Chapter 53 | Anna
I’d never experienced a family dinner before. At least, not one with men armed to the teeth and a gentle Southern woman who insisted we all sit and eat like it was a tactical mission.
Grace had gotten everyone to show up anyway. Like her voice carried authority you didn’t argue with. Telling us we were going to act like civilized people.
The dining room was large enough to seat eight, and every chair but one was filled. The air smelled like pepper and frying oil and butter—comfort so aggressive it should’ve come with a warning label. And it made me happy.
Quietly. Dangerously. The type of happy that felt like it’d break if I looked at it sideways.
Piers preferred to hover at the edge of the room, as if sitting down would be an admission of chaos.
Silas wasn’t at the table. I suspected that was intentional. Like he’d delivered us home and then vanished so the rest of us could pretend, for one meal, that the war was not sitting in an empty chair.
Grace made me sit at the head of the table. I protested. I lost. Because no one wins against Grace when she’s decided you need feeding.
Kincade took the seat to my left—close, solid, like he belonged there. Ophelia and my mother settled to my right. Across from them, Ludwig and Ulrich found seats.
Ludwig chose the chair directly across from Ophelia, and by the gleam in his eyes, I knew that was on purpose.
We were all settled, plates full from the buffet Grace had set out like she was feeding an army. She took the seat next to Ulrich, who eyed his food with suspicion.
Natasha didn’t say much. She sat close to Ophelia, hands wrapped around her tea glass like it was the only thing keeping her steady. But when Grace placed a biscuit on her plate, my mother paused like she didn’t trust the simplicity of it.
She broke it open. Steam curled up. She took one small bite and went still.
She was somewhere else for a heartbeat, like the taste had brushed against a door inside her that wasn’t fully locked anymore.
Then she swallowed, blinked, and quietly ate another bite like she was afraid the memory might vanish if she looked at it too hard.
I didn’t call attention to it. I let her have it and turned back to the table before my throat could tighten.
“What’s wrong, Ulrich?” I asked. “You’ve never had chicken fried steak before?”
“I’ve never had chicken fried anything before,” he said. “And why must it be smothered in gravy?”
“Oh, honey,” Grace said, warm as a hug and twice as dangerous. “You haven’t lived until you’ve had my chicken fried steak and gravy.”
Ulrich glanced at her like he wasn’t sure if she was joking. I snickered. There was something magical about the way she cooked. Perfect golden breading, gravy like a bribe, buttered biscuits from scratch.
“Anything deep-fried and smothered in gravy is suspect,” Ludwig said.
“I ate your German food for weeks and never complained once,” I said.
“That’s wrong,” Ludwig said immediately.
“You complained a lot,” Kincade added.
“Well.” I pointed my fork like it was evidence. “I didn’t complain about the chocolate cookies or the soft pretzels,” I said, thinking of my midnight snacks with Ulrich.
Ulrich glanced up and gave me a surreptitious wink.
Kincade leaned closer. “Something I should know about between you two?”
“No,” I said. Because those midnight pretzel snacks were while he was still half-conscious.
“You had real German pretzels?” Ophelia asked. “I’m officially jealous.”
Ludwig’s attention snapped to her like he’d been waiting for an opening. “I can get you one anytime you want.”
Then he reached for his sweet iced tea, took a sip, and immediately coughed like it had betrayed him. “What is this?”
I laughed. “We drink a lot of sweet iced tea in Texas.”
“I do not,” he managed, eyes watering.
“Bless your heart,” Grace said, and it sounded like both sympathy and a verdict.
“We can get you some German beer,” I offered, smirking.
“German beer?” Ophelia said. “Now I’m interested.”
Ludwig lifted a brow. “Are you? Good.”
I rolled my eyes.
Ophelia stabbed a green bean like it had Ludwig’s name on it.
Oh. There it was.
“Keep flirting and I’ll throw you out,” she said.
Ludwig rested his elbow on the table, entirely too comfortable. “You say that like you’d stop thinking about me.”
