Epilogue
“ I t’s your birthday.”
Knox handed me a coffee that he’d taken to making in the espresso machine, the one new addition to the apartment since he’d moved in. That and the easel in the sunroom—the jewel of the apartment. Such a rare find in a city of studio apartments with barely any windows, let alone a whole room of them, bathing in morning sunlight.
We’d created a ritual of sorts. He started the morning by fucking me. Always. Unless I was sick or overly tired or not in the mood, which was incredibly rare. On those occasions, though, he did not sulk or punish me for rejecting him; he didn’t change an iota of his behavior. He respected my boundaries, which I had few of with him. That made him all the more sexy and more emotionally mature than 99 percent of the male population. Respect for boundaries. Hotter than any six pack. Though he had one of those too.
He cooked for me—another thing that he always did. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. That was unless I was in the mood to cook too, which again was rare since he was incredibly good at it, and I liked being taken care of in that way by him. He repeatedly said he was bad and wrong and would destroy me, yet he did small, everyday things that a run-of-the-mill, suburban husband with a ‘normal’ upbringing failed to do to his wife daily.
He nurtured me.
After fucking, food and coffee, I ran.
He’d trail behind me, unseen if he sensed I needed the alone time, other times running with me. We’d had a small argument about whether the shadowing was necessary.
“I ran alone in the woods in the middle of nowhere,” I reminded him that first morning, my body yearning for the crunch of detritus underneath my shoes, the smell of pine and even the scent of the cabin. Old, musty.
Brackets of lines framed his eyes with the deepness of his frown, his mouth pulled into a thin line. “Yes, and the worst you could encounter there was bears,” he replied in a clipped tone. “Which you had spray for. The worst you can encounter here is a man. There’s no spray for that. There’s me for that.”
And that was his argument. Which I couldn’t counter, beyond him being over the top protective and possessive. Which he was. He was obsessed with my safety, nearly ripped the face off any man who looked at me too long. Life in the city was unravelling him a little. He was used to living in the shadows, killing people, only interacting with criminals in the underworld. Now that I’d brought him into the light, into Whole Foods, out to dinners with friends— he was struggling with his new identity.
Not that he’d ever admit to that.
But there were growing pains.
I could see that.
And I was too. Struggling, that was.
I’d slotted back into the life I’d made to fit me so precisely. The apartment, the job that somehow welcomed me back with few questions, and the friends who had a bit more questions about how I’d taken off for a walk across Spain with no warning and came home with a menacing, deadly-attractive, menacing boyfriend who barely said boo to anyone and scowled his way through dinner, twirling my hair between his fingers instead of answering questions.
I found that I was a convincing liar.
I discovered that I had become a new shape that didn’t fit into the life I’d so valued.
The city was too loud. Too crowded. Yet I still loved it. The chaos. The vibrancy. The shine had come off, though. After relishing the freshness of the mountains, the pristine nature of the woods. The quiet.
I felt caught, stretched between two worlds. Though I loved my job, going back to a place where I cared for toddlers was … uncomfortable, given the fact that I was a killer. I’d seen people die. I’d killed someone.
It didn’t quite haunt me the way I thought it would. I didn’t wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat, shaking off nightmares. No panic attacks, flashbacks. I just felt … colder. Like I’d opened up a gaping canyon in me I was afraid of. Sometimes, in the middle of finger painting, my hands covered in paint, I remembered when it had been blood. Yes, that was difficult but not impossible to handle.
“It is my birthday,” I answered Knox, trying to remind myself to live in the present, not to live in an existential crisis. At the time, I was holding a hot mug of coffee, and the man I loved was standing in my kitchen shirtless, his scars illuminated by the morning light, looking at me with a warmth that the sun could never produce.
“You weren’t going to tell me.” His eyes narrowed.
