I pressed a kiss to his neck, inhaling the scent of my man, my safety. He was the breath I held onto when everything else burned. The moment my lipstouched him, the chaos dulled, and my heartbeat steadied. Like Enzo had said about Robbie, this was more than love. Killian was the other half of my heart, the fire inside that didn’t consume me, but kept me alive.
“Yeah,” I said. “It was beautiful.”
From a cell phone on the table on speakerphone, Caleb’s voice echoed dryly. “And done! I’ve sent the Lassiter data to the relevant people. It’s everywhere now.”
For Robbie.
Epilogue
KILLIAN
The day Jamieleft the apartment he’d shared with Rio, he wasn’t sad at all. He’d explained that he’d miss Rio, sure, but they’d still see each other every day at Redcars, and we weren’t moving far.
We’d found a place to share as a brand new couple, and it wasn’t fancy, unlike the penthouse I still owned, gathering dust and offering expensive views uptown on my visits to keep up appearances. This place was old, low-key, and quiet. A little beat-up around the edges. Tucked off a street just a few blocks from the garage. It wasn’t on any lease and didn’t appear in any relevant database. It was completely off the grid—just the way I needed it.
Because no matter how much I wanted to wrapmy life around Jamie, he still had a record, and I still had a reputation to maintain to front the work the team did in the Cave. The respectable lawyer. The clean-cut face of a courtroom defense. That persona didn’t survive cohabitating with a convicted arsonist—not on paper.
But this house? This was ours.
In the three months since everything, he’d only set one fire.
And I’d gone with him.
It was in the middle of nowhere, deep woods and an abandoned lumber mill, and I remember standing there as the flames took hold—watching his eyes light up, his chest rise slowly, as if the fire soothed something in him that I couldn’t always reach.
I said it was beautiful. I meant it.
He didn’t need to hear me say I was scared. Or that I wasn’t sure I’d ever fully understand what fire did for him. What mattered was that he’d let me come. Let me see. And that one moment was enough.
Today was unofficial Sunday car day at Redcars. Everyone stayed late to mess with old rebuilds, drink beer, and talk shit. They’d decided that this one was for Jamie’s moving-in day with the idiot lawyer. Enzo had texted me something likebeer or bustwith sixteen emojis I couldn’t identify.
I pulled in after dusk. The garage door was open, music spilling into the cooling air. The half-finished Pontiac—Redcars’ pet project —sat front and center while Enzo worked under the hood, pointing things out as he and Robbie laughed.
It was good to hear Robbie laugh. Inside, someone had lined the back workbench with snacks and beer, a few pizzas sweating in open boxes.
“Look who finally showed up,” Rio called. He was perched on the hood of an Impala, new bruises visible on his face. “Thought you were ghosting us on J’s moving-in-with-you party.”
“I had to finish hiding his flamethrower collection from the movers,” I shot back.
“As if I’d wimp out and use one of those,” Jamie called, walking over from where he’d been talking to Logan and Cassidy. He looked good. Relaxed. His fingers found mine as soon as I was within reach, and he tugged me in for a kiss, long and slow, as if we were alone.
“You’re late,” he murmured against my lips.
“Fashionably,” I replied.
“I saved you a beer.”
“Is it warm?”
“Of course.”
I grinned, pressing another kiss to his mouthbefore following him inside. The rest of the night played out the way it always did with the Redcars crew—loud, sarcastic, messy, but underneath all of it, a kind of joy I hadn’t realized I’d missed.
We stopped partyinga little after midnight; Enzo and Robbie went upstairs, and after we locked up, hand-in-hand, with Rio next to us, we headed out, Jamie stiffening when someone stumbled out of the shadows.
“DaemonRaze?” the man asked Jamie, weakly, his hand to his side.
He was short and wiry, wearing worn jeans and a leather jacket that had seen better days. His long, dark hair was tied up in a messy bun, strands falling loose to frame a face half-lit by the amber glow of the streetlamp. He looked tired—haunted, even—but not dangerous. Not armed. Not overtly threatening.
