Epilogue - Poppy #2
"No. They already approve of you. Josiah told me as much last month—said you were 'acceptable,' which from him is practically a declaration of love."
"And Benedict?"
"Benedict thinks you're the best thing that's ever happened to me." He pauses. "He's not wrong."
I squeeze his hand as we watch his brothers emerge from their cars. Josiah moves like Gabriel—controlled, deliberate, every gesture economical. Benedict is looser, more expansive, pausing to say something to Josiah that earns him a flat stare.
"They're so different," I murmur. "And yet so similar."
"We were raised by the same monster. Shaped by the same expectations. It's only natural we'd share certain... traits."
"Is that what you call it? Traits?"
His mouth curves. "Would you prefer 'damage'?"
Before I can answer, the front door opens, and the sounds of arrival fill the house—James greeting the brothers, footsteps in the foyer, Benedict's voice carrying up the stairs.
"Once more unto the breach," Gabriel mutters, and leads me down to meet them.
Dinner is... not what I expected.
I'd braced myself for tension, for the subtle power plays and veiled hostilities I'd witnessed at previous family gatherings. But tonight is different. Tonight, there's something almost approaching warmth.
Josiah asks about my opinion on literature—genuine questions, not polite small talk.
Benedict, meanwhile, has appointed himself the baby's unofficial spokesperson.
He presents his research on the best equestrian programs for children, the best schools in the region, the best security protocols for a child of her "status.
" He's thought of everything, planned for every contingency.
"You're going to be a nightmare of an uncle," Gabriel tells him dryly.
"I'm going to be the best uncle." Benedict grins. "Someone has to spoil her rotten when you're being overbearing and tyrannical."
"I'm not overbearing."
"You literally had James run a background check on the pediatrician."
"She'll be treating my daughter. I wanted to ensure—"
"Overbearing," Benedict and I say simultaneously, and something breaks open in the room—the tension dissolving into something lighter, almost like laughter.
Josiah catches my eye across the table and gives me the smallest nod. Approval. Acceptance. Welcome to the family, such as it is.
Later, after Benedict has retired to the guest wing and Josiah is nursing a final glass of scotch by the fire, I find myself alone with Gabriel's eldest brother.
"You're good for him," Josiah says without preamble. "I wasn't certain, at first. Gabriel has always been... volatile. I worried you might be collateral damage in whatever chaos he created."
"And now?"
"Now I see the way he looks at you. The way he's changed." Josiah swirls his drink, watching the firelight play through the amber liquid. "Our father tried to break him. Turn him into nothing but a weapon. I thought he'd succeeded. But you found something in him that survived."
"I didn't find it. It was always there. He just needed someone to see it."
Josiah studies me for a long moment. "Take care of him," he says finally. "And let us help. We're not... demonstrative, the Ambroses. We don't do sentiment well. But Gabriel is our brother, and that child is our niece. We protect our own."
"Even from yourselves?"
The question surprises him. Then, slowly, he smiles—a rare expression that transforms his cold features into something almost human.
"Especially from ourselves. We know what we are, Poppy. The danger we represent. But for that little girl..." He nods toward my belly. "For her, we'll try to be something better."
It's not a guarantee. It's not even a promise. But from Josiah Ambrose, it's more than I ever expected.
"Thank you," I say.
He inclines his head, and the moment passes.
***
Later that night, I wake to find Gabriel standing at the window of our bedroom, staring out at the darkness beyond.
This happens sometimes. The nightmares never fully went away—not for him, not for me. Some wounds don't heal; they just become part of you, scar tissue woven into the fabric of who you are.
I slip out of bed and go to him, wrapping my arms around him from behind, pressing my cheek to his back.
"Bad dream?" I ask.
"No. Just thinking."
"About what?"
He's quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is low, contemplative.
"I used to think I was beyond redemption. That the things I'd done, the person I'd become, had put me past the point of no return." He turns, gathering me against his chest. "I was wrong."
"You're not redeemed, Gabriel. You're still dangerous. You're still capable of terrible things."