I smiled at him, unafraid of his ire. I knew that it unsettled him, that his menace bounced right off me. “I didn’t think I’d need to, considering you likely rectified any lack of research you’d done.” I was teasing, but also, I had assumed that he’d delved into every corner of my life, intent on finding out every benign detail about me.
“I don’t need to delve into anything to learn things about you, Petal.” He stepped forward. “Except here.” His hand ghosted over my breasts, feathering over my peaked nipples to settle above my pounding heart. “And here.” The other skimmed my stomach to cup me possessively between my legs.
Even though he had just fucked me extraordinarily well, I still hungered for more of his possessive touch.
I wondered if I’d ever satisfy my appetite for him. Ever stop needing him in a way that felt hard to weather.
I doubted it.
“I don’t like making a fuss about my birthday,” I told him in a gasping breath. “It falls at a rather … odd time.”
Knox loosened his grip between my legs, but he didn’t let me go.
He let me bathe in the silence, sipping my coffee as he held me close. He still did that, held me whenever I was within arm’s length, with a desperation that he thought I might just dissipate. Dissolve into nothing.
He wasn’t trusting of our new state.
Happiness , I tried to explain it to him as if the concept were as foreign as pigs flying.
“My birthday happens in the summer,” I stated the obvious. “Which meant it was celebrated with my grandmother.”
I smiled as I remembered homemade cakes, decorated with berries we picked ourselves. Presents wrapped in old scarves. Music blasting into the night as we stayed up past our bedtime, the summer air still balmy.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “And then we stopped going. I only had one more birthday here in New York. My mother attempted to make it special, but she wasn’t practiced in that.”
She’d tried to make a cake but burned it. The money for presents was spent on booze. My father had smashed the stereo the night before, and he was sleeping off a hangover, so we all had to tiptoe around.
“The next year, my father killed her then himself a month before my birthday.” I squeezed my mug tighter than I needed to. “And that was when we were still in foster care while social workers tried to track down family.” Eventually, they’d tracked down my aunt, the one who owned this very apartment, and we got lucky with a kind, quirky guardian willing to take us in. “The day got lost, and I never really found it again,” I whispered, catching Knox’s gaze. “It kind of has a gloomy shadow over it.”
I didn’t tell him that in my drinking days, I’d spend the day with the curtains drawn and in the bathtub with a bottle of vodka. Daisy had long given up on trying to make it special as I’d done a good job of convincing her that I didn’t want the attention.
A foreign concept to her, but she’d accepted it.
Once I got sober, I drowned my sorrows in a cake I’d make every year, my grandmother’s recipe. I did that alone, usually while rewatching some ’90s TV shows, maybe shopping online for a pair of shoes I didn’t need.
It was all the celebration I gave myself.
Knox stared at me after my admission, his hand tucking a stray hair behind my ears, nostrils flaring. “I doubt I’ll do a satisfactory job of lifting the shadow from the day, since I’m not practiced, but…”
He stepped back to take an object from the kitchen counter.
I frowned at it in his outstretched palm.
It was a key. Old and rusted.
My soul skipped as I took a hopeful guess as to what it was.
“Our cabin?” I asked, not daring to breathe.
Knox nodded curtly. “It is yours, actually. Name’s on the title.”
My head snapped up. “Add yours? It’s ours?”
His lip twitched. He was doing more of that. Almost smiling. Being more expressive. “Yes, ma’am.”
And more of that. Deferring to me. Submitting to me in a way that managed to be alpha and irresistible all at once.
I stared at the key. He was giving me something infinitely special. Something precious. A chance to revisit the past. Not just ours but the treasured past with my grandmother. The ability to relive it. Honor it. He was offering me a different future. One that already felt like the perfect fit
“About the names…” I grasped the key in my hand. It felt much heavier than it really was. Maybe because of the past and futures it contained.
“I have a birthday request,” I whispered, nerves crawling up my throat, making it impossible to speak any louder.
“Anything.” Knox didn’t hesitate.
