Epilogue
ISABELLE
“Okay, remember, everyone. An attacker will always react if you force them off balance. They cannot attack you if they don’t have their centre of gravity.”
The faces around the room nodded.
“Ben?”
Ben looked at me from where he lay on his back on the mats, Seb straddling his hips. At my nod he thrust his hips upward and Seb lurched forwards, his hands instinctively meeting the floor to stop him falling on his face.
“It doesn’t matter if his hands are on your neck, on your shoulders, anywhere on your body.”
People around the room murmured their understanding.
“If they remain on top of us, we have a couple of options. One, we can grab one of their arms and bump them over. For this to work you roll towards the side where you hold their arm – when you trap their arm, they can’t use it to stabilise themselves, when you force yourself over and onto that side, they will roll off you. ”
Ben clutched at Seb’s bent elbow and drove his hips up again, rolling towards the side he had trapped and sure enough Seb rolled off and Ben rose from underneath him.
“Two, when we drive our hips up and they fall forwards, we can do the same again, or we can twist our hips from underneath them, make sure you are applying pressure against their hips, you want them to lift up enough that you can slide one leg out from underneath them. This is trickier, because you need to shift to get your other leg free. But,” I emphasised, “they are not on top of you anymore.”
Ben and Seb reset and I gave a nod and Ben bumped Seb several times, pushing against his hips and sneaking his leg out before swinging to get his next leg free. People watched with a mix of understanding and confusion.
“Look, try it out, I’ll come round and answer any questions. The first one is likely to work. The second is a back-up. I say it all the time, but it bears repeating.”
The people in the room waited, their spines steeled.
“We are not fighting an attacker. We are getting them off us so we can what?”
“Run away,” they echoed back.
“Exactly. We won’t get points for kicking the crap out of them, people. Although I deeply recommend punching and clawing at any time. Carry on.”
The pairs around the room all took up their positions as Seb rose, helping Ben up from the floor and planting a sweet kiss on his mouth.
“You’re incredible,” he whispered against him.
“Seconded,” I agreed before sneaking off to check on the students.
The class largely got it, the roll was easier than the escape, but better a back-up plan than nothing.
Seb and Ben had disappeared by the time the last of the class had left. I quietly sprayed the mats and wiped them down. The advertising signage read ‘conflict resolution guidance’. But if people chose to stay late when my men and I happened to be training to escape attackers, then so be it.
Collecting my phone from the sideboard, I slipped my rings onto my wedding finger.
Black, white gold and yellow gold – one for each of my men.
I closed the door to the gym and searched the offices either side, turning off the lights with a sigh.
The last office in the east wing was one the programme leads used.
A pair remained.
“Hey, Eli, Ellie, are you not done for the day?”
They both looked up from their screens.
“There’s a few bits of paperwork for the next scheme; I didn’t want to overlook anything.” Eli smiled. Ellie watched on quietly.
“How many applications did we get?” I asked. Alex was always hush-hush about it. I knew he felt a heavy sense of guilt that we couldn’t help more of the kids.
“Hundreds.” Eli wore the same wounded look that Alex did when he talked about the number of kids coming out of the care system without placements, something that ultimately forced them into national service.
“When are we finished with the rooms upstairs?” We’d been converting the wings into living spaces.
The west wing was full of workshops on the ground floor, teaching rooms and communal spaces for the apprentice and leavers programmes we had set up.
The east wing had become a more specialised passion project.
“Couple of months, maybe? I told Alex we could house the kids at the cottage if we experience any more delays, but you know Alex.” Ellie frowned.
“You could all stay in the manor with us. There’s a ridiculous amount of space still.” I smiled warmly.
“Thanks, Izzy, but we will have the pods up well before they arrive. Alex is just being Alex,” Eli reassured me. The twins could tap in for one another with such ease I wasn’t sure there wasn’t some truth to the twins-reading-minds rumours.
“I can’t wait.” I really couldn’t. “We’ve got a meeting with social services next month to finalise everything. They’ve been working with Ben on suitability, he’s really quite pleased. And if this works, we want to build a new block.”
Eli’s face lit up. “You’ve offered dozens of teens an alternative to the NSCTA.
The cottage is full of people who are ageing out of the programmes, plus the neurodivergent pods and the space for the social workers.
You’ve done so much already. It’s a shame Alex can’t be as happy about it as we are. ”
Ellie grumbled agreement.
