Epilogue
ROWAN
Soft yellow lights from my office spills into the hallway, and I pause at the threshold, taking in the sight of Ash hunched over my desk. His shoulders curve forward in concentration, his dark hair falling across his forehead as he scribbles numbers onto a legal pad.
He hasn’t noticed me yet, and I take a moment to admire the way his dark lashes cast shadows on his high cheekbones and how his teeth worry at his plush bottom lip when he concentrates.
Even now that he’s mine, the same magnetic pull draws me toward the burning strength within him, just as it did when he first caught my attention across a crowded diner and made me want to know the man beneath the wariness.
The club hums with the muted thrum of late-night business, bass notes vibrating through the floorboards and up my legs.
This time of night, Ghost handles the front, leaving me free to check security logs and plan tomorrow’s operations.
I hadn’t expected to find Ash here, especially not surrounded by schoolwork.
I step inside, my shoes whispering across the hardwood. The secure tablet rests on my desk, screen illuminated with graphs and formulas instead of the usual surveillance feeds or contracts. Coffee lingers in the air, a half-empty mug cooling beside Ash’s elbow.
“What am I looking at?” I lean on the desk, close enough for our bodies to share heat without touching.
Ash doesn’t startle, as though he knew I was there all along. He continues writing, the pencil moving in spiky strokes across the page. “Lena’s syllabus for next year.”
I tilt my head, reading the problem upside down. “AP Calculus?”
“Yeah.” Ash frowns at the tablet and scratches out a line on his legal pad. “Her senior year is going to be brutal. This is only one of the classes she wants to take.”
I circle behind him to read over his shoulder, my chest brushing his back, and he leans into the contact. The numbers and symbols flow across the screen in patterns I recognize from my own schooling, even after all these years.
“I could hire a tutor,” I say, my breath stirring the hair above where my custom nape guard hugs his slender neck. “The best in the city.”
The scratch of the pencil stops, and Ash tilts his head back, his dark eyes reflecting the soft light from the desk lamp. No defensiveness clouds his face, only certainty.
“I know.”
He holds my stare for another heartbeat before he turns back to the problem.
The pencil taps the paper once, twice. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to understand it, too.”
Ah. This isn’t about homework or college prep. This is Ash refusing to be left behind as Lena moves forward, refusing to be a spectator in her future, and I ache for the boy who never got to explore that world himself.
I pull a second chair closer and settle beside him. “Show me what you’re stuck on.”
Ash blinks at me, surprise flashing before his expression smooths. “This integration by parts. I keep ending up with the wrong constant.”
My fingertip traces the equation on his paper, following his work step by step. As I do, his scent fills my lungs, clean sweat, coffee, and beneath it all, the sweet musk that marks him as mine.
“You’re distributing the negative wrong.” I point to the error. “It affects everything after.”
Ash frowns at the page. “You know calculus?”
“Business degree,” I reply, the corner of my mouth lifting. “Victor made me finish school while I worked for him.”
Victor Sullivan, the previous owner of the Blue Note, saw potential in an angry kid fresh out of juvenile detention and made sure I had the skills needed to thrive in this career.
“Must have been a good school,” Ash mutters, erasing his work to start again.
“It was.” My gaze lingers on his hands as they move across the paper. “Though I had private tutors to fill the gaps from my interrupted education.”
Ash’s pencil pauses as he realizes the same resources I had are now available to him. To Lena.
I rest my hand at the back of his neck, my thumb stroking the warm skin above his collar. “We’ll do both.”
Ash stills beneath my touch, the pencil hovering above the paper, and his pulse jumps beneath my fingers. “Both?”
“I’ll find the best tutor in the city for Lena. And you.” My thumb continues its slow rhythm. “Consider it an investment.”
The word choice matters. Charity he rejects on principle. Investment acknowledges value.
Ash turns to me, his face inches from mine as he searches for any hint of pity or condescension, and finding none, the tension eases from his shoulders.