Though I was afraid, I didn’t drop eye contact. “I’d like yours,” I said quietly.
I didn’t think Knox could be shocked, but I’d managed it.
His mouth was no longer twitched upward; it was slightly open, his expression entirely blank.
“My name, my heritage is not something I’m proud of,” he replied in an even tone.
“I’m not asking for your name because of your past,” I whispered. “I want it because of our future.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. Didn’t move. He stood as still as a statue, whereas I fidgeted with unease as I waited for his response, unable to ready any of his emotions.
“You want my name?” he repeated.
I nodded, trying to keep my composure. “I would like to be your wife.”
There it was. The thing I wanted more than anything.
“You’re my everything,” he growled. “You don’t need a ceremony and a contract for that. A contract steeped in traditions of trading women like livestock.”
I didn’t even try to hide my smile at Knox’s feminist argument against marriage.
I folded my arms in front of me. “Yet here I am, wanting to be yours. By law.”
“I don’t adhere to the laws of this country,” he reminded me harshly.
“So that’s a no?” I asked, trying to fight back the need to burst into tears.
He glared at me. “Of course, it’s not a fucking no.”
Then he kissed me. Hard.
And just like that, we were engaged.
Knox
“I thought I said I’d kill you if I ever saw you again,” I told the man who had joined me on the rooftop of Piper’s apartment building.
It wasn’t unusual for me to go up there without her. I regularly left her sleeping in the apartment I’d outfitted with top-of-the-line security. There were still weak spots, though. Neighbors. Shared elevator. Fire escape.
That was the only downside of living in her home—the lack of privacy and control over the environment. My penthouse encompassed an entire floor, meaning no one could access it unless they had access to the private elevator that was monitored at all times.
Giving it up was a concession, a big fucking concession, I’d made because Piper loved her home. I enjoyed being in her space immensely. Every corner of it was filled with her.
Though I felt as if I cast a shadow over those corners, unable to understand just how I’d fit into her life.
That was the reason I hadn’t killed Lukyan on sight and had agreed to the meeting when he’d reached out through untraceable means.
A chuckle sounded through the night. I was surprised to hear it come from him. “Unfortunately, just like me, Knox, love has made you … less trigger happy.”
I lifted the gun I was holding in his direction, hating that he understood my weakness. I should’ve killed him for that alone. “Sure about that?”
He stepped forward to join me, unfazed by the gun I was pointing at him, finger on the trigger. “I’m sure, since I promised you what I’d do if you pointed a gun at me again.”
Threat was clear in his tone, one that would have most grown men shitting themselves, knowing their time in this world was approaching its end.
Lukyan wouldn’t have come here to kill me, though. Not by coming announced anyway.
“What is this about?” I was not one for small talk.
“I am aware that you are not interested in keeping ties with the new leadership at Rosso.” The restaurant was the hub of the mob, the central heart. Whoever controlled Rosso controlled the organization.
I stared out into the city. “Considering they are a grudge holding lot who would kill me on sight if they knew about my involvement in Stone’s demise, and worse, Piper, no.” My throat constricted at the very thought. We had been extremely thorough in ensuring that everyone who knew about Piper’s connection to Stone was in the ground, but I couldn’t let myself lapse into a false sense of security.
Especially since I had the bad sense to keep Joey breathing. He was, apparently, out of the game and in love with Daisy, but that didn’t stop me from lying awake at night, thinking of him as the weak link who one day, when Daisy inevitably cast him aside, would be mad enough to want revenge. There were numerous times I’d gotten close to ignoring Piper’s wishes and my promise to her about sparing Joey’s life for her sister’s happiness. A broken promise was nothing compared to Piper’s life. But I’d stopped every time. Because it would hurt Piper. Wound her. That betrayal. And I couldn’t gather enough strength to do that.
“So you’re in need of a job,” Lukyan’s voice cut through my thoughts.
