Epilogue — None of This Came Free
POV: Elena
They say crime doesn’t pay.
But as I signed the wire transfer on an encrypted tablet, sitting in the cream leather seat of a private jet at thirty thousand feet, I had to disagree.
Crime paid very well. The only catch was that you had to stop pretending you had a soul.
I looked out the oval window. The Swiss Alps rose below like peaks of sugar and ice, gleaming under the merciless morning sun. We’d just left Zurich.
My mother was installed in the east wing of Klinik Edelweiss. Private room with a lake view, nurses who spoke three languages, and a security protocol that kept her from leaving—or anyone from entering without my express permission.
I’d visited her yesterday.
She didn’t recognize me. She looked right through me with those empty, medicated eyes and asked if I was the new housekeeper.
I said yes. It was easier than explaining that I was the daughter she’d tried to protect by killing her husband, and that now I protected a man who would burn the world down for me.
I felt a warm hand settle on my thigh, squeezing possessively.
I turned my head.
Gabriel sat in the seat beside me, his body relaxed, a glass of whiskey balanced in his right hand—the one with the white scars across his knuckles. He wasn’t looking at the scenery. He was looking at me.
Always at me.
“You’re thinking about her,” he said. It wasn’t a question. Gabriel had stopped asking questions six months ago. Now he just stated facts about my mind that he knew better than I did.
“I’m thinking that the treatment costs forty thousand francs a month,” I replied, closing the tablet cover. “And that Mr. Volkov covered the next five years with last week’s consulting fee.”
Gabriel smiled. That predatory smile that used to make me tremble with fear and now made me tremble with anticipation.
“Money well spent. Peace of mind is the most expensive asset on the market.”
“Peace?” I laughed, a short, dry sound. “There’s no such thing as peace, Gabriel. Only the interval between wars.”
“And we’re very good at winning wars.”
He reached out and took my hand, lacing our fingers together. The black diamond ring on my finger scratched his skin, but he didn’t care. He liked the friction.
“Thomas sent an email,” I told him, lowering my voice, even though we were alone in the cabin except for the flight attendant who knew when to be deaf and mute.
Gabriel tensed. The mention of my brother was still a pressure point.
“And how is ‘Paul Miller’?”
“He got promoted to shift manager at the warehouse in Phoenix.” I looked down at my lap. “He said he met someone. A waitress. He says he’s happy.”
“He’s alive. Happiness is a bonus.”
“He asked if he could call me.”
“And what did you say?”
“I didn’t. I deleted the email and emptied the trash.”
Gabriel squeezed my hand hard in approval.
“It’s better this way. Ghosts should stay dead, Elena. If you invite them to dinner, they eat your food and steal your air.”
He was right. Thomas belonged to a life I no longer inhabited. The Elena Walsh who worried about electric bills and translated instruction manuals had died in that textile factory, with a gun in her hand and a grenade in her pocket.
The woman who existed now... the woman who flew in private jets and negotiated with cartels... she had no brothers. She only had a partner. A lover. An owner.
Gabriel unbuckled his seatbelt and stood. The cabin ceiling was low, forcing him to lean slightly over me, which only heightened the sense of being caged in.
“Come here,” he ordered, holding out his hand.
“We’re landing in twenty minutes.”
“That’s enough time.”
I took his hand.
He led me to the back of the jet, to the small private cabin with a queen bed that was theoretically meant for rest on transatlantic flights.
Gabriel locked the door. The sound of the latch turning was the Pavlovian trigger that made my body ignite.
He wasn’t gentle. He pushed me against the leather-lined wall, lifting my dress, his hands seeking my skin with the urgency of someone who needed to confirm ownership.
“You’re cold, Elena,” he whispered against my neck, biting the exact spot where the old mark lived. “You deleted your brother. You locked away your mother. You’re ice.”
“I learned to freeze so I wouldn’t break,” I replied, pulling his hair, bringing his mouth to mine.
“I like the ice.” He kissed me hard. “Ice burns.”
