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I wrap my arms tighter around his shoulders, pressing my lips to his temple.
“You were twelve,” I whisper softly. “You were a child watching his brother destroy your family.”
“I should have—”
“If I could go back,” I tell him, my voice unwavering, “I would find that boy sitting in that church pew, and I would tell him that I see how hard he tries. I see how much he loves his family.” I press another soft kiss to his skin. “And I would tell him that one day, he is going to grow into a man who finds people trapped within the darkest places in the world and be their savior. I would tell him that I see all of who he is, and I love him. And I am never going anywhere.”
Zevran’s arm tightens around my waist, burying his face deeper into my neck. He exhales, a long, ragged breath that feels like a decades-old weight has finally lifted.
I rest my cheek against him.
The bathroom door is closed. The ghosts are gone.
Zevran saved me from my hell, and I will spend the rest of my life making sure he never feels alone. We are broken in the same places, and we are right where we belong.
34
Cora
The restaurant’s lunchtime rush covers my friends’ delighted cackle of laughter.
I’ve told Anya, Katia, and Mila everything that happened after Zevran and I left Mila’s birthday celebration a week ago. Katia kept refilling my wine. Mila held my hand during the part about Lorenzo’s basement and my ex-husband gloating over my imminent demise.
But when I reached the part about what happened upstairs in Lorenzo’s house—skating over the more explicit details—Anya exclaims, “Zevran put him in a cuck chair?”
Her smile is scandalized, and she has both hands pressed to her cheeks.
“I don’t… What’s a cuck chair?” I look around the table in confusion.
Mila and Katia exchange a look and burst out laughing.
“It means that Troy had to listen to Zevran going to town on you and showed him who the real husband is. He was cucked.”
My face goes from zero to furnace in approximately one second. “Oh my god. I didn’t realize there was a name for what he was doing. I thought we just got carried away.”
But of course he knew what he was doing.
Look at you. Mine. Every inch of you.
My wife is so fucking beautiful.
The table dissolves into delighted laughter. My mouth is twitching and my shoulders start to shake. I try to stifle it by taking a sip of wine, but my friends’ mirth is infectious, and I find myself giggling helplessly. It’s a relief to get it all out.
When the laughter finally settles, Mila reaches across and covers my hand with hers. Her expression has changed, and there’s warmth and seriousness underneath the humor.
“Don’t feel bad about seeing the funny side of this,” she says. “That man who called himself your husband put you through hell every day. He had it coming to him.”
“And then some,” Katia agrees.
In a flash of memory, I see myself in a heap on the kitchen floor, nose bleeding, hands up to protect myself from Troy’s blows.
I can’t find it in me to disagree with them.
I look down at the ring on my finger and feel warmth spreading through my whole chest.
“Will you all come to the wedding?” I ask. “Zevran and I are still planning everything, but I know I need you there. You’re the only people in the world who know the whole story.”
Anya’s eyes go bright immediately. Mila makes a sound that is close to a squeal. Katia simply nods, once, with the expression of someone for whom this was never in question.
