Epilogue
Rowan
The last couple of months have been… there still aren’t words for it. Overwhelming feels too small and too neat for the crater we’ve been clawing our way out of. Our loss sits in my chest like shrapnel that refuses to settle, sharp and shifting every time I breathe.
The aftermath blurs together—interviews, statements, lawyers, and picking through the wreckage of what used to be our family empire.
Handing over company records to the police is its own circle of hell, even knowing we planned for this years ago.
We split the legitimate business early, built clean books and a clean trail, made sure there was a version of our world that wasn’t steeped in their filth.
The cops let us keep a handful of properties and stripped everything else, and honestly?
Good. We don’t want anything that ever belonged to those monsters. Let it rot in evidence lockers.
Ronan has been dealing with the stress the only way he knows how.
By stress baking.
Aggressive stress baking.
It works out for Emerson and me because we’ve finally accepted the painful truth that neither of us can cook without risking a small kitchen fire. Or a large one. Depends on the day.
Which is how I’ve ended up here, standing over a stove like a man being held hostage, while Ronan leans against the counter judging me so hard it should be illegal.
He growls, leaning over my shoulder. “Why is the burner on high? You cannot cook anything on high. I’ve already told you this. Mom used to tell you this.”
I smirk because doing exactly the wrong thing is half the fun. “Sorry,” I mutter, not sorry at all, especially when he glares like he’s two seconds from yanking the pan out of my hands and filing for a kitchen restraining order.
“This needs to be perfect,” he snaps. “If you can’t do it right, get out of the kitchen.”
“It’s fine,” I counter. “Nothing was in the pan yet.”
He opens his mouth to yell again when footsteps echo behind us. Emerson and Kimber slip into the kitchen, dropping onto the bar stools like they’re settling in for dinner and a show.
Kimber grins. “How’s everything coming along in here?”
Ronan inhales like he’s about to begin a full-scale rant, but I cut him off with fake cheer. “Great!”
Emerson chuckles. “Is Chef Ramsay cooking like a drill sergeant again?”
Kimber snorts and nearly chokes on her water. Ronan whips around and glares at both of them with the betrayed horror of a man whose own family questions his culinary authority.
“I’m not a drill sergeant,” he grumbles.
“Bro,” Emerson says, deadpan, “you yelled at a spatula yesterday.”
“It was warped!” Ronan fires back. “How am I supposed to cook with subpar utensils?”
I shake my head. “Next he’s going to start giving performance reviews to the silverware.”
Kimber laughs so hard she folds over the counter, wiping at her eyes. “God, I missed this,” she says, her voice softening—and a tight ache twists in my chest. Because missing it implies we ever had a stretch of normal to begin with.
We haven’t. Not really.
Not since Berk.
The kitchen goes quiet for a second. Just a heartbeat. Just long enough for the ache to slip through the cracks.
Ronan clears his throat and goes back to bossing us around, pretending we didn’t all feel the shift. “Okay, Rowan, flip the chicken. Emerson, chop the parsley. Kimber… please tell me you can monitor a timer without burning the house down.”
“Absolutely not,” she says immediately, grinning.
We all laugh, the tension breaking again as Emerson tosses her a tiny apron Ronan bought ironically, but she wears it proudly.
“Fine,” Ronan sighs. “Just… don’t touch anything.”
Kimber raises both hands like a criminal being arrested. “No promises.”
The mood settles into a quiet warmth. Nearly peaceful. Like the life we’ve been piecing together from what was left broken.
Which is why the next voice freezes all of us in place.
“What the hell is all the commotion in here?”
We spin toward the doorway as Berk steps inside, hair messy, wearing one of my shirts, looking alive. Breathing. Whole.
And every one of us stops breathing as the world tilts back into place.
“Baby.” The word leaves me on a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, half scolding, half worshipping. “You’re supposed to be taking a nap. We were going to surprise you with dinner.”