“All right,” he says, then adds with a hint of challenge, “But I interview them first.”
“Of course.”
His mouth curves in the ghost of a smile before he turns back to the problem. But he doesn’t pull away from my touch, and when my fingers trace the edge of his collar, his head tilts to the side in silent invitation for more contact as he recalculates the equation.
I should be checking inventory, approving payroll, and handling a dozen matters that need my attention. Instead, I count the tiny freckles across Ash’s nose while I trace the curve where his neck meets his shoulder, where he shivers every time I take a nibble.
The pencil continues to scratch across the paper, steady despite his quickening pulse, and I’m transfixed by the elegant turn of his wrist, remembering how those same hands clutched at my sheets last night.
If I close the office door, I could sit him on my lap and see how many more problems he could solve before losing complete control.
About to follow my desire, I’m waylaid by the vibration of my secure phone on the polished wood of the desk. For a moment, I consider ignoring it, but Ash freezes beside me, pencil suspended mid-equation.
He turns to me, questioning without words whether this is the call we’ve been expecting after our trusted courier dropped off an important package with the Vartanians three days ago.
I lift the phone and put it on speaker, placing it on the desk.
“Ward speaking,” I answer.
“Mr. Ward.” The voice on the other end is smooth, cultured, with the faintest trace of an accent. “Alexei Vartanian sends his regards.”
Ash sits still beside me, his breathing measured, but his knuckles turn white as he grips his pencil.
“I trust everything arrived intact,” I say, maintaining the careful dance of professional courtesy.
“Indeed.” Paper rustles on the other end of the line. “Our technicians confirm the server contains all the data Mr. Koralev… borrowed from us.”
The pause before “borrowed” carries a reminder of why Danny’s disappearance triggered this chain of events in the first place. Ash’s jaw tightens, the tendons in his neck standing out in sharp relief.
“Then our business is concluded,” I state rather than ask.
“For now.” The word hangs in the air, a blade suspended by the thinnest thread. “We have confirmed the integrity of the data and consider the Daniel Humphry matter closed. So long as a body never surfaces, his…associates are safe.”
Ash’s shoulders ease. Lena is safe from Vartanian scrutiny, at least for now.
“Additionally,” the man continues, smooth and measured, “so long as the Blue Note operations do not conflict with Vartanian interests, we will not have a further issue.”
Hearing the same threat as I do, Ash glares at the phone.
“The Vartanian family appreciates professional courtesy,” I respond, matching the caller’s tone. “As do I.”
“Glad to hear we understand each other, Mr. Ward.” A brief pause. “Alexei may call upon you in the future. For professional courtesy.”
The implicit threat requires no elaboration. A favor given demands a favor returned. The rules of our world distilled to their essence.
“When he calls, I’ll answer,” I reply, neither accepting nor refusing.
“Good evening, Mr. Ward.”
The line goes dead, leaving us with only the sound of the distant thrum of music from the lounge. Ash releases his grip on the pencil, flexing his fingers to restore circulation.
I expect questions. Demands for reassurance about Lena’s safety. Instead, Ash taps the phone with one finger, his focus analytical. “What does this mean for us?”
“The server was returned, but they’ll keep tabs on us,” I tell him, not softening the reality.
As Ash processes this information, his fingers tap a slow rhythm on the desk, then without another word, Ash pulls the tablet closer, waking the screen. The calculus problem reappears, complex equations waiting to be solved.
The bass from the front of the club pulses through the floor, steady and contained. Ash’s pencil moves again, confident now as he finds the correct constant, and the fingers of his free hand thread through mine with the certainty of belonging.
There will always be calls.
There will always be men like Alexei Vartanian.
But there will also be this.
Blood may be the language of our world, but it’s not the thing that binds us.
Raising Ash’s hand to my lips, I kiss my Omega’s knuckles as we look toward the future.
The End.