Thirty Nine

Thirty Nine
"ASHES TO ASHES"

Astrid's POV

The grandfather clock in the hall strikes three. I’ve been awake for hours, staring at the bedroom door, waiting. The men Eagan left to watch me patrol around the perimeter of the safe house, their footfalls occasionally snapping me back to my situation.

My phone lays quiet and still on the nightstand. Eagan’s final text—It’s done. Home to you—fades on the screen. That was four hours ago.

The bedroom door opens silently, and I sit up suddenly, heart in my mouth.

“He’s back,” Rick, one of the guards, says. "Coming up now."
Relief floods through me. "Thank you."

A few moments later, Eagan steps into the doorway. His face is gaunt, his eyes sunken. There’s blood on his white shirt cuff — not his, I know instinctively. He stands there looking at me, something fragile in his expression.

"Is it over?" I ask.

"Part of it." His voice is scratchy, tired. “All the Kairos leadership is gone. They are taking down their network right now.”

"And your sister?"

He enters the room and shuts the door. "We found her. Plot 217, just like they told you.”

I walk over to him, and take his hands. They're ice cold. "I'm so sorry, Eagan."

“Eighteen years in an unmarked grave.” His grip on my fingers tightens. "She was just a child."

I guide him to the edge of the bed, and he sits hard, like a man twice his years.

“Tell me about her,” I say softly. “What happened at Raven’s Point?”

Eagan looks off into the distance. “She was there, right where they said. Just bones now, of course. Small bones." His voice catches. “They will confirm with DNA, but there was a bracelet. Bird charm in silver with small bird. I gave it to her on her tenth birthday.”

Tears burn my eyes. "You're bringing her home."

"Yes. No more unmarked graves. No more secrets." He looks at me finally. “I had them take her to a proper funeral home.

She'll have a real burial. A headstone with her name."
"When?"

"Three days from now. Small ceremony. Just us."

I run my thumb over his knuckles. "She deserves that. So do you."

You nod and then he withdraws something from his pocket, a small velvet pouch. Inside, a fragile silver bracelet with a small bird charm, exactly like the one that traced Elara’s wrist.

“For our child,” he says softly. “A link to the aunt they will never know.”

I feel tears welling up. "It's beautiful, Eagan."

He reaches for my hand and lays the bracelet in my palm, folding my fingers tightly around it. “I want our family to never forget. I want to honor her."

"We will," I promise. "Every day."

His gaze catches mine, earnest and raw in a way that very few ever glimpse. "Life is fragile. Uncertain. I don’t want to spend any more time living in shadows.”

My heart swells. "Neither do I."

He draws me close, tucking his face into my hair. I can feel the tension releasing from his body.

"What happened tonight?" I ask carefully. "With the Kairos leadership?"

“You don’t need that information, Astrid.”

"I do. No more shielding me. I'm carrying your child. I need to know."

He sighs, retreating slightly to search my face. Whatever he finds there must be convincing.

“They attempted to leave the country. We caught up with them at a private airstrip.” His voice becomes clinical, detached. "I questioned them. Got names, locations. The whole architecture of their organization.”

"And then?"

“And then I had them killed in public. Set an example for anyone who might consider opposing us.”

The certainty in his voice should terrify me. Once, it would have. Now I get it — the world he lives in, the required brutality. The world that is mine now too.

"Did they suffer?" I ask.

A flicker of surprise crosses his face. "Yes."

"Good." The intensity of my own voice surprises me. “For what they did to your family. To your sister."

Eagan looks at me with fresh eyes. "You've changed."
"I had to." My hand drifts to my stomach. "For our family."

He tracks the movement, and puts his hand over mine. "How are you feeling? The baby?"

"We're good. Doctor says that everything is progressing normal."

“I want you to go see a specialist. The best in the city."
I nod. "After the funeral. After all this is over."

He sits up, suddenly, restless energy returning. "It's not over. Only one front was the Kairos Brotherhood. Now I’ve got names — powerful people behind them. Judges. Politicians. CEOs."

"What will you do?"

"Destroy them. One by one." He paces the room. “They feel like they are above the law. They're wrong."

"And the other families? Vasquez?"