Ophelia’s smile was sharp. “Oh, I’ll think about you. Mostly as a cautionary tale.”
Grace set down the biscuit basket between them like a peace offering. “Lord, help me,” she murmured. “Y’all behave.”
Ludwig didn’t even blink. “I am behaving.”
Ophelia deadpanned, “That’s the problem.”
She glared at Ludwig like she could set him on fire with sarcasm alone. Ludwig smiled like he liked the heat. Oh, no.
When the plates were empty, Grace busied herself collecting them, insisting it was no trouble and everyone needed to stay put while she brought dessert.
“Oh, God, dessert?” Ophelia said. “I don’t think I can.”
“It’s banana pudding,” I said. “You can.”
Grace returned moments later with individual glass dishes, setting them down in front of each of us like she was delivering peace offerings.
Kincade didn’t reach for his spoon. Neither did Ulrich. Ludwig did—because Ludwig would eat through the apocalypse—but even he went quieter after the first bite.
Grace hovered for a moment, satisfied. “See? Pudding fixes everything.”
“No, ma’am,” Ludwig said, earnest for once. “It makes it easier to face what doesn’t.”
I studied him. Ludwig had depths.
Grace asked softly, “Are we safe tonight?”
No one answered immediately. Not because we didn’t want to, but because the truth deserved precision.
Kincade’s gaze flicked once to the doorway, to the windows beyond the dining room like he could see the perimeter through plaster. “For tonight,” he said. “Yes.”
Grace nodded like she’d expected that exact wording. Like she’d heard enough in her life to recognize a man who never promised what he couldn’t deliver.
Ophelia’s spoon stilled. “And tomorrow?”
Ulrich slid a folded paper onto the table near Kincade—quiet, efficient. Routes. Rotations. Names. Planning that looked boring until it saved your life.
Ludwig leaned back, eyes on the ceiling for a second. “So, this is dinner and a briefing,” he said. “Love that for us.”
My mother didn’t speak. She watched—posture angled so she could see the door. Like survival didn’t leave you because dessert arrived.
Kincade’s voice stayed low, calm. “They already breached this house once. The cameras and guards buy us time. They don’t buy forgiveness.” His gaze cut to me. “So, the question is simple.”
He paused.
“What do we do the moment the Brotherhood realizes you’re home?”
“Isn’t that the million-dollar question,” I said. I dipped my spoon into the pudding, scooping up soft cookies and banana. “Let them come. I’m not running again.”
There was no heat in my voice, but saying it felt like making a promise to myself.
“None of us are,” I added.
And I meant it. If I was going to stay here—if they were going to come for me, for him, for any of us—I was done being chased. They weren’t getting me again.
“I’ll drink to that,” Ludwig said. “If I had a beer.”
Then my mother spoke, so quiet it barely counted, “They’ll come.”
Silence consumed the table. I looked at her to see if she was lucid—she was. Her hand was tight around her glass, but her eyes weren’t on anyone. Not even me.
“And when they do,” she added, voice quiet and certain, “you’d better be ready.”
Kincade didn’t hesitate. “We will be.”
And the way he said it wasn’t comfort.
“Then we should talk about the first breach point,” Ulrich said. “Because it won’t be the gate.”
But I’d had enough shop talk. “We can talk about that later.”
“Yes,” Grace added. “No war talk at the table. We’re civilized.”
I smiled at that. Such a Grace thing to say.
Ulrich said, “In that case, it’s time for my shift.” He rose. “Thank you for dinner, Grace.”
Ludwig went next. Grace insisted we leave the dishes for her to take care of later while she helped Natasha back to her room. Ophelia followed them out.
Leaving only the two of us.
The room felt different without them. Smaller. Quieter. Like the air had shifted.
And for a moment, I wanted it that way. His steady presence beside me.
“He’ll come, won’t he?” I asked, meaning Sebastian. I didn’t want to say his name aloud. It felt like it might conjure him.
“Yes,” he said. “And when he does, I’ll end him.”
It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise. There was no heat in the words, either. Just fact.
“We should go, too.”
But the way he said it was like an invitation.
