Epilogue
KEIRA
Six Months Later
Inever understood hockey.
The rules, the penalties, the copious amount of gear, and the nonstop spitting. The players do it constantly. It's especially noticeable sitting this close to them.
What is it about this game that North Americans love? Is it because I'm from the UK and we prefer football? To be honest, I've never been much into sports, and I'm so glad Tristan doesn't watch it either.
But I will admit, sitting in the family box at a Slashers game, watching Dominik body-check an opponent into the boards so hard the glass shakes…is kind of entertaining.
"That's my husband! Destroy him, baby. Dominate!" Zoe screams.
The crowd roars. The opposing player crumples. Dom skates away without a backward glance, and somewhere in the mayhem, he glances up at our box and smiles.
At Zoe.
"Mommy, did you see? Did you see Uncle Dom hit that guy?" Hale is so giddy he's practically bouncing beside me, decked out head to toe in New York Slashers gear. Jersey with LEWIS 17 on the back.
Dom's orders. We all had to show up wearing his number. Apparently, he punished Zoe once when she showed up to one of these wearing someone else's number on her back. Although, based on how red her face turned when Dom told us that, I'm assuming she quite enjoyed her punishment.
"I saw, baby." I ruffle his hair. "Pretty cool, huh?"
"So cool. I want to do that when I grow up."
From my other side, Tristan leans in. "You want to hit people for a living? That's my boy."
Hale beams up at him with an expression that still makes me melt every time I see it. Pure, unguarded adoration.
"Can we get more popcorn, Daddy?"
He says it so naturally now. Three months ago, he said it more like a question than a statement. Now it falls from Hale's lips so easily.
Tristan's eyes meet mine over our son's head, and I see the same wonder I feel reflected back at me.
"Anything you want, buddy." He stands, holding out his hand. "Let's go raid the snack bar. I think they have those soft pretzels you like."
"With cheese?"
"Is there any other way?"
They disappear into the box's private concession area, Hale's small hand wrapped securely in Tristan's, chattering about the game and Dom's hit and whether hockey players are allowed to punch people.
I watch them go with a lump in my throat.
It's been six months since I walked out of the warehouse in Newark and into a life I never thought I'd have.
Some days it still doesn't feel real. Some days it feels impossible to accept.
It hasn't been perfect or easy, but I'm working through it, and Tristan has been so understanding and supportive throughout all of it.
"You're doing that thing again." Cat drops into the seat Tristan vacated, offering me a glass of wine. "The staring-at-them-like-they-might-disappear thing."
"I don't do that."
"You absolutely do." She clinks her glass against mine. "It's sweet. Nauseating, but sweet."
I laugh, taking a sip. "How long did it take you to stop feeling like it was all going to vanish?"
Cat considers the question, her eyes drifting to Aaron across the box. He's standing with Nick and Marco, arguing about something with hand gestures that suggest someone's about to get punched.
"Honestly?" She looks back at me. "Sometimes I still feel that way. But then I remember that I didn't survive everything I went through just to spend the good parts waiting for them to end."
I let that sink in.
"When did you get so wise?"
"I've always been wise." Cat smirks over the rim of her glass. "You're just finally paying attention."
I laugh. "I don't think so."
Her mouth pops open in mock offense. "Excuse me?"
"You were a fucking nightmare when we were in ops. Because of you, I spent months working nonstop for the Irish, trying to track you down before I even knew who you were."
Cat's grin turns wicked. "I know. I was kind of a badass."
"You're still a badass."
She raises her glass in acknowledgment.
I've known Cat since long before either of us ended up here. Back when the Irish had a file on her thick enough to choke on, filled with things she'd done that would make most men weep with envy.
I was assigned to hunt her.
Instead, I spent those months secretly wanting to be her.
Funny how the universe works.
I spent years chasing her shadow, and now we're sitting here together at a hockey game.
Her with Aaron.
Me with Tristan.
Two women who were never supposed to make it out, and yet here we are.
It's a beautiful, fucked-up, miraculous world we live in.
The crowd starts to get louder, and I realize Dom has the puck, weaving through defenders with a speed that seems impossible for someone his size. He fakes left, goes right, and sends a shot rocketing toward the net.
The buzzer sounds. Lights flash. Music blares.
Goal.
We all scream alongside the rest of the crowd.
A few rows to our left, a group of women are absolutely losing their minds.
One of them is holding a giant poster board that reads DADDY DOM in glittery block letters, complete with hearts and what appears to be a very detailed drawing of his face. Another has a hockey mask pushed up on her forehead, clutching her friend's arm.
And the girl in the middle with dark red hair is jumping so hard I'm concerned she's going to launch herself over the railing.
"I want to be that puck so badly! Body-check me into the boards, you beautiful man. Respectfully," she screams at the ice.
"Yes, literally yes."
"He can cross-check my heart any day."
They all take turns shouting at Dom, giggling the entire time.
The hockey mask girl is nodding solemnly. "I would let him put me in the penalty box for life. No appeals."
Cat leans over to me, eyebrow raised. "I think Dom has a big of a fan club."
“You think?”
Zoe glances over at them with the serene confidence of a woman who knows exactly who's going home with number seventeen tonight. She gives them a little wave.
The redhead gasps so hard she chokes on her beer.
"Oh my god," she wheezes to her friends. "Oh my god, that's his wife. She's so pretty. Do you think she'd sign my jersey?"
"You're wearing his jersey."
"AND?"
Zoe is still riled up even after the rest of the stadium settles.
