Epilogue One
Scarlett
Five days after we nearly lost Ash…
Bohnes’ pale blue eyes flash to mine, triumphant.
A beguiling smile stretches his cynical lips, the expression a cue for my racing heart to skip several beats.
He puts his hoodie-clad elbows on the table, steepling his long, pale fingers together and resting his chin on them.
His eyes shine as he looks at me, coy and daring.
My heart rebels, dancing and thrashing in my chest. I press my palm against it as Bohnes leans in a little closer, his booted foot bumping my bare one beneath a dead mobster’s table. What would Pavel Borisov say if he knew the depravities his son had sanctioned under the roof of his former home?
“As long as you’re happy, son. I love you.” Probably something corny and adorable like that.
Alexei is sitting beside me, chin raised, green apatite eyes imperious and cold at first glance. It’s the tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth that gives away his perverse amusement. He swallows again, and our gazes clash.
He’s tenting his pants.
I grin into my coffee as Bastian appears in the doorway to check on us. He’s been hovering like a mama bear around me and the boys for days, trying to take care of us even though I already told him that we’re okay.
Did we come home after that mess, shove Ash into the med team’s arms, and then end up coiled together in a cuddle pile that lasted for days?
Sure. Am I traumatized as fuck after hearing all the details about the surgery that was performed on Ash while he was still awake? About the…about the…the assault…
Obviously.
But I’m a tough bitch, and they’re tough fuckboys, and as long as we’re all together, everything else is irrelevant.
“Are you guys playing a board game?” Bastian asks, putting both hands over his mouth in shock. When we were little, me and Nisha and Bastian and Lem used to play games like this. Even with crucial pieces missing from every box, even having to make up our own rules, we had the best goddamn time.
“It’s New Year’s Eve,” I reply in explanation, shrugging my shoulders. My eyes dart to the kitchen entrance and my fingers twitch involuntarily as I squeeze the glass of whiskey in my hand.
Ash is asleep upstairs, unsurprising since he’s still recovering from the ordeal. For several days after, he’d wake up screaming, soaked in sweat, thrashing in bed. If I wasn’t there to comfort him, he’d panic, even if I was only a few feet away in the bathroom.
After those first few nights, he calmed down enough that he could sleep, so long as one of the boys was with him. Right now, Widow’s upstairs in bed, reading a book while Ash dozes. In a few hours, we’ll wake him up to celebrate the New Year with us.
“As you can see, I’m obviously winning.” Bohnes is amused, lips quirking, snow-white hair peeking out from beneath the bill of a black baseball cap with a widow on the front of it. It’s tucked under the hood of his black hoodie, cloaking him in shadow.
Gram appears in the doorway behind him, frowns, and then walks up and flicks his hood off. She steals his hat, too, but not without repaying us all with a plate of snacks that she sets on the table between Bohnes and Alexei.
“It’s rude to wear hats inside.” Gram disappears back into the kitchen, working on a special dinner for tonight. Fry-bread tacos with beans and ham hocks. Huckleberry dumplings. It’s the food I grew up on as a kid, and I can’t wait to celebrate this new chapter of my life with an old favorite.
I can’t wait to see the boys’ reactions to Gram’s cooking.
“I believe it’s too early in the game for you to make such a presumptuous notion about winning.
” Alexei’s throat dips at the threat of contamination, but he forces himself to take a cracker from the edge of the plate anyway.
Hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day and all that.
Maybe he’ll never be ‘cured’ of his germaphobe shit. I don’t care.
I like him—all of them—exactly the way they are.
No. No. I love all of them, exactly as they are.
“I see.” Basti throws me a teasing wink, mouthing something like team fuckboy at me that I pretend to ignore. He’s such a slut. I grin. “Well, I’ll just, uh, change real quick and then maybe I could join you?”
“Duh. Where’s Nish?” I ask, even though I don’t really need to.
She’s either snuggling with Hype, having sex with Hype, or hanging out in the bathhouse with Hype.
Can’t really complain. Not only am I glad that my bestie is happy, but Han Ji-Ah is a valuable asset to our team. Without her, Ash might be dead.
If Nisha is in romance la-la land, good for her.
Bastian gives me a look that’s more than enough of an answer and then retreats from the room to go put on the hideous flannel pajamas he likes to wear on holidays. I approve. If anyone in this world deserves some rest and relaxation tonight, it’s my family and my crew.
