Watching Ellie command a kitchen full of women with love disguised as orders. Watching Tildie laugh while she cries over onions. Watching Leah argue about cornbread with the passion of a woman defending a family heirloom.
Watching a world she never knew existed, full of women who would stand between each other and anything that tried to hurt them.
I take the casserole dish from her hands. "Mom, this is Aunt Ellie."
Ellie wipes her palms on her apron and extends a hand. Her grip is firm. Her smile is warm. "Welcome to the madhouse, sweetheart. Can you chop?"
My mother blinks. "I can chop."
"Good. Tildie's been butchering those onions for ten minutes and I can't watch anymore."
Tildie throws an onion peel at Ellie. Leah ducks. Vanna shields Waylon's applesauce. My mother laughs.
The sound fills the kitchen and I press my spine against the counter and breathe it in.
Caleb appears at my shoulder. His arm loops around my waist from behind, pulling me against his chest.
"Your mom's laughing." He says it into my hair, low enough for only me.
"I know." My throat tightens. "She hasn't laughed like that in a long time."
He presses his lips to my temple. "Get used to it."
Dinner is loud, messy, chaotic. Twenty-something people around a table built for twelve, elbows bumping, plates being passed, Maddox reaching across Daemon for the biscuits and getting his hand slapped by Ellie.
My mother sits between me and Leah.
She eats cornbread and listens to Coin tell a story about Wrenleigh's first driving lesson and laughs so hard she has to put her fork down.
She fits. She fits in a way I didn't expect and she didn't expect and nobody expected, because this world isn't supposed to welcome women who spent their lives running from dangerous men.
But the women at this table ran too. Tildie ran. Vanna ran. Kinsey ran.
Every woman in this room has a before and an after, and the before always involves a man who hurt them and the after always involves a table full of people who won't.
After dinner, Caleb pulls me into the hallway.
The compound is warm and loud behind us. Dishes clanking in the kitchen, Maddox arguing about football, my mother's laugh carrying through the walls.
He takes both my hands and holds them between us.
"Move in with me." He says it the way he says everything that matters. Direct. No buildup. No speech.
I look at our hands.
His scarred knuckles wrapped around my fingers. The calluses on his palms from three years of prospect work and a lifetime of holding on.
"Your room is twelve by twelve and your desk takes up half of it." I say it with a smile pulling at my mouth.
Ounce's massive frame appears in the hallway behind Rookie. He's holding a key between two fingers, dangling it like bait.
"South hallway. Last door on the left." Ounce drops the key into Rookie's palm. "Walk-in closet. Ensuite. Coin handled the furniture."
Rookie stares at the key. "Since when?"
"Since you stopped being a prospect." Ounce's gaze slides to me. "Plenty of closet space. In case anyone's moving in."
He walks away. Six-five and silent as smoke.