We made love there, thirty thousand feet above the ground, suspended between sky and earth, belonging to neither.
The guilt was gone. So was the agonizing doubt about “what we are.”
We were what remained when the system collapsed. We were the architects of our own morality.
And when he came, screaming my name against the turbulence of the plane, I knew it didn’t matter what it cost. It didn’t matter who we had to destroy, bribe, or erase.
None of this had come free. The price had been my soul.
But looking at Gabriel, at the savage devotion in his eyes… I knew it had been a bargain.
POV: Gabriel
Ashford welcomed us with rain.
It always rained in this city. As if the weather kept trying to wash the asphalt clean, never managing to scrub away the stain of oil and blood soaked into the foundations.
The armored car dropped us at the back entrance of our new headquarters. The red brick townhouse looked respectable, discreet, old. No passerby would ever imagine that in the basement, encrypted servers were handling crises capable of toppling small governments.
We entered. The security system recognized our retinas and unlocked the doors.
We headed up to the main office.
Elena went straight to her desk. She didn’t even take off her coat—just opened her laptop and started working, checking the status of Volkov’s operation. Her efficiency was terrifying. And beautiful.
I stood in the doorway, watching her.
I remembered the first day I saw her. The frightened translator in cheap clothes, with those too-big eyes, desperately trying to save her useless brother. I thought she’d be easy prey. I thought she’d break at the first sign of pressure.
I was an arrogant fool.
She didn’t break. She evolved.
Richard Hale was serving a life sentence in a federal penitentiary in Colorado. Simon Vance had hanged himself in his cell before trial, unable to face the public shame.
Moretti & Hale was dust.
But we… we were granite.
I walked to my desk and opened the locked drawer.
Inside lay a single physical object. It wasn’t a weapon. It wasn’t a dossier.
It was Elena’s cheap spiral notebook. The one she’d used to bring down my previous empire and save me from prison.
I picked up the notebook. The pages were yellowed, the notes scribbled in haste. Der Architekt.
I closed the drawer.
That notebook was the reminder. The reminder that I wasn’t the hero of this story. I never was.
I was the monster lucky enough to find the only woman in the world capable of looking at my fangs and seeing not a threat, but a tool.
“Gabriel?” Her voice cut through my thoughts.
I looked up.
Elena was looking at me over the laptop screen.
“What is it?” I asked.
“We have a new client. Referral from Washington. A senator who needs to clean up a… ‘misunderstanding’ with an intern and undeclared campaign funds.”
I smiled. The game never stopped.
“What’s the offer?”
“He’s offering money and influence.” She arched an eyebrow. “But I think we can ask for more.”
“What do you suggest?”
“The influence. I want direct access to the infrastructure committee. We need to expand our servers and the legislation is changing.”
She wasn’t thinking about money anymore. She was thinking about power. Structural. Systemic.
I walked over to her and turned her chair toward me.
I braced my hands on the arms of the chair, trapping her.
“You’re getting greedy, Mrs. Moretti.”
She smiled. That smile. The smile of someone who owned the bank.
“I’m not greedy, Gabriel. I’m forward-thinking.” She touched my tie, wrapping the fabric around her finger. “I’m building a wall. High enough that no one will ever be able to look over it again.”
“No one will look,” I promised, leaning in to kiss her. “Because if they do, I’ll tear out their eyes.”
“I know.”
She stood up, positioning herself between my legs, her body pressed against mine.
“Let’s go home,” she whispered. “The Senator can wait until tomorrow.”
“The world can wait.”
We left the office, turning off the lights, leaving the townhouse cloaked in protective darkness.
Outside, the rain continued to fall.
I had lost my innocence a long time ago. I had lost my reputation. I had lost the illusion that I was a decent man.
But as I opened the car door for the woman who gripped my hand with the same force she used to grip a Glock, I knew the truth.
None of this had been free.
The price was everything I was.
But in return, I gained everything I needed to be.
I got into the car and closed the door, locking the chaos outside and our own private chaos within.
And finally, after all these years of running, fighting, and bleeding…
I was at peace.