Outside, the girls have a bonfire going.
Some of the POP boys have shown up, and I’m pretty sure a spontaneous fuckboy fish (that is, where girls dance and boys join them if they’re interested) has appeared in the circle of the fire’s glow.
In the past, KMZI 66.6 would be blasting tunes.
Tonight, it’s just someone’s generic New Year’s playlist.
The Prescott neighborhood will never be the same again, not after everything and everyone that was lost.
Whether my next pick for Queen—that is, Shirley’s cousin, Stacey Langford—has the ovaries to whip this nightmare back into some semblance of the quirky joint it was before, is yet to be seen.
If not her, then some other iron-hearted bitch needs to roll in and rule this place.
Without someone like that, Prescott is screwed.
My promise to help a Prescott girl if ever one should come to me and ask, that’s sacred to me now.
“Darling.” Alexei twines his fingers with mine—his bare fingers—and lifts them up to his lips, pressing a soft, warm kiss against my skin that brings a dopey smile to my face.
Smiles like this used to feel like weakness to me, like if someone saw them, they’d just use them against me.
Now, I know that all you need is a level of violence and psychosis that’s at least equal to that of your enemies, if not superior to theirs.
Being a stabby-murdery bitch has served me well.
“Yes, darling?” I reply as Bohnes moves a piece on the board in front of us and, just like he stated earlier, wins the game in an instant.
Both Alexei and I are shocked. My mobster hubby is the one who recovers his wits first, shaking his head and lifting his chin with all the dignity of somebody who totally doesn’t care about the results of such a game (he does).
Bohnes sniggers joyously and stacks a cracker up with salami and cheese before sliding the entire thing into his mouth.
My Nightmare is so relaxed tonight. Relaxed enough to play games.
Relaxed enough to eat snacks. Relaxed enough to take ridiculous selfies in front of the Nightmare sign that he nailed to our entryway wall.
Seeing him like this, at home and loved, the very opposite of lonely, makes me happier than I could possibly put into words.
Fulfilled, that’s what I am. Fucking fulfilled.
It’s a special feeling, especially since the cost of achieving it was high.
Lucy Hall, you colossal moron, why aren’t you here to play board games with us and eat Indian tacos?
Bohnes and Alexei exchange a look that only men who share a life-and-death bond and a wife could possibly manage.
“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?
” Alexei asks with a soft, sad smile. He isn’t angry.
In fact, over these last five days of peace, I’ve gotten a much deeper look into his personality.
I have to say, this man only gets better the more I get to know him.
Getting angry isn’t really a thing for him.
Apparently, in order to stir up his rage, you have to murder his father or steal his husband’s kidney to piss him off.
My face is enveloped in Alexei’s soft, warm hands. Bare skin. So much bare skin for a germaphobe. I’ve been making sure to massage both his hands with lotion at least once a day. He washes them so much that they have a tendency to get dry.
“Darling, what I said was, shall we go upstairs to fetch Widow and Ash before we start our next game? You’re understandably distracted, and perhaps not the only one at this table who wishes to check on them.
” Alexei smooths his hands down my face to my neck and then my shoulders, offering up a comforting squeeze.
This bitch is exhausted. I’m so glad that Bohnes and Alexei are solid and undaunted by everything.
Kellin plants his elbow on the table and leans in toward the board where his victory stands proudly in brightly colored plastic pieces and shiny laminated cards.
On the opposite side of the table, we have a dozen expensive candles burning brightly and perfuming the air with such careless extravagance that I feel dizzy.
It hasn’t fully hit me yet, has it?
We’re done.
We’re done.
It’s done.
I’m a rich bitch with a stable of fuckboy cock, a garage full of cars, a crew of hot girls, and money stacked to space.
I suck in a sharp breath and Kellin laughs.
“She’s in her head again,” he says to Alexei, who’s now tugging me into his lap.
I twine my arms around his neck as Alexei instinctively kicks his chair back from the table, so that Bohnes can stand up and hug me from behind.
It’s heaven, finding myself sandwiched between two warm bodies that contain two equally warm hearts.
“I’ve become a sap,” I mumble into the side of Alexei’s neck, shivering when Bohnes nibbles my ear. “And yes, darling, I would love to obsessively go check on Widow and Ash. It’s been, what, a whole hour since we last saw them? That’s unacceptable.”