Epilogue

New York City

December 17

T he Fifth Avenue jewelry store was dark. Miles sat at the pedestal table in the center of the room and sipped his wine. He was moments away from the most important event of his life—and that was saying something after the past few months.

Lucien Kite was dead. Raphael Garza had been arrested for the murder; he escaped custody and disappeared. Despite his frustration that Garza had slipped away, Miles smiled. He could only imagine the look on Garza’s face when he opened the little black book Miles had swapped out in the hallway of Kite’s house. Miles had filled the pages with random numbers and, at the end, a smiley face. Nathan had turned Kite’s real little black book over to the feds.

Ch64ug Ugentti had vanished. Miles knew he would never be found. In an ironic twist, Chug had created an alibi for himself for that night at the warehouse. He had planned on killing Miles and needed to cover his tracks. So Ugentti had made a big show of checking into an Atlantic City casino for a campaign event before sneaking out to the warehouse. As a result, law enforcement had focused their investigation on the casino. Unsurprisingly, they had no leads.

Miles had closed out all of Caleb Cain’s business and would begin his new job running the Bishop Security New York office in two weeks. His life was starting anew, and tonight, he planned to kick it off with a bang.

Miles checked the time, his outward calm belying his inner nerves. Where was she?

Tapping the comm device in his ear, Miles said, “Anything?”

From his position on the roof across the street, Steady replied, “Negative.”

Maybe she wouldn’t come. Miles had spent a month dropping breadcrumbs—a necklace taken from the Palace of Versailles during the French Revolution to be used to fund the new government. Instead, it was stolen by a traitor and smuggled out of the country. A century later, the necklace reappeared around the throat of a drug lord’s mistress, only to vanish again. The jewels resurfaced last year in a collection of a British royal who had taken great pains to falsify the item’s provenance.

After a brief stop at this renowned jeweler for appraisal and cleaning, the necklace would be auctioned tomorrow. Coincidentally, the store’s alarms would be briefly disabled for routine maintenance.

The fictional story ticked every box to be a target for Clara. She just needed to take the bait.

His twin’s voice came over the comm. “Mi, it’s the walking dead out here. I don’t think she fell for it.”

Miles sighed. “Let’s give it a few more minutes, but you’re right. If she isn’t here by now, she’s missed the window.”

At the back of the room, a lock clicked.

“She’s here.”

Tox whispered, “How the fuck did she get past four SEALs?”

“She’s The Lynx,” Miles replied.

The door to the back room opened, and a shadow moved across the black and white parquet floor. Miles had doctored an image of the storefront window where the necklace was proudly displayed. Clara moved silently in that direction.

With a tap to the comm to signal Twitch, the elegant chandeliers lit one by one. Clara froze at the side of the room, those blue eyes piercing through her mask. When she spotted Miles sitting at the table, he lifted his glass. “Care for some wine, Bluebird?”

Clara pulled off the mask with a puzzled smile. “What’s going on?”

“What does the countdown timer on your watch say?”

Clara glanced at her wrist. “Three minutes and twenty-three seconds.”

“Then we’d better hurry. Come. Sit.”

Clara complied. “There’s no necklace, is there?” She eyed the covered dish before her. “And there is definitely no food because I would have smelled it.”

“Clever girl. Lift it.”

Clasping the silver handle, Clara lifted the dome, revealing an open velvet box. Perched inside was a three-carat, cushion-cut diamond ring. The cloche hit the floor with a clank.

“Quiet, Bluebird. We are breaking in after all.”

She plucked the ring from the box and stared at it.

“It was our mom’s,” Miles said.

Clara looked up at Miles in a daze.

“Clara, will you marry me?”

“What?” she asked.

Miles would have laughed if he hadn’t been so nervous. “Clara, we have about ninety seconds before all hell breaks loose.”

“Eighty-one,” his twin said over the comm.

“You want to marry me?”

“Of course, I want to marry you. How could I not?” He clasped her hand. “Clara, you taught me how to love again. I’m never letting you go, Bluebird.”

Her stunned expression faded to one filled with so much love and joy, Miles could have burst. Clara tugged off her left glove and slipped on the ring. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Now, answer the question.”

“Of course, I’ll marry you.” She leaned over the table and kissed him. After checking her watch, Clara said, “And thirty seconds should be plenty of time to escape a locked jewelry store.”

Miles hauled her over the marble table and onto his lap. “Yes, Bluebird, but I’m walking out the front door. You need to find your own way out. Meet me at the corner of 57th and Fifth. I have a suite at the Plaza, where I plan on doing some truly appalling things to my future wife.”

Her lips were still touching his when she said, “See you there.”

Miles pulled open the heavy front door, hearing it latch behind him as the locks and alarms re-engaged. Glancing through the window, he spotted Clara still sitting at the table, giving him a flirty wave.

One by one, the team joined Miles as he walked up Fifth Avenue in the gray pre-dawn. Tox emerged from the passenger door of the van parked out front and fell into step beside him. Twitch and Finn hopped out the back and followed. Nathan emerged from the building next door. Ren joined the group from a side street, and Steady and Chat jogged across Fifth Avenue to complete the phalanx. They walked in matched step, quiet and smiling. The sun was just peeking through the tall buildings as they walked at an unhurried pace to the corner…

…where Clara was waiting for them, beaming.

She ran to Miles and flew into his arms. His Bluebird. Life, long dormant, bloomed inside his heart, reaching for the sunlight surrounding him.

Clara whispered in his ear, “I bet there really is a necklace like that.”

“There is indeed. You can steal it on our honeymoon. It’ll be my wedding gift.”

“But I’d want to return it,” she said.

Miles held her close. “That’s the gift.”

Clara slid down his body with a grin, and they continued past the Pulitzer Fountain to the Plaza.

Life would never be dull with his Bluebird. Miles held Clara close, surrounded by his new family. They were a patchwork brotherhood of honor, love, and support. He had never felt so lucky.

Miles had finally found his way home.

THE END