20. Epilogue What We Remember #2
“I feel manipulated,” he says.
“You’re welcome,” Ecstasy replies sweetly.
Conversation rolls around the table as easily as the wine.
Crystal patrols beneath everyone’s chairs searching for opportunities while Faris follows her with the determined fascination of someone who has just discovered another small creature capable of chaos.
Every few minutes Steve or I retrieve one of them before Renzo suffers a culinary crisis.
Victor lifts his glass.
“To Bliss.”
We all do the same.
“The Recall Series,” he says. “Opening day sold three paintings before lunch. Congratulations.”
Bliss’s cheeks go pink. Matthias reaches for her hand beneath the table without looking, finding it as naturally as breathing.
Faith grins. “Have you seen today’s review?”
She opens it on her phone.
“The Recall Series explores identity, absence, and the extraordinary resilience of memory. Fontaine’s work moves between fragmentation and restoration, asking whether we are the stories we remember or the ones we choose to reclaim.”
Silence settles around the table before everyone raises their glasses again.
“To Bliss,” Mercy says.
“To Bliss,” we echo.
The conversation drifts on.
Cole and Liberty have expanded HAVEN’s self-defense program, and every new staff member is expected to learn the basics, including firearms safety if they don’t already know it.
The most popular part of the class is the ad-lib section, where Liberty dumps ordinary objects onto a table and makes everyone work out how to survive with whatever is within reach.
Pens, keys, coffee mugs, belts, and rolled magazines become weapons. Even a handbag with enough hardware can qualify as a blunt instrument. Ingenious and slightly alarming, which is very on brand.
Renzo has quietly become HAVEN’s preferred European contact, and Ecstasy’s restaurant is now the unofficial location for any meeting that deserves exceptional food.
Then Mercy smiles across the table at Jax.
“Six weeks.”
He smiles back.
“Six weeks.”
Steve lifts his beer. “About bloody time.”
“Not everyone’s like you two, sneaking off overseas and getting married in gay Paris!” Destiny says with mock outrage.
Everyone laughs.
Mercy and Jax’s wedding is six weeks away, but Destiny seems far more concerned about Angus surviving the bachelor party than Mercy surviving the aisle.
“I have one condition,” Destiny announces, pointing a breadstick toward Jax.
He raises an eyebrow. “Only one?”
“No strippers.”
Angus blinks. “Babe...”
“I mean it.” She fixes Jax with a look. “No strippers for Angus.”
Around the table, several men suddenly become fascinated by anything except eye contact.
Steve studies his beer and coughs into his fist. It sounds suspiciously like, “Whipped.”
Jax reaches for another bread roll he clearly doesn’t want.
Renzo takes a thoughtful sip of wine.
Dimitry’s mouth shifts almost imperceptibly.
Crew barks out a laugh.
Faith leans over and gives his arm an indulgent slap.
“What?” Destiny asks, looking from face to face.
“Nothing,” Steve says far too quickly.
“Nothing at all,” Jax agrees.
“I don’t believe any of you.”
“You’re very wise,” Adrian says, entirely unhelpfully.
The conversation moves on, but as dessert arrives, I hear Serenity lean toward Mercy.
“I’ve booked the Hot Seat package.”
Mercy’s eyes widen.
“For Destiny?”
Serenity grins. “Who else?”
“What about Angus?”
“Oh, he’s got his own surprise coming.”
I nearly inhale my tiramisu.
Across the table, Destiny is happily explaining wedding flowers to Bliss, completely unaware that Mercy’s bachelorette party is already becoming legendary before it’s even happened.
I catch Serenity’s eye.
She winks.
Lord help us all.
Hollands House, Pacific Heights, San Francisco. 1300 hours
Saturday rides have become the part of the week I look forward to most.
Steve and I take our own Harleys north across the Golden Gate, with Angus and Destiny riding behind us.
Claudine spends the afternoon with her grandparents, Claudia and Carlo, who volunteered so quickly I suspect they’d packed a baby bag before Destiny finished asking.
Faris rides tucked inside my jacket, warm and curious, occasionally pressing his nose against the zipper as if he’s personally assessing coastal traffic.