I ground my teeth together. “I have enough money to fund a hundred lifetimes.” Which was true. Stone had paid me well, and I’d amassed plenty of funds before my tenure with him. I‘d learned how to play the stock market. Money was security. I could buy anything I wanted. Except I didn’t want a fucking thing beyond my woman, safe and warm and happy.
Lukyan smiled at me, white teeth shining in the moonlight. “I’m not talking about money. You’re not going to retire and take up chess in the park. You can’t. I speak from experience.”
I’d thought about this, realizing that no matter how fundamentally Piper had changed me, she couldn’t erase the past or change my nature. I’d always thirst for death, something to keep the beasts at bay.
“I won’t answer to anyone,” I snarled, comprehending what he was hinting at. He was offering me a fucking job. As if I’d bow down to him.
“I’m not asking you to,” he replied, his tone telling me he was still amused. “I’m looking for a partner.”
This surprised me. Lukyan and I had never enjoyed a cordial relationship. Actually, I’d been halfway certain he would kill me one day. He was the only one even remotely capable of that. Yet there he was, offering to be fucking partners.
“I’m a married man now, to an extraordinary woman who can hold her own in our world.” His normally lifeless tone gained a richness that I didn’t miss when talking about his wife. “I am unable to change myself for her, but I’ve found I’d like to … adjust my business. I’d like to send those to the grave who deserve it but go untouched in our world.”
My surprise was bone deep, but I didn’t show it. “You want to police the underworld?” I bit back a laugh, only because he was deadly fucking serious. That and I didn’t laugh.
“Police?” He shook his head. “No judges, no jury. Just executioners.”
“And we’ll make this a business how?” I asked, unable to not be intrigued.
He smiled, knowing he’d caught me. He’d fucking caught me. “Killing is always a business. We’ll meet about the details at a later date.” He buttoned his suit. “But you’re agreeable. This partnership means we make a gentleman’s agreement not to kill each other.”
“We’re not gentlemen,” I reminded him.
“That we’re not.”
Regardless, he extended his hand.
And regardless, I shook it.
Piper
We hadn’t decided on where we would live long term. We were going through too many changes already, especially once Knox’s paintings had been picked up by an incredibly prestigious gallery. Only on the provision that he remains anonymous, not in any way tied to any of the publicity surrounding the sale or promotion.
He said it was because of his enemies, which I was sure was partly true. But I knew it was also because he’d never be fully ready to come out of the shadows, even if he was baring pieces of his soul to the sunlight.
These stipulations along with the exquisite surrealism of the paintings were what made them blow up more, selling for six figures.
I’d known they were stunning, that they spoke to me on a cellular level, that they were magic, but I thought it was because I was unequivocally in love with the painter.
Knox hadn’t even blinked at the money or the popularity, so I often questioned whether it had been the right decision to take them to a gallery and force him into a different life.
Not that he was entirely in a different life. He didn’t give me a lot of details—he still wasn’t a man of many words—but I knew that Knox had engaged in some kind of partnership with Lukyan.
He’d mentioned it in clipped tones, then I’d spoken to Elizabeth on the phone—we did that sometimes—and she’d given me a little more detail. But not much. I was on the outside. Because I wasn’t one of them. That knowledge chafed at me, even as I tried to shrug it off.
I knew they weren’t starting a bourbon company together. I knew that Knox left some nights, and when he came home, his energy was both heavier and lighter at the same time. He wasn’t done killing. I didn’t know if he’d ever be done. He couldn’t be repaired just with my love and a paintbrush and an easel. Not that I thought he needed repairing. He had stopped cutting himself, though, which I took as a large victory.
No, I didn’t think he’d ever leave the shadows completely, but he still stood in the sunlight with me.
And I was finding I liked to exist in the shadows too.
We married in the cabin.
The guest list was short. Daisy and Joey—who were somehow still together. Joey who shot uneasy glances in Knox’s direction as if he was waiting for him to shoot him between the eyes at any moment.
