EPILOGUE
Three months later, Nova stood near the edge of the training mats with her arms folded across her chest, trying to take it all in.
It was opening night at her very own kickboxing and self-defense gym.
The large industrial space she purchased in Virginia Beach was state-of-the-art.
Heavy bags hung along one wall, two full-size rings occupied the center of the room, and the back section held everything she needed for kickboxing classes.
A smaller room off to the side had been designed specifically for the self-defense courses she planned to offer, including free monthly classes for women who couldn’t otherwise afford them.
That part had mattered to her. After everything that had happened on the rig, Nova had spent a lot of time thinking about fear. Not the kind that disappeared once the danger was gone, but the kind that stayed with you afterward and changed how you looked at yourself.
Tonight was proof that she had made the right decision.
The gym was packed.
Snow’s entire team had shown up for the grand opening, along with their wives and girlfriends, several members of Alpha Team she had finally gotten to meet, and enough friends and family to make Nova wonder whether the fire marshal was going to ruin her first night in business.
Her attention returned to the mat where Amira was currently practicing a combination Nova had taught her earlier.
“Hands up,” Nova reminded her. “Protect your face.”
“I am!”
“Your left hand says otherwise.”
Amira immediately raised it.
Across from her, Joker held a kick pad against his body. “Come on, squirt. Show me what you’ve got.”
Amira threw a jab, followed by a surprisingly good cross. Joker stumbled backward dramatically, clutching the pad against his chest.
“Oh, man. I’m not sure I’m going to survive this.”
Amira giggled. “I’m not done!”
“Wait, what?”
She followed the combination with the kick Nova had shown her.
Unfortunately, Joker shifted the pad at exactly the wrong moment, and Amira’s kick sailed clean past it.
His eyes went wide a split second before he dropped the pad entirely and doubled over, folding in on himself as every man nearby let out an immediate, collective groan of sympathetic pain.
Nova slapped a hand over her mouth.
“Oh, my God.”
“Uncle Joker!” Amira gasped. “I’m sorry!”
Joker held up one hand while the other remained strategically positioned between his legs. “It’s...fine.”
Bear burst out laughing. “You sure about that?”
“No.”
That was all it took for the room to erupt in laughter, the tension breaking instantly as everyone lost it at once.
Even Amira started giggling when she realized Joker wasn’t actually dying, just dramatically suffering, while Clover hurried over, still trying not to laugh herself, and telling Joker to suck it up.
Nova was still laughing when a pair of familiar arms slid around her waist from behind.
She didn’t have to turn around; three months ago, she might have stiffened at someone coming up behind her like that, but now she leaned back against him.
Snow pressed a kiss below her ear. “Remind me never to piss off that little girl.”
“Smart man.”
“Joker’s never having children.”
Nova laughed. “She’s eight. He’ll survive.”
“His dignity won’t.”
“You got a point there.”
Snow chuckled against her neck before turning her in his arms.
Nova smiled up at him. She still had moments when seeing him made something flutter stupidly inside her chest.
They had been living together for three months now. It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns. They were building a relationship, and still learning things about each other. But they were doing it together.
“What?” he asked.
Nova realized she’d been staring at him.
“Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed. “That’s bullshit.”
She smiled. “I was just thinking.”
“That’s Dangerous.”
She smacked his chest.
Snow caught her hand before she could pull it away and brought her knuckles to his mouth.
“Are you happy?”
The question caught her off guard. She looked around the gym.
Sophia had driven down for the opening and was currently talking with Snow’s mom near the food table.
Her brothers were somewhere around there too.
Bear and several of the guys had gathered around Joker and were still giving him hell, while Amira had moved on to demonstrating her newly acquired skills for anyone willing to watch.
Three months ago, Nova’s life had looked perfect from the outside, but never really felt like her own.
Now she owned a kickboxing gym, lived in Virginia Beach, and was surrounded by a team of Navy SEALs, their families, and a little girl who had just kicked a grown man in the balls. Not to mention the man standing in front of her had once watched her crawl into an air duct on a burning oil rig.
Life had gotten weird. But it was hers.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I really am.”
Something in Snow’s expression changed. His arms tightened around her waist. “Good.”
