Chapter 60
Harmony
The back door flew open in a rush of cold air and boots, but the moment the voices registered—
Pierre, Becket, EMTs. I felt Eric’s arm tighten around me. Not fear. Relief. A grounding, anchoring relief that shook me so hard I nearly dropped to my knees.
“Harmony,” Eric murmured, tucking me behind him as the EMTs swept into the kitchen. “They’re ours.”
Olivier flinched anyway, shrinking instinctively from the noise, from the uniforms, from the consequences finally catching up to him.
Pierre’s gaze swept the room with a father’s precision; first me, then Eric, then Asher, before landing on Olivier. Something heavy and disappointed settled in his eyes. Not rage. Not even shock. Just the quiet heartbreak of a man who had seen too much human brokenness in one lifetime.
“EMS is taking him,” Pierre said softly, nodding toward Olivier. “But before they do, if there’s anything he needs to say…”
Asher stepped away, giving the EMTs space. Eric didn’t move from in front of me. His hand stayed at my waist, thumb rubbing tiny circles into my hip like he couldn’t stop reminding himself I was standing.
Alive.
Here.
His.
Olivier’s gaze found mine as the EMTs knelt beside him. His mouth trembled at the edges.
“Harm,” he whispered, voice thin and frayed. “I’m… I’m sorry. I never meant for any of this to touch you.”
My throat burned. “But you let it.”
He nodded, eyes glistening. “Because I wasn’t strong. Because I didn’t know how to be anything but what he made me.”
“I thought if I took the handle… if I stepped into the world you left behind… I could keep you close without dragging you under.” His voice shook.
“I was so angry you walked away from us. I was angry you didn’t look back.
I kept thinking if I could just make you see what we were born into, you’d come home. You’d see me.”
My eyes blurred. “Olivier…”
“But instead,” he whispered, “I turned into the thing you were running from.”
Silence folded around us. Heavy. Human. Real.
He looked down at his shaking hands. “I didn’t come here tonight to destroy you. I came because I knew he would. And because part of me hoped… if I told you the truth, you’d finally see I was worth saving.”
A breath trembled out of me, half grief, half release.
“I can’t save you,” I whispered. “But I hope someday you can save yourself.”
His eyes closed, and a single tear slipped across the bruises marring his cheek. Then the EMTs lifted him gently, guiding him onto the stretcher.
“Harm…” he said one last time, voice faint and childlike.
“I never wanted to lose you.”
“You did that on your own,” I whispered back.
The EMTs began rolling Olivier toward the door. His gaze wild, exhausted, and fractured snapped to mine one last time.
“Harm…” His voice cracked, barely audible over the wheels of the stretcher. “Little thistle… I should’ve protected you better.”
It wasn’t an excuse. It wasn’t a plea. Just a truth that arrived too late. I swallowed hard, unable to form the words rising in my chest. Olivier closed his eyes as they guided him out into the snow.
A moment later, Pierre stepped into the doorway, brushing snow from his shoulders. His expression was grim but steady, the kind of steady that made people in this town trust him without question.
“We got him,” Pierre said quietly. “The mercenary, the man using Ravenhill’s name. He’s in cuffs and headed to Sherbrooke for processing. He won’t be coming back here tonight. Not ever, if I can help it.”
Eric let out a breath that sounded like it had been lodged in his lungs for years.
Asher sagged back against the counter, running a hand through his hair.
The house finally exhaled.
Pierre glanced between us, something softening in his eyes. “You two should get out of this place for a bit. We’ll finish up here. Cleanup crews will come in the morning to deal with the damage and the snow.”
Eric looked at me, searching not for permission, but for how much of me was still shaking.
“Sunshine,” he murmured, brushing a thumb across my cheek, “let’s go somewhere quieter.”
I nodded before he even finished the sentence.
The main house suddenly felt too full, too many voices, too many memories clinging to the walls, too much fear still humming under my skin.
“We can go back to the loft over Petals and Pines,” I whispered.
Eric’s expression softened. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Let’s get you there.”
Asher pushed off the counter and gave me a gentler version of his usual smirk. “Text when you’re settled. And try not to break the loft this time.”
I managed the smallest laugh—thin, fragile, but real.
Eric took my hand, threading our fingers together, warm and steady and familiar. We stepped out into the night air, crisp and quiet now that the chaos had calmed. The path back to town was lined with towering snowbanks, the sky soft with stars peeking through thinning clouds.
Behind us, Maple Valley’s main house, once a place of fear, faded into the background. Ahead, the lights of our small town glowed like a promise. Eric squeezed my hand.
“You’re safe,” he murmured. “And tonight, we go home.”
For the first time since returning to Val-du-Lys, home didn’t feel like a place I was running from. It felt like something I was choosing. Someone I was choosing. Someone choosing me right back.