Epilogue #2
Some of the staff had been complicit. Not many, but enough that Leo had spent long, sick hours running through every conversation he’d ever had in that office, wondering which smiling colleague had known and said nothing.
Most, though, had been as blindsided as he was.
They were good agents and assistants and paralegals who’d built careers on what they’d genuinely believed was a legitimate firm.
Watching their faces crumble one by one as the story came out had been almost as hard as learning it himself.
He’d lost track of how many federal agents he’d spoken to that week.
FBI and an alphabet soup of others he could barely keep straight anymore had kept circling back with the same questions dressed up in slightly different language.
All had been equally unable to tell him with any certainty how the thrown-game investigations would eventually shake out.
It would take months, maybe years, to untangle what Curtis had manipulated versus ordinary rotten luck and bad calls.
Leo found some grim comfort that Vic Shaw, at least, had gotten the justice he’d died trying to secure, even if the two of them had never been particularly close.
He’d had a long conversation with Marcy before he left, sitting across the same desk where she’d built his career alongside him, and informed her he was starting over and he wanted her with him.
“I’m going to open my own firm. You’d basically be running it within a month. You always were.”
Marcy had laughed and shaken her head. “I appreciate that more than you know, Leo. But I think I’m done. This whole thing has wrecked me. I’m going to join my sister in the Caribbean, or wherever she decides to go.”
“Marcy.”
“Don’t you dare look at me like that.” She’d swatted his hand away from where it had reached for hers. “You’re not getting rid of me. We’ll always stay in touch.” She’d smiled at him then, with genuine warmth. “Go build something amazing, Leo. You don’t need me to do it. You never did.”
Devonte had flown in two days later, unannounced, showing up at Leo’s condo with a duffel bag and an expression that made it clear he wasn’t leaving until he’d seen Leo standing on his own two feet.
“You could’ve called,” Leo had told him, though he hadn’t been able to keep the grin off his face.
“Calling doesn’t tell me anything.” Devonte had looked him over head to toe, noting every bruise fading along his jaw.
“I needed to see it myself.” He’d hesitated then, seriousness replacing his usual easy confidence.
“I don’t care where you end up, man. Bloomington, Timbuktu, wherever.
I want you repping me forever. You kept my family safe through all of this, and that means more to me than I can ever repay. It’s not something I’ll forget.”
“I’m not sure what I’m building yet.”
“Doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, I’m in.” Devonte had pulled him into a fierce hug, hard, grateful, and entirely too enthusiastic given the state of Leo’s ribs. Leo had grunted through a fresh spike of pain and hugged him back just as hard anyway, because some things were worth a little suffering.
Now he was driving east on I-70 with the compound’s coordinates loaded into his GPS and his phone buzzing itself into a frenzy on the passenger seat.
Chloe’s name lit up the screen for what had to be the ninth time in twenty minutes.
He’d finally silenced it around Terre Haute, unable to focus on the road with his sister sending what appeared to be a live countdown of his estimated arrival time, punctuated by increasingly unhinged exclamation points.
Not that he wasn’t excited to see her. He was.
He just needed to make it there in one piece first.
The gate at the compound’s entrance rolled open as soon as he arrived. He drove down the tree-lined road and stopped at the security booth. Tucker Nash poked his head out, his weathered face breaking into a broad smile.
“Leo De Luca.” Tucker, he’d learned, genuinely liked most people. “Heard you were making the move official.”
“Word travels fast around here.”
“Word travels at the speed of Chloe Serruto, which is considerably faster than fast.” Tucker chuckled, waving him through. “Welcome home, son. Glad to see you upright.”
“Feels good to be upright,” Leo admitted, and meant it.
The compound unfolded around him in patches of green and stone and quiet purpose, and he found himself grinning like an idiot despite the nerves fluttering under his sternum.
He parked outside the apartment building and, instead of texting either of them to announce his arrival, some impulse drew him toward the sound of music and laughter drifting up from the direction of the park instead.
Leo wanted to see Anja’s unwarned face when she saw him.
Duquesne Park was a wash of color and noise, with string lights hanging between the pavilion posts despite the daylight.
The smell of grilled meat hung thick and unmistakable in the warm air, laughter rolling out from a loosely gathered crowd near the tables.
And there, near the far edge of the pavilion, standing with Chloe beside her, was Anja, her head tilted in conversation, unaware.
Leo’s pulse stuttered at the sight of her.
He’d made it maybe ten steps toward her before a small blur launched itself directly into his path.
“Leo De Luca!” A dark-haired, grinning kid skidded to a stop in front of him and thrust out a hand in an elaborate greeting Leo vaguely remembered learning at Chloe’s wedding under duress.
“Kai Costa.” Leo laughed, working through the handshake: fist bump, finger snap, and some final flourish Kai executed with far more precision than Leo managed. “You’ve been practicing.”
“Every day.” Kai beamed up at him, clearly delighted with himself. “You used to be a baseball player like Reed, right?”
“I was.”
“Then you probably know why stadiums get hot after games.” Kai barely waited for Leo to shake his head before barreling into the punchline. “Because all the fans have left!”
Leo laughed harder than the joke probably deserved, the sound catching in his ribs, but it was worth it for the sheer, triumphant pride on Kai’s face at having landed it.
Apparently, he’d been louder than he thought, because Anja’s head whipped around at the sound.
Leo watched her spot him across the pavilion.
Her face brightened with a rare, open warmth that stole whatever breath his laugh hadn’t already claimed.
She started toward him but only made it two steps before Chloe beat her to it entirely, launching herself across the remaining distance with a shriek of pure joy that turned heads all across the park.
“You’re here!” Chloe hit him full force, arms locked around his neck. Leo’s eyes crossed with the impact, his healing ribs screaming in protest as he stumbled backward a full step trying to absorb his sister’s momentum.
“Chloe—” The word came out half laugh, half wince.
“Sorry, sorry, I forgot. I’m so sorry—” She drew back, her fingers gripping his biceps, tears standing bright in her eyes despite the grin splitting her face.
“Chloe.” Kayne appeared behind her, gently but firmly extracting his wife from Leo’s arms. “Give the man room to breathe. He’s got cracked ribs, remember?”
“I know, I just—” Chloe sniffed and let herself be moved back.
“He’s fine. Aren’t you?” Kayne tugged Leo into a solid, careful hug of his own, mindful of the injuries in a way Chloe’s enthusiasm clearly hadn’t allowed for. Then he stepped back with a grin. “Good to see you, man.”
“Thanks,” Leo’s ribs protested, but his heart was entirely unbothered by the trade. “I missed you both.”
Kayne looped an arm around his wife’s shoulders and steered her gently away, throwing Leo one last grin over his shoulder. Then there was nothing left standing between him and the woman he’d been dying to see all week.
Anja crossed the last stretch of grass between them. Leo met her halfway, and for one suspended second neither of them spoke. They simply stood there in the golden afternoon light with the party carrying on obliviously around them.
Then she was in his arms, her face pressed against his neck. The tension seemed to drain from her the longer he held her. Whatever he’d carried all week, she’d been carrying too.
“You’re here,” she muffled against his shirt, echoing Chloe’s words but carrying an intimacy his sister’s hadn’t.
“I’m here.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, breathing her in, feeling the last loose piece that had been rattling around inside him since he’d driven out of St. Louis alone lock into place. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
She looked up at him, unguarded for once, every feeling she usually kept carefully contained suddenly there for him to see.
“Welcome home, Leo.”
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