and stalks down the metal stairs. I keep my grip on Layla's hand as we follow. The last time the three of us were in a server room together, Cassie put a bullet in my shoulder before abducting Layla. The spot still aches, a reminder of how close I came to losing everything.
“Let's not have a repeat of last time, shall we?” I mutter, my voice echoing off the concrete walls. “I'm rather fond of this suit, and I'd prefer not to get blood on it.”
The door to the server room hisses open, a blast of cold air hitting us as we step inside. The space is cavernous with rows upon rows of sleek black servers stretching out before us. Blue-and-green lights blink in rhythm, and the only sound is the gentle whir of cooling fans.
Cassie strides over to the main terminal. She pulls up the AI interface, and lines of code scroll past, reflecting in her slitted eyes. I watch her with one hand resting on the knife at my belt.
Old habits die hard.
“It's almost a shame to destroy it,” Cassie muses, studying the screen. “The power the Oracle could have given us ... we could have been gods.”
“We're already gods,” I counter, pulling Layla closer to my side. “This is our kingdom now. The Siren's Call belongs to us.”
A smirk tugs at Cassie's red lips. “Does it? You’re not just warming my throne?”
Rage flares through me, but Layla pulls at my hand, grounding me. I take a breath, holding my temper at bay. “Thank you for giving me the perfect opportunity to tell you that you’re going to college in the fall.”
“ Excuse me? College? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I assure you, I'm not.” My tone is calm but as hard as Layla’s black diamond. “You need structure. Direction. A chance to develop your skills beyond Morelli's teachings.”
“And you think shuffling me off to some stuffy university is the answer?” She snorts. “I have an empire to run.”
“Had an empire,” I correct. “The Siren's Call is under new management now. And part of that management includes ensuring you receive a proper education.”
Layla chimes in, “It’s not a punishment, Cassie. It’s a chance to grow, to acclimate into normal life.”
“My path is right here!” Cassie gestures around the server room, desperation creeping into her voice. “This is what I was made for. Molded for. You can't just take that away from me.”
I step forward, capturing her chin and forcing her gaze to mine. “I can and I will. Because despite what Morelli drilled into you, there is more to life than this. Than him. You have a brilliant mind, Cassie. It's time you learned to use it for something other than destruction.”
She wrenches out of my grip, breathing hard. “What, you want me to join the debate team? Run for student council?”
Layla says, “Campuses have a lot of predators. Women are assaulted constantly. You can help put an end to that with your, uh, talents.”
“We were thinking along the lines of a controlled hunting ground,” I say, agreeing with Layla. “A place to channel all that rage into something productive.”
Cassie's eyes widen for a fraction of a second before narrowing again. “I don't need your permission or your direction.”
“No, you don't,” I agree. “But you do need a purpose. Something more than this vendetta that's consumed you. So what's it going to be, daughter? Delete the Oracle and forge your own path, or cling to the ghost of a man who never deserved your loyalty in the first place?”
Cassie harrumphs, but it’s obvious that wheels are turning in her head. She has a hunger for a new challenge. It’s a look I know well.
“And you think I'll, what, start attending frat parties and tailgates?” Cassie hedges, arching a brow.
“No, I think you'll do what you've always done. Observe. Manipulate. Destroy.” I lower my voice. “Only this time, you'll do it on your own terms. Not Morelli's. Not mine. Yours.”
The silence stretches between us, broken only by the hum of the servers. Finally, Cassie turns back to the terminal. With a few swift keystrokes, the lines of code vanish from the screen.
Cassie steps back, a mixture of loss and liberation rippling across her features. She looks at me, then Layla, as if searching for approval or condemnation. But she'll find neither in our expressions. This was her choice to make. Her first real one, perhaps ever.
“It's done,” Cassie says, her voice steady despite the magnitude of what she's just done. “The Oracle is gone. Along with any backups or traces of the code.”
I nod once, pride blooming in my chest. It's a foreign feeling when it comes to Cassie. One I could get used to. “You made the right call.”
“Did I?” she challenges, crossing her arms. “Or did I just prove that you can manipulate me as easily as Morelli ever could?”
“The difference,” Layla interjects softly, “is that we want you to grow beyond need for manipulation at all. Morelli wanted to keep you dependent on him. We want you to be your own woman.”
Cassie digests that, gaze flicking between us before landing back on the blank terminal screen.
“I've never been my own anything,” she admits.
I survey the dark servers, now purged of Morelli's poisonous legacy. A kingdom of circuits and wires, ripe for the taking. My kingdom. Our kingdom.
We exit the server room, the chill of the space replaced by the warmth of possibility. Layla's hip brushes mine as we climb the stairs, a silent promise of things to come.
