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My mother reaches for his hand. He takes it, and I watch his fingers curl around hers with the desperation of a drowning man finding shore.

I turn back to Carter.

His hands are warm around mine, his grip firm but gentle, his eyes locked on my face with an intensity that makes my knees weak. The minister begins to speak, something about love and commitment and the sacred bond of marriage, but I barely hear the words. There’s only Carter. Only the way he’s looking at me like I’m the answer to every question he’s ever asked. Only the way his thumb traces circles on my palm, the way his breathing has synchronized with mine, the way he leans forward, just slightly, as if he can’t bear the distance between us.

“I love you,” he mouths, silent, just for me.

The tears I’ve been fighting since my father started crying spill over. They track down my cheeks, warm and salty, and I don’t wipe them away. I let them fall. Let Carter see all of it, the joy, the fear, the overwhelming gratitude of a woman who almost didn’t make it to this moment, standing in the arms of the man who made sure she did.

“I love you too,” I whisper back, and my voice doesn’t break. It’s steady, strong, even, the voice of a woman who’s learned that surviving the worst doesn’t make you fragile. It makes you unbreakable.

The minister asks if I’ll take this man to be my husband.

I look at Carter, at the scar above his eyebrow, the gold in his eyes, the way his hands hold mine like they’re holding something precious, and I say the words that will bind us together for the rest of our lives.

“I do.”

He says it back, and the words land in my chest like something solid, something I can hold. The minister tells him he can kiss the bride, and Carter doesn’t wait. He closes the distance between us, one hand sliding around my waist, the other cupping my jaw with a tenderness that makes my eyes sting all over again. His lips find mine, and the kiss isn’t chaste. It isn’t the polite, church-appropriate peck you give in front of a hundred witnesses. It’s Carter, hungry and reverent and raw, pouring everything he can’t say into the press of his mouth against mine. I taste salt and feel his tears, actual tears, wet against my cheeks, and my hands fist in the lapels of his suit because I need something to hold on to, something to keep me from floating away.

The chapel erupts. Cheers, whistles, the particular roar of a room full of bikers who’ve been holding their breath through an entire ceremony and finally get to cut loose. Matthew lets out a whoop that echoes off the vaulted ceiling. Tiana is crying openly, mascara tracking down her cheeks. My mother has both hands pressed to her mouth, and my father, my beautiful, broken, brave father is standing with his arm around her, his face wet and shining, smiling for the first time today.

But Carter and I don’t notice any of it. We’re in our own world, his forehead pressed to mine, our breaths mingling, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw like he’s memorizing it.

“Mrs. Kingston,” he murmurs against my lips, and the words send a shiver through me that starts at the base of my spine and radiates outward.

“Mr. Kingston,” I whisper back, and he smiles, really smiles, that rare thing that transforms his face from hardened to human and kisses me again, softer this time, lingering.

We turn to face the crowd. Hands clasped. United. The organ kicks back in, something triumphant and swelling, and we start down the aisle together, past the rows of faces that blur into a sea of love and tears and the particular joy of people who’ve watched something beautiful rise from the ashes of something terrible.

The reception is held in the barn behind the chapel, a rustic, open-beamed space strung with fairy lights and draped in white fabric, the tables covered in simple linen and scattered with gardenias. We dance. Carter holds me like I’m made of glass and fire, his hand splayed across the small of my back, his body warm and solid against mine. The song is something slow and aching, and I rest my cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat: steady, strong, alive.

“You, okay?” he asks, his lips moving against my hair.

“Perfect,” I say, and I mean it.

The night unfolds in a blur of toasts and tears and my father’s surprisingly eloquent speech about a daughter who taught him that some things are worth surviving for. Carter’s mother reads a passage from one of her novels, something about love being the only force strong enough to rewrite a man’s DNA, and Kane just stands, raises his glass, and says, “To my son. The bravest man I know.” That’s it. Eight words. But Carter’s hand tightens on mine, and I feel him swallow hard beside me.

We cut the cake, vanilla with buttercream, simple and sweet, and Carter feeds me a bite with his fingers, his thumb brushing my lower lip, his eyes darkening in a way that makes heat pool low in my belly. I feed him back, and he catches my finger between his teeth, gentle, his tongue flicking against the pad of my thumb, and the look he gives me is pure, uncomplicated want.

Later, much later, when the music has slowed and the crowd has thinned to just the hardcore stragglers—my parents slow dancing in the corner, Matthew and Greyson deep in conversation by the bar, Tiana curled in an armchair with her phone, probably texting someone she shouldn’t—Carter pulls me outside.

The night is cold, October sharp and clear, stars scattered across the sky like someone flung a handful of diamonds. The barn sits at the edge of a field that stretches toward the tree line, and the fairy lights spill their warmth across the grass, turning everything golden and soft. Carter leads me to the edge of the light, to the place where warmth meets dark, and pulls me against him. His arms come around me from behind, his chin resting on the top of my head, and we stand there, watching the sky, breathing together.

“Today was…” He trails off, and I feel his chest expand against my back, the deep breath of a man searching for words. “I didn’t think I’d get this. Any of it. You. A wedding. A future that doesn’t end in blood.”

I turn in his arms, facing him, and the fairy lights catch in his eyes, turning them molten. His hands settle on my hips, warm through the fabric of my dress, and I press my palms flat against his chest, feeling the steady, reassuring thrum of his heart.

“You deserve it,” I tell him. “You deserve all of it.”

He shakes his head, a small, disbelieving motion. “I don’t know about deserve. But I’ll take it. Every second of it, Trix. I’ll take it and I’ll protect it and I’ll⁠—”

I rise on my toes and press my lips to his, cutting off the words. His mouth is warm, tasting like whiskey and buttercream, and I kiss him with everything I have, every ounce of love, every scrap of courage, every stubborn, surviving piece of my heart. His arms tighten around me, pulling me flush against him, and for a moment there’s nothing but the two of us, the cold air, and the sound of our breathing.

When I pull back, I’m trembling, not from the cold, but from the enormity of what I’m about to say. What I’ve been carrying for three weeks, holding close like a secret, waiting for the right moment. And standing here, in his arms, under the stars, on the night we became husband and wife, I can’t think of a moment more right.

I lean up, my lips brushing the shell of his ear, and I whisper it. Three words. Quiet. Certain.

“I’m pregnant, Carter.”