Page 179 of High Reward
Epilogue
Victor
“Whoa.Lookatthisplace,” Lili exclaims as the SUV pulls through the Gothic wrought-iron gate. “Never would have looked at this and thought BDSM club.”
I chuckle and reach for her hand. “It was formerly home to an extremely conservative family according to the club owners. They apparently have some issues with what goes on here now, but they lost the legal battle to shut them down.”
“That’s just wild. Can’t wait to see the inside.”
Grace is oddly quiet as we get dropped off and a valet driver takes the keys from our security escort.
“Everything OK, butterfly?” I ask as I help her step out.
“I’m good, Master. Just tired.”
I frown. “You’ve been tired a lot lately. Am I wearing you out at night?”
She giggles and lays her head against my shoulder. “Just this deadline. I’ll be fine once I get the last book in the trilogy done. Then I’m taking a long break and just focusing on the book store.”
I kiss her temple. “Good girl. But you’re also taking a break tonight. I won’t forbid you from thinking about the book, but I would like you to put it aside for a bit.”
“I can try,” she promises.
Inside, the club is exactly the kind of gorgeous and unsettling I expected from a building that used to host Sunday dinners for people who would have called us an abomination. Wrought iron chandeliers drip candlelight over a dance floor half full of bodies in various states of undress, and a bar carved from what looks like a genuine church pew runs the length of one wall.
Tyson finds us before we’ve made it twenty feet inside, grinning wide enough that I almost don’t notice the tired lines around his eyes from six months of running a kitchen that apparently never stops.
“You made it.” He pulls me into a back-slapping hug, then does the same to Lili and Grace in turn. “Sabrina’s going to be pissed she missed you. She’s got a shoot tonight.”
“Boudoir business booming?” Lili asks.
“Booming enough that I might have to hire her an assistant.” His jaw ticks, there and gone. “Speaking of business. You wanted an update on our friend.”
“Griffin,” I say.
“Still here. Still careful. He’s got three restaurants under different names now, all clean on paper, all funding God knows what underneath.” Tyson’s jaw tightens. “He hasn’t made a move in months. Doesn’t mean he isn’t planning one.”
“Keep watching him.”
“Always do.” Tyson’s smile comes back easier than the topic deserves. “Come on. Gage and Kenzie are here. You have to see this baby before she wakes up and ruins everyone’s night.”
We find them tucked into a booth near the back, Kenzie looking more rested than I’ve ever seen her, a bundle of blankets asleep against Gage’s massive shoulder like she weighs nothing at all.
“Look who finally made the trip.” Gage doesn’t get up, clearly unwilling to disturb the baby, but his grin is wide enough to make up for it. “Meet Zoe. Two months old and already smarter than her father, according to her mother.”
“Accurate,” Kenzie says.
Lili leans in for a look and makes a soft, helpless sound I’ve genuinely never heard out of her before. “She’s perfect.”
“She’s a menace at three in the morning, but sure, perfect works too.” Gage adjusts his hold without waking her. “Her uncle’s watching her tomorrow night for the first time. Kenzie’s more nervous about that than she was about the actual birth.”
“He’s forty-two, doesn’t have kids, and thinks ‘winging it’ is a parenting philosophy,” Kenzie says. “I have every right to be nervous.”
Grace laughs, leaning into my side, delighted and unbothered, the way she gets when a thing is just nice and doesn’t have to be anything else.
We stay for another two hours, drinking, dancing, watching Tyson work a floor that’s somehow become entirely his own in half a year. By the time we leave, Grace is asleep against my shoulder in the car, and Lili’s tracing slow circles against herknee, both of them content, which took years and several near-catastrophes to earn.
Grace
