Audrey sat huddled in the corner, clutching her stuffed rabbit, her eyes wide with terror as distant explosions and gunfire echoed through the reinforced concrete walls.

I knelt in front of her, signing frantically: You are safe. I am here. Your daddy is coming.

She threw her small arms around my neck, burying her face in my shoulder as she shook violently.

Ten agonizing minutes passed. Ten minutes that felt like a lifetime.

Then, the heavy steel door of the panic room clicked, hissed, and slowly swung open.

My heart leaped into my throat. I raised my Glock, ready to fire at whoever stepped through the threshold.

"Claire. Don't shoot."

It was Dominic.

He staggered into the room, his white dress shirt soaked in blood, his left shoulder bandaged hastily with a torn piece of his sleeve. But he was standing. And behind him, his loyal enforcers marched in, having successfully repelled the rogue faction that had tried to storm the estate.

Audrey let out a cry of joy and bolted across the room, throwing herself into her father’s arms.

Dominic winced in pain, dropping to one knee to hold her tightly, burying his face in her dark hair. He looked up at me, standing near the doorway, a tired, victorious smile breaking through the blood and dirt on his face.

The war was over. Viktor Rostov was gone, the rogue Mercer loyalists had been wiped out in a single night, and the shadows of the past had finally been burned away by the dawn.

Two weeks later.

The sun rose over Lake Michigan, casting a brilliant golden light across the Chicago skyline.

I stood on the balcony of the Lake Shore Drive mansion, wearing a simple cream dress, sipping hot coffee.

Footsteps approached from behind, and a familiar scent—cedar, espresso, and gun oil—washed over me.

Dominic stepped out onto the balcony, handing me a small, velvet box.

I looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "What’s this?"

"Open it," he said softly.

I popped open the box. Inside rested a stunning, vintage platinum ring encrusted with diamonds and a deep blue sapphire—the heirloom ring of the Vale family matriarchs.

"Dominic..." I whispered, my breath catching.

"I don't care about the old blood feuds, Claire," Dominic said, his dark eyes burning with absolute devotion. "I don't care about the Mercers or the Vales. All I know is that you saved my daughter, you saved my life, and you brought light back into this dark house."

He took the ring from the box and slid it onto my left ring finger.

"Stay," he murmured, pulling me gently against his chest. "Rule Chicago by my side. And be a mother to my daughter."

Inside the glass doors, Audrey stood watching us, holding her stuffed rabbit, and for the first time in two years, she smiled a bright, beautiful, fully audible laugh as she signed to us through the glass:

Forever.