CHAPTER HUNDRED & EIGHT-SIX

CHAPTER HUNDRED & EIGHT-SIX
KYLE

Two months later, ASHLEY AND I MOVED IN TOGETHER.

Not into the old condo where shadows still clung to the walls like bad wallpaper. Not into some polished, sterile penthouse that screamed ambition and nothing else. But into the space I’d quietly found on my own months before the world fell apart and came back together again.

It wasn’t just an apartment.

It was a new beginning.

A clean slate with floor-to-ceiling windows, sunlight in every room, a kitchen she instantly made hers, and a bedroom that smelled like lavender, warm sheets, and home. It had a soft, sprawling couch that she picked out—because mine was apparently a “cardboard monstrosity”—and open bookshelves that grew fuller by the day.

The past month had been filled with boxes and laughter, arguments over throw pillows and debates about whether or not Mochii should have her own designated shelf (she won). We’d unpacked memories we didn’t know we were still holding onto. And slowly, piece by piece, we built something that was ours.

Together.

We hung her framed photos in the hallway and my records in the living room. I found a painting she’d made in college—abstract, messy, stunning—and insisted it go over the fireplace. She tried to protest, but when I caught her smiling at it later that night, I knew she was secretly proud.

Mornings became routines we never planned: coffee brewing while she hummed under her breath, my shirt always ending up on her because “it’s softer,” Mochii knocking things off the counter like it was her full-time job.

And nights?

Nights were slow, unhurried. Her head on my chest while we watched some ridiculous series she picked. My arm around her like a promise I never got tired of making. Sometimes we barely spoke. Sometimes we couldn’t stop laughing. Sometimes she’d look at me with that soft, quiet expression that made me feel like I’d finally made it home.

The ghosts that used to sit heavy on my shoulders—the weight of my father’s name, his legacy, his mistakes—didn’t haunt these walls. I’d left them behind. Finally. Not erased, but released.

I didn’t carry Blackwood anymore.

Neither did Lucian.

We changed our names legally last two months. Dropped the one thing that had shackled us for years. That press conference announcing the company’s rebrand to KLC Holdings had been a turning point—public, deliberate, personal. But it wasn’t the press or the nameplate that made it real.

It was moments like now.

Like sitting across from Lucian in my new kitchen last Sunday, both of us sipping whiskey and laughing like we hadn’t lost decades to silence.

We’d started meeting every week—sometimes for dinner, sometimes just to walk. He was still guarded, still sarcastic as hell, but he was present. We talked about Mom sometimes. About the things we never got to say to her. We even talked about therapy. Real conversations. Uncomfortable ones. The kind we never thought we’d have.

And for the first time in our lives, we weren’t two wounded boys circling each other with jagged edges. We were brothers. Learning how to be that in real time.

He even came over last week and helped me hang floating shelves in the study—though not without mocking my inability to use a drill properly.

“Did you even grow up with tools in your house?” he’d asked.

“No,” I told him, deadpan. “I grew up with an absentee father, remember?”

He’d laughed harder than I expected.

Then helped me level the last shelf.

Lucian was still working on his part of the plan—tracking down the last of Jonathan’s hidden assets, cleaning up the political mess quietly. But now it felt less like vengeance and more like reclaiming something. For Mom. For ourselves.

For the future.

And Ashley?

She was the center of that future.

Every time I walked through the door and saw her dancing barefoot in the kitchen or curled on the couch with Mochii asleep on her lap, something in me settled. Like all the noise in the world faded and left only her voice, her warmth, her light.

I never thought I could have this.

Not with everything I did. Not with everything I’d lost.

But somehow, we made it through the fire and found each other again.

Not as strangers. Not as ghosts.

But as the versions of ourselves we were always meant to be.

“Kyle?” Ashley’s voice floated in from the entryway, laced with that soft exhaustion she always carried after a long shift. “Are you home?”

My heart did that annoying tight thing again—the one I still hadn’t figured out how to control around her. Even after everything. Or maybe because of everything.

“In the garden!” I called out, brushing my hands off on the cloth napkin tucked into my waistband.

We didn’t have a real garden, not in the sprawling mansion sense. But we had a little balcony terrace off the kitchen—just wide enough for a bench, a coffee table, and about seven too many potted plants she’d lovingly overwatered into jungle status.

Her footsteps padded closer, the soft click of heels traded for the scuff of her soles on tile as she rounded the corner and stepped out into the evening light.

God.

There she was.

Hair pulled up in a lazy bun, a tote bag slung over one shoulder, her cardigan slipping halfway off the other. Her eyes found me instantly, and something unspoken passed between us—something soft and magnetic.

“You’re actually gardening?” she teased, arching a brow at the small herb tray in front of me.

“I’m supervising the basil,” I said with full seriousness. “It’s in a critical phase.”

She squinted at the tray. “It’s dead.”

“Basil’s dramatic. It’ll bounce back.”

Ashley dropped her bag by the door and walked over, squinting at my ‘supervision’ efforts. “What are you even feeding it?”

“Filtered water. And emotional support.”

She laughed, then leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “That explains why the thyme is thriving.”

I tilted my face up, catching her lips properly this time. She sighed into it, soft and content, like her whole day exhaled into that one moment.

“Long day?” I murmured.

She collapsed onto the bench beside me with a groan. “Some man tried to return perfume because ‘it didn’t smell masculine enough.’ Sir. It’s called Midnight Rose. What exactly did you think it was going to smell like? Motorcycle grease and sin?”

I snorted. “Masculinity is a spectrum. Apparently so is common sense.”

She kicked off her shoes and curled her legs beneath her, stealing the lemonade I’d made for myself and taking a long sip. “Mmm. This is mine now.”

“I suspected as much.”

“Also, Mochii peed in my new work bag.”

I winced. “Again?”

“She’s asserting dominance. I respect it, but also—my laptop smells like citrus vengeance.”

“She’s very protective of me,” I said with a shrug.

Ashley arched a brow. “Protective? Kyle. I don't like this transition. She used to hate you and now she bit me last week because I touched your towel.”

“She has boundaries.”

“She’s an assassin.”

We both laughed, the kind of easy, honest laughter that only came when your guard had long since left the building.

Then, quieter, she glanced at me and asked, “You okay?”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah. Just… every time you walk in, it feels like something settles.”

She smiled. “Same.”

I shifted toward her, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “You know, I’ll never get used to this.”

“To what?”

“To the fact that you’re mine again. That I get to do this—lazy garden evenings and dead basil and listening to you rant about perfume customers who mistake rose for rage.”

“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “you did propose to me under twinkly lights with emotional monologues. I figured you were committing to the full experience.”

“I am,” I said, pulling her into my side. “Wholeheartedly. Dramatic declarations and all.”

She rested her head on my shoulder. “Good. Because I have plans for this weekend.”

“Should I be scared?”

“Terrified. It involves antique shopping, holding my purse while I try on vintage dresses, and pretending you care about ceramic owls.”

“Ah,” I said solemnly. “Love truly is war.”

She grinned. “You started it.”

“Don’t remind me.”

And we sat there, the sun melting below the skyline, her hand finding mine again—warm, soft, certain.

Our plants might not thrive. Our cat might be plotting murder. But somehow, after everything we broke, burned, and buried—

We were growing.

Right here.

Together.