Chapter Eleven
Vice woke to cold sheets and the smell of coffee.
He reached for Diana automatically, muscle memory already expecting her warmth, and found nothing but rumpled blankets. The bed felt wrong without her—too big, too empty, missing something essential.
Pathetic, he told himself. You've known her two weeks.
But two weeks of Diana had apparently rewired his entire nervous system. He couldn't sleep without her pressed against his side, couldn't relax unless he knew exactly where she was, couldn't think about the future without putting her at the center of it.
He was so completely screwed.
Vice pulled on jeans and followed the coffee smell to the main hall, expecting to find her at their usual table. Instead, he found her in the kitchen, elbow-deep in pancake batter, trading jokes with Rosa—the compound's unofficial head cook—like she'd been doing it for years.
"More blueberries," Diana was saying, gesturing with a batter-covered spoon. "Kids always want more blueberries. Trust me."
"Miss Diana, I've been feeding compound brats for fifteen years—"
"And I've been feeding toddlers for four. Blueberries. In the shape of a smiley face if you can manage it."
Rosa grumbled but reached for the blueberry container.
Vice leaned against the doorframe and watched.
Diana moved through the kitchen with easy confidence, stirring batter with one hand while reviewing a list she'd scratched onto a napkin with the other.
Her hair was piled in a messy knot, she was wearing one of his t-shirts again, and she was talking about the daycare's reopening like it was already decided.
"Martha can handle the first few days solo if I need more time here," she said to no one in particular. "But the parents are going to have questions. I need to figure out what to tell them that doesn't involve—" She gestured vaguely. "—any of this."
"Gas leak," Rosa offered. "Always works. People believe gas leaks."
"That's not a bad idea, actually. Emergency repairs due to a gas leak.
The licensing board would accept that, and it explains why I wasn't reachable.
" Diana scribbled something on her napkin.
"I'll need to coordinate with Beth about the paperwork.
And the supplies—we lost inventory in the first flood, so I should make a list of what needs replacing before... "
She trailed off, eyes going distant, probably calculating costs she couldn't afford.
Vice watched her push past it. Watched her shake off the worry and return to planning with the same determination she'd brought to everything since he'd met her. She treated victory like a certainty because the alternative—planning for defeat—wasn't something she knew how to do.
It was one of the things he loved most about her.
"You're staring."
Vice blinked. Diana was looking at him now, an amused smile playing at her lips.
"I'm admiring."
"Same thing." She set down her spoon and crossed to him, her flour-dusted hands finding his chest. "Good morning."
He kissed her—soft, unhurried, ignoring Rosa's pointed throat-clearing from across the kitchen. "You should have woken me."
"You needed sleep. And I needed to do something useful." Diana's smile faded slightly. "If I stop moving, I start thinking. If I start thinking..."
"You remember everything that happened."
"Yeah." She pressed her forehead to his chest. "So I keep moving."
Vice wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close, shielding her from the kitchen and the compound and everything beyond these walls that wanted to hurt her.
"Walk with me."
The compound in morning light looked almost peaceful.
Prospects had cleared the evidence of yesterday's assault, replacing bullet-scarred fencing and raking spent casings from the grass. If you didn't look too closely, you might not even know a war had happened here twelve hours ago.
Vice kept Diana's hand in his as they walked the perimeter, taking the long way around, passing the gardens and the playground and the residential buildings where compound families were starting their days.
"It's beautiful here," Diana said quietly. "I didn't expect that."
"What did you expect?"
"I don't know. Something darker. Grimier." She squeezed his hand. "Not vegetable gardens and swing sets."
"The club isn't just the violence." Vice watched a group of kids chase each other across the grass, their laughter bright in the morning air. "It's families. Community. People who'd die for each other because they chose to, not because they were born into it."
"Is that why you joined? For the community?"
Vice was quiet for a moment, turning the question over.
"I joined because I didn't know what else to do," he admitted. "The Army was everything for ten years. When I got out, I couldn't figure out how to be a person anymore. Couldn't sleep, couldn't hold a job, couldn't stop seeing—"
He broke off.
Diana didn't push. Just walked beside him, her shoulder brushing his, her hand warm in his grip.