As we emerge from the subterranean depths of the Siren's Call, the revelry of the club swirls around us—pulsing music, clinking glasses, laughter both false and genuine. But there is another sound, faint beneath the din. The sound of muffled cries and rattling chains.
I lead Cassie and Layla down a hidden hallway, the plush crimson carpet giving way to rough stone as we descend into the bowels of the building. The dank air fills my nostrils, the scent of desperation and fear almost tangible.
We reach a heavy iron door, a single flickering light casting ominous shadows. Cassie retrieves an ancient-looking key from her pocket and unlocks it with a resounding clang. The door swings open, revealing a dimly lit chamber that was once use for illegal rum runs and now harbors captives.
Cages line the walls, and within them, the hunched figures of Cassie's prisoners.
Fathers and daughters, their faces gaunt and haunted, their eyes hollow from the unspeakable horrors Cassie subjected them to under Morelli's command. They flinch as we enter, cowering against the far walls of their cells.
Layla makes a choked sound beside me, her hand flying to her mouth. I glance at her, seeing the shock and revulsion in her mismatched eyes. For her, these broken souls were just images on a screen, distant and unreal.
“I know,” I murmur, brushing my thumb across her knuckles. “But you're not a captive audience this time. You're here as a liberator.”
She nods, pressing into my side.
“There's one more thing you need to do,” I tell Cassie as she observes these people in her usual nonplussed fashion. “These fathers and daughters you imprisoned. It's time to let them go.”
Cassie’s eyes flash. “Why? They’re leverage. Insurance.”
“No, they're innocents that you tortured to manipulate me and teach the Oracle’s algorithm. If you truly want to step out of Morelli's shadow, this is how you do it. Prove that you can let go of his methods, not just his tech.”
“But they’ve seen our faces. They could report us.” Cassie taps a finger against her chin in thought. “I should just kill them.”
Cassie’s benign tone causes the girl nearest us to mewl and scramble back, clutching her knees to her chest.
I fix Cassie with a hard stare. “No. You will not. They will each be paid handsomely for their silence. And I have connections in the police force and FBI who will bury any attempt to report us.”
Cassie regards me for a long moment. With a sigh, she reaches for the key ring. “Fine. But if this bites us in the ass later, remember it was your call.”
She moves to the first cage, unlocking it with a metallic click. “You're free to go. Courtesy of the Scythe's bleeding heart.”
The father inside stumbles out, blinking rapidly in the dim light. He reaches a trembling hand toward his daughter in the adjacent cell.
Cassie makes quick work of the other locks, the prisoners emerging one by one. They huddle together, clinging to each other like lifelines in a storm-tossed sea.
I turn to address them. “You're free to go. But let me make one thing abundantly clear. If any of you breathes a word of what happened here, I will find you. And I promise, my methods will make you yearn for the mercy of Cassie's cages. Understood?”
A chorus of frantic nods and whispered assents meets my words. I gesture for them to leave through a back exit, and they scramble toward it, the echoes of their retreating footsteps soon swallowed by the damp air.
One of the fathers, a grizzled man with a beard flecked in gray, pauses at the threshold. He looks back at Layla, his gaze lingering on the tattoo at her throat.
A growl builds in my chest, and I step forward, placing a possessive hand on Layla's shoulder and grazing the handle of my knife with my other hand.
The man's eyes snap to mine, and he blanches at the lethal promise in my gaze. He quickly turns and disappears into the dark tunnel, his footsteps fading.
“I don't like the way he looked at you,” I mutter, pulling Layla flush against me. She tilts her head back, a teasing glint in her eyes despite our macabre environment.
“I'm yours, Kaden. Thoroughly and completely. No wayward glance from a broken man will ever change that.”
The truth of her words sinks into my marrow, and I seal my lips against hers. She opens for me, our tongues entwining with the rhythm of desire and dominance.
I stop kissing her long enough to say against her lips, “You've come a long way from the frightened girl in the lighthouse. You're a force to be reckoned with now.”
A smile tugs at her lips. “I had a good teacher.”
Cassie audibly gags, but there’s less venom in her response to our intimacy.
“If you two are quite finished, I need a drink. Or five,” she says.
She stalks past us, heading back up into the main level of the club. Layla and I follow, my hand resting on the small of her back.
We emerge out of the muted anguish of the dungeon to the pulsing vibrancy of the nightclub.
Gothic arches of weathered driftwood entwine above the dance floor, their keystones carved into snarling sea monsters. Antique ship lanterns in the ceiling cast a seductive glow. The bar is carved from the bow of an old schooner, its sails repurposed into artful canopies. Bartenders in tight black shirts and nautical tattoos slide drinks across the polished surface to the patrons perched on salvaged boat seats, and sheer curtains billow in an artificial breeze, giving the impression of sails whipped by a tempestuous wind.
