EPILOGUE

'I'

"DAD SAID I should make a book out of this. Of my life experience like an autobiography and turn it fantastical enough to become a fiction series." I said this with a snort and a roll of my eyes, but Leon turned to me with a gleam in his gaze. "No, I will not."

His smile didn't dampen in the slightest, knotting our fingers together and holding it close to his chest. "But it'd be like the Sherlock Holmes series, darling. Imagine that."

"I can and no." I giggled, closing my eyes and letting the last breath of the summer afternoon warm my face and rustle my hair. "I'm not good with words. Also, I'm not even as a half as interesting as Sherlock bloody Holmes."

"I would argue but you'd snort." I nodded my agreement, eyes still closed. He shuffled in the grass until I could feel his warm breath tickling my ear as he kissed the side of my face. I shivered. "But I can astutely, confidently, wonderfully say that he's not even a shred of a nail cutting as pretty as you are."

"Woe thy words," I murmured, laughing as I turned my head to kiss his nose. He fell back in laughter. "You should write instead, you bloody poet. You'd do wonders creating a series out of it."

A hint of mischief in his eye. "Only if it's in your point of view. Today, my crush with this wonderful smile came by again. Drop dead handsome, aloof, mysterious Leon—"

I pushed him, both of us falling into peels of laughter. As the noise of the forest around us regained its strength again, I didn't want to move. I wanted to stay in the sun a little longer, stay in the breeze, in the shade; in the peace and quiet. The scene was too perfect to ruin, but we had obligations.

"We should— "

"I— "

We both stopped, chuckling. I tilted my chin and inhaled the fresh air with my eyes still closed. "You first."

"Ladies always go first," he countered.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine. We should go visit him now. Make sure he's alright."

"I thought Quinn went to visit?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Alright, scratch that. Make sure he's not ready to shoot his big toe off."

He exhaled out a laugh. Then groaned as he stood up slowly, brushing off the grass that found its way on his pants. He offered his hand once he was sure he was clean.

I took it and fixed my dress and hair. Leon packed up the blanket to his arm while I took the basket. We started walking back to his house, his castle, this prince of mine, swinging our hands together like children on a school pen.

"What were you going to say?" I asked.

"Hm?"

"Before I interrupted?"

Another wicked grin. "I was going to say 'I have grass up my arse'."

I took my hand back and pushed him, bursting out in another pile of laughter. He plucked out a flower when he got back to me, a daisy, small and careful, and tucked it between my curls.

We were going to be okay. I could feel it in my bones. In my heavy, filled heart.

He walked back beside me, stopping us just so he could kiss me again. My eyes closed with automatic response and pulled him close. There's been a lot of these too.

Scratch that, we were going to be more than okay.

— — —

Months had flown by until a new year has started since the case. I had properly fixed up all my requirements, talked to the school staff of my new school about my upcoming year in UNI, and when the school year rolls around come autumn, I was going to study crime and method. A twelve minute drive from home where Leon promised to be my chauffeur everyday without question. I had protested, but the man was steady in his chivalry. There were times that was hard to go through and times I would never want to forget.

Slowly, very slowly, the bad days were lessening to good ones.

But as clear as the day, I would forever remember what happened that night as soon as the shot rang out and Leon had crumpled against us. I had screamed so loud my throat hurt, the weight and impact of the sound had burned my eyes in fresh tears.

When I opened my eyes, it was to see Matteo Moretti lower the gun he held, his expression resolute— and immediately got tackled by Dr. Westley. "Enough!" The doctor had screamed. He wrestled the gun without a fight and threw it on the table. Glass fell and shattered, but the silence couldn't be thicker. "Enough of this! You're all crazy!"

"Leon," I sobbed, pulling his face toward me. His expression was so shock and ripped in agony that I cried harder. My hands were shaking. "Look at me, come on. Leon—"

"Bleeding, bloody shite, old man."

The whole room froze. Even Aoi wrestled out of Kei's grip in disbelief. We crowded over to see James — James alive, bleeding and scowling — push off Enzo who doubled over in pain, drops of blood painting his white long-sleeves a bloom of an unfurling rose.

James raised a hand at all of us, pissed. "I'm fine, I'm fine. He shot at him, not me. Collateral damage." He checked his arm then winced. "Yep, bullet's lodge there. Fuck. Where is that bleeding ambulance?"

When no one moved, he sighed roughly. "Good god, someone check the ambulance or at least get a bloody doctor up my arse to patch me up!"

"I'll do it, I'll do it," Quinn said, out of the trance. She was grinning, the tears still frozen on her cheeks, but she bounded from heel to heel, ducked her head to kiss his forehead before he could swat it away, before she sprinted out.

"Leon, he's okay," I murmured. "He's okay."

