Chapter 9 - The Life After War
Three months later, Hazel Brooks woke at 3:14 a.m.
For once, nobody was shooting.
No alarms screamed.
No mafia boss was bleeding on expensive furniture.
She simply could not sleep.
She turned.
Damian’s side of the bed was empty.
Hazel found him downstairs in the study.
He stood at the window overlooking the estate grounds.
The steel shutters had been removed.
Hazel had asked why.
Damian had said he no longer liked feeling imprisoned inside his own home.
She suspected the answer meant more than architecture.
“You’re brooding again.”
Damian turned.
“I don’t brood.”
“You stand alone in dark rooms staring through windows.”
“I think.”
“Dramatically.”
He opened an arm.
Hazel walked into it.
This had become normal.
Perhaps that was the strangest part.
The man who once forbade women from touching him now automatically reached for Hazel whenever she entered a room.
Frankie Sullivan was awaiting trial on racketeering, conspiracy, bribery, kidnapping, and murder charges.
Anthony Romano had survived.
He had accepted a cooperation agreement in exchange for providing information about Sullivan’s network.
Damian had refused to visit him.
Hazel never pushed.
Evan had survived the gunshot heard during the phone call.
Sullivan had shot him in the shoulder after discovering he was secretly communicating with federal investigators.
Evan now lived under federal protection.
Hazel had spoken to him once.
He apologized.
She forgave him.
But forgiveness did not mean returning.
Some relationships belonged in the past even after anger disappeared.
Noah had returned to school and was now extremely popular because everyone believed his sister was dating “some kind of secret billionaire.”
Hazel still technically worked for Damian.
That had become an ongoing argument.
“You cannot keep paying me as a maid when I sleep in your bedroom,” she told him one morning.
“Why not?”
“Because that sounds like a lawsuit.”
Damian nearly choked on his coffee.
She eventually resigned.
Then used money recovered from Evan’s seized accounts—the legitimate portion belonging to her—to enroll in nursing school.
She had wanted to become a nurse before financial trouble destroyed those plans.
Damian offered to pay.
Hazel refused.
They compromised.
He paid tuition.
She promised to repay him.
Damian secretly suspected she would.
That was one of the things he loved about her.
But peace brought different fears.
Hazel noticed Damian becoming distant whenever their relationship appeared in public.
Not because he was ashamed.
Because he was afraid.
One evening she found him studying photographs of them taken outside a restaurant.
“Security concern?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Or emotional concern?”
“Both.”
Hazel sat beside him.
“You can’t lock me inside forever.”
“I know.”
“You can’t control everything.”
“I know.”
“You hate knowing that.”
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“Progress.”
Damian looked at her.
“What if something happens to you?”
“Something will eventually happen to everyone.”
“That is an extremely unhelpful answer.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“That you’ll always be safe.”
“I can’t promise that.”
He looked away.
Hazel took his hand.
“But I can promise I’m choosing this.”
“This?”
“You.”
Damian’s eyes returned to hers.
“Not your money. Not your house. Definitely not your personality before coffee.”
“That seems unnecessary.”
“I’m choosing the whole complicated disaster.”
He kissed her fingers.
“You’re terrible at romantic speeches.”
“I’m excellent at them.”
“You called me a disaster.”
“A handsome disaster.”
“Better.”
Two weeks later, Damian disappeared.
Not literally.
But he left before breakfast and refused to tell Hazel where he was going.
Luca was equally suspicious.
“Boss’s orders.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Immensely.”
That evening, Hazel returned from class and found the estate strangely empty.
She entered the study.
Then stopped.
The leather sofa remained where it had always been.
On the table sat the old first-aid kit.
Beside it was the silver necklace that had once hidden Sullivan’s encryption key.
And beside that was a small velvet box.
Hazel covered her mouth.
Damian stepped from the shadows.
“You are unbelievably dramatic.”
“I was told I brood dramatically. I decided to expand my range.”
She laughed.
Then he became serious.
“The worst night of my life began in this room.”
Hazel frowned.
“The night you were shot?”
“No.”
He approached.
“The night I realized I had something to lose again.”
Her eyes filled.
Damian took her hand.
“For four years, I thought surviving meant needing nobody.”
He opened the box.
A ring caught the lamplight.
Hazel stopped breathing.
“You fell asleep on me,” he continued, “ignored every rule I gave you, walked into a warehouse after I specifically told you not to, nearly got yourself killed repeatedly—”
“This proposal needs work.”
“Hazel.”
She smiled through tears.
Damian lowered himself onto one knee.
“And somehow you taught me that loving someone doesn’t make life safer.”
His voice softened.
“It makes it worth surviving.”
Hazel was crying now.
“Marry me.”
She stared down at him.
“You didn’t technically ask a question.”
Damian closed his eyes.
“Hazel Brooks.”
“Yes?”
“Will you marry me?”
She made him wait three seconds.
Purely for revenge.
Then whispered:
“Yes.”
Damian stood and kissed her.
Applause erupted outside the study.
Hazel jumped.
Noah, Luca, and half the household had apparently been listening.
Damian looked murderous.
Luca raised both hands.
“She said yes, boss.”
“You have five seconds to disappear.”
Everyone scattered laughing.
Hazel wrapped her arms around Damian.
“You know what the best part is?”
“What?”
“Your terrifying reputation is completely ruined.”
“Only inside this house.”
Then Damian’s phone vibrated.
He glanced down.
His smile vanished.
Hazel immediately noticed.
“What?”
He showed her the message.
It came from an unknown number.
Only one photograph.
Damian and Hazel outside the courthouse the previous week.
Written beneath it:
SULLIVAN WAS NEVER THE MAN IN CHARGE.
Hazel looked up.
“Damian?”
His arm tightened around her.
May you like
The war they thought they had ended might only have exposed something much larger.
And someone had just announced that they were watching.
