Epilogue
Violet
Two years ago, this building was a crime scene. Burned out. Blood-soaked. Nothing left but ash and a foundation too stubborn to collapse.
Now, the air smells like cedar cabinets, ethanol, and the faint citrus of Sasha’s awful tea. Every surface gleams. Every lab coat is clean. Every project logged, backed up, and verified—legally and redundantly.
This lab is mine.
Not because Asher signed a deed. Not because my name is etched into glass. But because I built it. I rebuilt me. From scratch.
We don’t make weapons here. We heal.
“Vi!” Sasha pokes her head into my office, waving a folder with a smug smile. “Peer review from BioMod. You’re top of the citation list.”
I blink. “Seriously?”
She lowers the folder. “Basically, you’re a badass.”
I try not to smile. Fail immediately. “Tell the interns I’m throwing out their samples if they leave one more petri dish unsealed.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She salutes, then disappears down the hall, grinning like she just won something.
I rest my back in my chair, letting sunlight spill across the polished desk. The degree on the wall still surprises me sometimes. Not because it’s there—but because it’s mine. Legitimate. Earned.
It used to feel like I stole everything. Now it feels like I clawed it back.
Eight years ago, I left Berkeley half-educated and full of fear. The world didn’t just kick me—it laughed when I stayed down.
Now I’m finishing what I started. I have the undergrad degree I once thought I’d lost forever. I’m deep into my doctorate. I spend the week knee-deep in molecular neurorepair models and advanced cell pathway simulations.
And I’m good at it.
The air shifts before he knocks.
I feel him—the weight of him. Like gravity warped by memory.
“Asher,” I say without looking up.
The door opens anyway. He steps inside, dressed in black, and quiet as always now. No entourage. No guards. Just the man who once ran a city—and now shares my bed, my coffee, and my forever.
He comes up behind me, presses a kiss to my temple, and sets a thick envelope on my desk.
“What is it this time?” I ask, smirking. “Another shell company in my name? Should I check it for arsenic?”
“Partnership agreement,” he says. “You already run the place. Might as well own half.”
I blink. “And the other half?”
He shrugs. “Technically still mine. Realistically? Yours.”
I raise a brow. “Did hell freeze over?”
He doesn’t smile—but there’s that flicker in his eyes. The one I know. The one that only shows up when it’s just us.
I flip through the documents. Clean. Thorough. No hidden clauses. There’s a second folder tucked underneath. Smaller. Personal.
“What’s this?”
“Trust fund,” he says. “For Ella.”
I freeze.
“She’s done at Langport,” he continues. “Top of her class. She deserves not to sell her soul for grad school.”
My throat tightens. “You already got her out. Paid for everything. You—”
“I did that for you,” he interrupts gently. “This is for her.”
We don’t speak for a moment.
When I look up, he’s watching me the way he always does when he thinks I’m not paying attention—like I’m gravity now. Like I’m the center.
He slides his fingers along my wrist, grounding me. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I lean into his hand. “You’re here.”
His mouth is on mine a second later—hot, hungry, and familiar. He pushes me back against the desk, firm but careful. Like he knows exactly how far he can go before I unravel.
My breath catches when his thigh slips between mine.
“You know what I want,” he murmurs against my neck. “And you know how fast I can make it happen. Tell me to stop.”
I don’t. I grip his collar and pull him closer.
He lifts me onto the desk in one smooth motion, kisses trailing down my jaw as his fingers slide beneath my skirt. I gasp—already wet, and he knows it.
I bite his shoulder. “Asher—”
“I know,” he growls. “But you’re not making a sound. Not until I say.”
It’s fast, filthy, and perfect—the kind of heat that still burns after two years. Proof that we built something clean without losing the fire.
Just as I start to come apart, the door bursts open.
“Dinner delivery,” Ella announces, breezing in with a takeout box. “And if you two were about to start making out on that desk again, I’m walking right back out.”
I freeze.
Asher just grins and gently adjusts my skirt like he wasn’t just knuckle-deep inside me.
“You live with us,” he says mildly. “Not in a monastery.”
“I’d like to walk in once without needing brain bleach,” Ella mutters, flopping into the chair. “Also—Langport opened a new forensic chemistry lab.”
That gets my attention. “Yeah?”
She beams. “They named it after you.”
My heart stutters. “What?”
She flips her phone toward me.
The Cole Center for Forensic Chemistry.
I nearly drop the chopsticks. “Are you fucking serious?”
“Dead serious. They want you to give a speech.”
Asher doesn’t say a word. Just watches me with that quiet, wrecked pride that always cracks my chest open.
I stare at my name in bronze.
“You’re telling me my legacy is crime-scene chemistry?” I laugh.
“Fitting,” he murmurs.
I should scold him. Should tell him not to pull strings behind my back.
And yet—
God.
I love that he still tries to hand me the sky, even when I no longer need saving.
So I smile. Wide. Real.
I built something. From nothing. From ash. From a drug that could’ve ended me—and a man who almost did.
And now we’re here. Together. Wildly in love. Building something that lasts.