"I know." He doesn't flinch from the truth. "But I'm also capable of this. Of loving you. Of wanting to be better. Of looking at the future and seeing something worth protecting instead of just threats to be eliminated."
"Is that enough?"
"I don't know." His hand finds my stomach, splaying across the curve where our daughter sleeps. "But it's more than I ever thought I'd have. And I'm grateful for it. Every day, I'm grateful."
I rise on my tiptoes and kiss him—soft, tender, full of promise.
"Come back to bed," I whisper. "We have a few more weeks before everything changes. Let's not waste them standing in the dark."
He lets me lead him back to bed, lets me curl against him under the covers, lets me hold him the way he so often holds me.
Outside, the night is vast and dark and full of unknown dangers. The world hasn't changed just because we have. The Brotherhood still exists. Gabriel's brothers still carry their own darkness. The legacy of violence and power that shaped him still casts its long shadow over our lives.
But here, in this room, in this bed, with this man—I am not afraid.
I chose this. I chose him. And every day, I choose it again.
That's what love is, I've learned. Not a single decision, but a thousand small ones. A constant choosing, over and over, to stay when leaving would be easier. To trust when doubt would be safer. To hope when despair would be more rational.
I choose Gabriel. I choose our daughter. I choose this complicated, dangerous, beautiful life.
And I will keep choosing it, for as long as I have breath to choose.
***
Three Weeks Later
Her name is Iris.
She comes into the world screaming, red-faced and furious, with a full head of dark hair and her father's gray eyes.
Gabriel catches her—he insisted on being the one, and the doctors were too intimidated to argue—and the look on his face when he holds her for the first time is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
Wonder. Terror. Love so fierce it's almost violent.
"She's perfect," he breathes.
"She's ours," I manage, exhausted and exhilarated and overwhelmed.
"Ours." He brings her to me, settling her on my chest, and for a moment we just stare at her—this impossible creature we made together, this new life that will reshape everything we thought we knew.
The door opens softly, and Josiah and Benedict slip into the room. They'd been waiting outside for hours—Josiah pacing with uncharacteristic restlessness, Benedict wearing a hole in the waiting room carpet.
Now they approach the bed with something like reverence, these two dangerous men rendered speechless by a seven-pound infant.
"Iris," Gabriel tells them, his voice rough. "Her name is Iris."
"Iris Ambrose," Josiah repeats, and there's weight in the way he says it—the name becoming real, becoming part of their family's history. "She's beautiful."
"She's perfect," Benedict breathes, reaching out to touch her tiny hand. When her fingers curl around his, his face does something complicated. "Oh. Oh, I'm in trouble, aren't I?"
"Completely," I tell him, smiling despite my exhaustion. "She's going to have you wrapped around her finger."
"She already does." He doesn't look away from Iris. "Welcome to the family, little one. Your uncles are going to spoil you absolutely rotten, and there's nothing your father can do about it."
Gabriel makes a sound that might be a protest, but when I look at him, his eyes are wet. He's watching his brothers meet his daughter, and for the first time, I see the walls between them beginning to crumble.
Family. Real family. Not the cold, transactional relationships their father cultivated, but something warmer. Something that might, with time and care, become something worth having.
Josiah catches Gabriel's eye and gives him a nod—a single, weighted gesture that seems to carry years of unspoken history.
"You did well, brother," he says quietly.
Gabriel's throat works. "I had help."
"You did." Josiah looks at me, and for the first time, there's genuine warmth in his expression. "You both did."
***
Later, when the brothers have gone and the nurses have finished their checks and the room is quiet, Gabriel climbs into the hospital bed beside me. It's too small for both of us, but neither of us cares. Iris sleeps in the bassinet by my side, her tiny chest rising and falling with each breath.
"Thank you," Gabriel says, his voice rough. "For her. For all of it. For saving me."
"We saved each other."
He smiles—a real smile, rare and precious and just for us.
"Together," he says.
"Together," I agree.
And outside the hospital window, the sun is rising on the first day of our new life.
*****
THE END