Epilogue
ALEXA
Three months had passed since the one-sided showdown with the Cranstons, and the Dionysus Estate had remained blessedly free of unexplained “accidents” ever since.
Everyone assumed Rayna Bishop was responsible for the fire as well as the murder of Marielle Marten, and after a semi-well-known podcaster made a show featuring the case, sightings of her had been reported from Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego.
Three months, and everything had changed.
The second cottage had been rebuilt, but we’d joined it to the first and extended the building to the rear to give Chase his own space. Four more cottages were under construction on the far side of the winery, and those would be used for friends and the occasional Dionysus client.
Not that Nolan needed to entertain clients anymore.
The quality of the wine spoke for itself, and between Mayra’s admin-slash-marketing skills and product placement with a carefully curated group of celebs, last year’s entire vintage had sold out.
And most of this year’s, and those grapes hadn’t even grown yet.
The team was busy planting more vines, but those wouldn’t be ready to produce for several years.
The beer venture was underway, though. Nolan had made a deal with a local hop farm, Mayra had started a social media campaign, and seasonal staff had become permanent as Nolan expanded Dionysus’s product range.
And once a week, he’d started taking small groups on wildlife walks around the area, which he enjoyed as much as the brewing.
The old library had become my new office, and I felt more at home there than I had anywhere since Blackstone House.
I hadn’t quit travelling completely—Chase and I had just returned from Paris—but I no longer felt the need to hop on an airplane every other week.
Nolan had even taken a trip to Hawaii with me.
Noah Weekes had proven surprisingly competent, or lucky, or perhaps both, and Room 72 was no more.
The main players were either dead or awaiting trial, if they made it that far—one of them had already been attacked by a fellow inmate.
Thanks to overcrowded detention centres and a for-profit prison service, individuals awaiting trial were being sent to any facility with space, and coincidentally, the damage had occurred at Redding’s Grove, part of the same correctional facility where Levi Sykes was currently languishing.
I only hoped he was getting the same treatment.
Astela was ticking along, no drama, and nobody was trying to start World War III, so the Choir didn’t need me much either. I hadn’t replaced my mouthguard in two months, and I felt strangely at peace. A little bored. And also antsy because peace never lasted for long.
“Ah, fuck, I give up.” Nolan held out his bow tie. “Is there a trick for this?”
“You want me to google? Or ask Chase?”
Although asking Chase might take a while.
We were staying at Jay’s place in San Francisco, and Chase had decided to pay a visit to Brax’s club before dinner, a debauched playground where clothing was optional and phones were banned.
I’d never been near Nyx’s basement, and I didn’t plan to.
I knew what went on there. Bleurgh. Just because I liked Nolan’s slightly curved, very adequate dick now, didn’t mean I wanted to see a whole bunch of other dicks in various stages of fucking. Chase could go dick around by himself.
“Or I could try Jay?” I added. Jay wouldn’t go near the basement either.
“Try Google.”
Nolan managed to follow a YouTube tutorial while I snagged a pair of pantyhose on my engagement ring.
Oh, right. The rings. Yes, those represented the biggest change of all.
Nolan had proposed a month ago by the swimming hole, with a ring he’d basically foraged.
And although I’d never really seen myself as the marrying kind, I did see myself as the spending-the-rest-of-my-life-with-Nolan-de-Luca kind, so saying yes had been easy.
As had the actual wedding part. I hated the idea of a big, showy affair, so Chase had gotten himself ordained as a minister, which took about half an hour online, then pronounced us husband and wife in our little dungeon with a handful of friends in attendance.
Juno was the ring bearer, and Nolan made me macarons as a wedding gift.
I wasn’t going to bother with a dress, but when Marcel heard about that, he lost his mind and showed up with half a dozen for me to choose from, so I wore the least awful one to say “I do.” Jay took a few photos on his phone. The end.
Nolan de Luca was mine.
I was his.
Our lives were a work-in-progress blend of togetherness and doing our own thing, and we were both good with that.
Tonight was one of the “together” times.
At our wedding reception, which had actually just been Marcel cooking spaghetti carbonara while the rest of us drank wine on the terrace, an alert pinged on my phone.
Dionysus’s Syrah had been shortlisted for a Lux Life award, which would have been good news if the nomination hadn’t come with an invite to the awards dinner.
