Epilogue
“Watch out!” Pete yells, and I slam on the brakes.
“What?” I ask in alarm.
“Can you not see that lamp post right in front of you?” I lean forward and look up at said lamppost that’s only about fifteen feet from the front of the car and nod.
“Oh yeah, would you look at that?”
“Tell me you’re kidding,” Sly says from the passenger seat.
I turn my forced smile to him as I lie through my teeth. “I’m kidding.”
“Out now,” he demands as he places the car in park and turns the engine off.
“He’s being overdramatic, right?” I ask, turning in my seat to look at Pete and Dex. Dex’s face looks remarkably pale, and Pete is pulling the neckline of his shirt away from his skin as he lets out a deep breath.
“You know I love you, right?” Pete asks uneasily.
“Am I really that bad?”
“Worse,” Sly says, now standing at my open door. “Out.”
“How am I going to learn to drive if you keep kicking me out?”
“Some people aren’t meant to drive, and you, Wren, are one of those people. Now get out before I have to pull you out myself and throw you over my knee.”
“Here?!” I ask in shock, my eyes scanning the empty parking lot.
“Yes! Please do it here!” Pete says, suddenly perking up.
“You be quiet,” I say, wagging my finger at him. “Don’t encourage him.”
“If you get out, I won’t need to spank you in public, where you know I’ll leave you needy and wet. And if you’re good, and move over to the passenger seat now, then I’ll spank you at home instead.”
“With a happy ending?” I ask hopefully. He nods once, and I rush to unclip my seat belt and climb across to the passenger seat he vacated so he can climb in behind the wheel.
“Buckle up,” he instructs, and I do as he says, my body suddenly very eager to get home as quickly as possible. As he pulls onto the road, he glances over at me and sighs. “And Wren?”
“Yeah?”
“No more driving for you. Ever.”
I’m silent for a minute, contemplating that before I finally respond. “I thought I was getting better?”
Pete barks out a laugh from the backseat. “Sorry, angel. But you could have gone anywhere in that parking lot, and you headed straight for that pole.”
“I didn’t see it!” I exclaim.
“Maybe you need glasses,” Dex suggests.
“You don’t need to drive,” Sly says calmly. “All five of us can drive. You can just relax and enjoy.”
My lips twist in thought for a minute before I ask. “Can we still go shooting later?”
He sighs before conceding. “Yes. I’ll admit you are getting marginally better with your aim.”
“Great! Cause I want a gun when we go on our next mission.”
“Nope.”
“No way.”
“Not happening.”
All three of them speak at once, making me frown. “Why not?”
“You know the deal, Wren,” Sly says for the tenth time. “Once you can hit the target ten times in a row without missing, you can carry a gun.”
“You’re mean.”
“You love me like this.”
I try not to smile because, lord knows, I do love his bossiness.
“Where are we heading to next?” Pete asks.
“Elias said he’d let us know today after he finishes his research on the case,” I tell him.
Since we didn’t need to take on cases for money, we did them for free, but we did extensive research into the target and the case. Well, Elias mostly did the digging, then if he thought the target was worthy of our efforts, he’d bring it to the rest of us.
We’d only been going at it a few months and had already taken out a half dozen criminals.
And these guys had all been real lowlifes.
Pedophiles, murderers, and rapists who the system had failed.
We made sure to stay completely anonymous, and Elias set up a place on the dark web where we could be contacted.
Word of mouth seems to spread fast, because we get requests almost every day. Not all of them meet our criteria, though, which is why we have such an in-depth screening method. Elias and Jagger take care of all that stuff, though. They are also in charge of giving all of us shooting lessons.
Pete is in charge of cardio training, and Dex does our weight training. Sly, well, he likes to boss us all around. He calls it “running the house,” and I have to admit he does a good job at making sure there’s always food in the fridge, clean clothes in our drawers, and freshly made beds.
Since we all hated cleaning, he hired cleaners to come in once a week, and Sly handled the laundry himself.
I help him fold it all and put it away, and he often helps me with cooking.
I don’t make every meal; they refuse to let me, but I do it often for us.
I enjoy it now. Not only did I never cook alone, but they were always so appreciative that it made me want to do it more often for them.
As Sly pulls into our driveway, I see Jagger cleaning his bike.
He and Pete had decided to get motorcycles, and I couldn’t get enough of riding with them.
The thrill of the ride and the vibration between my legs always had me ready to tear their clothes off the second we got home.
It was probably the reason they were always offering to take me out for a ride, now that I think about it.
Dex bought a big pickup truck, saying it would come in handy, and it did on several occasions.
Elias drives our suped-up SUV, similar to the one we sort of traded away last year.
And Sly? His car is my favorite. A black Porsche 911.
It only holds two people, so when I get to be his passenger, it’s just the two of us zooming down the windy roads around our Montana home.
I was secretly hoping I could get my driver’s license so I could drive it myself one day. I’m not sure that’s going to happen now, but at least I still get to ride in it.
As I climb out of the car, Jagger stands and walks over to me signing, “How did it go?”
“Sly banned me from driving,” I tell him with a pout.
He raises an eyebrow at Sly in question. “She almost hit another lamppost. Said she didn’t see it.”
Jagger turns back to me and signs. “It’s safer this way.” Then he wraps his arm around my shoulders and leads me through the garage and into the house.
“Wren?” Elias says when he sees us enter the kitchen. “What happened?” he asks when he sees my face.
“She’s banned from driving,” Pete answers as he opens the fridge and pulls out bottles of water and passes them around. “For life.”
“Did you hit another curb?” Elias asks.
“No! I didn’t hit anything,” I say in defense.
“She almost hit a lamppost,” Sly explains again.
“Ah. Well, think of it this way, Wren,” he says, turning to me. “You get to just relax and enjoy being driven around.”
“I didn’t think I was that bad,” I mumble as Sly walks into the living room.
“You are,” he says over his shoulder, hearing me despite the distance.
“I wired the money to Harry,” Elias asks, changing the subject.
“I bet he’s happy,” Dex says with a grin.
We had decided that we never would have made it out of Russia alive without Harry’s help, so we sent him five hundred grand to help fund his tech inventions.
“You guys want to hear the case I got?” Elias asks.
“Yes!” I ask excitedly as we move to the living room, and he lays the papers out on the table.
“Wait!” Pete says, stopping him. “I want to see what they’re saying about the child trafficker we took care of in Kentucky last week. You found the article, right?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Elias says with a sigh, grabbing his phone and pulling up the article.
“Okay, here it is.” He clears his throat and starts to read.
“Shaun Watson was found dead in his home Tuesday afternoon after an anonymous call prompted police to conduct a welfare check. Watson had recently been acquitted on multiple child trafficking charges following procedural errors that compromised key evidence in the case.
“Authorities have declined to release the official cause of death, stating that the investigation remains ongoing. Despite the lack of details, families connected to the original case have publicly expressed relief, calling the killing an act of justice long denied through the courts.
“With no suspects and no viable leads, the individual responsible has already been given a name by the community: The Undertaker. A figure believed to target those who escape accountability, and to finish what the system leaves undone. The name reflects the belief that once he arrives, there is no appeal, no reversal, and no second chance.”
“That’s it!” I exclaim excitedly.
“What is?” Dex asks in confusion.
“The Undertakers! That should be our name!”
Everyone takes a second to let it sink in, then finally, Sly nods in approval. “It’s perfect.”
The End
Thank you so much for reading The Undertakers trilogy! I hope you loved Wren and her men just as much as I did!