Epilogue
LUNA
Three Weeks Later
“You sure you don’t want to change your mind?” I tried.
Rhys looked up from where he was grabbing the goods from the saddlebag. The long drive out to Worcester was infinitely better on the back of a motorcycle. So much so, I would rather we kept going.
Solely because it was fun and exciting being plastered to him and not at all because I was a coward filled with dread.
Okay. Fifty-fifty.
“Not happening,” he said as he pulled the bags free.
Bags.
Plural.
I might’ve gone overboard, but it was hard not to with Piper’s baked goods. The fact they also happened to be delicious diversions that doubled as a bribe was unrelated and strictly coincidental.
Mostly.
I waited on the sidewalk for Rhys to reach me so he could hook an arm around my waist and haul me to him the way I liked. The way we both liked. “Ready, hellcat?”
I was nervous. My family meant well, but I was the youngest and the only girl. They could be protective.
More than that, they could be a lot. I didn’t want them trying to scare Rhys away.
Not that they could.
In the three weeks since everything imploded, he’d barely left my side. It was easy when we’d both taken some time off.
Him because Rye needed repairs from the fire damage.
Me because… Well, because working myself to the bone to reach the next goal was no longer the way I wanted to live my beautiful life.
When my relationship with Rhys came out, I’d worried I would be out of a job.
My little infraction was barely a blip on anyone’s radar.
The department had bigger fish to fry. Actually, the state did.
Butler’s reach through his super PAC included a lot of politicians and bigwigs who were now under scrutiny.
Despite everything that’d happened, Captain Talbot’s—or just Talbot now, since he was no longer anything other than an inmate number to the system—main objective was still keeping the city safe.
As soon as he realized how badly he’d been played, he flipped on everyone he could.
Even without Theo and Luca’s help, Talbot had a good foundation of evidence to build cases against multiple idiots who’d been too drunk with power and bribes to watch themselves.
Matthews included. That secret jerkwad had been on Nash’s payroll from the start and had helped lure Talbot into the fold. He was also handy with spray paint and his artistic vision of neon dicks. I’d known I didn’t like him for a reason.
Shockingly, Murdoch wasn’t dirty. Not even a little dusty.
More shockingly, he was alive. It’d been touch-and-go, but playing possum was the kind of lazy job he was born for.
Even more shockingly still, I was relieved by that.
I would’ve felt like shit that he’d rushed in to save me—or so he’d been told—and died in the ambush.
But the bullet had caught enough of his vest to change the trajectory to miss anything vital.
It would take a while before they found everyone tied to Sean Butler and the Irish. I didn’t envy whoever had that job—it was way above my paygrade.
After nearly being taken out by my captain, the department had happily approved my request for leave.
I would go back. I was still a detective.
It was what I loved. And it was what I wanted to enjoy doing without being too distracted by future ambitions.
But I needed a little time to spend with the people I loved.
Like Rhys.
Mayhem.
Piper, Jake, and the rest of the Hyde group.
Not to mention, so much more time for video games.
Oh, and also my family.
I needed to see them, too.
And make some introductions.
Which was why I went up onto my toes to press a kiss to Rhys’s jaw. “Ready.”
We barely stepped into my childhood home when footsteps rushed to greet us. Three sets were human. One was a pup.
I gave him my attention. “Hey, Goose. Boy, do I have a treat for you.”
“The dog’s name is Goose?” Rhys asked.
“Yes. Keep up. There will be a lot of names to remember, and I’m going to quiz you on them later.”
His eyes heated. “I can get behind that.” His hand discreetly slid to my ass cheek. “Or under it.”
“Ahem,” Addy said with her little fists on her waist. “I’m here, Auntie Lo.”
I looked around without glancing down. She was still short enough for me to get away with it. “Who said that?”
“Your favorite,” she said with an eye roll.
“You’ve got a clone,” Rhys muttered with a dimpled smile that told me he was thinking about what it would be like when we had one of our own.
Hopefully, he didn’t go back on his word and change his mind at the realization we might end up with a mini-me—attitude, competitiveness, and stubbornness included.
I’d been trying to be cool Auntie Lo, but I didn’t have enough chill to pull it off. I hugged Logan and Cora before taking the bags from Rhys and handing them over. “Go nuts, kids.”
They took off, and I was ready to snag Addy if she tried to follow the cookies.
She didn’t.
She launched herself at me, and instant tears filled my eyes.
“Missed you, kid,” I choked out.