Since I found awards dinners about as much fun as appendicitis, Nolan said he’d understand if I stayed home, but I didn’t want to tarnish his joy.
“I’m looking forward to it,” I said, but everyone knew I was lying. My limit was one gathering per month, and the wedding had already drained my social battery for the quarter.
Since I’d endured an evening at the Making a Difference Awards with Brax in January, he’d volunteered himself and Indi to join us. Then he rallied the troops and found eight willing victims to fill the other seats—Chase, Jay, Barbie, Jez, Zach, Ari, Violet, and Dawson.
Of course, nothing ever ran smoothly, so Spider replaced Jez after Jez had to go delete someone, and Brax roped in his old college buddy Lucas after Zach landed a last-minute photoshoot.
All twelve seats would be filled tonight; that was the important thing.
I took a dose of Nolan’s Xanax—which he rarely used anymore, incidentally—and squeezed myself into a party dress.
The limo driver would wait outside the hotel so we could make a quick escape after dessert.
Three hours, and it would all be over.
* * *
Three minutes, and the evening turned to shit. Because that was when my parents walked in.
Chase saw them first and said, “Oh, hell.”
“What?” Jay asked, turning. “Oh, fuck.”
I followed their line of sight, and my guts seized.
Mom was wearing a little black dress and a big, fake smile as she walked with her arm looped through Dad’s, and he was playing the jovial businessman, pausing to clap one acquaintance on the back and shake hands with another.
Ugh. What were they doing here? Dad should be paying down his credit card debt, not splashing out five hundred bucks a head on dinner.
How did mediocre men always manage to fail upward?
“Fuck my life,” Nolan muttered, but he was looking in a different direction than everyone else.
Why was he looking in a different direction?
I swivelled in my seat and realised we had two problems instead of one.
Lisanne Fulton trailed an older, heavyset man to a seat across the room, and her gaze was locked on Nolan.
“This should be fun,” Barbie said with a grin. “Didn’t you check the guest list?”
A fair question, because I always checked the guest list. But this time, I’d dropped the ball, and the ball turned out to be an RPG.
“No, because I was too busy worrying about my freaking wedding.”
“I swear I didn’t know she was going to be here,” Nolan said.
“I don’t care about Lisanne,” I assured him.
“Then why…?”
Chase filled him in. “Her parents are here.”
“What? Where?”
“At your six o’clock. Don’t turn around and stare.”
“We should leave. Alexa, you want to leave?”
Jay answered for me. “Absolutely not. This is your night, so fuck them all.”
“Not Lisanne,” Brax put in. “Nolan already tried that, and it didn’t work out so well.”
“Or Alexa’s parents,” Chase said. “Damn, I need to take a flamethrower to that image.”
I hadn’t had an anxiety attack in years, but now I felt the old familiar panic creeping up on me like a plague of locusts nibbling at my sanity. You’re not good enough, you’re not good enough, you’re not good enough. On instinct, I grabbed Nolan’s hand and squeezed it tight.
“I won’t let them near you,” he promised.
“I have a gun,” Barbie said. “Just say—” Then she remembered Lucas and Violet. “Just joking. Clearly, I’m joking.”
I’d found myself at another crossroads. Maybe the most daunting intersection of my life.
I could let the panic overwhelm me, or I could run, and if I took either of those options, then my parents would win.
Or I could sit tight and weather the storm.
I was the CTO of a successful company, a billionaire, a wife, a friend, a philanthropist, an online avenger, and I even had a part share in a dog.
My mom was a needy bitch, and my dad had failed at life in general and fatherhood in particular.
They were nothing. Why should I be the one to leave?
“I’m staying.”
Brax clapped me on the shoulder. “Attagirl.”
“Ow.”
“You need some wine?” Violet offered me a glass. “Here, have some wine.”
Did I mention Violet was a movie star? And so was Brax’s friend Lucas?
All through dinner, we had a steady stream of visitors looking for selfies and autographs, and after a while, I tuned them out.
Until she strolled up. Lisanne Fulton. Spider kicked me under the table, and I almost dropped my glass.
“Nolan, I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
He gripped my thigh under the table, but he’d gotten so much better at keeping his nerves under wraps. Jay was a good influence.
“Why? Because you thought Dionysus would fail without you?”
“No, I…I guess because you’re more at home in the country.”