Epilogue

Declan

Two Weeks Later

Music and smoke fill Sigma House. End-of-year parties are chaos, and this one tops the past two years.

People are wasted, stumbling around, celebrating a summer of freedom, when I can’t wait to get out of here. After everything that happened with Teal and the fraternity, I need a summer away from this place to clear my head.

Taking control of the Council is both freeing and exhausting. Weeding out who has been true to Sigma House and who hasn’t. It’s taken all our resources, and it’s work that’s far from over.

I’m thankful Alex is back. Kole and I will both be gone for a month, and Maddox is still a bit immature to take the reins with what’s ahead .

Alex still isn’t speaking to anyone, but his presence is enough to keep control while I’m gone. As for the rest of us, what we’re doing—vengeance for Sigma Sin, for Alex—is also personal. He won’t let anyone slip through the cracks, and he’s going to make those deserving atone for what they did.

Maddox leans forward on the couch and snorts a line of coke off the coffee table. Alex watches him, not saying anything or caring.

Alex generally spends even more time in his room than Kole does. But tonight, he’s here to make a show of solidarity with the rest of us for the last party of the year.

Maddox looks half-dead as he leans back against the couch. His pupils are blown wide, and he’s barely in his head at this point.

“You need to watch that shit before it gets out of control.” I smack him on the side of the face when he doesn’t immediately respond. “Maddox?”

“Yeah?” He sits up, shaking his head. “I’m good, man. Loosen up.”

Maddox stands up and stalks off, pissed. He’s been unraveling lately with everything that happened. Power and order do strange things to people, and I’m questioning if he is ready for what I’ve handed him, especially when he’s dealing with the fall of his own father.

Glancing over at Alex, I see he’s watching Maddox leave, and I wonder what he’s thinking.

His face is stone-cold, and his eyes are distant. He’s the opposite of the eighteen-year-old kid who pledged Sigma House with me three years ago. While I’ll be a senior next year, Alex is starting over. And if I thought this place changed me, it’s nothing compared to him.

“Alex?” A voice comes from my left, and I look up to see Patience with her mouth wide open.

Her arm is hooked through Mila’s, and her gaze quickly turns lethal the longer she watches her brother.

“Are you kidding me?” Patience rolls her shoulders back. “When Mom told me you were back here, I didn’t want to believe it. How could you?”

He doesn’t answer her, but she pauses like she thinks this might be the conversation that snaps him out of it.

“I can’t believe you would do this.” Patience steps back.

Mila tries to hold onto her arm to keep her calm. “Patience, listen to hi—”

“No.” Patience shakes Mila off. “I’m done with this place. He deserves whatever he gets if he’s going to stay here. I can’t believe I was by his side thinking things had changed.”

Patience storms off, and Mila watches her go, not following. Unlike Alex, Mila actually looks torn, but she’s also smart enough to know there’s no calming her best friend right now.

When Mila turns back to me and Alex, she forces a smile. “She’s just upset you’re back here. That’s all.”

“As if that wasn’t clear.” I chuckle, and Alex knocks me on the arm.

It catches me off guard when it’s the most reaction I’ve seen from him since he was carted away after his trial.

Mila appears equally confused, her eyebrows pinching .

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I glance down to see a message lighting up the screen.

Wife : I’m back

“I gotta take off for a bit. You good?” I stand, looking over at Alex. “Keep an eye on Maddox for me?”

Alex nods, even if he’s still watching Mila, and I leave them to their uncomfortable staring contest to head through the crowd.

Bodies fill Sigma House, and tonight, it’s suffocating. The only person I want to be around is Teal, and she’s not here. She’s the calm in the middle of the chaos as I clean up the Council’s mess.

I thought it would be harder to go against them when I’d been conditioned to be an obedient soldier, but it’s been easier than expected. With my father and Paul Donovan both behind bars, I’m able to actually put the House first. I can live up to the words carved into the wall in our meeting room. And I’m using every second to my advantage.

For the House.

For Teal.

I’ll become who I was always meant to be. Someone ruthless for the right people.

Teal has yet to visit her father, just like I’ve yet to visit mine. With my father out of the picture and his assets seized, my lawyer was able to unlock the trust fund my grandparents left for me, so I was able to cut all ties with him. So there’s no reason to associate.

Besides, while the legal system works, it’s ultimately irrelevant. Sigma House will ensure they both meet their untimely ends.

I weave through the party and find my way out to my car. Climbing in, I make the short drive to campus.

Teal has been locked in her studio for the past couple of weeks, working through everything that happened, and I’ve been trying to give her space to process. She contacts me when she needs me, and I take care of business with the House in all my free time.

I don’t regret orchestrating our marriage to protect her from her father, but I understand that it will take her time to process that there’s no end to this. She’s mine.

I pull my car into the campus parking lot and find it mostly empty. The students that are still here are at Sigma House getting wasted, and anyone else has already left for the summer.

Everyone except Teal, who will spend time in her studio up until the second we leave for Paris.

Making my way into the courtyard, I find her sitting on the bench where this all started. She has her earbuds in and her head tipped back so she can watch the stars. She’s added more blue and pink to her hair these past couple of weeks, and at this rate, there won’t be much blonde left by the time we leave.

