Relentless Sinner

Epilogue - Jaxon

I stand at the edge of the garden, watching her.

Gabriella doesn’t know I’m here. Usually, I’d return later in the day, but I’m home early because I had a rare cancellation. Micah is also stopping by to drop off some contracts for me to sign.

Gabriella laughs with Eve as they work. Before them is a table covered in reeds. Eve usually does all this craft stuff at this time of year. I’m sure she was only too happy to get Gabriella involved. It looks like they’re weaving baskets today.

There’s something different about watching Gabriella when she’s doing anything like this that enchants me. I love the way she gets lost in her work.

The two laugh again and the sound of happiness filters through the air. It’s a sound I wish I could bottle and keep with me in those moments when the darkness of my world pulls me away.

Sensing my presence, Gabriella looks up and her soft eyes meet mine. Her lips curve into a smile that chases away the shadows lingering in my mind.

She is the light to my darkness and I’m grateful for the life we have together.

Everything has changed.

Since my father’s passing, I shook up the leadership, and now I think we have something more solid than we ever had before.

Something that for once in over fifty years does not involve my family.

Even though Levka was innocent, I didn’t trust him to be part of my elite. That had nothing to do with his father’s involvement in trying to kill me but more to do with the tense relationship we’ve always had.

That said, I invoked the old laws, so in the event something happened to me, he’d become the Pakhan.

I felt I should keep things that way just to be fair. As for the leadership, I’ve chosen my senior guards to be Andrieu and Vladmir. They are both men who have been loyal to me all my life. Then I did something a little rogue and chose Micah to be my advisor.

It’s not common for a Bratva leader to choose an Italian mafia boss for anything in his empire, but I thought it was a sign of our continued alliance. And friendship.

I turn when footsteps sound on the path.

It’s him.

He smiles when he sees me and holds up the envelope containing another multimillion-dollar contract.

“Buongiorno.” He tips his head.

“Buongiorno to you, too.”

“Watching your wife again?”

“Always.” I smirk, taking the envelope from him when he hands it to me. “So, have you decided yet if you’re going to your father’s fundraiser?”

The event is in prep for his takeover of the leadership. He contemplated not attending when he found out his father is currently trying to arrange his marriage.

If he’s not going, then I hoped he’d join me on a business trip to Italy.

“I’m not going to that, but I am going somewhere.” He gives me a cunning smile.

“I’m guessing that somewhere isn’t Italy with me.” I raise my brows.

“Sorry, man, I’m chasing a nameless girl I met last night.”

I narrow my eyes when he pulls out a business card with a glass slipper on it that looks like it could belong to Cinderella. It says the Ever After Agency, and it’s based in Denver.

“Micah…is it wise to go chasing some nameless girl when your father has been hounding you down to get married?”

He nods. “For this girl, it is.”

“Okay.” I laugh, looking forward to seeing what will happen with his crazy idea.

Maybe he’ll have a story that ends like mine.

It’s always the things that you least expect that tend to work out the best.

Like my beauty and her Beast—aka me.