Epilogue
A few weeks later …
“That goes in the bedroom, Matty. The bedroom.”
“This is the bedroom!”
“That’s the bathroom.”
Eli set down the box he was carrying and watched Matty emerge from the wrong door, hauling a lamp that was nearly as tall as he was.
“Oh, right.” he said with a sheepish grin. “In my defense, there’s a lot of rooms in here. Oh, hey, Olivia!”
“Hey, guys,” Olivia said as she popped up from behind Eli. As always, she was the most beautiful woman Eli had ever seen, even more so now, as her belly had grown larger. “Need any help?”
“I told you to go rest,” Eli grumbled. “We got it from here, right Matty?
He flashed Olivia a toothy smile. “Yup, sure do!”
She placed her hands on her hips. “Then why is Matty walking out of the bathroom with our bedroom lamp?”
Matty gulped. “Uh …”
The corner of her mouth lifted. “I think we’ve done enough moving for the day. Matty, you’re relieved of your duties.” She grabbed Eli’s hand. “Come, I want to show you something.”
And so, what else could he do except allow his mate to lead him down the stairs of their new, four-bedroom Colonial in Dorchester.
Finding the house initially had been a challenge, and it seemed like they had looked at a hundred homes before they found this one.
It sat at the end of a tree-lined street and had a huge porch and a front yard.
The living area was roomy, the kitchen had good light, and save for a few repairs here and there, it was perfect.
In fact, when they first visited, Olivia stood in the doorway and said, “This one.” So that was it.
While it seemed the move to Boston was hasty, it was also necessary.
The High Council had moved fast after O’Grady’s arrest. His confession, combined with Garret’s testimony and the evidence Lizzie pulled from Lone Wolf’s surveillance systems, gave them enough to close the book on the Boston situation.
O’Grady, Danny McGill, and Mickey Mickelson were convicted and transferred to the Siberian facility to serve their life sentences.
With that squared away, there was the question of the leadership of the Boston clan, and faced with the possibility of disbanding it, the council offered an alternative—for Eli to serve as interim Alpha for five years, framed as part of his original sentence and with Lucas Anderson overseeing the transition.
Eli understood that this was not a promotion or even a reward.
Being Alpha came with responsibilities and that one wrong move could send him to Siberia.
Still, Patrick had called it “the only sensible goddamned thing those uptight council members have ever done.”
Sloane had also accepted the Beta position.
Actually, the idea of her being Alpha had also been floated, seeing as she was the one who had brought Ronan’s victims to justice.
Eli would have been happy for her to take the role and follow her leadership, but she didn’t want the responsibility and had another project in the works.
She and Jacob were going to set up a Boston branch of Lone Wolf Investigations and Security.
The idea was simple: give the former crew members legitimate work and use the skills Ronan had exploited for criminal enterprise and redirect them.
They already had a few people sign up: Matty and Bobby Fitz would be running the vehicle fleet and Tommy Rourke would handle client intake.
Even Nolan had signed on as a field agent, along with a few other former enforcers.
It wasn’t going to fix everything overnight.
The clan was still fractured and very much adjusting to the idea that the people running things weren’t going to shake them down or crack skulls.
But they were showing up, coming to the meetings, joining the roster, and bringing their families to the community dinners Martha organized every Sunday at her house.
“What do you want to show me?” Eli asked as Olivia led them to the living area.
“Right here.” Opening the patio doors, she waved her hand toward the outside.
One of the requirements they were looking for in a home was that it had to have a big backyard.
Olivia had not only expressed a desire for a big family—which he heartily agreed with—but combined with her huge extended family and the clan, they would need a place that could accommodate big gatherings.
“I’m sure you can still host some parties at Doyle’s,” she had said.
“But once the kids start coming, we’re gonna need a place that’s more family friendly. ”
“Well?” Olivia asked, “What do you think?”
Dusk was settling in the sky, painting it in hues of light blue and pink, making a gorgeous background for the backyard, which had been transformed from a bare, grassy plot to a proper party atmosphere.
Paper lanterns in warm golds and whites hung from the old oak tree and along the fence line.