“Missed you, too, Auntie Lo.” She wiggled away enough to cup my cheeks in her little hands. “Did you know that I’m four and I go to school and I have a dog named Violet who is mean and I love mac and cheese?”
“I did know all of that.”
“How?”
“Because I know everything. It’s my superpower.”
“You don’t have superpowers.”
“Of course I do. I got them from eating my veggies, doing good bedtimes, and being kind.”
“It’s true,” Rhys put in. “She can even hypnotize people.”
“She can?” Addy breathed.
“Why else would I do everything she says?”
“Wow.” She shook her stunned little head to clear it. “Did you know today is a special dinner because you’re here, your friend is here, I’m here, but also Uncle Grayson?”
“I knew that, too.”
Grayson was working out of the Boston office while he worked with his agency and the police department to sort through the clusterfuck.
Or, as he called it, multiple cases in a trench coat to form one super case.
With the hug and excitement out of the way, Addy seemed to suddenly remember I hadn’t come empty-handed. “Cookies!”
As she took off in a full sprint, I looked up at Rhys. “Hypnotize?”
“You’ve got me under a spell.”
I rolled my eyes even as I smiled so hard, it hurt. “Ready to meet everyone, friend?”
“It’s like that, huh?”
“A really good friend?” I tried. “A neat friend?”
A wicked heat filled his gaze, but before I could suggest we back out the door to explore whatever he was thinking, bellowing cut through the air.
“Luna Delaney Oscar,” my dad shouted as he lumbered into the room.
There was an uneaten lemon square in his hand, but I knew he must’ve already had one by the powdered sugar on his shirt.
“You have access to something like this, and you bring me boxed crap instead?” He shook the treat. “I raised you better than that.”
“They’re good, right?” I asked.
He made a harumph before looking between Rhys and me. “Well, come on. Mav made steaks.”
“No firefighter chili?” I asked solely because I’d spotted Turner. “How will I survive?”
My brother crossed his arms. “Well, when you said you finally had a boyfriend for us to meet, we figured it was a miracle worth celebrating.”
Both men turned to head back into the kitchen when Rhys grabbed my ass again. That time, he did it hard enough to pull me onto my toes. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Oh. Right.” I fought a smile. “Dad, there are also lemon cookies in the big box.”
“Luna,” Rhys grumbled, his fingertips digging in roughly.
“Oh yeah. And next time I’m in trouble enough to get the full-name treatment, it’s actually Luna Delaney Walker because we eloped.”
“What?”
At my dad’s booming voice, there was a concerned ruckus from the other room, but I ignored both as I grabbed my husband’s hand and pulled him deeper into the good kind of chaos. “Let’s eat.”
Five Months Later
Rye was louder than ever.
Packed.
Alive.
Safe.
For real that time.
I looked out at everything Rhys had built. The friendships. The loyalty. The love.
And the band.
They were better than the last one I’d seen. And as an added bonus, I got to watch it while perched on a stool like LaQuin always suggested.
Someone tugged my bun—a messy one, not a severe one—and I spun to see my husband’s dimpled grin. “Still scoping for trouble?”
“Occupational hazard,” I said.
He leaned in close like we were conspiring. Me and him against the world.
For then, at least.
“Find any?” he rumbled.
I tilted my head, pretending to consider it. “Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Big trouble,” I added. “Stubborn. Controlling. Lies about being old before breaking my back like a glowstick while he puts me through the mattress.”
I had the tenderness between my legs to prove that last one. It was also the reason I’d fallen back asleep that morning instead of talking to him like I planned.
“Have not an iota of a clue what that means, hellcat, but I like it anyway.” His dimpled grin hit me full force, and another surge of happiness rushed through me.
“Got a second to sneak away to the office with me?” I asked.
“For you? I’ve got a lifetime.”
He checked on his crew as he rounded the bar, making sure they were good before taking my hand to lead me into the back.
Once we were closed into his office, my back hit the door and his body pressed in tight. “What if I label that barstool yours and make you sit there every night instead of working?”
I’d gone back to work the month before with the worry that our schedules would never line up.
That would’ve sucked. But with everything that’d gone down, the temporary captain bent over backward to keep me happy so I wasn’t tempted to sell my story.
Not that I would. But it was good to know he finally appreciated how hard I worked.
Behind that desk was exactly where Murdoch belonged.
Things still came up. Crime wasn’t as accommodating as the department, and emergencies rudely didn’t only occur when I wanted them to. But Rhys and I had settled into the routine of two people who worked uncommon hours, and it was good.
Better than good.