Epilogue
Cora
The contractions are four minutes apart and the officiant is five minutes away.
I let out a huff of air and suck in through gritted teeth. This is fine. Totally fine.
I've been under tighter deadlines. The coloring book for the Redthorne bookstore launch was tighter than this. I finished that one with two hours to spare and a cramp in my drawing hand while Rowan stood behind me rubbing my shoulders as I inked the last page.
This is just a baby.
Babies wait for no one, but they also take their time, and I'm praying this one inherited her father's patience rather than her mother's tendency to charge headfirst into situations without a plan.
"Is he here yet?"
Rowan checks his phone. "Five minutes."
"You said five minutes three minutes ago."
"I’m sure he’s breaking every traffic law there is to get here in time, sunshine."
Another contraction pulls along my spine and I’m pretty sure I’m seeing a galaxy four universes over from the pain bowing my back. "Ohhhhh… tell him to drive faster!"
Rowan takes my hand and I breathe through the next five minutes of no pain. Just when I think I got this, another contraction rolls through me and the world whites out.
Every muscle in my abdomen clamps down with a force that has no interest in waiting for Rowan and I to say “I do.”
I grip the edge of the bed and breathe through it, slow inhale through the nose, controlled exhale through the mouth.
The compound is full. I've never heard this much noise down here. Voices carry through stone and marble, bouncing off surfaces that were designed for silence and are currently hosting a small army of people who refuse to use their inside voices.
Everyone is here. The brothers and their wives. Raine, who flew in from Seattle two weeks ago and hasn't left. She's been sleeping in the guest room Rowan built during the remodel of the cabin upstairs.
We also redid the underworld. The compound is unrecognizable to what it was.
I insisted on keeping the bones, the stone, the pool, the cliff-face windows that stare out over the lake.
But the black marble mausoleum is gone. Color fills every room.
The kitchen has real counter space, multiple stools for a large family and endless amounts of dishware and cookery.
“I told you we shouldn’t have waited.” Rowan leans in and kisses my forehead.
“Look, we had a lot of work to do to get this world ready for our baby.”
There was the cabin, the compound and then the three nurseries Rowan insisted on. One here, one upstairs and one at Redthorne. He vowed never to leave me anywhere and well, he has kept his words.
The flower beds on the terrace bloom with everything I promised.
Wildflowers, herbs, sunflowers that track the light.
It took me weeks to plan out everything before I planted a single seed.
And it was so worth it. When our little baby sees all the color and light they’ll know the world is filled with love just like their mom and dad are for them.
And then there's Petals & Thorns.
The brothers showed up on a Saturday morning three months after the dust settled.
All of them. Rafael carried drywall. Drake rewired the back room and installed security I didn't ask for but probably need.
Luca repainted the mural on the far wall and somehow made the climbing vines look better than the original.
Kon replaced the back door with something that could survive a battering ram, which he tested personally.
Massimo handled the insurance claim, the lease renewal and the mountain of paperwork that came with reopening a shop the city had labeled a secondary crime scene.
He made every last red-tape headache disappear in under two weeks.
Sloane brought lunch for the crew. Onyx brought a playlist. Katriana brought fresh flowers from a supplier she sweet-talked into donating opening-week inventory. Ilona handled the social media relaunch and had my follower count tripled before the paint dried.
Rowan handled the rest quietly. The bank note is gone.
Paid in full without a single word of negotiation or a single mention of it to me until I pulled up my account and the balance read zero.
I screamed loud enough to rattle the windows of the cabin.
He just turned the ring on his finger and shrugged.
He also built me an illustrating table. Custom.
Angled top, adjustable height, a built-in pencil tray with slots for every graphite weight I use, and a swing-arm lamp that throws perfect light at any hour.
He set it in the back room of the shop where the afternoon sun pours through the window I painted shut two years ago and he pried open with a flathead and some Russian cursing.
I draw there in the mornings while the shop fills with the scent of fresh arrangements and the low hum of customers browsing.
The sign on the door reads OPEN again and some days that single word is enough to make my eyes sting.
"Rowan." I blow out a breath.
His hand wraps around mine and I squeeze hard enough to make his knuckles blanch. This man has taken fists from trained killers without blinking. He flinches now.
The door opens.