She smiles at me, sweet and sleepy and still looking like a miracle every time I blink. I step toward her without thinking, like my body’s magnetized to hers, and wrap her carefully into my chest. Her bones feel smaller than they used to, but her warmth is the same. I lower my mouth to her ear.
“Especially after we dicked you down so well,” I murmur, voice low enough only she should hear. “I thought you’d be out for hours.”
She snorts a giggle against my shirt.
Kimber gags dramatically from the bar. “I can still hear you, you know! Don’t be gross before we eat.”
We all laugh as Kimber tries to glare at us, but she’s smiling despite herself.
“Get used to it,” Emerson tells her, nudging her shoulder. “This is normal now.”
Normal.
The word lands harder than he intends, because normal stopped existing a long time ago. Months ago. The warehouse changed everything. Berk bleeding out in my arms rewrote the meaning of survival, laughter bubbling through blood as she ended the man who stole from us.
That was the moment we nearly lost her.
Her recovery has been a blur of hospital lights, whispered prayers none of us would admit to saying, and a fear that rewires your bones. Three surgeries. Blood transfusions. A week in the ICU where we took shifts because none of us could bear to leave her side for more than a minute.
She’s home now, mostly healed, but her body is still catching up. She’s supposed to be resting. Taking it easy. Not wandering into the kitchen while Ronan is mid-meltdown over chicken breasts.
Ronan steps back from the stove after giving the last pot a decisive stir, wiping his hands on the ridiculous apron he once swore he’d rather die than wear. “We’re having rosemary garlic chicken, roasted potatoes, sautéed green beans—”
Berk gasps, cutting him off. Her whole face lights up. “You’re wearing them!” She claps, practically bouncing, because yes, the four of us are currently wearing frilly aprons covered in little cartoon octopuses. Pastel octopuses. With sparkles.
Berk ordered them as a joke… but Ronan took one look and decreed that if she survived, then he’d wear whatever the hell she wanted.
So here we are.
She steps closer to him, eyes gleaming with mischief. “Next time Kimber stays over at her friend’s place, you’ll all have to bake wearing these naked. I would love to see that.”
“Oh, my god!” Kimber cries. “Seriously, Berk? Girl code! That’s like—my brother! My brothers! All of them!” She hops off her stool. “That’s it. Call me when dinner’s done. Ronan, you’re back on timer duty.”
Ronan shouts after her. “It’s literally on zero! You’re already burning everything with it set to zero!”
Berk giggles and moves to the counter. “I can watch the timer,” she offers. “Since I ruined the surprise anyway.”
I’m already walking toward her. Emerson too. We move in tandem, drawn to her like the tide to the moon.
Emerson reaches her first and kisses her forehead gently.
“Sit,” he murmurs, pulling a chair out for her like she’s fragile and precious.
Which she is. Even though she hates it when we fuss, even though she can knife-fight four men at once, even though she’ll throat-punch anyone who calls her delicate.
She lowers herself into the seat carefully. Even now, healed as she is, certain movements stretch healing muscle and scar tissue. Emerson hovers a hand at her back, not touching, just ready.
I kneel in front of her, thumb sweeping across her knee as I lean in and kiss her softly. “Welcome back,” I whisper.
Her eyes soften. “I didn’t go anywhere.”
My chest tightens. “But it was close.”
Her smile falters for a heartbeat, then steadies. “It smells so good in here. I’m starving.”
“Worked up an appetite, huh?” I smirk, brushing my lips across hers again.
She rolls her eyes, fighting a smile. “Maybe.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Emerson says, handing her a glass of water. “He’s been dramatic since birth.”
“Fuck off,” I say lightly.
Ronan turns from the stove and points a spatula at me like it’s a weapon. “Both of you shut up unless you’re chopping vegetables.”
I raise a brow. “You’re barking orders like a crazy person.”
He flicks the spatula at me threateningly. “Keep talking and I’m throwing this at your head.”
Berk laughs—a soft, genuine laugh that makes every hair on my body stand up like a prayer being answered.
She’s alive.
She’s here.
She’s ours.
And every moment she smiles feels like the world stitching itself back together.