“They’re running scared after tonight. Good. Let them try to escape. They won't get far.”

A message chimes through on my phone. Eagan freezes, instinctive training in an endless state of awareness impossible to shed.

“It’s just Liam,” I say to him when I check. “He says all’s secure at the funeral home. He's posted guards."

Eagan nods, her shoulders easing just a bit. "He's a good man. Loyal."

"You should rest," I suggest. “When is the last time you have slept?”

"I don't remember."

I pull back the covers. "Come to bed. Just for a few hours."
He hesitates. "There's so much to do—"

“And it will wait for morning. You’re no good to anyone run ragged.”

He gives in, shedding down to his boxers.” I see fresh bruises on his knuckles, on his ribs. Wounds of battle from tonight's violence. He slides into bed next to me and I curl into him, his arm encircling me instinctively.

“I can’t stop thinking about her,” he admits in the dark. “I thought she was alive all these years somewhere. Prisoner maybe, but alive. Now..."

“Now you can grieve her correctly,” I smile sadly. "And properly remember her."

“The only memory I want to retain. Before all this." His voice grows distant. "Her tenth birthday. She was so excited about that bracelet. Wore it everywhere, including in the bath. My mother would chastise her, say it would tarnish.”

I smile against his chest. "She sounds wonderful."

"She was." His arm tightens around me. “Our child will know of their aunt. The real Elara, not the falsehood they made.”

A mention of our child stings. “Do you have any feelings on boy or girl?”

"Just a feeling." He lays his hand on my belly. “A strong King woman to offset all the testosterone in this family.

"I'd like that." I cover his hand with mine. “How do you feel about Elara as a middle name? If it is a girl?"

His breath catches. "You would do that?"

"Of course. She's family."

He’s silent for so long I wonder if he’s fallen asleep. Then, in a whisper: “Thank you.”

"Get some rest," I whisper. "Tomorrow's another battle."
“But not alone,” he says, half-drifting. "Not anymore."

Long after his breathing becomes slow and steady, I lay awake, haunted by the strange road that led me here. From orphan to auction block to most feared man in the city’s arms. Now carrying his child.

My mind floats to the funeral to come. A girl I didn’t know whose place in Eagan’s heart is sacred. I make a vow to her in silence — I’ll watch over him. I’ll complete what he began.” I’ll make sure your death will not be in vain.

Outside our window dawn breaks, casting long shadows on the floor. We will lay Elara King to rest in three days’ time. And somewhere after that, our child will enter this world with her name.

Eagan will continue his quest, torching through the corrupt infrastructure of this city like wildfire. Taking down the secret society that robbed his family. Making them pay in blood.

I should be appalled by this. Once, I would have been. But the city gave me a lesson of sorts: sometimes, fire is the only thing that can wash corruption away. Sometimes you need ashes before you can be reborn.

My hand goes to my belly again, to our baby.

The trick is that “your father is a complicated man,” I whisper. “But everything he does in his life, he does for family.”

Outside, I hear the guards swapping shifts. The safe house awakening to the activity of the morning. Liam will be here soon with updates of targets, with plans for the next chunRead Free.

The war isn't over. It's barely begun.

But as morning light seeps through the curtains, I sense Eagan’s arm tightening around me in the sleeping, protective, possessive way. I wonder about the bracelet for our not-yet-born child — a legacy, a reminder, a promise.

It comes to me all at once that we have a new kind of bond now, one that can never be captured on the printed page.

Born of blood and fire, tempered by loss and hope. In a way we already have made our most important vows, and they are these — to stand together against whatever may come, to protect what is ours, to build something enduring from the ashes of what was.

But first, there’s a funeral to go to. A child to prepare for. And a secret society to tear down, brick by bloody brick.
I’m amazed at how ready I am for all of it.

As the city stirs outside our sanctuary, I shut my eyes, finally letting myself fall into sleep. Eagan’s heartbeat thumps steadily beneath my cheek, a rhythm I’ve come to depend on. In this moment of silence before the inevitable storm, I whisper a last vow — to Eagan, to our child, to myself.

"We'll be okay. We'll build something better. We shall rise, from ashes to ashes.”