Nova rested her hands against his chest. “You know what else I was thinking?”
“That you want to take me into your office and properly thank me for helping you hang those heavy bags?”
She laughed. “No.”
“Damn.”
“I was thinking about how much everything has changed.”
Snow’s teasing faded.
Nova glanced around the room again before looking back at him. “Sometimes it feels like that rig happened years ago. Then I’ll wake up from a nightmare, and it feels like yesterday.”
His thumb moved slowly along her side. “You still having them?”
“Not as much.”
He nodded, accepting that without trying to fix it. That was another thing she loved about him.
Loved.
Nova’s breath caught slightly. She hadn’t said the word to him yet. Neither had he. They had danced around it in a hundred different ways, but neither of them had actually crossed that line.
The funny thing was, Nova didn’t need him to say it to know.
She saw it every morning when he handed her coffee exactly the way she liked it.
She felt it whenever he reached for her hand without thinking.
It was there when he showed up at the gym after training just because he knew she had been working late, or when he called her sister to ask what kind of cake Nova liked because apparently asking Nova herself would have ruined the surprise.
She had spent years thinking love was supposed to look complicated.
With Snow, it wasn’t.
The circumstances that had brought them together had been insane, but this part wasn’t. This part was easy.
“I love you.”
The words came out before Nova had decided to say them.
Snow went still.
For half a second, panic fluttered through her stomach.
Then his face changed. The smile that appeared wasn’t his cocky SEAL grin or the one he used when he was about to say something inappropriate. It was softer than either of those, and Nova felt her throat tighten when he reached up and cupped her cheek.
“I was wondering how long you were going to make me wait.”
Nova blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I’ve been in love with you since somewhere around the moment you almost took my head off with a spatula.”
She stared at him. “That was practically the beginning.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Been a rough few months.”
Nova laughed and shoved his chest, but Snow caught her around the waist before she could get away.
“You’re an asshole.”
“An asshole you love.”
“I already regret telling you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No,” she admitted. “I really don’t.”
Snow kissed her.
There were whistles from somewhere behind them, followed almost immediately by Nails yelling something Nova couldn’t understand because Bear told him to shut the hell up.
Nova smiled against Snow’s mouth.
When he pulled away, he rested his forehead against hers.
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
Nova looked around the gym once more, at the people who had somehow become part of her life, before her gaze returned to the man holding her.
For years, she had believed having a plan meant she was in control. Now she knew better.
Sometimes the best things in life were the ones she never could have planned for, like meeting the man who stole her heart during an undercover mission on an offshore oil rig.
After everything, she ended up exactly where she belonged—in Snow’s arms.
◆◆◆
As laughter and conversation filled the gym, Jay Bird stood near the far wall with a beer loosely gripped in his hand, one shoulder resting against a support beam as he quietly observed the chaos around him the same way he always did.
Most people assumed he stayed off to the side because he didn’t like socializing.
The truth was he just preferred watching over participating.
Years in the teams had hardwired him that way.
While everyone else relaxed, Jay Bird automatically cataloged exits, movements, unfamiliar faces, shifts in behavior, and potential problems without even realizing he was doing it anymore.
Not that there was much danger inside the gym today. For the first time in a long time, things actually felt good.
Nova stood across the room laughing at something Snow whispered into her ear while his arm remained draped possessively around her waist. She looked happier than Jay Bird had ever seen her.
“Jesus, you look thrilled to be here.”
Jay Bird glanced sideways as Riley stepped up beside him, holding a bottle of water. He snorted quietly before taking another sip of his beer.
“I am thrilled,” he deadpanned. “Can’t you tell?”
Riley laughed softly and leaned against the wall beside him. “You know, most people at parties actually mingle.”
“Sounds exhausting.”
“That’s because you’re basically eighty years old trapped in a SEAL’s body.”
He smirked faintly at that, but his attention drifted back toward the room automatically. He watched as all of his teammates doted on their wives and girlfriends or interacted with their kids. Hell, even Derek looked relaxed for once, sitting near the office talking with his wife Juliette.
It was strange sometimes looking around at all of them now. One by one, every guy on the team had somehow found someone who grounded them. Someone who gave them a reason to come home.
