Page 120 of The Viper
Then Ryker turned to me, his gaze steady. "That brings us to you, Lucas. Are you prepared to stay? To leave Delta?"
The question hit me like a fist to the chest. Delta was everything I'd built my life around—the brotherhood, the mission, the clarity of purpose. It was who I'd been for so long, I didn't know how to be anything else.
But then I thought about Lexi, asleep upstairs. I thought about the moment I'd seen Hank's gun pressed to her chest, the terror that had shot through me. I thought about what she'd said in the SUV—about wanting a life that didn't end with a headline, about ordinary things that didn't feel ordinary when they were with her.
I looked around the room. At family.
And I knew.
"Yeah," I said, my voice steady. "I'm staying."
Ethan nodded, respect in his eyes. Jacob clapped my shoulder. Caleb grinned.
"Good," Noah said. "We need you here."
The room settled again, the tension easing just slightly. Then, because I couldn't help myself, I asked the question that had been nagging at me since I'd arrived.
"So," I said, glancing around the table. "Are all you Charleston Danes ... married?"
Marcus—who I'd pegged as the biggest smartass from the moment I met him—leaned back in his chair, a wicked grin spreading across his face. "Yeah," he said. "We all got married on the same day. It was beautiful. We wore matching tuxedos and everything. VeryLove IslandmeetsThe Bachelor."
I looked around the room, searching for confirmation. Ryker nodded. Elias smirked. Noah shrugged.
"And you three?" I asked my Montana brothers. "All engaged?"
More nods.
I shook my head, half-laughing, half-bewildered. "What is this, some bad version of the Brady Bunch?"
Marcus snorted. "Why, did you see Marsha when you walked in?"
The room erupted in laughter, the tension finally breaking. Even Silas cracked a smile, rare as a damn unicorn, I’d come to find out.
I leaned back in my chair, looking around the table—at the Charleston Danes, at my Montana brothers, at the family I'd just stepped into. It wasn't the ranch in Montana, where we'd grown up scrapping and surviving. It wasn't Delta, where I'd learned to be a cunning weapon. But sitting there, surrounded by menwho'd fight and die for each other, I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time.
Home.
I wasn't running toward something or away from it. I was exactly where I needed to be.
"All right," Noah said, pulling us back to business. "Let's talk next steps."
And just like that, we dove back in—planning, strategizing, preparing for whatever came next. But even as we talked, even as the weight of the unknown pressed down on us, I felt steady.
Because I wasn't alone anymore.
I had my brothers. I had Dominion Hall. And I had Lexi, sleeping upstairs, safe and whole.
Whatever storm was coming, we'd weather it together.
At last.
EPILOGUE
LEXI
The trailer rocked gently with each movement, the thin walls doing little to muffle the sound of my name on his lips.
“Lucas,” I gasped, clutching at his shoulders as he thrust deeper, his breath rough and uneven against my ear. His skin was hot, slick, and familiar—everything in the world I wanted.
