Epilogue #2
The words stick in my throat, overwhelming emotion making it impossible to speak.
So I do what comes naturally—I pull all three of them toward me, my hands fisting in their shirts, my body shaking with sobs that are half joy and half disbelief that this is real, that they're real, that they want this as much as I do.
"Yes," I finally manage, the word coming out choked and thick with tears. "Yes to fighting. Yes to arguments because God knows we're all too stubborn to ever completely agree on anything."
They laugh, the sound vibrating through all of us.
"Yes to late nights planning club strategy," I continue, finding my voice now, finding the words that matter.
"Yes to early mornings tangled together in a bed that's still barely big enough.
Yes to protecting each other even when it's stupid and dangerous.
Yes to loving each other even when it's complicated and messy and nothing like what we thought we wanted. "
I look at each of them in turn—Zay with his easy smile and fierce loyalty, Asher with his quiet strength and devastating intelligence, Xavier with his intensity and hard-won softness.
"Yes to you," I say to Zay, pressing a kiss to his lips that tastes like salt from my tears and promise from his. "Always yes to you."
"Yes to you," I say to Asher, kissing him with the same fierce certainty. "Every day. Every moment."
"Yes to you," I say to Xavier, and his kiss is deeper, longer, full of everything we've survived to get here. "For the rest of my life. Yes."
They slide the rings onto my finger one by one—rose gold, white gold, yellow gold, interlocking perfectly just like they were designed to do. The weight of them feels right, feels like completion, feels like coming home after a journey I didn't know I was on.
"I love you," I whisper to all of them, my hands reaching to touch each of their faces, needing the physical confirmation that this is real. "I love you so much."
"We love you too," Xavier says, and Zay and Asher echo him in unison, their voices blending together the way they always do.
We stand there in the circle of candlelight, and for the first time in my life I feel completely at peace. Completely whole. Completely home.
The girl who killed to survive has found something worth living for.
The assassin trained to feel nothing has found people who make her feel everything.
The woman who thought she was too broken to deserve love has found three men who love her, not despite her sharp edges but because of them.
I lean into Xavier's chest while Zay's arm comes around my waist from one side and Asher's from the other, all of us pressed together in the warm glow of hundreds of candles, and I let myself believe in happy endings.
Not the fairy tale kind where everything is perfect and easy.
But the real kind—where you fight for what matters, where you choose each other every day, where love is a verb that requires constant action and attention and effort.
Where four broken people found a way to fit their jagged pieces together into something beautiful.
"Take us home," I say eventually, when the candles have burned lower and the night has grown dark around us.
"Already there," Xavier murmurs into my hair. "Wherever you are, that's home."
And he's right.
Home isn't the house with its California King bed and functioning appliances.
Home isn't the Raiders compound.
Home is this—the four of us together, choosing each other, fighting for each other, loving each other despite all the reasons we probably shouldn't.
Home is three rings on my finger, interlocked and perfect.
Home is three men who saw me at my worst and decided I was worth keeping anyway.
Home is knowing that whatever comes next—whatever challenges, whatever complications, whatever chaos the future holds—we'll face it together.
Always together.
Forever.
Thank you for reading Valentina’s story.
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A NEW WORLD IS COMING…
A Dark Secret Society Romance
Secrets. Power. Obsession.
Hidden rituals. Dangerous loyalties. Men who were never meant to love.
And this next world?
It’s darker.
RETURN TO THE WORLD OF THORNHAVEN
If you haven’t read Willow’s complete series yet, you’re in for a binge-worthy obsession.
Lords of Ruin: Ruthless Kings of Thornhaven
The complete series is available now.
And it all started with Willow…
HERE’S A TASTE…
CHAPTER ONE
“This is a stupid idea, Will,” Jasmine mutters, fixing her mascara in the rearview mirror.
“Never said this was a smart idea; I just said it was an idea.” I mess around with the faux septum ring in my nose.