It’s a far cry from when I broke into it and was surrounded by Morelli’s men, laying waste to them on the very floor so many of Greycliff’s residents are now gyrating on.
Cassie bellies up to the bar, signaling for a whiskey, neat. She tosses it back in one fluid motion, the amber liquid catching the light before disappearing down her throat. She orders another, and I watch as she tries to drown whatever feelings were stirred up in the dungeon below.
“Should we be worried?” Layla asks, nodding toward Cassie as she throws back a third drink.
I shake my head. “She needs to numb herself for a bit. At her age, facing the atrocities she committed, even if they were under Morelli's influence, isn't easy.”
“I had no idea a conscience survived in that head of hers,” Layla says.
Cassie’s shift from Morelli to Black is a subject that’s taken up many of our weeks. My daughter is always a priority, but so is my future wife. I look down at her. At the face that astounds me in any light.
I step in front of her until I dominate her entire view. “Dance with me.”
Layla's mismatched eyes sparkle as a slow, sensual beat pulses through the club. “I thought you'd never ask.”
I lead her onto the dance floor, the sea of bodies parting before us. The scent of her, citrus with a hint of vanilla, fills my senses as I pull her close.
A pulsing beat thrums through our bodies as I spin her out, then back into my arms. She molds herself to my chest, her hips swaying. I'm not much of a dancer, but it's as natural as breathing with Layla. My hands skim down her sides, relishing the dip of her waist and flare of her hips. I pull her back against me, letting her feel the hard ridge of my arousal pressing insistently against her backside.
Layla rolls her hips, grinding against me in a move that makes me grit my teeth against a groan. My fingers dig into her hips as I guide her movements, setting a tempo that borders on indecent for such a public venue. But I can't bring myself to care. Not when she feels this good in my arms.
I lean down, my lips brushing the shell of her ear. “You're playing with fire, Wraithling.”
She tilts her head back, her blue eye darkening almost as much as her brown one. “Take me to your hell, Scythe, because I like how it burns.”
A growl rumbles in my chest, and I nip at her earlobe. “You feel what you do to me? How much I want you?”
She reaches back, threading her fingers into my hair.
“Always,” she breathes. “I always feel how much you want me.”
I turn her in my arms until we're face-to-face, chest to chest. My thigh slips between her legs, hiking her dress up. She grinds down on it, her eyes fluttering shut at the friction. My hands skim down her sides, fingers digging into the supple flesh of her ass as I guide her movements.
My lips find hers, and she kisses me back just as fiercely, her nails raking down my scalp. I groan into her mouth, the sound swallowed by the music.
“You drive me fucking crazy,” I say, moving to nip at her throat. “I can never get enough of you. I’m fucking obsessed with you.”
Layla arches into me, her head falling back to expose more of her throat. I trail my lips down the slender column, pausing to lave my tongue over her tattoo. The black ink stands out starkly against her fair skin, a beautiful reminder of how far we've come.
“Kaden,” she gasps, dragging my name out like the sound of it alone will bring her to orgasm.
Her fingers fist in my hair as I suck at her pulse point, determined to leave my mark on her. To stake my claim for all to see.
The music changes to a slower beat. I slide my hands down to her thighs, hitching her legs up around my waist. She locks her ankles at the small of my back, pressing herself intimately against me. I can feel the heat of her pussy through the thin fabric of her panties and my slacks. My blood boils with want.
I capture her lips again, devouring her mouth with a kiss that is all tongues and teeth. She matches me, stroke for stroke, pouring every ounce of her desire into the slant of her lips against mine.
The rest of the world falls away until there is only her. Her scent, her taste, her touch. She is my beginning and my end, my salvation and my damnation.
I pull back just enough to rasp against her lips, “Marry me. Tonight. Right now.”
Layla's eyes widen, her breath catching. “What? But we already have a date set for next month.”
“I don't want to wait another moment to call you my wife. To vow myself to you entirely.”
Joy, fierce and bright, surges through my veins. I capture her face between my hands and kiss her deeply, reverently.
The vow I give Layla tonight won’t be spoken in front of gods or witnesses—it will be carved into the marrow of her bones, seared into her soul, just as she’s burned into mine. I’ll claim her in every way a man like me can—without mercy, without repentance, without end.
When she nods, her smile bright but trembling, I take her hand. The weight of her trust is staggering, her love as brutal as the man she chose. And as I lead her toward the only ceremony I’ll ever deserve, I catch Cassie’s eye. She smirks, lifting her glass with a mix of disgust and grudging approval.
This isn’t the beginning of a happy ending.
But it is the beginning of our forever—unforgiving, unyielding, and ours.