All except him. Not that he minded. Relationships had never been his thing. Neither was settling down. He liked quiet, solitude, and freedom. And after spending years watching the ugly side of humanity up close, he’d learned a long time ago that caring about people usually came with consequences.
“You’re thinking again,” Riley said knowingly beside him.
“That sounds accusatory.”
“It is accusatory.”
Before Jay Bird could answer, movement outside the front windows caught his attention.
His eyes narrowed slightly. Across the parking lot, partially hidden near the sidewalk, stood a woman holding a small child against her hip.
At first glance, nothing about it should’ve stood out. Plenty of people had walked by the gym all afternoon since the grand opening started. But this woman wasn’t just looking inside curiously. She looked terrified.
Jay Bird straightened slightly away from the wall as his gaze locked onto hers through the glass.
Even from this distance, he could see the panic in her expression.
The exhaustion. Her dark hair looked tangled like she’d been running her hands through it for hours, and her clothes were wrinkled and dirty like she’d been sleeping in them.
But it was the way she kept glancing over her shoulder toward the street every few seconds that immediately put him on alert.
It was the look of fear.
Beside him, Riley followed his line of vision toward the window.
The second she saw the woman, all color drained from her face.
“Oh my God…”
Jay Bird’s head snapped toward her. “You know her?”
Riley stared at the woman like she’d seen a ghost. “No way,” she whispered. “No freaking way…”
“Riley.”
Her eyes finally shifted to him, wide with shock. “That’s her.”
A cold feeling settled heavily in Jay Bird’s chest. “Who?”
“The woman who helped me escape when Chen was holding me captive.”
The words hit like a punch.
Jay Bird shoved away from the wall as Riley moved with him. The sudden urgency in both of them immediately caught the attention of the others nearby.
“Riley?” Nails called sharply.
But Riley was already sprinting toward the front doors.
Jay Bird stayed right beside her as they burst outside into the humid evening air. Behind them, he heard chairs scraping and heavy footsteps as the others followed automatically, years of instinct kicking in the second they sensed something was wrong.
The woman immediately tensed when she saw them all rushing toward her.
Jay Bird noticed it instantly.
She stumbled backward so fast she nearly lost her footing while tightening her grip on the little girl against her chest. Pure panic flashed across her face as her eyes darted between the men coming up behind Riley and Jay Bird.
Jay Bird slowed his pace immediately.
“Easy,” he said calmly, holding one hand slightly out to the side. “Nobody’s gonna hurt you.”
The little girl buried her face against the woman’s shoulder before peeking back up with huge frightened eyes. She couldn’t have been older than two.
“Momma…” the little girl whimpered shakily. “Bad man.”
The woman visibly flinched at the words.
Riley stopped only a few feet away, her expression devastated as she stared at the woman. “Willow…”
Tears instantly filled the woman’s eyes.
For a second, she just stood there trembling like she didn’t know whether to run or collapse.
Then her gaze shifted desperately toward Riley.
“I escaped,” she whispered hoarsely. “But I need help.”
Jay Bird barely had time to react before her knees buckled.
Riley gasped, and the little girl cried out.
But Jay Bird moved on instinct. He lunged forward and caught Willow just before she hit the pavement, one arm wrapping around her while the other steadied the little girl, who immediately clung to the front of his shirt with tiny trembling hands.
The sudden contact caught him off guard for half a second. Children usually avoided him. Most people did. But this little girl pressed herself against him like she’d already decided he was safe.
Tears streamed down her small face as she looked up at him with terrified eyes.
“Bad man hurt momma,” she whispered.
Something sharp and unfamiliar twisted hard in Jay Bird’s chest.
His gaze dropped to Willow’s unconscious face resting against his arm before shifting to the bruises peeking out beneath the sleeve of her sweatshirt. Up close, he could see how exhausted she was. How thin. How badly she’d been running on fumes just trying to survive long enough to get here.
And as the little girl continued clinging to him like he was the only solid thing in her world, something inside him locked into place with absolute certainty.
Whoever had done this to them was going to regret it. Because no matter what it took, no one was ever hurting this woman or child again.