I secretly thought Knox enjoyed torturing him just a little.
The three other guests were Kane, Avery and Mabel—Knox’s brother, his wife and their baby daughter.
The resemblance between the brothers was uncanny yet also unsettling. They were so alike. Kane was maybe a glimpse of who Knox might’ve been... Easy to smile. Warm. Friendly.
Not that I wanted Knox to be any different. I just mourned the life he might’ve had without his trauma, even if it meant we never would’ve met.
Kane had hugged me within seconds of meeting me.
I returned the hug, surprised at the open affection that his brother did not possess. He squeezed me then held me at arm’s length, not letting go even though I knew Knox was staring daggers at him.
I wanted to roll my eyes. It was his brother who was hugging me in front of his wife and daughter. I doubted he was a threat. But Knox didn’t know how to turn that off.
“What do you do for a job, Piper?” Kane asked, still holding my upper arms. “Knox has been really fucking cagey about this whole thing, about you. But you’re gonna be at our table for Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Mabel’s birthday. He’s not gonna be able to keep you wrapped up in bubble wrap.” He winked at me.
My skin warmed at the forgone conclusion of us being with them for the holidays. At the slight hesitation to his tone. I got the sense that Knox had not been in attendance for previous holidays. And that Kane loved his brother.
“We’re not coming for fucking holidays,” Knox cut in at the same time I said, “Of course, we’ll be there.”
He glared at me. I beamed back at him before looking at his brother again.
“To answer your earlier question, I’m a kindergarten teacher.”
Kane’s amiable gaze went blank for a long moment before he threw his head back and laughed. True belly laughter.
I smiled with him because I understood he wasn’t laughing at me. He was laughing at the absurdity of his badass brother getting married to a kindergarten teacher with wildflowers threaded through her hair.
Kane’s ice-blue eyes were shimmering as they caught hold of mine, no longer laughing. “Thank you,” he said, his voice low and rich.
“For what?” I asked, confused.
He looked at his glowering brother with a smile. “For being his sunlight. He deserves it.”
I’d been in danger of bursting into tears right there and then, but luckily, with a toddler around, the tender moment was quickly interrupted with squeals of delight at discovering a butterfly and then tripping over a log. Both Kane and Knox rushed to Mabel’s aid.
That was when my attention moved to his stunning wife, Avery. It took me a while to recognize her since she looked different from the photo I’d seen of her in a restaurant review. The photo had shown a striking woman, but one who was hard, severe looking. Nothing like the warm, smiling woman who gave me a hug of my own then one to Knox, even though every signal he was giving off shouted that he repelled physical contact. She wasn’t scared of him.
Same with Mabel, who clawed at Knox’s leg until he relented and picked her up with a grimace she didn’t notice as she put two small hands to his cheeks and laid a kiss right on his lips.
He winced, but I didn’t miss the softening of his features, the way he held onto that little girl like she was priceless.
It was heartwarming to watch. Precious. The love he didn’t think he was capable of was staring right at me, giggling at the teddy bear that was her uncle.
Mabel was the flower girl at our small ceremony that Knox had fought tooth and nail against but quickly relented to when I told him how important it was to me.
“We don’t have to do any of the traditional vows,” I’d assured him. “Or mention gods or sins.”
Kane had officiated with what could only be described as a shit-eating grin on his face.
“I promise to never let you go and to kill anyone who hurts you,” were Knox’s vows, unsurprisingly.
This had elicited a low cough from Kane, covering a chuckle.
I’d merely smiled, expecting nothing less. “I promise to be yours. Forever.”
My vows were slightly less bloodthirsty but no less true.
I had no idea what our future entailed.
But it was ours.
Whatever came.
And I was more than okay with that.
A monster had brought me to this cabin in order to break me.
And instead, I’d broken the monster, splitting him apart to reveal the man inside.