Now that I’m eighteen, I want a real septum piercing, but Dad won’t let me in case I get an infection. I have had this new heart in my chest for sixteen months, and most heart transplants are considered a success after four months, but my body can reject this heart at any time.
I will never truly be out of the woods. This heart saved me, but it will haunt me for the rest of my life.
“You want to steal from the King, Willow.” Jasmine enunciates every syllable in my name, and I flinch, looking away from her and at my reflection.
My black hair with washed-out pink tips falls in loose curls around my shoulders, and my smokey eye makeup brings out the green in my hazel eyes. My skin has lost most of its vibrant complexion, and I am just getting some of my curves back after barely eating during my two years of hospitalization.
Jasmine’s voice breaks me out of the trance I’m in. She cocks her head at me as if to emphasize how stupid of an idea it is. “We’re going to get killed.”
I roll my eyes. “No, we won’t.”
“Okay, so what’s the plan, superstar? Are we just going to waltz up into the King of Thornhaven's place and enter like it’s nothing when we weren’t invited, and you're here to steal?”
I shrug, “He won’t miss anything I take, and we look good. They aren’t going to turn away two hot girls.”
“Honey, there are like hundreds of hot girls walking up to the party right now.”
I turn to look out the window at all the partygoers strutting up the driveway and into the 800 acres of the Beaumont estate for Vincent Beaumont’s annual and last ABC party -- Anything But Clothes -- Birthday party.
There is a group of guys standing shirtless, displaying their toned and chiseled bodies.
Some dressed in duct tape, plastic bags, and strategically placed cardboard pieces, while others have wrapped Saran Wrap around their torsos, leaving little to the imagination, or just some duct tape with a box covering their private areas, exposing the rest.
The girls, on the other hand, take it to the next level.
Their outfits are works of art: newspaper dresses and bubble wrap that perfectly hug every curve.
One girl confidently walks by in an ensemble made entirely of silk ribbons that barely hold together, leaving little to the imagination.
Another boldly rocks a patchwork design of neon post-it notes, held together by body glue, revealing her long legs and smooth shoulders.
I am wearing four boxes of cereal cut up into a tube top stuck so close to my body the tape nips at me, a micro skirt that is so small my ass falls out of it, and my platform white leather boots.
I just hope the guard at the front, who is making sure everyone is following the strict anything but clothes rule, doesn’t make me take off my underwear.
Jasmine doesn’t want to be here and sports a pair of black Converse and a black trash bag with three holes: one for her head and two for her arms. Her blonde mohawk has red highlights today.
“Look, I’ll walk confidently, and you’ll walk in with that glare you have permanently on your face, and boom! No one will turn us away, okay?” I nod at her before taking a deep breath and pushing the car’s passenger side door open. My sparkly silver purse is swinging on my arm.
Jasmine quickly follows me, pulling on my elbow to whisper in my ear. “Did I forget to mention that Damien Sterling hates your fucking guts? Wait, in fact, all of the Chessmen hate you: The King. The Knight, even the fucking Rook. They all hate you.”
“I thought best friends were supposed to be supportive?” I roll my eyes, pulling her forward towards the giant golden doors.
Jasmine isn’t wrong; they all hate me.
Vincent Beaumont, also known as the King of Thornhaven, is the heir to this massive estate and finance genius in his own right. He has black hair that is always styled perfectly, piercing blue eyes that see into my soul, and a tailored school uniform that fits him like a glove.
Juan “Cast” Castillo, the Rook, is said to have ties to the cartel, but you wouldn’t know he was crazy unless you saw him like I did.
To everyone else, he is the silly class clown with messy, curly brown hair and a lazy smile that soaks panties and makes hearts do backflips.
To me, he is a sadist who would love nothing more than to break me and happily lick the tears off my face.
But the one that really hates me and would love to see me fucking dead is the Knight, Damien Sterling.
He isn’t as rich as the other two; in fact, his mother worked as a maid for the Beaumonts and the Castillos, and he met Juan and Vincent while he tagged along with his mother as she worked for them over the weekends.