CHAPTER 20
Damon
I've been awake since five, running through this day so many times in my head that by the time I finally hear Selene's car pull into the compound driveway with Mia bouncing excitedly in the back seat, my hands are steadier than I expected, all the nervous energy of the last week settling into the same calm focus I bring to any operation I've spent this much time planning.
Except this isn't an operation. This is the rest of my life, and somehow that makes the stakes feel higher than anything I've faced in twelve years of running a motorcycle club through every kind of danger imaginable.
"You ready?" Bear asks, appearing at my shoulder in the garage, grinning in a way that tells me he already knows more about today's plan than I ever explicitly told him, which honestly doesn't surprise me — Bear's had a hand in every piece of the renovation, along with half the club, all of them sworn to secrecy for the better part of two weeks.
"Ready as I'll ever be." I check my jacket pocket one more time, feeling the small velvet box settle reassuringly against my palm.
"She's gonna say yes, you know." Bear claps a heavy hand on my shoulder. "Woman looks at you like you hung the moon, Pres. Has since about day three."
"Still nervous as hell."
"Good sign." Bear grins wider. "Means it actually matters."
I drive out to the cottage ahead of them, wanting everything set before Selene and Mia arrive, and the sight that greets me when I pull up the driveway still catches somewhere warm and proud in my chest despite having overseen every stage of the work personally over the last two weeks.
The cottage looks transformed. New siding, freshly painted a warm, welcoming blue that Ronnie helped me pick out after I described, badly, the kind of color that felt like it belonged to Selene.
New windows throughout, double-paned against the mountain cold, each one fitted with the kind of security hardware that means nobody's ever getting through them uninvited again.
A rebuilt porch, wide and sturdy, with a proper light fixture finally replacing the busted one that never worked right.
Inside, I know without needing to check again, waits a fully modernized kitchen, a new heating system that'll actually keep the place warm through an Oakhaven winter, and an expanded bedroom for Mia, complete with the built-in bookshelf Slick spent an entire weekend helping me construct, badly at first, better by the end.
I bought the place outright from her landlord three weeks ago — a conversation that required more patience than I usually have, given the man's spotty history of returning maintenance calls, but money and the particular leverage of a local business owner not wanting trouble with the Iron Vipers eventually got the deed transferred cleanly.
I've had the crew working around Selene's shifts and Mia's daycare schedule ever since, quiet and careful, wanting this exact moment — her pulling up the driveway and seeing it all finished at once — to land with its full weight.
Her car rounds the bend a few minutes later, and I watch through the front window as she slows, then stops entirely halfway up the driveway, staring at the transformed cottage with an expression I can't quite read from this distance.
By the time she's parked and climbed out, Mia already racing ahead toward the porch with the boundless energy of a four-year-old who doesn't yet understand the significance of what she's looking at, Selene's face has settled into something between shock and disbelief.
"Damon." She says my name slow, careful, taking in the new siding, the windows, the porch, like she's trying to fit this transformed version of her home into the version she left three weeks ago. "What did you do?"
"Come inside," I say, holding the door open. "Let me show you properly."
Mia's already halfway up the stairs by the time we cross the threshold, drawn by some instinct straight to what used to be her cramped, closet-sized bedroom, and her delighted shriek a moment later has both of us following fast to find her standing in the middle of a room nearly triple its old size, new bed frame set against the wall, the built-in bookshelf already stocked with the books she's accumulated over the past few weeks at the compound, and a window seat overlooking the newly cleared backyard.
"Mama, look!" Mia's practically vibrating, running her hands along the bookshelf, then bouncing onto the bed, then racing to the window seat to peer out at the yard below. "Is this really my room? All of it?"
"All of it," I confirm, watching Selene's face as she takes in the transformation, tears already gathering bright in her eyes.