Fairy lights crisscrossed overhead, strung between the house and the pergola at the far end, casting a soft glow over the patio furniture below.
Tiki torches lined the perimeter of the yard.
Two long tables had been pushed together and covered in white linen, with mason jars of wildflowers dotting the center.
And in the pool, dozens of unlit floating candles drifted across the surface.
“It’s perfect,” he said.
“Emily did most of the planning,” Olivia said, nodding toward Matty’s girlfriend. Emily was in the middle of laying out the tablecloth on a third table, Cooper dutifully helping her.
Sensing their presence, she waved at them. “Hi guys! Doesn’t it look good out here? I promise, it’ll look even better once we fire up the torches and the candles.”
Eli waved back. “It already looks great. Thank you for helping out.” He turned back to Olivia and sighed.
“This is all amazing, but are you sure you want to host our housewarming party tomorrow?” He glanced back into the house, where moving boxes and half-assembled furniture crowded the floor.
“I’m sorry you had to do the moving yourself this week .
I didn’t think the trial would take so long.
I wish I had gotten here sooner.” He’d arrived that morning after coming in on the red-eye from Phoenix and had come straight here to help unload the U-Haul.
Taking his hand in hers, she squeezed it. “It’s all right. You had to go, I understand.”
With the frenzy of moving and getting ready for tomorrow’s big party, Eli hadn’t had a chance to tell her what happened in Arizona.
She had also wanted to come to support him, but the trial coincided with the closing on the house, so she had to stay back.
There was so much he wanted to tell her, and he would, later that evening when they were alone.
Truthfully, he was still processing it himself.
As he promised Lucas Anderson, Eli had testified at Garret’s trial.
He didn’t lie, didn’t embellish, and didn’t ask the council for leniency.
He told them what Garret had done to him in the fifteen years of violence that shaped him into Ronan’s enforcer, laying it out in the same factual, clipped manner he’d used in every debrief, even the parts where he committed crimes.
But when it was done, he asked for permission to add one thing.
Eli told them about the night at the docks, how Garret had broken out of prison not to hurt him, but to rescue him.
How he had discovered O’Grady’s plan and even followed the hired Lone Wolves to Kentucky to stop them from killing Eli.
And how after it was all done, he had surrendered voluntarily and offered himself up for whatever sentence they saw fit.
The council gave him a life sentence in Siberia, same as Ronan and the others.
Eli didn’t argue; it was the right call, after all.
Garret had committed crimes that no single act of redemption could erase.
But at the sentencing, when they led him out of the chamber in restraints, Garret’s blue eyes had found Eli’s across the room.
They didn’t speak; they didn’t need to. Eli held his gaze and gave him a single nod, and Garret returned it.
I’m breaking the cycle, he said to his father silently. And Garret understood.
Because Garret chose to protect his son instead of running , Eli would get to watch his own children grow up. He’d get to be the father Garret never figured out how to be, and that would be enough.
“So, everyone’s coming tomorrow?” Eli said. “Like, everyone?”
“Yup,” she said. “My parents are probably an hour away and they’ll message me when they check into their hotel.
The rest are driving from New York and leaving first thing tomorrow.
Cross will be bringing Ransom, Isabelle, the kids and the Kentucky clan.
And of course, your aunt and cousins are probably boarding their flight as we speak. ”
“It will be good to see them again.”
The Featherstones had made it to New York the week after the rooftop.
Margaux, Tabitha, and Astoria spent four days in the city, and Eli had braced himself for awkwardness and painful silences.
Instead, he got Tabitha dragging Astoria through Times Square while Margaux critiqued the architecture of every building on Fifth Avenue.
They ate at the Emerald Dragon with Olivia’s parents, and Tabitha had talked Olivia into a shopping marathon that lasted six hours and produced twelve bags.
Astoria and Eli had spent most of the trip walking slightly behind everyone else, not saying much, which suited them both fine.
At one point she’d said, “This is weird, right?” and he’d replied, “Yeah,” and that was the entirety of their conversation and processing of the whole situation.
Margaux had pulled him aside on their last evening. They’d stood on the sidewalk outside their hotel, and the matriarch had looked up at him with an expression that held none of her usual steel.