I grimaced. “Until everyone has a choice, or a safe space, there will always be more to help.”
Ellie nodded. “Don’t let him overlook what you have already achieved.”
I offered her a huge smile. “That would be a ‘we’, and I got it! Don’t work too late!”
They didn’t reply because we all knew if they said they wouldn’t it would be a lie. Alex needed to talk with them, but first I needed to talk with him.
I worked my way outside and through the orangery.
We’d separated both wings from the main house after the renovations were finished and we set up the foundation.
The aim had been to give as many opportunities to children in care as we could.
The money I’d had left to me would have absorbed what we needed to build the training suites and convert the wings a hundred times over, but it turned out there were unending levels of support for what we wanted to do, so the donations kitted the place out and let us take on twice the number of ageing-out apprentices that we planned for in year one.
And that was before the big plans we had for the future.
The social care system was one thing, and my knowledge of family policy proved useful, but I was setting my sights higher. Bigger.
But right now, the bigger thing my sights were set on was over six-foot tall, built like a bull and stubborn as hell.
I called out into the house, weaving through the kitchen and the library, up the stairs and towards our suite in search of them.
I let myself in and the door silently closed behind me. My fingers brushed over the glass frame on the console table, the torn half of The Blue Castle presented carefully inside.
I continued in my search. For three huge men, and with Alex and Seb’s equally large personalities, it was amazing how hard it was to locate them in this maze of a house sometimes.
I stopped in the entrance to the living room, finding Alex first, lying across a chesterfield with a wad of paperwork in his hands.
“I think we can do more,” he started without turning.
Of course he did.
“No doubt,” I replied, crossing to him. His hand wrapped around my leg, the glint of his black wedding band never ceasing to bring me joy. “Discuss it over breakfast tomorrow?” I offered.
Alex tore his attention from the papers and looked at me. His permanent frown had gone, but his steely determination remained.
“We have plenty of space,” I prompted. “We don’t have to fix it all, not right now.” I tugged at the paperwork and he resisted for a moment.
He pouted at me, grabbing my thigh and pulling me into him.
“You’re bossy, Firecracker.” He nuzzled my legs and I savoured the open affection before he ruined it. “I think we need to re-establish who is in charge in this house.” There he was.
I smiled at the tone of his voice. Alex could do whatever he chose, we all knew that, we just wanted to keep him steady. He’d take on the world all at once otherwise.
“When are you meeting Richmond?” I asked.
Alex had been working with a member of the House of Lords to curtail some of the ever-expanding political control being rolled out, he was also encouraging others to use their family estates to support foundations like ours and several others popping up across the country.
“Tuesday.” He was placing kisses across my leggings. “Come to London with me?”
I laughed. It was becoming a bit of a theme, Alex taking me to London and us appearing in almost every influential place we could in the brief time we were there, like a looming threat to my family, Teddy’s, and others like them.
“Enough business talk!” Seb emerged from the bathroom, hair dripping wet. “It’s the weekend.”
Alex harrumphed but Seb ignored him.
“Killer.” He raised his hands to me, making grabbing movements, the white and yellow gold bands catching the light. One for Ben and the other for me.
“Nope, nuh-uh.” I shook my head as I spoke. “I need a shower.”
“Did she say she needed a shower?” Ben shouted through from the bathroom.
“Yeah!” Seb called back. “Come on, Killer, we’ve got a plan to get you clean.”
“It’s a sex plan,” Alex grumbled into my thigh.
“Oh, are you not interested?” I laughed.
Alex bit me lightly, his grey eyes looking at me through thick lashes. He moved with shocking speed, tipping me over his shoulder and rising.
Seb chuckled darkly and led the way to the bathroom.
“Hey, Sugar.” Ben was reclined in the enormous sunken tub, gloriously naked, his ash-blond hair darkened with water. “It’s bath time.”
I looked to Seb who flicked his towel loose to reveal his erection.
Ben’s arm moved slowly under the water.
I bit my lip, watching him touch himself.
Alex’s laugh rumbled under my body, he laid a heavy slap on my ass, hot pain exploded on my skin which he began to massage. “Good thinking.”
His fingers tucked inside my leggings, tearing them from my body he dug his teeth into the flesh of my thigh. I squealed and wetness surged between my legs.
His fingers forced their way into the apex of my thighs and Alex showed the proof of my arousal to my other husbands.
“Gentlemen,” he growled, his voice gravelly. “I think our wife is ready to be fucked.”