Blossom's POV
The shadows didn't vanish when the chaos ended.
They just learned to settle in different places—behind the curtains of quiet mornings, under the weight of choices made, stitched into the edges of silk sheets and soft silences.
I didn't expect peace to look like this. I expected it to come crashing in with a war cry. Instead, it arrived like Vincent does when he's tired—quiet, gruff, unapologetic.
After everything, I chose to stay. Not because I had nowhere else to go—but because I stopped running. I stopped hiding. From my past. From love. From him.
Vincent still doesn't say much. But he doesn't need to. He watches me like I'm still the most unexpected thing to ever happen to him. He lets his hand brush mine at breakfast. He lets his guard down at night, just enough for me to see the boy buried beneath the boss.
He still calls me Little De. Still smirks like he knows things I don't. But now when he looks at me, it's not possession. It's promise.
Adriel came by yesterday, smug as ever, with a bottle of the wine he swore he'd never share. Lily is redecorating the sunroom and bossing everyone around, as usual. Blue's starting her first day at her new college. West sends boxes of security gadgets like it's his love language. The world didn't stop spinning—somehow, we just managed to find a rhythm again.
I sat by the garden this morning, staring at the stretch of sky that used to scare me. It reminded me too much of freedom I didn't think I deserved. But now?
Now I know I was never bound by chains.
Only by fear.
And shadows are only scary when you forget there's light inside you too.
Vincent joined me, sitting in silence like he always does. Then he reached into his coat and handed me a folded envelope. My name, written in his sharp, no-nonsense hand.
Inside: the original contract. Ripped clean down the center.
"I thought I already burned that," I said, holding back a smile.
"You did. That was a copy." He looked at me. "This one's yours to destroy properly."
I held it for a long moment. And then I dropped it into the garden fire pit beside me, watching the paper curl and blacken, the ink bleeding like it had something to confess.
"Feels good, doesn't it?" he murmured.
"Too good."
We sat there watching the flames.
Not everything needed to be said. Not every story needed a perfect ending. Ours didn't have a bow. It had broken glass and blood and lips that found each other anyway.
But if you ask me now?
I'd say this was always more than a love story.
This was survival.
This was war.
This was me, standing in the ruin, brushing ash from my skin… and choosing to rise.
With him.
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[The End.]
Or maybe… the light.