"That's my man! That's my beautiful, talented, incredibly sexy man!"
"We know, Zoe. The entire arena knows. People in Canada know." Zara might be the only one bored to tears here.
"They can always use a reminder." Zoe beams, on cloud nine.
On the ice, Dom does a little victory lap, stick raised, and when he passes our section, he blows a kiss directly at the box. Zoe pretends to catch it and presses it to her heart.
I used to think that kind of love was fiction. The loud, messy, unashamed kind. The kind that doesn't care who's watching.
Now I'm living in the middle of it.
"Okay, but can we talk about those stretches?" Zara gestures toward the ice, where some of the players are warming up on the bench. "What is happening there? Is that legal? Should I be covering my eyes?"
"It's hockey," Nick says, appearing beside her with enough food to feed a small army. "Everything's legal."
"That can't be anatomically correct."
"They're professionals."
Tristan returns with Hale, who's now clutching a soft pretzel roughly the size of his head and wearing an additional foam finger that definitely wasn't part of the original outfit.
"You weren't even gone for five minutes." I eye the foam finger.
"He made a compelling argument." Tristan settles back beside me, draping his arm across my shoulders. "Something about needing to support Uncle Dom more."
"And you just caved?"
"Have you seen his face? I'd buy him a car if he asked right."
Hale is already back at the glass, foam finger waving frantically as Dom takes another shift on the ice. Aaron has migrated over to help him see better, lifting him up so he has the perfect view.
I lean into Tristan's side and let myself breathe.
This is my life now.
Not the glasshouse prison with its marble floors and cold silence.
Not the cameras and guards and constant surveillance.
But this noisy box full of people who showed up for us when it mattered most. A son who's learning what it means to have a father who actually loves him.
A man beside me who saw all my broken pieces and decided they were worth keeping.
We bought a house last month. A real one, with a yard and a swing set and a kitchen that Tristan swears he's going to learn to use—he won't, but I love him for trying. It's in Westchester, tucked into the woods on a quiet street where Hale can ride his bike without me having a heart attack.
Tristan kept the apartment at Seventeen Hudson Yards for work and for nights out in town. I also think he wants to feel close to Dom and Aaron, since they also live in the same building. The three of them are ridiculous together—overgrown children with too much money and not enough supervision.
But that's family, I'm learning. Chosen family. They show up for you in warehouses and on yachts and in hockey arenas, wearing matching jerseys and screaming at referees.
The type of family worth bleeding for.
"You know what I was thinking?" Tristan leans down, his voice dangerously low.
"Uh oh."
His fingers trace lazy patterns on my shoulder. "I was thinking about how this is your first hockey game."
"It is."
"And first hockey games are kind of a big deal. They need to be memorable."
I narrow my eyes. "What are you getting at?"
"Nothing." His expression is too innocent. "Just that the kiss cam is coming around soon, and it would be pretty romantic if—"
"Tristan."
"What?"
"If you propose to me on a kiss cam in front of twenty thousand strangers, I will murder you with a hockey stick."
An unburdened, beautiful laugh I've only recently gotten to know comes out of him. "Got it. No Jumbotron proposals."
"I'm serious."
"I know you are. That's what makes it fun." He tugs me closer, pressing his lips to my cheek. "Don't worry, Red. When I ask you to marry me, it won't be in front of a crowd. It'll be just us. Somewhere quiet. Probably when you least expect it."
My heart stutters. "When? Not if?"
"Definitely when. I told you, this is forever. You're never getting rid of me—and you can't anyway."
"I mean, I guess that's true. I did help you commit multiple felonies. That's a pretty strong foundation for a relationship."
"The strongest. Nothing says forever like shared trauma and a body count."
I burst out laughing, and he catches the sound with his lips.
"Get a room!" Zara calls out to us.
"We have many,” Tristan yells back. “I can buy this one too, if you’d like!”
Zara rolls her eyes and flips Tristan off.
The game continues. Dom scores again, then gets into a fight with someone from the opposing team that has Zoe simultaneously screaming with rage and arousal.
Nick nearly chokes on his beer when a particularly brutal hit sends a player over the boards.
Marco watches the whole thing with the quiet contentment of a man who seems completely at peace.
He always has the same expression. It's so hard for me to get a read on him.
My beautiful miracle of a boy, Hale, falls asleep against Tristan's shoulder in the third period, exhausted from all the cheering, the foam finger still clutched in his tiny fist.
I look around the box.
Cat and Aaron, all over each other in a way that suggests their night has only just begun.
Zoe still pressed against the glass, cheering every single play her husband makes.
Nick and Zara bickering about something pointless while Marco referees with exaggerated patience.
Tristan and Hale, safe and happy beside me.
A year ago, I was a ghost in my own life.
Now I'm so full of it I could burst.
"Hey." Tristan's voice pulls me back. He squeezes my hand gently. "You okay?"
I gaze at the man who crossed oceans and erased identities and refused to stop until he found me. The man who loves our son fiercely, who holds me when the nightmares come, who makes me laugh until I forget I was ever afraid. Who loves me every day with intention like it's as easy as breathing.
"Yeah." I squeeze back, smiling through the sting in my eyes. "I'm great.”
The buzzer sounds. Slashers win the game. The crowd explodes again, a wave of sound and joy crashing over us.
And in this beautiful chaos—ears ringing, surrounded by the people who became my family when I thought I'd lost everything—I realize this is what living looks like.
Not surviving or breathing.
But truly, finally, living.
THE END