I wake up slowly, consciousness returning in lazy waves like the tide coming in.
For a moment, I don’t remember where I am—the sheets smell different, the light falls wrong across my face, and there’s a warmth beside me that my body recognizes before my mind does.
Then it all comes flooding back. The escape. The reunion. Elias saying he loves me in his cluttered office, and me saying it back because it’s been true for longer than I wanted to admit. The way he lifted me onto his desk like I weighed nothing, how we—
Oh.
Heat floods my cheeks as I remember everything that happened last night. Not just the physical connection, though God knows that was… revelatory.
I’m naked under his sheets, and so is he. His arm is draped across my waist, heavy and warm, anchoring me to this moment, this reality where I’m safe in the arms of a man who loves me enough to storm hell itself to bring me home.
Elias is still asleep, his face peaceful in a way I rarely see when he’s awake. The worry lines around his eyes have smoothed out, and his breathing is deep and even. One blonde curl has fallen across his forehead, and I have to resist the urge to brush it back. He looks younger like this, almost vulnerable, and something tender unfurls in my chest.
The digital clock on his nightstand reads 10:47 AM. We’ve slept late—later than either of us has probably slept in years. But after everything we’ve been through, I think we’ve earned it.
I shift slightly, trying not to wake him, but the movement causes him to stir. His arm tightens around me reflexively, and his eyes flutter open, immediately focusing on my face with the kind of alertness that speaks to years of being on call.
“Hey,” he says, voice rough with sleep and something else that makes my stomach flip.
“Hey yourself.” I trace a pattern on his chest with my fingertip, marveling at how natural this feels despite being so new. “Sleep okay?”
“Better than I ever have.” His hand comes up to cup my cheek, thumb brushing across my skin with reverent gentleness. “You?”
“Mmm.” I lean into his touch, feeling safe and cherished and more rested than I have any right to be. “No nightmares. That’s progress.”
Something dark flickers across his expression—concern, protectiveness, the knowledge that healing from trauma isn’t linear or simple. But before he can voice whatever he’s thinking, I kiss him.
He responds immediately, his hand sliding into my hair as he deepens the kiss. There’s heat there, desire that builds quickly despite how thoroughly we explored each other last night, but also something deeper.
My fingers, which had been tracing idle patterns on his chest, dig in slightly.
He shifts then, rolling me gently onto my back without breaking contact. The morning light paints gold stripes across his shoulders, highlighting the powerful lines of his body as he hovers over me. His gaze, sleep-softened only moments ago, is now intensely focused, dark with desire and that ever-present wonder. His thumb brushes my lower lip, tracing its swollen curve.
“I will never get used to this,” he murmurs, his voice thick with emotion and sleep. The raw vulnerability in his words, so different from the controlled man who stormed hell for me, makes my heart clench.
When we finally make it to the kitchen an hour later, I’m wearing his gray t-shirt again and a pair of his boxer shorts, while he’s pulled on sweatpants and nothing else. The domesticity of it—making coffee together, him scrambling eggs while I toast bread—feels both startling and natural.
“I could get used to this,” I admit, wrapping my arms around his waist from behind as he tends the stove, planting kisses on his bare back.
“Yeah?” There’s hope in his voice, carefully contained but unmistakable.
“Yeah.” I press another kiss onto his back. “Though we might need to discuss your coffee. It’s basically motor oil.”
“My coffee is perfect,” he protests, but I can hear the smile in his voice. “You just have delicate taste buds.”
We’re debating coffee preferences like it’s the most important conversation in the world when his phone starts ringing.
Locke.
Elias’s expression hardens. “I should take this.”
“Put it on speaker?” I suggest.
He nods and answers, hitting the speaker button.
“Wexler.” Locke’s voice fills the kitchen, and I can hear something I didn’t expect—genuine relief. “Thank God. When I heard what happened, that you’d found Detective Rowe…”
There’s a pause. “I owe you both an apology.”
I exchange glances with Elias, surprised. This isn’t the Locke I remember—the one who prioritized protocol over people, who treated my concerns about the cult like inconvenient paperwork.
“I should have listened to you,” Locke continues. “Both of you. I let bureaucracy override good police work, and it nearly cost Dalia her life.”
The use of my first name is deliberate, personal in a way that suggests she’s speaking as a human being rather than a supervisor. I don’t know if I buy it.
“The investigation is ongoing,” she continues, slipping back into professional mode. “We’ve arrested twelve individuals so far, including Jonas Vale and Markus Rowe. The FBI is taking point on the federal charges—kidnapping, human trafficking, conspiracy. It’s going to be a massive case.”
“Good,” Elias says simply.
“I know Captain Everett wants to debrief you both this afternoon. Are you two up for that?”
Elias looks at me. “We’ll be there.”
“Thank you. And Elias? For what it’s worth, you did good work. Both of you.”
The call ends, leaving us staring at each other in the sudden quiet.
“That was unexpected,” I say finally.
“Yeah.” Elias runs a hand through his hair. “Locke admitting she was wrong? Hell might actually be freezing over.”
After the call ends, I sink onto one of his bar stools, suddenly feeling the weight of what comes next. Statements. Questions. Reliving every detail of the last ten days for the official record.
“You okay?” Elias asks, moving to stand beside me.
“Just processing. Going back to the station, dealing with all of this officially… it feels surreal.”
He nods, understanding without explanation.
The afternoon passes in a blur of official statements, forms, and federal agents with serious expressions and expensive suits. I tell my story three times to three different people, each recounting feeling a little more distant, a little more clinical.
By the time we’re sitting in Captain Everett’s office, I feel wrung out but oddly lighter, like setting the truth down in official documents has somehow made it real and manageable at the same time.
“Detective Rowe,” Everett says, leaning back in his chair. “I have a proposition for you.”
I glance at Elias, who looks as surprised as I feel.
“Frankly, we can’t afford to lose detectives of your caliber.” Everett admits with a sigh.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying your resignation doesn’t have to be permanent. If you want to come back, there’s a place for you here. Your rank, your seniority, all of it restored.”
“I’ll think about it,” I respond. “I need some time.”
Everett nods. “Take all the time you need. The offer stands.”
On the drive back to Elias’s apartment, I watch the city scroll past through the passenger window, processing the day’s events. The official machinery is in motion now—justice grinding forward with all the weight and bureaucracy that entails. But somehow, that feels less important than the quiet moment we’re sharing in his car.
“What does the future hold for us?” I ask, the question slipping out before I can second-guess it.
Elias glances over at me, his expression thoughtful. “What do you want it to hold?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Six months ago, my life was completely different. I thought I knew exactly where I was going, what I wanted.”
“And now?”
“Now I know that none of it means anything if I don’t have the people I love.” I turn to face him fully. “I want to find Wren.”
His hands tighten on the steering wheel. “Whatever you need, however long it takes.”
“Would you do it with me?”
He pulls into a parking space outside his building and turns off the engine before answering. When he looks at me, his eyes are soft with love.
“Dalia, I would follow you anywhere. To the ends of the earth, into hell itself if that’s what it took. We’ll find Wren. Together.”
The simple promise, offered without hesitation or condition, breaks something open in my chest. Not in a painful way, but like a door opening onto possibilities I hadn’t dared to imagine.
“Together,” I repeat, and the word feels like hope.
As we head upstairs to his apartment I realize that for the first time in my adult life, I’m not planning my future around a job or a case or an obligation.
I’m planning it around love. Around the man walking beside me and the daughter I still need to find and the family we might build from the wreckage of everything we’ve survived.
It’s terrifying and wonderful and completely uncertain.
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