When we left the dining room, he took my hand, his fingers firm around mine, and led me up the stairs. There was a hum under my skin—quiet, low, like something settling after months of static.
The moment the door was closed behind us and he turned the lock, he pulled me to him. Then he was kissing me with a fervor we hadn’t shared in months. Not since the alteration or when he nearly died. Like he didn’t want to be careful. And neither did I.
We left a trail of clothes in our wake, shedding them one by one.
His shirt first. Pulled it over his head with hands that didn’t bother pretending to be steady, and then there was skin under my palms. Warm. His heart beating fast, like mine. Which surprised me. He was always steady. Always the calm center while everything else burned.
Mine went next. His fingers found the hem and eased it up—not rushed, not fumbling. Deliberate. Like he’d already decided exactly how this was going to go.
The rest came off in pieces.
Each layer dropped somewhere between the door and the bed, a map of us being shed on the way to something we’d both been holding out for since he nearly bled out on the kitchen table.
I stopped wanting to be careful somewhere between my shirt and the bed. He did, too, because his mouth was all heat and hunger as he backed me toward it.
The first press of skin against skin—his chest flush against mine—sent a current through me. Not because it was new. Because it had been so long since anything felt this immediate.
And yet that cold place in my head opened and flared bright trying to enact the trigger that was planted. I winced. He noticed, pulled away, stopped.
Not far. Enough to look at me. The way he did when he was cataloguing. Every detail. Every change. Every mark the last four months had left that I’d been trying not to think about.
“Don’t,” I said. The cold place was still flickering, but I pushed through it. “Don’t be careful with me.”
His eyes—molten gold—moved over me slowly. Unhurried. And the hunger I’d felt a moment ago didn’t disappear, exactly—it shifted. Went quieter. Became something heavier. Something that made my breath catch for a completely different reason than before.
I pulled him down with me, my back hitting the cool sheets. He kissed me again. Deeper this time. Slower. A kiss that said I’m not going anywhere.
Every point of contact was deliberate. His mouth at the place below my ear that made my breath stutter, his hand tracing the line of my waist like he was memorizing it, the slow press of his weight settling over me like an anchor.
Grounding me. Holding me in place in a way that felt less like restraint and more like certainty.
And I was exactly where I wanted to be.
Underneath him.
Unraveling.
The cold place flickered again. Distant. Trying to flare the way it had before, trying to drive a sharp wedge into the middle of this, of us. The trigger needed a crack to get through. There wasn’t one.
His hand found mine. Slid up and interlaced my fingers with his, pressing our joined hands into the bed beside my head. Holding on.
I held on tighter.
I focused. On the heat of him, the drag of his mouth, the way his breathing had gone ragged against my neck. The rhythm we’d built together.
Everything narrowed. His hands. The press of his weight. The way his grip on my fingers tightened like he could feel it, too. His mouth found mine, and the kiss was different now. Less controlled. More desperate. And I matched him because I could. Because I was choosing to.
And then it broke.
A slow, devastating release. Like a knot I’d been carrying in my chest for months came undone. My body went taut and then liquid. I gasped against his mouth and felt him follow, a quiet, wrecked sound against my skin. I’d never heard that from him before. Not like that.
His forehead dropped to my shoulder.
Neither of us moved. Hearts pounding. Breath ragged. And though the world had changed us, this hadn’t. Still choosing. Still us.
Later, when the moonlight filtered through the curtains, I woke alone. Disoriented for a moment until I remembered where I was.
Not the cabin. Not Istanbul. Not the villa.
Home.
He stood at the window, ever vigilant, ever watchful. Not because there was a threat. There wasn’t. Because that’s what he did—who he was.
At least he put on pants.
I found his discarded shirt, pulled it on. Not mine. His. I didn’t think about why.
Then joined him at the window. He glanced down at me once, his eyes dark in the shadows. Then he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and kissed my forehead.
I leaned into him as we stood there. Him and me and the dark and the quiet.
He didn’t promise me forever. He stood beside me like he’d already decided. And that was better.