"The faces," he said finally. "I told you about the village in Afghanistan. The kids. But that wasn't the only time. There were dozens of them. Hundreds, maybe. People I couldn't reach, couldn't save, couldn't do anything for except watch them die."
"Colton..."
"The worst was this little girl in Fallujah.
Maybe five years old, caught in a crossfire.
I got to her fast—faster than I'd ever moved—but the damage was too bad.
She died in my arms while I was trying to stop the bleeding.
" Vice's voice had gone flat, distant. "She had these big brown eyes.
They reminded me of my sister's. She kept looking at me like I could fix it, like I was supposed to be the one who made everything okay. And I couldn't."
Diana stopped walking and turned to face him.
"What was her name?"
The question caught him off guard. "I don't... we never found out. Her family was gone. Nobody claimed her."
"But you remember her."
"Every day." Vice met Diana's eyes, let her see the weight he carried. "She's one of the faces that visits me at night. One of the reasons I can't sleep without exhausting myself first."
Diana reached up and touched his face, her palm warm against his jaw.
"What happened to her wasn't your fault."
"I know that. Logically, I know." Vice covered her hand with his own. "But knowing and believing are different things."
"Yeah." Diana's voice was soft. "They are."
They walked in silence for a while, circling back toward the main hall. Vice found himself talking more than he'd intended—about other faces, other failures, the cumulative weight of a decade spent trying to hold back death with inadequate tools and not enough time.
Diana listened to all of it.
She didn't offer platitudes. Didn't tell him it would get better, or that he needed to forgive himself, or any of the hollow comfort people usually tried to give. She just listened, her hand in his, her presence steady.
When he finally ran out of words, they were standing near the compound's small memorial garden—a quiet space with benches and flowers, dedicated to brothers who'd fallen over the years.
"Can I tell you something?" Diana asked.
Vice nodded.
"When you showed up at my daycare that first day—when you sat down in that ridiculous tiny chair and actually listened to me fall apart—you saved me." She turned to face him fully. "Not just from Phelps or Barron or any of the people trying to hurt me. You saved me from drowning alone."
"Diana—"
"I was so tired, Colton. So scared. I'd been fighting for weeks and I couldn't see the end, and then you walked through my door and suddenly I wasn't alone anymore.
" Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
"You reached me when nobody else could. You reached my children—the twelve kids at Little Sprouts who will go back to their daycare because you made sure the bad guys couldn't take it from them. "
Vice's chest ached.
"That's not—"
"It is." Diana stepped closer, her hands finding his chest. "You want to know if the faces ever balance out? If the ones you save ever outweigh the ones you lose?"
He couldn't speak. Could only nod.
"I can't answer that for everyone you've ever helped. But I can tell you this." Diana's voice was fierce now, certain. "You reached me. You reached my children. Twelve kids who will grow up safe because of you. That has to count for something."
"Does it?"
"Yes." She pressed her hand over his heart. "It counts for everything."
Vice stared at her—this woman who'd been terrorized because of a lease, who'd lost her home and her daycare and nearly her life, who'd sat in a bunker reading stories while bullets flew—and felt something shift in his chest.
Not the guilt disappearing. That would never fully go away; he'd made peace with that years ago.
But something lighter. Something that felt almost like hope.
"I don't deserve you," he said quietly.
"Stop saying that." Diana rose on her toes to kiss him. "You don't get to decide what you deserve. That's my job now."
Vice laughed despite himself—a surprised, genuine sound. "Is that so?"
"That's so." Her smile was fierce and tender at once. "You're mine, Colton Reed. Which means I get to decide you deserve good things, and you have to accept it."
"That seems unfair."
"Too bad." She kissed him again. "Those are the rules."
Vice wrapped his arms around her and held on, breathing in the scent of flour and coffee and Diana. Around them, the compound continued its morning routine—kids playing, adults working, life going on despite everything.
Barron was still out there. The war wasn't over.
But standing in the memorial garden with Diana in his arms, Vice felt something he hadn't felt in years.
Peace.
Not the absence of pain, but the presence of something stronger. Someone who saw his darkness and chose him anyway. Someone who looked at his ledger of failures and added her own name to the other side.
You reached me. You reached my children.
That has to count for something—maybe for everything.
Maybe it did.
Maybe, with Diana beside him, it finally could.