Epilogue
SAINT
Three Months Later
The house smells like vanilla cake and coffee. Midafternoon sunshine slants through the kitchen windows, painting everything gold. I stand at the counter frosting the second layer of my birthday cake, and the simple domesticity of it makes something warm bloom in my chest.
Twenty years old today.
Only months ago, I was trapped in that cabin, terrified and alone, wondering if I’d ever see another birthday.
The year before that, on my eighteenth, Allie dragged me to The Rusty Nail, and I kissed Calder Bishop in his truck.
And now I’m here, in this house that’s slowly becoming mine, frosting my own birthday cake because I wanted to.
Because I chose to.
The brand on my hip aches faintly beneath my jeans. Some mornings, I catch sight of it in the mirror and feel sick. Other mornings, I trace the raised skin and think about how far I’ve come. How I’m still here. Still standing.
It’s not forgiveness. I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive what was done to me. But it’s mine now. My scar. My story. My choice to stay.
“Need help with that?” Calder’s voice comes from the doorway.
I glance over my shoulder. He leans against the frame, arms crossed, wearing a dark flannel that makes his winter-blue eyes even sharper. It’s been three months since Roman died, and Calder still carries tension in his shoulders like he’s waiting for something to go wrong.
“I’ve got it.” I turn back to the cake, smoothing frosting across the top. “Everyone should be here in about an hour.”
He moves closer. I feel him behind me before his hands settle on my hips. “You sure about this? Having everyone here?”
“It’s my birthday. I get to decide who celebrates with me.”
His breath ghosts across my neck. “Fair enough.”
I chose this gathering. My father, Allie, Sawyer, Levi, Elena, and a few friends from town who’ve slowly started speaking to me again. Small. Intimate. People who matter.
I don’t expect Kade to come. He’s been at the main house for weeks now, more withdrawn than ever, his anger simmering beneath the surface like a barely banked fire.
He’s processing everything he’s learned about Emma Porter and who he really is, but the knowledge has made him volatile in ways that worry all his brothers.
They take turns checking on him, but mostly they give him space to figure out who he wants to be now that Roman’s gone.
I understand that need. The need to rebuild yourself from the ground up. But I also understand the anger. The rage at having your identity stripped away and rebuilt on lies.
“You worried about your father?” Calder asks.
“A little.” I set down the spatula and lean back against his chest. “He’s been... tentative. Like he’s not sure what to say to me anymore.”
“He’ll come around.”
“Will he?” I turn in his arms to face him. “He hasn’t forgiven me yet.”
Calder’s jaw tightens. “You want me to talk to him?”
“And say what? That you’re sorry? That it was all a big misunderstanding?”
“No.” His hands tighten on my hips. “I’d tell him the truth. That I took you and I kept you, and I’d do it again.”
There it is. That brutal honesty that should terrify me but doesn’t anymore. Because at least with Calder, I always know where I stand.
“That’ll go over well,” I murmur.
“He’ll learn to live with it. Or he won’t. Either way, you’re mine.”
I reach up and trace the hard line of his jaw. “So possessive.”
“Always.” He catches my hand and brings it to his mouth. “You knew what you were getting into when you stayed.”
Did I, though? Some days, I’m still not sure. Some days, I wake up next to him and wonder what I’m doing. Other days, I watch him split wood or fix fence posts or simply exist in the space around me, and I can’t imagine being anywhere else.
It’s complicated. Messy. Wrong in ways I’ll probably never fully reconcile.
But it’s mine. We’re mine.
“I should finish this cake,” I say, but I don’t pull away.
He studies my face with that intense focus that still makes my breath catch. “Later.”
“Calder—”
“Later.” His mouth finds mine, and I taste coffee and want. His hands slide under my shirt, fingers splaying across bare skin. “Everyone won’t be here for another hour.”
“That’s not very much time.”
“I can still work with it.”
He lifts me onto the counter and pushes between my thighs. The cake sits forgotten beside us, half-frosted and perfect. The house is quiet except for our breathing, and the sunshine warms everything to a pretty gold.
This is what freedom looks like now. Not escape. Not rescue. Just choosing him. Choosing this. Every single day.
When he finally breaks the kiss, I’m breathless and flushed. He looks smug about it.
“We really should finish the cake,” I say.
