Chapter 81 EPILOGUE
sighs marks this story as completed sits here and contemplates my life
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I kick my shoes off the second I walk into the apartment, groaning as my feet throb with relief.
“I am never wearing those heels ever again,” I whine, padding down the hallway, dropping my bag and coat carelessly on the floor as I walk.
“You didn’t buy them for comfort, Doll,” David teases the moment he sees me appear in the kitchen doorway, where he’s already pouring me a glass of wine. “In fact, I don’t think you bought them to wear outside of this apartment at all.”
Smiling, I take the glass of wine, then kiss him, my hand habitually going to his neck and scratching lightly over his hairline.
“Good day?” he asks.
“Yeah. Busy. You?”
“Nope. Harlan’s got everything under control. Doesn’t even need me anymore,” he replies, leaning back against the counter as I step back.
Over the last six months, it feels like so much has changed, and nothing has changed at all simultaneously. I’m back working at Reid Global, with somewhat of a promotion courtesy of the man standing opposite me. I’m now the Board Rep, working alongside Marcus, who retained his interim-CEO status (from when David was MIA). I’m essentially showing up as the person for David in the office, as well as sourcing new contracts and presenting them for signing off.
The first contract I sourced is a little building called The Red Room, ensuring that Sel is lawfully protected from all sides, that the business can never be vacated from the premises (for 500 years at least), and she only has to pay $1 a year in commission to Reid Global.
Marcus completed a lot of that work on my behalf, on account of the fact that he and Sel have now been officially dating for the last 5 and a half months. After the showdown at Rhys’s house, he rushed over to hers, her stolen phone in hand, explained the situation and asked her out on a proper date.
Which they didn’t get round to for a couple of weeks because they couldn’t keep their hands off each other long enough to leave the bloody house. She finally called me back in one of their little “breaks,” though.
David got all of Malcolm’s mob organisation. I went to the lawyer’s office the day after my father’s death, signed everything to get his entire estate passed to me, then immediately asked the lawyer very politely to draft a new contract to pass everything over to David.
There may or may not have been some very Reid-like threats involved.
Either way, I walked out of that building with a shit ton of money, a few houses, and David now had two organisations. David and I took the next week off from everything to lay everything on the line. Honest conversations. Honest intentions. Plans for the future. How I felt about the past. How I felt about the truth about my mother. It was as though the showdown at Rhys’s house had slapped us both around the face, telling us that we had both been idiots, and we needed to start fresh. So that’s what we did.
David then kept to his word, destroying branches of Malcolm’s world that were too poisoned to retain, and started dividing everything else up. Theo is now overseeing what I call “Community Hubs,” the smaller districts, ensuring the police are doing their jobs, keeping businesses afloat, and ensuring the locals aren’t being threatened by any outsiders.
Danvers is overseeing the wider trading routes, which I know she loves because she loves travelling and hates staying in one place too long. She gets to travel across the country, to other continents, generating import and export business.
Harlan has been working his way up to be David’s number two, accompanying him wherever he goes, fulfilling consequences when they’re needed (which isn’t often anymore), and generally just taking on more responsibility of talking to people, setting up meetings, getting documents to David to sign and check.
Harlan doesn’t know it yet, but David has been mentoring him to take over the whole thing. His day will come soon enough.
David himself has been taking a step back.
He started shifting the main branch of the organisation toward general security-type work, which of course Reid Global has secured some shiny new contracts in. Every month he finds himself with less and less to do, but he doesn’t mind. He’s been all guns blazing for so many years now, and he’s enjoying the fact that he can always greet me when I come home from work. He’s also constantly arranging trips out for the two of us now, just like the one he has planned tonight.
“When do we need to leave?” I ask.
Even with how exhausted I feel, I’m very excited to go and have dinner strapped into a table hanging 100 feet in the air. I have no idea how David found out about this, but it’s definitely going to be something I won’t forget.
“Half hour.”
“Okay.” I sigh, downing the rest of my wine, then heading to our bedroom.
In the last six months, there isn’t a single night where I haven’t slept in David’s bed. At some point, I went into my old room and cleared it all out, moving everything into his bedroom before David got back from work one night. He didn’t comment a thing when he went to grab some boxers the next morning and was met instead with my underwear. He just acted as though it was completely normal, and my stuff has remained there ever since.
I’m now rummaging through our joint wardrobe for a new dress to wear when he walks in behind me and sits back on the bed, watching me.
“Oh, remember tomorrow I’ve got my thing,” I say absentmindedly as I look through my clothes.
“Oh yes. The thing. At that time,” he says sarcastically, making me glare playfully at him over my shoulder. “Your birth-control injection, right?”
“Yup, same day as every other month for the last three years. I’m just warning you so you don’t get too handsy when I get home. Again,” I comment, pulling out a possible option to look at it a bit better.
“What if you didn’t?” he replies.
I turn round to him.
“What? If I didn’t come home? Is there something you wanna tell me?” I question, then fake-gasp. “Are you trying to get rid of me, Reid?!”
“No.” He laughs. He stands and walks over to me. “What if you didn’t have your injection tomorrow?”
“Then you’d need to start buying some condoms and I know you hate th–”
“What if I didn’t.” He repeats with a smile. “And what if you understood what I’m trying to say?”
I narrow my eyes at him. His hands slide around my waist and tug me a bit closer.
“Are you saying…” I start. “Do you want to stop using birth control?”
“Do you?” he asks, the smile still on his lips as he leans down to kiss my neck.
“I mean… that’s… that would mean…”
“Believe it or not, Nora, I know what happens if we stop using birth control.”
“And you’re… I mean, would you be okay with that? You want that?”
“Do you?”
I hit him on the arm.
“Be serious, David!” I scold, but he just grabs my hand and holds it to his chest.
“I am. Incredibly serious,” he says. “I’ve known you for two years. That’s a long time to think about being serious about this.”
“You’ve thought about this since you met me?”
“Absolutely.”
“Creep!” I laugh, drop the dress to the floor (completely forgotten) as he starts to walk us both backward, away from the wardrobe.
“I’ve thought about everything with you,” he admits, one hand coming to my face, making his eye contact seem all that more intense. “I want it. It’s whether you want it.”
“What if I said no?” I query.
“Then I’ll ask Marcus if he wants to carry my heir,” he deadpans.
“I think he’d look great with a baby bump" I reply, and we both laugh.
Once the laughter dies down, I take a breath in.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” he asks, his eyes lighting up like I just handed him the world.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll cancel the appointment.”
“I fucking love you, Nora Ellis,” he whispers, leaning closer to me with the intention of kissing me.
I never let it happen, instead choosing to push his shoulders until he falls back onto the bed.
“How about we get started on our new plan of not using birth control, Mr Reid?” I say with a wicked smile, climbing onto his lap and kissing him deeply, his hands running over my body in a way that tells me we won’t be making our dinner reservations tonight.
I don’t care.
Because I finally have David.
I finally have peace.
And I finally have hope for a future I never even dared dream about.
Who knew a BDSM worker and a mob boss would have a love story as good as this?
Turns out we did.
And we’re only just getting started.
~END~
I just wanted to say a final massive thank you to everyone who has read this story <3 I'm so grateful and hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!