James smirked at us and leaned against the wall. "Nine lives, bitch. You aren't getting rid of me that easily, but fuck does that hurt." He turned to the old man with a scowl. "You couldn't at least shot his leg where there was a clear shot. Where I wouldn't have been collateral damage."

Matteo grumbled out what may have been a chuckle. Dr. Westley stared at him like he's insane, hence releasing him to stop Enzo's bleeding and moaning.

"Mie scuse," the old man said with a tired smile. "I had to act fast."

"You shot your grandson," I prodded as if this was all lost in translation somehow. Dr. Westley raised his eyebrows like I was the only who got it.

He fixed his eyes at me. Those calculative, patient eyes. "Yes. Someone had to stop him. No one else could shoot without incurring the wrath of the family. Someone had to do it and I did."

"No offence but I did." James groaned as Dr. Westley checked his arm after fixing the first one. Enzo's whole side was wrapped up in his torn up jacket. He was pale and heaving, but still had enough fight to glare at his grandfather.

"More than that," Matteo said. "Stop him about all of this. It is time to pay for sins. Time to move on." He pulled out his chair and sat. The certain proud air around him had left— or something akin to it. He finally looked weary. Tired. But not unhappy. It was relief; another form of it where weight was gone. "All of the business should stop, but it would never be until he is stopped." He nodded at his grandson. The young Moretti spat out an insult. "He wishes to claim my position, to move ahead of all of my regrets and make it bigger."

"Regrets? Regrets?" Lorenzo spat at his grandfather's feet. "Your regrets are our business— my empire! My—"

Matteo picked up his gun again and aimed it at his grandson. "I will shoot your leg."

Enzo's eye twitched. "You wouldn't."

"The doctor can help you again, I do not care. You never learn. As long as it shuts you up. Or maybe you want one of little Cassandra's tranquillisers?" He shutted up. Matteo sighed. "As I was saying— I knew what I did. I knew what my family did. It's time to let the past come up to us and haunt us." He smiled slightly. "I have family inside the prisons I would like to visit. Haven't seen in years— they're not allowed visitational rights, problems with guards. It's a good retirement idea."

Cordelia stepped forward— Milo a shadow to her steps, clicking his jaw with his hand stretched out, still ready to snatch her if necessary. "I don't want to breakup all this handsome apologies, but we still have a pressing problem that your grandson has so graciously, irritatingly pointed out— we don't have proof."

Matteo didn't blink. "I will confess. And Milo."

"I will not!" Enzo shouted.

"Basta, bastardi," Matteo shushed him. "Don't you want to see Cousin Romero?"

Enzo's eyes went into slits. "Cousin Romero had his chance and he got caught. I want mine."

"It won't be enough," Cordelia pressed. "He could turn this against you— some of your 'family' might not want to retire with you. Enzo can keep you out. Make you seem like a delirious old man. We need concrete proof. We need to explode this— his reputation, his credibility. Your family."

"I can help with that." The doors completely opened and Faris stepped in. He glanced down at the aftermath of the chaos. "Of course you were the one that gets shot." James grinned. Faris rolled his eyes. "As soon as the shots started, I kept Cassandra out. She's waiting in Dom's secret room with Quinn."

Cordelia rose an eyebrow. "Dom's what?"

"You better go with Wendy. Leon and I will stay and guard them."

"Wendy?" Cordelia replied for all our shared confusion.

Dr. Hamel's mouth twitched. In annoyance or a smile, I wasn't fast enough to figure out. "Wendy's the answer."

"Me? What—"

"Go," Leon insisted, his voice rough and croaky.

"Sounds cryptic enough to be him," Cordelia huffed, acknowledging Milo by shifting her head and murmuring, "Don't do anything stupid." And left.

"It must be Dominic," Leon finished, eyes straining to smile. "It's what he would've wanted."

I hesitated but relented, squeezing his hand before I let go. And kissed him in front of them all— proprietary be damned. It could be for him, but it was mostly for me. The room had froze, James wide-eyed and choking, but I smiled only for him.

"It always is."

The walk had been silent and what greeted us from the supposed walk-in-closet, instead of expensive clothes lined and in perfect order, was a whole back wall opened to a small panic room. Panelled strips of wall lights showed Cassandra sat on a small sofa, crying softly, with Quinn consoling her.

"What the hell is this?" Cordelia asked as soon as we entered.

It was just big enough for a desk, a chair, a small sofa and some water jugs. On the desk was a lone computer with the screen flashing through what seemed to be millions of files a minute.