In her hands, she has a piece of paper, and I refuse to let myself think she’s called me out here to serve me with divorce papers, no matter how resistant she can be. If she does, I just might have to chain her up. Remind her why she submitted to me in the first place .

Teal doesn’t spot me until I’m a few feet away, and when her gaze meets mine, I don’t like that there’s hesitance.

“Hey.” She pulls one of her earbuds out, and I drop down onto the bench, taking it from her.

I pop it in my ear, surprised she’s listening to classical music.

“I wasn’t expecting that.”

“My new doctor said it might help, so I’m trying it.” She shrugs. “We’ll see.”

After Paul Donovan went down, Dr. Parish was right behind him. There was more than enough evidence that he was overmedicating Teal to get his license revoked. And the farther we dug, the more we found that everything he was doing was contributing to her slow psychotic break.

Plus, as it turns out, she wasn’t the only patient he was mistreating. He was accepting bribes to alter treatments and using nonresponsive patients, too, as human lab rats. He’s getting exactly what he deserves for his part in this, and by the time the House is done with him, he’ll be the one spending the rest of his life in Montgomery Psychiatric Ward.

With Dr. Parish out of the picture, Teal was finally able to work with a doctor who wants to help. While every other therapist had been an extension of her father’s manipulation, now she’s being treated.

She doesn’t say much to me about it, and I only hack her files to check in on her progress on occasion. But she’s clear in a way I haven’t seen her since she was a kid, so I know they’re helping.

“I have something for you.” She fiddles with the paper in her lap. “I’ve been thinking about what you said about us. About this.”

Her fingers move from the paper to the ring around her finger. Every time I see it, I breathe a sigh of relief she hasn’t taken it off yet. Although, right now, she makes me nervous each time she twists it around.

I wouldn’t blame her for wanting to try and end this after what I did. I just can’t let her.

“What did you decide?” I ask, pretending she has a choice.

Her gaze lifts to meet mine. “You didn’t give me a say in this decision, Declan, and I’m still pissed at you about that. You’ve also never apologized for it. Not really.”

“I told you no more lies.”

“But you’re not sorry.”

“Do you wish I was?” I lay my arm across the bench behind her, planting my other hand over hers in her lap. “Would it make it easier for you if I lied and said I regret forcing you into this? Because I promised you the truth, Teal. So I can’t give you that. You didn’t fall for a hero. I’m the monster. And just because I’m willing to slay what’s worse than me in your name, it doesn’t make me good. I’ll always go to extremes for you because that’s how much you mean to me. And this ring is just one more way I’ve proven that.”

“I’m not here to ask you to change, Declan.” She wets her lips. “And if I’m honest, I’m not here for an apology either.”

“Then why are we here? ”

“My new doctor is really great.” She glances off. “She’s helping me understand everything with my family. She’s helping me process what my godfather did and giving me coping mechanisms to deal with it. She’s helping me heal.”

“And…” I sense there’s more.

“And she’s giving me some clarity on us.”

“How?” I don’t know if I want the answer, but I need it.

“She thinks you might be unhealthy for me, given everything.”

I shrug. “She’s probably right.”

Teal shakes her head, but she can’t hide the hint of a smile that pops up because she knows what she walked into with me, and deep down, she doesn’t mind.

“She is right.” Teal narrows her eyes, pretending to be defiant. “But that’s just it… Talking to her makes everything clear for the first time in my life. She’s helping me sort through all the chaos in my head, and it makes me want to be better. She makes me want to get rid of all the bad. But when I think about cutting you out, even after everything you’ve done, I can’t.”

“What are you saying?”

“I don’t want to end this.” She sighs, flattening her palm on the paper. “You did this all wrong, but that’s just who you are, Declan. Raised in the same fight-or-flight world that I was. Kicking and screaming because it’s the only way we could be heard. You did this the worst way you could have because, like me, when you care, you can’t think straight. And you hold on hard, no matter how much it hurts those around you.”

“Teal— ”

“Just…” she cuts me off, placing her hands over mine. “You did this because you love me. And I love that you’d fight for me like that, even if I also hate you a little for it. But I don’t want you to be sorry. I just want you to make it right.”

“Make it right?”

Teal slips her hands from mine and lifts the paper from her lap, handing it to me. “You can start with this.”

I take it from her, unfolding it to find a printout about a church.

“What is this?”

“Did you really mean it when you said you wanted to stay married to me?” she asks.

“Of course.”

A smile crawls up in the corner of her mouth. “Then let’s do it the right way. Let’s make it real. Official. In Paris.”

I look at the paper, realizing that’s where the church is. “Are you asking me to marry you, Tealene Donovan?”

“Better than you not asking at all.” She rolls her eyes.

I toss the paper aside and grab the sides of her face. “You’re not trying to end it?”

“I’m not.” She smiles. “Although I am curious if your soul can handle entering a church or if the devil will drag you straight to hell the moment you step foot in the door. So maybe this isn’t so much love; it’s a science experiment.”

“Very funny,” I mumble against her lips, kissing her. “For you, I’d risk it.”

“You promise?” She wraps her arms around my shoulders, and I kiss her.

“For you, always.”