The wind clears the noise out of my head.
Nine missions. Nine women at the center of them, and more rescued around them than I can count without opening Victor’s files. Destiny, Mercy, Serenity, Faith, Liberty, Ecstasy, Felicity, Solace, Bliss. Every name carries another network of damage, recovery, family, evidence, and unfinished work.
At the lookout, Steve parks beside me and cuts the engine. Angus and Destiny pull in behind us, laughing about something I missed over the road noise. For a while, we don’t talk about Meridian. We watch the water, the bridge, the city pretending it’s peaceful from a distance.
Steve steps close, his gloved hand brushing mine. “You’re counting again.”
“Always.”
His expression softens. He knows what I mean.
After the next mission, we need to reassess. Not because we’re stopping. We won’t. But the toll is real, and HAVEN has grown beyond two people charging toward every fire.
We have teams now. Specialists. Survivors who’ve become protectors. A whole damn family with more moving parts than most governments and somehow better coordination.
Steve looks out over the bay. “Maybe after the next one, we start leading more than running.”
I turn toward him. “You think we can?”
“I think HAVEN’s ready for it,” he says. “Maybe we are too.”
We ride home before sunset, the ritual holding the way rituals do when life keeps trying to tear holes through ordinary things.
The engines cut out in the garage, leaving that strange ringing silence that only comes after miles of Harley thunder. Slipping my helmet off, I shake out my hair and look at Steve. He’s already watching me, the fierce, protective light in his blue eyes sparkling bright from the speed of the ride.
But the adrenaline under my skin isn’t from the highway.
It’s from the weight of the continual horror we encounter each day and the terrifying realization of how much closer we are to the people pulling the strings.
My skin feels hot, too tight, demanding an escape that has nothing to do with medicine or schedules.
We go inside and without a word, I grab his leather jacket, pulling him down the hallway of our home toward the hidden panel disguised in the corridor molding. He figures out where I’m going and taps the code into the keypad with rapid, commanding strokes.
The heavy, steel-reinforced door of the panic room glides open with a silent, solid click.
He flashes me a crooked grin. “Anyone would think you’re planning to have your way with me, woman.”
Before the door even finishes sealing shut behind us, we tear into each other. No words are wasted. I claw at the zipper of his jacket while his hands yank my shirt over my head, buttons scattering across the polished floor.
It’s fierce, demanding, and hungry. Steve matches my desperation stroke for stroke, his mouth slamming against mine, tasting of salt and the cold afternoon air. It isn’t tender. It’s fiery hot.
He spins me around, pressing me flat against the cold wall.
I arch my back, a low, desperate moan escaping me as he rips my jeans down my thighs and I kick them aside.
He enters me from behind with one heavy, bruising thrust that shatters the last of my control.
I cry out as I push back into him, the sound echoing off the reinforced, soundproofed steel of our private vault.
“Steve,” I gasp, my fingers pushing against the wall for traction.
He pounds into me with a relentless, driving rhythm, his breathing turned into hot, ragged grunts against the nape of my neck. He reaches down, slapping my ass once, the sharp sting of it sending a violent thrill straight down my spine that makes me yelp into the empty room.
It’s noisy, raw, and heavy, the hard, relentless rhythm of two people trying to shake loose everything the last month has left inside us. We’re cleansing ourselves of Strauss, of the drugs, of the empty, grey faces of the women we dragged back to the light.
I need the friction to hurt. I need the heat to consume us both until there’s nothing left but the raw, unpolished proof that we’re still whole. I slide my hips back against his thighs, demanding every inch of him, driving us faster and faster.
“I need you,” I choke out, my voice tight and breathless.
“You have me,” he answers, his deep voice carrying a rough, primal growl as his hands tighten around my hips. “Always.”
The heavy friction builds, rapid and overwhelming, until my muscles seize and I ride a sudden, shattering peak, my vision blurring. A second later, Steve lets out a low, ragged groan, arching tightly against me as we come together in a massive, breathless rush of heat.
He wraps his arms around me and we stay like that for several minutes. Our sweat-slicked bodies press together, chests heaving as we gradually catch our breath in the absolute silence of the soundproofed room.