"Cassie remembered," Quinn said as she rubbed her back softly. "That night, before Dom died when he was about to give Cassie tea, Dom had given her two strips of paper. One with a clue and one with an order. He told her he was giving her a calming agent in her tea— something that would help her forget what was going to happen next. No one else was getting one. Only her and the doctor. The rest were lying when they said they were drugged too— maybe they took one look at Cassie, pieced it together, and for all intents and purposes of keeping their I Am Innocent facade, they followed suit.

"Before all of that, Dom had told her to hide the slips of paper around her body that her mother wouldn't check. She hid it in her bra. The order said to trust any person that said 'I'm the Amen'. In the following days since Dom died, several random people had met her when she was at clubs and bars and told her to drink something, introducing them as Dominic said. The doctor had concocted a medicine that would help her slowly remember. To fight back all the other shit her mother was giving her."

"Good god, Dominic." Cordelia exhaled.

"You didn't know?" I asked.

"Of course not! I wouldn't want to be the reason a young woman is relieving her childhood trauma! Dominic ordered me to just find her and give it to her. If she takes it or not, it's up her. That's what he said. The medicine arrived with my letter. That conniving bastard. Even until death!" Cordelia flopped on the desk chair, taking her heels off with an irritated flourish. "And what is this? What are you doing to it, Quinn?"

"It's the proof," she said with a dancing smile. "Everything. I'm downloading everything. Dominic collected enough evidence to hurt a lot of people— our suspects included and more. So much more. Cassie had opened the panic room. He left a paper on the back of the wall, at the entrance of the panic room beside the keypad. 'Wendy Darling is the answer.'"

I frowned. "What?"

"F-from the clue," Cassandra spoke, voice rising. "H-here." She pulled out a strip of paper, no bigger in length than my hand with width the measurement of my pinky.

THE FATHER... a Scots.

THE SON... a sleuth.

THE HOLY SPIRIT... a white coat.

THE AMEN... a songbird.

THE PRAYER... a darling.

I held my breath.

"I couldn't understand the rest," Cassandra said. "But the last one, I did. It's been years since he told me about his panic room. But it's a five digit combination. W-E-N-D-Y. The prayer."

— — —

"Oh look," James said with a grin and a bite of mock. "It's the lovebirds. Yippie." Leon grinned and enveloped him in a tight hug. "Ow, ya little— my arm still hurts! If I can't go to work this month because of you, I will kill you!"

Leon released him with a frown. "I thought therapy was helping."

"It is." James scowled, flexing his arm with a grimace. "It's slow but that's what happens when bullet lodges in bone and makes a mess. But I'm healing and if I don't get to work later this month, I will kill myself, I am so bloody bored. Now come in, you two. It's too hot to function in the city these days. People have been walking around bleedin' naked." Then James smiled tartly. "Hello, Miss Darling."

I made a face, snorting. "Hello, Grumpy Prince Charming. Quinn here?"

He pushed the door as we stepped into his living room and adjacent kitchen and dinning room. Remnants of a pizza box and two empty bottles of sodas were left on the dinner table.

James nodded to the edge of his hallway. "Out in the balcony. Faris' smoking."

I frowned. "I thought he was quitting." The doctor was a massive smoker during his time in medical school and had apparently quit when he took up his Residency. Dominic's death and case had forced him to go back to old habits he was now trying his hardest to quit.

"He's reduced to inhaling one fag for a week. Try not to poke the bear too much— Quinn is playing with his patience as it is."

I sighed. "If she doesn't stop, she's going to get pushed off the bloody balcony." I kissed Leon's cheek. "I'll go first, shall I?"

James snorted a laugh, opening his fridge and taking out another soda. He was also trying to lessen his drinking. Sodas weren't the best alternatives, but it was a slower process he was taking step by step.

Everyone was.

He grinned. "Do make sure that doesn't happen. I don't want my first brush in with the law once again be a complicated murder in my house." He tilted his head at Leon. "No offence."

Leon smiled with a bite, a mirror of his sister's. "I hope the soda reaches your brain."

I walked on ahead, leaving them to their banter, and joined the other two outside. An ambulance sped by— London at its finest. When they turned at my sounds, Quinn yelled in happiness and Faris inclined his head, joint dropped to the ground and smashing it with his shoe. A dead plant is pushed to the corner, soil pale and dry.

"James is going to kill you," Quinn muttered with a grin.

Faris snorted. "I'd go after his bloody arm."

"Play nice," I warned both of them.

"Ooh, Cordelia called me a while ago," Quinn said.

"Landed safely in Paris?"

"Berlin," Faris corrected. "Changed flgihts. Apparently, her midnight thief appeared as a whole arse painting the size of an entire wall inside a church disappeared. She's onto her new case without a beat too late."