“In a minute.” He traces the brand through my jeans, and I tense. He feels it immediately and stills. “Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes. Mostly it just... is.”
He nods slowly, hands gentling on my thighs. We don’t talk much about the brand. About what it represents. The violence and ownership and horror of that night.
But it’s there. Always there.
“I’m glad you stayed,” he says quietly.
“Was there really any doubt? After all we had been through?”
“Yes. I wanted you to be with me because you wanted it. Not because you felt forced to.”
“I know, and that’s why I chose to stay, because it would’ve been easy for you to keep me and never let me go, to never give me a choice, but you didn’t.
You wanted this to be real, you wanted my love, and not my submission.
So even if you think you’re selfish, I disagree, because you did give me a choice. ”
The ghost of a smile touches his mouth, then fades. “You could still leave. Not saying I wouldn’t hunt you down to the ends of the earth and do everything in my power to convince you to come back, but you always have the choice now.”
“I know, and that’s why I love you. “
His hands tighten on me. “Even though I’m a bastard who kidnapped you?”
“Especially because of that.” I cup his face, forcing him to hold my gaze. “Yeah, you made a lot of choices that scared me and some that will haunt me for the rest of my life, but those choices were made in my best interests. They were made with the intent of surviving.”
He leans his forehead against mine. “How fucked up are we? None of this is healthy.”
“Oh, it definitely wasn’t.” I laugh, and it sounds almost normal. “But that’s behind us now. Things are getting better, and we’re working on it. Together.”
“Together,” he echoes, and something in his voice cracks.
We stay like that for a long moment, breathing the same air, existing in the same space. Two broken people choosing each other despite everything.
Maybe that’s not redemption. Perhaps that’s not healing.
But it’s honest. And right now, honesty is enough.
An hour later, the house fills with voices.
My father arrives first, hands full of flowers and wearing a careful smile. Elena comes with him, the two of them having formed an unlikely friendship over the past few months. Two people who understand what it’s like to survive in the shadow of the Bishop family.
Allie bursts through the door next, all wild copper hair and mischief, arms loaded with presents she insisted she wrapped herself, and it shows.
I notice that there is still a ring on her finger.
We haven’t really had the chance to talk about that yet.
Sawyer trails behind her, his SUV parked next to Calder’s truck.
Levi arrives last, an easy grin in place, though his eyes still hold a wariness when he looks at Calder.
The betrayal cut deep. The weeks of lies.
The FBI coordination that none of them knew about.
Levi’s forgiven Calder, but trust is harder to rebuild.
I watch them all from my spot by the cake, and something warm and fragile blooms in my chest. These people. This gathering. I chose this. Not because I had to. Not because it was expected. But because I wanted them here.
“Happy birthday, Saintlyn.” My father pulls me into a careful hug. He still doesn’t know how to touch me anymore. Like I might break.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Twenty.” He pulls back and studies my face. “You’re so grown up now.”
“I know.”
There’s so much we’re not saying. So much we can’t say with everyone around. There are questions in his eyes I’ll eventually have to answer. And I will. I’ll tell him the truth. It just won’t be right this second.
Allie swoops in, wrapping me in a hug that smells like expensive perfume and rebellion. “Twenty and hot. Look at you.”
“Stop it.”
“Never.” She pulls back, grinning. “I got you something amazing. Well, several amazing things. You’re going to love them.”
“Should I be worried?”
“Probably.”
Elena interrupts, her gray hair still pulled back in that severe bun she favors, but there’s a softening to her features that was never there before. She’s not broken anymore, but also not quite whole either. I have no doubt she’ll find some level of normalcy, but only when the time is right.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart!” She squeezes my hand. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
Sawyer and Levi wish me a happy birthday with easier affection.
They might be Calder’s brothers, but they feel like my own in a strange way.
I’m still getting used to having them around.
Family members formed through fire and blood and choices none of us wanted to make.
I catch Calder watching me from across the room.
His gaze is all possession and adoration.
I smile at him. Feeling his love all around me.
He smiles back, and it transforms his whole face.
The party stretches into the evening. We eat cake and open presents, and everything feels normal. Like we’re a regular family celebrating a birthday. The thing is, we aren’t normal, and we never will be, and I think I’m finally coming to terms with it.