Epilogue
Matteo
Six Months Later
Some things never change.
Like the stars.
Still there when you’re flat on your back, staring up at a sky that couldn’t care less what you’ve done. Emery curls into my side, meant to be there, born to be the calm that quiets the storm in me.
It almost feels as if we’re seventeen again.
Just two kids in an empty field, pretending the chaos didn’t own us. Her fingers used to trace constellations across the sky like they were maps to something better—as if she could rewrite the universe just by reaching high enough. Rewrite us.
Now the world’s finally burning the way it always should’ve.
After the files dropped. After it went viral.
Every dirty secret my father ever buried was dragged screaming into the light. Politicians collapsed. Dirty cops were exposed. And every bastard who ever played God with our lives went down in a blaze of viral fucking justice.
My father’s name lit up the screen. The whole damn world saw what that blood cost.
I don’t know where he is now. And I don’t fucking care.
We made it out.
One brutal, hard-earned six months later, here we are. Lying beneath the same stars that once felt a million miles away. Only now, freedom isn’t a whispered dream. It’s real. For a moment anyway.
It’s breath that doesn’t taste of blood and fear. It’s skin-to-skin. It’s this. Us.
And fuck, it feels good. The kind of good that feels stolen from a future I never believed I’d be allowed to touch.
Emery shifts beside me, her hand gliding over the soft curve of her belly. It’s growing. Beautiful. Everything. That one small gesture kills me in the best way, because I can see it—the way she already loves our daughter. Fierce and quiet, like fire burning with purpose.
“I still can’t believe this is real,” she whispers, eyes turned skyward like maybe the stars finally answered her.
I press my lips to her hair. “Believe it,” I murmur, voice rough. “It’s ours, Emery. All of it.”
She turns toward me, eyes soft but still burning with that familiar fire.
“Do you ever think about back then? When we were just kids, staring up at the stars?”
I exhale slowly, like I’m trying to breathe out all the years I spent without her. I tighten my arms around her, pulling her closer, as if I hold her tight enough, gravity won’t let go.
“Every damn day,” I rasp. “That’s how I made it through. Every broken night, every fucked-up piece of me, I held onto you. Even if it was just a memory. Even when it hurt like hell.”
Her fingers come up to trace along my jaw, soft and sure.
“I missed you,” she says. “Even when I swore I didn’t. Even when I told myself I hated you… it was always a lie. I was always yours. Even when I didn’t want to be. Even then.”
I drag my thumb across her cheek, slow and reverent, as if this is a prayer I never learned the words for. As if touching her is the only way to remind myself she's real and mine.
“You’re everything, Emery,” I whisper, stripped bare. “Always have been.”
My eyes drift down to her stomach, to the life we created from the ruins of who we used to be. Pride hits me so hard it almost hurts.
“I never thought I’d deserve something this good,” I admit, voice fraying. “Not with what I’ve done. Not with the blood on my hands.”
She takes my hand and places it over the softest part of her belly. And then… fuck. That flutter. That tiny, perfect movement.
It wrecks me.
“You’re going to be an incredible father, Matteo,” she says, steady and sure while I’m coming undone. “You deserve this. Every part of it.”
I swallow hard. There were days I didn’t think I’d live to see another sunrise, let alone this.
I shift closer and kiss her slow.
“I promise you,” I breathe against her lips, “I’ll tear the fucking world apart before I let anything touch either of you.”
Emery leans in, breath trembling between us.
“I believe you,” she whispers, and I can see she means it. She knows.
We lie in silence, wrapped in a peace we never thought we’d earn. Emery traces slow patterns on my chest, pausing where time left its scars.
“You ever wonder what our daughter will be like?” she asks, voice dipped in fragile hope, the kind that only surfaces when you stop expecting the world to ruin everything.
I glance down, and that same fierce love slams into me all over again. “Like you, I hope,” I say. “Brave. Smart. Strong in the ways that matter.”
She lets out a quiet laugh. “She’ll have your stubborn streak.”
I kiss her temple. “Then God help us both.”
Her laughter tears through the night, splitting the dark the way daylight rips through a storm.
Wild. Free.
She tucks herself into me like this is the only place that’s ever made sense.
“I hope she finds this one day,” she murmurs, her words brushing against my skin. “I hope she has someone who loves her this fiercely. Someone who’d burn the world down just to keep her safe… the way you did for me.”
I stare up at the sky, counting stars like I did as a kid. Searching for something to believe in. I’m not drowning anymore. I’m breathing.
I press a kiss into her hair. This girl. This fucking girl. The one who broke me open with nothing but her truth. Who made me believe in something bigger than survival. In a world where love isn’t weakness.
So I hold her tighter. Anchor us to this moment. To this love. To the promise written in every scar we carry.
To the thought of my daughter.
God—it breaks something open in me every time I think it.
I can’t wait to meet her.
To hold her tiny body in my arms and whisper the truth before the world ever gets the chance to lie to her.
To tell her she is enough. That she is powerful. That being herself will always be more than enough.
She’ll never have to bleed to be believed. Never have to fight to earn her worth. I’ll make sure of it.
With Emery by my side, we’ll give her the kind of love that builds instead of breaks.
I want to be the kind of father who doesn’t just protect her, but sees her.
Who listens.
Who makes space for every wild, impossible dream she dares to chase.
She can be soft or sharp, loud or quiet, bold or afraid, and she’ll always be loved. Every single piece of her. We’ll give her the world. And we’ll teach her how to set it on fire if it tries to take anything away.