Epilogue
The house was quiet.Gabriella was finally asleep in her crib.Camila was already in bed when Chris finished checking the doors.She watched him from beneath the covers.“You know what my favorite thing about you is?”Chris glanced over.“My driving?”
“No.”
“My looks?”
“Debatable.”He looked offended.“That’s just rude.”Camila laughed.
Chris climbed into bed beside her.She immediately curled against him, her fingers finding the old bullet scar on his shoulder.The same scar she’d touched long before she knew who he really was.Back when he was Chris Roman.Back when everything about him had been a question.
“You going to answer me or not?”Camila looked into his eyes.
“There’s only one of you now.”Chris’s expression softened.No Chris Roman.No cover.No invented past.No lies.Just Christopher James Walker.Her husband.Gabriella’s father.The man who existed.Chris kissed her forehead. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”Camila closed her eyes against his chest.Within minutes, she was asleep.
Chris followed not long after.
For once, neither of them heard the vehicle slow outside their house.A black SUV.It stopped across the street.The engine remained running.Inside, a man lifted a camera.Through the long lens—Chris and Camila’s bedroom window.Click.Another window.Click.
Then—Gabriella’s nursery.Click.The man lowered the camera.A photograph sat on the passenger seat beside him.It was old.Years old.Christopher Walker looked younger in it.
Different hair.Different clothes.Another operation.Another life.Someone had drawn a black line through Chris’s face.A phone vibrated.The man picked it up.One message.
IS IT HIM?He looked toward the Walker house.Then typed:Yes.
Another message appeared.FAMILY?The man’s eyes moved toward Gabriella’s dark nursery window.He took one final photograph.Click.Then answered.Wife. Daughter.
Three dots appeared.Then—Walker finally has something to lose.The man smiled.He put the SUV into drive.And disappeared into the darkness.Inside the house, Christopher Walker slept beside his wife with his daughter safely down the hall.For the first time in years, he believed his past was finally behind him.He was wrong.Because long before Chris Roman ever existed—
Christopher Walker had left someone behind.And they had just found him.
THE END