A man walks in and the energy in the room shifts. Tall, sharp, temples threaded with the same gray that marks Rowan. Dark eyes carry a history I can read even through the haze of contractions. He moves with authority and a dry warmth, like Rowan without the glacier.
"Cora, this is Ares. An old friend from New York City."
I manage a handshake between contractions. "Nice to meet you. You'll have to excuse the circumstances."
Ares looks from me to Rowan to my belly and back to me. "Sorry it took me so long. Turns out this place wasn’t so easy to find. Let's get this done so you kids can have a baby."
I laugh. Both of them are the same age with matching gray temples and the word "kids" from a man who looks like Rowan's slightly more charming mirror image cracks me up, which immediately triggers another contraction.
"Oh God. Don't make me laugh. Laughing and contractions are a combination straight from hell."
I breathe through it. Signal for him to start.
The ceremony is fast. I wouldn't have it any other way. Ares performs the vows at super speed.
Rafael stands closest. The brothers fill the room behind him. Dangerous, beautiful men with their hands at their sides and their eyes bright, watching two of their own make a promise none of them expected Rowan Kasyan Volkov to ever make.
“Do you take this woman–”
“Ares!” I warn.
“You know the words, give your answers.”
"I do."
"I do."
Rowan slips his ring on my finger. The cool metal settles against my skin with a weight that grounds me through the next contraction. He gently takes my face in his hands.
“I vow to protect the light in your heart, your life and our love with all of my being.”
Tears stream down my face. When I find my voice, I pour my soul into my next words. “I vow to never let the darkness take either of us.
With shaking fingers, I slide my ring onto his finger.
“By the power vested in me, I pronounce you man and wife. Kiss, her brother.”
Rowan kisses me. I kiss him back. Then I break the kiss and grip the bed frame hard enough to make the wood groan.
"This baby is coming. Right now."
Everyone except for the midwives clear out. The compound goes quiet and the world narrows to my body, his hands, and the work of bringing a new life into the underground.
"The head is crowning, Mrs. Volkov. Push."
Mrs. Volkov.
The name wraps around me between contractions. I hold it the way I hold everything that matters. Completely. Without apology.
I push once and then again. It takes everything I have. All the strength I have pours through me
A cry breaks through the quiet. Small and enormous at the same time.
Rowan kisses me and wipes the sweat away from my forehead. “You did it,” he murmurs softly to me.
The midwife meets our gazes.
"It's a girl."
Rowan's lips press against my sweating forehead. His hands shake against my skin. The midwife lays our new baby girl on my chest and when I feel her soft skin for the first time I finally cry.
“Don’t cry, my beautiful. Don’t cry.”
“She’s so beautiful.”
“She is. She’s perfect.”
I look down. Her eyes are closed. Her fists are clenched. Her hair is light, not white like mine, not dirty blond like her father. But a color in between. The color of beginnings.
Rowan stares at her with an expression full of love and light.
"What's sunshine in Russian?"
His eyes move to mine. Bright. Wet.
"Svetlana."
I look down at my daughter.
"What do you think about Svetlana Meli Volkov?"
Her full name wraps around my heart and burns into my soul.
"Da." His voice wavers. "Da, sunshine. I love it."
I rest my head on his shoulder when he comes in to wrap his arms around us. "I love you more than you will ever know."
"I will spend the rest of my life showing you I love you more."
An hour later. The midwives have bathed Svetlana, wrapped her tight in a blanket she will absolutely fight her way out of by morning. They also leave me in clean sheets and freshen the pillows behind my back.
I'm propped against pillows with my daughter on my chest and Rowan in the chair beside me, his hand resting near her head, his body angled toward us like gravity reorganized itself the moment she arrived and he’ll never give his back to either of us.
A dark-haired head pops in and I meet my sister’s eyes.
“You up for visitors?”
I’m bone tired but I know everyone wants to see our baby girl. “Come in. Get everyone.”
The brothers rotate through. Rafael and Persi are first. Both of them are in awe and Persi leans in to whisper, “First chance you get, we need a girl’s day.”
I smile up at her. Over the past eight months the wives and I have all become fast friends.
To my side, Rafael settles his hand on Rowan's shoulder and the silence between them carries all the love in the world. He looks down at Svetlana and kisses the top of her head. “She’s beautiful and absolutely perfect.”