Epilogue

epilogue

Olympia

Six Years Later

They say fate works in mysterious ways. I can’t say that they’re wrong. I spent three weeks in a coma after Ophelia did what she did. The damage was extensive, the surgery was long, and the effects would alter my life forever.

After marrying the love of my life in a cliffside ceremony that overlooked a calm blue sea, he took me away from our life in L.A. where we spent an entire three months living a dream come true in a villa in the Maldives. I came back sun kissed and more in love than I thought I could possibly be in love with another person.

I spent the next six months working hard at Laurier Lines, culturing a relationship with my father, who endured his own trauma after he saw one of his daughters attempting to murder his other. We never speak of Ophelia, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think of her from time to time, wondering what it was that happened to her—or what she was missing to make her into the person she became.

She’s served six years of her lifetime sentence, a sentence ensured by Kane’s brother, Ilya Volkov, who apparently had the ruling judge in his pocket—because the book had been thrown at my sister. And I didn’t do a single thing to stop the weight of it slamming into her hard. Cutting her down.

What she took from me—I’d never get back.

What she took from me when she put those two bullets into my stomach—I’d never recover.

I hadn’t been pregnant when the bullets sank into me, thankfully. But when I woke, it was to find that I would also neverbe pregnant. As a result of the trauma the bullets had done to my body, the surgeon had been forced to give me a complete hysterectomy.

I’d mourned the loss for an entire year before I began to make peace with my fate.

Now, with the spring sun shining on my face, the six-year-old boy and his three-year-old brother strapped into their seats in the back of Tav’s SUV, I smile big.

“Mommy, gween,” Landon, my youngest son, waves his green Hot Wheels car enthusiastically as I toss him a smile and a wink.

“You’re right, buddy. Grrreen.” I accentuate the R.

Chubby cheeks push up in a baby-cute smile, darker in color than his older brother, who has a different father and paler coloring. Both my boys share their birth mother’s honey brown eyes and full heads of hair. They’re so handsome. And boy, do they have the biggest hearts.

“Mommy, when we get home, can I swim?” Maverik, my oldest, asks. He’s always asking to swim. If the boy could, he’d go back into the place all souls begin and choose to be a fish, I’m certain.

He’s going to study the ocean one day. A marine biologist, I suspect. The sea just seems to call his little soul like nothing else.

“I think that can be arranged.”

“Pool Pawty!” Landon cheers, his exuberant nature ever on display. Unlike his brother, who is more reserved, thoughtful, and calm, Landon is going to be my troublemaker. I can see it now. He’s so passionate and full of life’s chaos.

Mav smiles shyly. Coming to us from care at five, he’s only been ours for the past year. He has memories of his previous life that I’m not sure Landon has. They affected him. Sometimes, he has nightmares that we’re going to send him back. I hold him and assure him that he’s mine, and I’m his. His daddy is his, and he and Landon are his daddies. We love him and we’ll always love him. There’s no giving anyone back.

Still, my little boy doesn’t let his smiles free quite as easily as Landon.

Flipping down my visor, my eyes connect with Mav’s in the mirror. “Definite pool party!” I exclaim with excitement, loving when Tav drops his hand to my thigh, squeezing lovingly. “What do you think, Daddy?” I bring Tav into the conversation.

“Looks like I’m going to find my swim shorts when we’re home.”

“I’ll cut up some fruit and maybe pour a bowl of chips.” I sweeten the pot.

“Juice, Mommy,” Landon reminds. “Juice.”

“Of course.” Emotion tightens my chest, because Mav’s eyes are starting to shine with excitement, too. It’s such a beautiful sight. Magical. “Any special requests Mav?”

He shakes his head.

I prompt, “What about Popcorn?”

His eyes ignite with hope and pleasure. It’s a favorite of his I’m sure to make often, knowing he won’t ask for it. “Yeah,” his breathless excitement tickles me pink.

Tav chuckles. “We’ll swim until we can’t swim anymore, then we’ll finish the night off with a movie and popcorn smothered in butter. That sound good?”

“Yeah!” Landon shrieks, the excitement too much for him to contain.

Tav glances over his shoulder. “Mav?”

“It sounds better than good.”

“The best,” Tav agrees.

“The best.” Mav nods, his little honey brown eyes bursting with happiness and hope and love.

It’s in the love that I have for my boys that I know, as terribly painful as fate can be, as mysterious and agonizing as she sometimes works, her ways are never, never wrong.

My hand curls around Tav’s on my thigh. “I love you, you know?”

His eyes slide to me, and his lips curl as he calls, “What do we say, boys?”

The car erupts in a chorus of “I love you, Mommy,” that has my already full heart bursting at the seams.

In all the pain that brought me to this moment, I wouldn’t take a single moment back, because then I wouldn’t have this. The light in the dark. My family. My reason for breathing.

The loves of my life.

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~Thanks

This is the end of the Devils Heartbreak Series, but if you fell for Ilya Volkov like so many others…

Keep reading - he has a story, too.

Little Blue ~ Releasing June 09/24

A little about Ilya’s story…

He stole me from my bed.

He stole me from my country.

He stole me from my life.

Now, he says...I’m his.

An excerpt: Little Blue

“You can have any woman,” I begin. “Why take me?”

He wets his lips. “You’re the only woman I want.”

I frown. “You really are crazy, aren’t you?”

“Mad,” he confirms.

It should terrify me. In a way, his easy admission of his insanity does. But I also feel an unhealthy dose of aloof bravery. Or maybe his mad is rubbing off on me, because I tell him, “I won’t make you happy.”

“I’ll make you happy enough for both of us.”

He’s deranged.“I’ll run from you every chance I get.”

His eyes flare. I think—I think he’s excited by the prospect.

Goosebumps rise on my flesh as I shiver.

His voice is a deep rumble. “Do you promise?”

My breath snags. He lets me shove his hand away, breaking all contact, but remains hovering close above me. “I’ll fight you.”

“Exciting.” He truly looks—excited.

“I’ll hate you.”

“You can try, but I’ll make you love me,” he vows. “I’m a very determined man, Little Blue. Consider your challenge accepted.”

“It’s not a challenge. It’s a fact. A promise.” I shake my head. “Just—just let me go before we get hurt.”

“I won’t hurt you.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about.” That’s not entirely true.

He quirks a grin. It’s—so beautiful.

“The only thing that can hurt me is losing you.”

My retort dies a quick death on my tongue.

I don’t know what to say to that.

Pre-Order your copy of Little Blue, A Volkov Bratva Romance here: Little Blue