Epilogue
LOCO
Three months changed everything.
Not in the loud, explosive ways people talk about when they mean transformation.
No headlines. No blood. No sirens. Just mornings that came softer than the ones before.
Just a woman in my kitchen wearing one of my shirts like it belonged to her.
Just a future that stopped feeling like something I had to outrun.
Nita belonged here now.
Not because she had bent herself to fit my life, but because we’d built a rhythm that made space for both of us.
Her mornings started early, coffee already brewing by the time I came in from a run.
She worked from the small office we turned into hers, walls slowly filling with notes, maps, reminders of the woman she was long before she met me.
The senator was a ghost story now.
Officially retired. Quiet. Unreachable. Whatever pressure he had tried to apply had evaporated under scrutiny and distance and the kind of influence that never left fingerprints.
The club hadn’t celebrated. They didn’t need to.
Problems like that didn’t end with champagne.
They ended with silence. And he was forever silent in a way that couldn’t be traced because he wouldn’t be found.
Peace followed.
The clubhouse had accepted her in a way that surprised even me. Not because she tried, but because she didn’t. She showed up honest. Held her own. Didn’t ask questions she didn’t want answers to. The men respected that.
So did I.
The ring sat heavy in my pocket as the sun dipped low, that familiar North Carolina gold bleeding across the sky. I had carried it around for a week, waiting for the right moment.
There wasn’t one.
There was just the moment you decide to stop waiting.
We were out back, the air warm, cicadas humming like the world’s slow heartbeat. She sat on the porch swing, bare feet tucked under her, romance book in her hand. I leaned against the railing, watching her the way I had started doing without realizing it.
“You’re staring,” she said, smiling without looking up.
“Just thinking,” I replied.
“That’s dangerous,” she teased.
I laughed softly, then sobered. “Come here.”
She looked up then, something shifting in her expression. She stood and crossed the space between us, her hand finding mine automatically. That still stunned me sometimes, how easy it was now. How natural.
I took a breath. There were a hundred ways to say it. I chose the truth.
“I don’t want a life where you’re temporary,” I started. “I don’t want borrowed time. I don’t want one foot out the door because I’m afraid something good won’t last.”
Her eyes softened. “Dante—”
“I know I’m not easy,” I continued. “I know my world comes with weight. History. People who expect things of me. But you didn’t run from that. You stood in it with me. And I don’t want to imagine a future where I don’t come home to you.”
Her breath hitched.
I reached into my pocket, my hand steady despite the way my heart tried to beat its way out of my chest. I dropped to one knee—not because tradition demanded it, but because it felt right kneel before her, my eyes locked to hers, vulnerable.
“Nita,” I said, voice low, sure. “Will you marry me?”
For a moment, she didn’t speak. Then tears spilled, unguarded, beautiful. She dropped to her knees in front of me, hands cradling my face like I was the one who needed reassurance.
“Yes,” she whispered. “God, yes.”
I slid the ring onto her finger, my hands shaking now that the question was answered. She laughed through tears, pressing her forehead to mine, breath mingling with mine like a promise.
“I love you,” she said.
“I know,” I replied softly. “And I’ll spend the rest of my life proving I deserve it.”
The club heard about it before we could even make it inside the next night to celebrate.
Gonzo slapped me on the back hard enough to jolt my spine. Tower nodded once, approving. Dippy grinned like he’d already predicted it. Burn giving his smirk of approval and Jester sharing a beer with me.
Nita stood among them like she had always been there, her hand in mine, the ring catching the light.
And for the first time in my life, the future didn’t feel like a threat.
It felt like home.