"I'm helping her route out some CCTVs, but her midnight thief is good." Quinn pouted. "Problems rise outside of her exits, so when the police need to focus on a getaway, they're distracted by other issues. Cordelia said she might already be in Munich, poking around a buyer. There might a blurry picture of her in Altstadt. Might is the keyword. If she does, she's sounded out someone might be looking and have sent in all her aliases arriving in other places in Europe. She's a fun one."

It sounded like a lot, but it sounded just the thing Cordelia can play with. That Cordelia enjoyed. The murder business had put her off it that the only reason she stayed for a bit more was for her brother and whatever he needed.

I rested my head on her shoulder. "At least she's having fun, right?"

"Oh she is." Quinn sighed. "D'you reckon with get a new fun, again?"

"Last year was not fun," Dr. Hamel snapped.

"It wasn't fun then, in the moment of course, but you gotta admit it's a damn good story to tell."

I sighed. "You're just like Leon. And my dad."

"And what is the similar quality I have with the two most dissimilar men in your life?"

"You all want me to write a story."

"That would be epic," she admitted. "But darling, you're a shite writer."

I slapped her arm. "Hey."

Faris cocked an eyebrow. "Is she?"

"A bit," Quinn admitted.

"I am not going to stand here and be insulted."

I went back in, the two following suit. We rounded up the corner to the kitchen, with Leon saying a somber goodbye on the phone before setting it down. I sat beside him, poking his arm.

He shook his head. "It was Matteo. He said if Dominic had a grave plot near a church, he didn't know anything about it."

For the past few weeks, most with Cordelia's help, we've tried to clean up and unravel more things we had found out about Dominic. About Tommy. We tried to find his family in American, inform them, help them, but something— someone had destroyed their identities a few years after he resurfaced as Dominic Prince. Identities and not killed, because there were no records of any deaths. Cordelia and Leon had agreed Dominic might've made sure no one could track them if he failed to extract his revenge. They had changed their names, their hairs or eyes or faces and bodies, or moved to another country altogether.

Genevieve Rothschild and Aoi Nakamura had disappeared. The last thing we found out about them was a blurry photo at London Heathrow of Genevieve and nothing; her head under a white-brimmed hat, dark glasses on her eyes, and a somber tilt to dark lips. Aoi and Kei had less than that; we found nothing about them as soon as they left.

Cordelia's underhand contacts have offered the idea that they've gotten out of London as well. Not one of their traps were taken, and house in the middle of nowhere, where they kept me for barely a day, was in rubbles once Cordelia had found it. A note was left on top of stone, addressed to me.

I hope we never see each other again, Wendy.

Matteo and Milo had adhere to their promises— they told the truth. The world went crazy after a while; each new news after the case blew up across everyone's face was a gasp of horror. A syndicate, human trafficking, sex slaves. They had shook the world. Matteo had produced Milo's hiding uncle— a different scandal all together. The old man joined the witness stand with Milo as they became whistleblowers— Milo went away, into a witness protection protocol. Matteo with his grandson, Mathilde Bernault, and a list as long and full as a novel of people— alive or dead, the rest of those who couldn't escape, went to jail.

Unlike his grandson who frequented solitary confinement, Matteo was enjoying his 'retirement' with the rest of his brothers and cousins. Apparently, family reunions were more frequent inside than out, and the family may not be happy about the smear in their names, but the new soar to their reputations had quieted them.

They were more than feared inside— they were revered. Matteo had promised Leon that nothing like it will happen again.

Cassandra had gone to rehab and quit the spotlight altogether. Quinn and I visit her sometimes after she moved to Brighton, and she seemed to be considering moving to another country where it was warmer. Freer. Changing her name, changing her identity.

All that was left was finding Genevieve's husband. The remains of Alexander Rothschild. There was nothing in the proofs and evidences we had acquired, nothing in Dominic's statements or money transactions.

What was even weirder was that his money— all of it — had disappeared as soon Quinn tried to check of any odd withdrawals or money transactions. Quinn was confused as the money that was at least eleven digits long— dropped to 0.

Something— someone was moving along steadily behind the scenes now that everything was over. Slowly, like the tap from a faucet that won't stop leaking. Drip, drip, drip. Everyone had their theories. No one wanted to voice out their hopes. But looks have been exchanged, meaningful, confusing looks.

Then everyone moved forward.

"Well that's that," Faris said, breaking through the silence to tilt up soda to his glass. "Case is done. Closed. Let's move on. It's time."

"Let's cheers to that." James raised his glass.

Quinn rolled her eyes but we all joined in. "Hear, hear to a magnificent, maybe dead, larger than life bastard."

"To Thomas Caleb Weir," Leon offered. "He was a selfish man. He was a victim. He was foul and magic. And he lived again to avenge all the others that could not avenge themselves."

I smiled. "To Thomas."

Our voices echoed. "To Thomas."

;-)