"Damon, this is—" She turns to me, overwhelmed, one hand pressed to her chest. "This is too much. You can't just—"
"I already did." I take her hand, gentle but firm, and lead her back downstairs, through the completely rebuilt kitchen — new cabinets, new appliances, everything solid and modern and built to last, nothing like the leaking pipes and cheap fixtures she's been making do with for two years — and out onto the wide new porch, where the last of the afternoon light is falling soft and gold across the mountains beyond the treeline.
I reach into my jacket and pull out the manila folder, the same one I showed her briefly last night, and hand it to her now with hands that have finally found their steadiness.
She opens it slowly, and I watch her expression shift as she reads through the document inside — a property deed, freshly notarized, her name listed as sole owner, no mortgage, no lien, no landlord who'll never fix a leaking pipe or a busted porch light again.
"Damon." Her voice breaks on my name. "This is the deed. To this house."
"It's yours," I say simply. "Free and clear.
Not a gift with strings attached, not something I'm holding over you or expecting anything in return for.
I bought it, renovated it, and I'm putting it entirely in your name because you deserve a home that's actually secure — structurally, legally, in every possible way — after everything you've survived to get here. "
"I don't know what to say."
"You don't have to say anything about the house." I take a breath, feeling my heart pick up pace despite twelve years of training myself to stay steady under pressure. "But I need you to hear the rest of what I came here to say, because the house was never actually the main event."
Something in her expression shifts, careful understanding beginning to dawn, and I lower myself down onto one knee on the freshly built porch, pulling the small velvet box from my jacket pocket with hands that, despite everything, are finally, completely steady.
Behind us, through the window, I catch a flash of movement — Mia, apparently drawn by some instinct to the sound of us talking, pressing her face against the glass to watch, wide-eyed and delighted.
"Selene." I open the box, revealing the ring inside — simple, elegant, chosen carefully over hours I'll never admit to spending in a jewelry store two counties over, wanting something that felt like her rather than something that felt like money.
"I lost twelve years with you. Twelve years I spent paying off a debt I never regretted taking on, but that cost me every single day I could have spent building a life with you instead of surviving one apart from you. I'm not losing another second."
Her hand comes up to cover her mouth, tears spilling freely now, and I press forward before my nerve can fail me.
"I love you completely," I say, voice rough with everything I've been carrying toward this exact moment for weeks.
"I love Mia like she's mine, because in every way that actually matters, she already is.
I want to build a real life with both of you — not just protection, not just safety, though God knows I'll spend every day making sure you have both of those things too.
I want mornings and arguments and bad days and good ones.
I want to be the man who fixes your sink not because you're in crisis but because it's Tuesday and that's what husbands do.
Marry me, Selene. Let me spend the rest of my life proving twelve years of silence was the only debt I'll ever owe you, and everything after this is just devotion, freely given. "
For one suspended second, she doesn't answer, tears streaming, hand still pressed against her mouth, and my heart hammers hard enough that I can feel it in my throat.
Then she drops to her knees on the porch in front of me, pulling my face into both her hands, and kisses me with everything she has, the answer clear in the desperate, joyful press of her mouth against mine before she even manages to say the actual word.
"Yes," she breathes against my lips, laughing and crying at once. "Yes, Damon. Of course, yes."
Behind us, through the window, Mia's delighted shriek carries clear through the glass, and a moment later the front door bursts open and she comes racing out onto the porch, throwing herself into the middle of our embrace with the total, unguarded joy only a small child can bring to a moment like this.
"Are you gonna be my dad now?" she demands, breathless, looking between us with wide, hopeful eyes. "For real? Not just Uncle D?"
I pull her into the embrace along with Selene, feeling my chest swell with something so full it's almost painful, twelve years of grief and guilt finally, completely giving way to something whole.
"For real," I promise her, voice thick. "For the rest of your life, if you'll have me."
"I already had you," Mia says, matter-of-fact in the way only a four-year-old can manage even in a moment this significant. "I decided that the first night. Mama just took longer."
Selene laughs through her tears, pulling us both closer, and we stay there on the porch a long while, the three of us wrapped together as the last of the afternoon light fades gold and soft over the mountains, the newly renovated cottage standing solid and secure behind us, finally, completely home.