Page 133 of Make Them Cry
We just stand there, breathing each other in.
Eventually, I feel Lark and Juno behind me, joining us in the lobby as the rest of the team files in. Dean gives Gage a firm clap on the shoulder. Rae throws me a wink. Knight ruffles Lark’s hair, earning a punch to the arm.
It’s chaos.
Beautiful, safe chaos.
And for the first time in what feels like forever, I let myself believe we’re going to be okay.
Later that night,we’re at my apartment. I haven’t been here in ages.
We’re curled on the couch under a knit blanket, the fire casting flickering shadows on the wall. I’m tucked against Gage’s side, our fingers laced. Neither of us has said much since we got back.
Not because we don’t have anything to say.
But because we’re still soaking in the silence. Thepeace.
“So…” I murmur, glancing up at him. “What now?”
He turns to look at me, his eyes softer than I’ve ever seen.
“Now?” He grins. “Now we live.”
“Live?”
“Yeah. You and me. Whatever that looks like. No more secrets. No more running. I just want a life with you, Riv.”
Tears sting my eyes again. “You mean that?”
“With everything I am.”
He leans in and kisses me again, slow and tender and full of all the promises we haven’t said out loud yet.
And in that kiss, I feel it?—
The future.
A messy, beautiful, love-filled future that starts right here… on this couch… wrapped in warmth and hope and him.
And I know?—
I’ve finally come home.
FORTY-SIX
RIVER
There’s something poetic about sitting at my desk in the same cubicle that, only a few weeks ago, I had considered my personal hell.
The way the sunlight slices through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting warm golden bars across the open floorplan, makes NovaPlay’s office look like something out of an architectural magazine. But it’s not the lighting that makes it feel different today.
It’s everything else.
The truth is out.
Helena has been arrested. Publicly. Loudly. Just the way she liked things—only this time, she wasn’t the one pulling the strings. The headlines were impossible to ignore:“Gaming Exec Behind Developer Deaths, Digital Crimes.”Her smug mugshot splashed across tech blogs and industry newsfeeds like poetic justice.
Now we’re back at work, and the fallout is still raining down.
