Epilogue Two
One Month Later
Harmony
The house was quiet in the way new places become once they learn your rhythms. I was curled on the couch, a blanket pulled over my legs, my engagement ring catching the late-afternoon light when I moved.
Outside, the orchard stretched green and full, early summer settled deep into Maple Valley.
The life we’d built here felt real in a way I was still getting used to.
The television was on low when my father’s name slid across the bottom of the screen.
Marcel Bellerose shot outside private medical clinic. Condition critical.
I sat up slowly.
They said it calmly. No speculation. No emotion.
Just facts delivered from a safe distance.
They mentioned it almost as an aside, he had been released on bail five months ago.
His appeal had gone through. Charges were dropped.
He had been a free man. I had experienced a whirl of emotions when he was released.
I had risked everything to put him away and he had found a way out.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all this time I hadn’t seen him.
From what I understood he was laying low.
He didn’t return to Val-Du-Lys. I was worried about how angry he would be with me, even if I understood from Olivier that our father made him promise he wouldn’t touch me.
My family wasn’t exactly honorable, so keeping a promise wasn’t an expectation.
One moment Marcel was FREE, until he wasn’t. He had been shot in broad daylight. Fear came first, old and instinctive. Then relief, sharp and immediate. And then the feeling that hurt the most to admit.
Grief.
Not for the man he was, but for the man I’d once hoped he might become. The one who could have let me go without forcing me to burn everything behind me. He never did.
He was the man I feared. He was also my father.
Both things lived inside me, and I didn’t try to untangle them.
I turned the television off before the footage looped again and sat there until the house felt steady around me.
When the truth had come out that I was the one who testified, the one who put him away, the town hadn’t turned its back. The casseroles came instead.
A pie on the porch steps. Soup dropped off without a knock. Bread wrapped in paper, still warm. People stopped me in town, asked how I was, told me quietly I’d done the right thing.
Val-du-Lys finally saw me without my last name attached.
I pulled on my jacket and headed into town for my evening shift at the bakery. The air smelled like cut grass and warm pavement. I was halfway down Main Street when I saw him.
Nico leaned against the lamppost like he still belonged everywhere.
“Hey, Harmony,” he said, stepping into my path just enough to make me stop. His voice was softer than I remembered. “I heard about your dad.”
“I’m on my way to work,” I said evenly.
“I know.” He lifted his hands slightly. “Just wanted to say I’m sorry. Truly. Critical condition… that’s rough.”
The word rough scraped.
“Thank you,” I said, because politeness was easier than honesty.
He studied me for a moment, his gaze flicking to my ring and back. A slow smile tugged at his mouth, not warm, not kind.
“Funny thing, though,” he said, “life’s got a sense of irony, doesn’t it?”
I didn’t answer.
“With Olivier out and your father… unavailable,” he continued lightly, “someone had to step in. Guess that someone’s me. New leadership. Same empire.”
The words slid under my skin like ice.
He tilted his head. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? If things had gone differently. If you’d stayed. We could’ve had it all, Princess.”
A shiver crawled up my spine, sharp and unmistakable.
“There’s no version of my life where that happens,” I retorted.
For a second, something dark flickered in his eyes. Then it was gone, replaced with a shrug.
“Still,” he said. “Strange world.”
I stepped around him without another word and kept walking. The bakery windows glowed ahead, warm and real and waiting.
Inside, the air was thick with yeast and sugar. Dough rested under cloth. Ovens hummed. I tied my apron, pressed my hands into the counter, and let the work pull me back into myself.
An hour later, Eric’s truck passed the front window on its way toward the station, his radio clipped at his waist, his focus steady and sure. He was a fireman. I was a baker and we were in love.
I watched him drive off, warmth settling where the chill had been. This was the life we’d chosen—work we loved, a town that knew the truth, and a future that finally felt like ours.