Epilogue
ADRIAN
Diana has a flower in her mouth. I cross the lawn in four strides, crouch in front of my daughter, and extract a mashed hibiscus petal from between her gums. She looks at me with Aurora’s eyes and zero remorse.
“We talked about this.” I hold the petal up for her inspection. “These flowers are decorative. They’re not food.”
She reaches for the petal with both fists, and I pocket it before she can reclaim it.
Braden, three feet away, has pulled himself upright against Viktor’s leg and is gripping the fabric of his trousers like a mountaineer who has found a reliable anchor.
Viktor stands perfectly still, continuing his conversation with Marisol about catering logistics without looking down, his stance making it clear he’s aware of the small person attached to his knee and is compensating his balance accordingly.
Viktor, my second-in-command and most lethal operative, is also godfather to my children after he and Marisol reached an agreement.
The sight of him standing motionless on a manicured lawn while a thirteen-month-old uses him as a climbing wall is the funniest thing I’ve seen in years.
I don’t laugh because Viktor would never forgive me, but I won’t forget this.
“Your tie is crooked.” Aurora’s voice comes from behind me, and I stand and turn.
She’s walking across the lawn in a dress that cost less than most of the flowers surrounding us, because she picked it herself based on how it made her feel instead of worrying if it will suit someone else’s expectations.
The dress is simple ivory and fits her perfectly.
“My tie is fine.”
“Your tie is crooked, and I’m fixing it because I’m not marrying a man with a crooked tie.
” She reaches up and adjusts the knot, letting her fingers brush my collar.
She smells like the jasmine we planted along the porch railing last month, and her hair is pulled back from her face to show the line of her neck. I forget all about tie for a moment.
“Better.” She smooths the fabric flat against my chest. “Now stop chasing Diana and let Irina handle her. Your mother has been waiting for grandchildren to spoil her entire life, and she’s earned the flower-eating phase.”
“The flower-eating phase isn’t a real phase.”
“Irina says it is, and she outranks both of us on child development.” Aurora takes my hand and walks me toward the chairs arranged under the pergola where the ceremony will happen in twenty minutes.
“Everything is ready. The officiant is here, the flowers are arranged, and Marisol has already cried twice, me once, and we haven’t started yet. ”
“Viktor mentioned the crying. He seemed concerned.” I’m a little concerned too. She used to cry at everything during pregnancy. Most of that has faded in the past year, but I don’t like her crying. Her in pain, emotional or physical, causes me pain too.
“Viktor doesn’t understand happy tears. That’s okay. He’ll learn.”
I look at the setup as we approach. Thirty chairs on the lawn face the bay, arranged in two sections separated by an aisle made of crushed shells that Aurora found at a garden supply store.
The pergola is wrapped with white fabric and greenery that Denise spent two days arranging.
The guest list is small because we agreed on only the people who matter, and the people who matter fit in thirty chairs with room to spare.
Irina is in the front row, holding Diana on her lap and feeding her something from a small container that I hope is food and not another flower.
Denise sits beside her with David, who is wearing a tie for what I suspect is the first time in years and appears to be handling it with quiet dignity.
Fedor stands at the back in a suit that makes him look like a bouncer at a wedding, which is essentially what he is.
Arseny is beside him in a matching suit, but he’s paired it with a Hawaiian shirt as a nod to the past. Aurora grinned when she first saw it and smiles again at seeing it now.
Marisol appears at Aurora’s side and takes her arm. She’s wearing a green dress and an expression of aggressive composure that tells me she’s three seconds from crying again. “I have your bouquet, your vows, and a tissue. I’m prepared for all outcomes.”
“You’re going to be fine,” Aurora says to her.
“I’m going to be a disaster, but it’s going to be beautiful.” Marisol squeezes her arm. “Go marry him before I start crying again. That’ll just set you off too.”
The ceremony lasts twelve minutes. The officiant is a retired judge Irina found through connections I didn’t ask about, and he delivers the proceedings with a brevity I appreciate. Aurora and I wrote our own vows. The crowd seems moved, but my focus is all on her.
When that part is over, Aurora smiles, Marisol cries, and Viktor nods once from the back row, and the judge pronounces us married, and I kiss my wife for the first time with our children watching from their grandmother’s lap. We walk back down the aisle together as husband and wife.
After dinner, champagne, and a toast from Marisol that starts funny and ends with the entire table wiping their eyes, we get the twins settled for the night.
Irina and Denise handle bedtime while I stand in the nursery doorway and watch Irina lower Diana into her crib while Denise rocks Braden in the chair beside the window, and I don’t check twice.
I trust the people in my home, and the ease of that trust still surprises me.
Aurora takes my hand and pulls me down the hall to our room. She closes the door and leans against it as the house gets quiet around us.
“I need to tell you something.” I sit on the edge of the bed and look at her. “I’ve been carrying it for months, and I want to say it now because today feels like the right day.”
She comes to sit beside me. “I’m listening.”
“I don’t deserve what you gave me.” I hold her gaze because the words require it. “You gave me children. You gave me a reason to dismantle everything I inherited and build something that deserves to have your name on it. I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure you never regret any of it.”
She’s quiet for a moment before she puts her hand on my face and holds it there. “I stopped keeping score a long time ago, Adrian. You don’t owe me. We chose each other, and that’s how it works.”
I lean into her hand. The evening light comes through the window and catches our wedding rings, hers a simple band she picked out with Marisol, mine a match she insisted on. Down the hall, Braden fusses briefly before one of the grandmothers handles it, and the house settles again.
I think about the man I was the night I walked into Echelon.
That man believed trust was a weakness and love was a variable to be managed.
That man would have called a wife, two children, a legitimate business, and a home full of people he didn’t need to watch an impossible life.
He…I…was wrong about everything that mattered.
“I will choose you every day for the rest of my life.”
Aurora smiles. “I know because you already do.”
I pull her close, and she leans into me as the sound of our children settling into sleep drifts down the hall.
The story that started in a nightclub office, over a dead man’s body, ends with the woman who taught me the most powerful thing I would ever do was put down the weapon and pick the person standing beside me.