Three weeks pass like water through fingers.
The trial drags. Motions. Delays. Kaelen's lawyers filing everything they can to slow the process. Each day, a new headline. Each night, a new text.
Still watching.
Sleep well, little one.
Your restaurant looks nice tonight.
Isla stopped showing him the messages after the first week. But Liam knows. He sees it in her face every morning.
She's shrinking.
Not visibly—she still works, still smiles, still helps Nonna in the kitchen. But something behind her eyes is fading. The light he fell in love with on that balcony. Dimming.
He doesn't know how to stop it.
---
Tonight, he finds her in the restaurant basement. Surrounded by boxes. Old photographs spilling across the floor.
"Isla?"
She looks up. Eyes red. "I found my mother's wedding dress."
He crosses the room. Sits beside her on the dusty floor. The dress is yellowed. Delicate. Nothing like the woman he knows.
"She died when I was twelve." Isla's voice is quiet. "Cancer. Six months from diagnosis to goodbye. My father never recovered." She touches the lace. "Neither did I, I think."
Liam doesn't speak. Just listens.
"She would have hated what he became. What he let happen to me." A tear falls. "She would have fought for me."
"I'm fighting for you."
"I know." She looks at him. "But you're not her. You're not supposed to be. You're just... you. And I don't know if that's enough."
The words hang between them.
Liam should be hurt. Should defensive. But he's not. Because he understands.
She's spent her whole life waiting for someone to save her. First her father. Then him. And no one ever has.
She has to save herself.
"What do you need?" he asks quietly.
"I don't know."
"Then let's figure it out together."
She stares at him. "You keep saying that."
"Because I keep meaning it."
Something shifts. A crack in the wall she's built. She leans into him. He holds her.
In a dusty basement, surrounded by ghosts, they hold each other.
---
The Next Day
Liam walks into the DA's office alone.
Maria Santos looks up from a mountain of files. "Blackwood. You should be home. With her."
"She's losing herself." He sits across from her desk. "Every text from Kaelen chips away another piece of her. We need to end this."
"We need a trial. That takes time."
"Then give me something to tell her. Something real."
Maria hesitates. Then pulls a file from the stack.
"Kaelen's money is frozen. His properties are seized. The restaurant is tied up in litigation—he can't touch it." She slides a paper across. "And one of his lieutenants flipped. Testimony that puts Kaelen at the center of everything. Including directing the money that destroyed your father."
Liam reads. Hands shaking.
Kaelen Mercer personally authorized the transfer of funds from Blackwood Holdings. Knew Alexander Blackwood would lose everything. Referred to him as "collateral damage."
"He's going away for a long time," Maria says. "Decades. Maybe life."
"When can I tell her?"
"Today. Now." She stands. "Go. She needs to hear something good."
---
Liam drives to Brooklyn faster than he should.
Bursts through the restaurant door.
Isla's behind the counter. Nonna beside her. Both look up at his face.
"What?" Isla's voice is sharp. Scared. "What happened?"
He crosses the room. Grabs her hands.
"He's going away. Decades. Maybe life. His own people turned on him." He's smiling. Actually smiling. "He can't hurt you anymore."
Isla stares. Doesn't move.
"Say something."
She opens her mouth. Closes it.
Then she's in his arms. Crying. Laughing. Both.
Nonna watches from the counter, tears streaming down her own face, stirring sauce like she's done every day for forty years.
For one perfect moment, everything is okay.
---
That Night
They celebrate. Chloe comes. Harry drives in from the city. Nonna cooks everything in the kitchen. The restaurant fills with laughter and wine and people who love them.
Isla glows.
Liam can't stop watching her.
Around midnight, they slip out to the sidewalk. Stand under the faded sign. City lights blurring overhead.
"It's really over," she says. Like she can't believe it.
"The trial still has to finish. But yeah. It's really over."
She turns to him. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For staying. For fighting. For—" She stops. Smiles. "For seven minutes on a balcony."
He laughs. "That felt longer."
"It felt like everything."
He pulls her close. Kisses her. Soft at first, then deeper, like he's been waiting months for permission.
When they break apart, she's crying again. Happy tears, she says. He believes her.
"Come home with me," he whispers. "Not the penthouse. Home. Wherever that is."
She looks at the restaurant. At the sign. At the life she's fought to save.
"This is home," she says. "But you're in it now. So I guess I'm already there."
He kisses her forehead.
They stand under the sign, holding each other, while the city hums and the restaurant glows and everything feels possible.
---
Three Days Later
Liam's phone buzzes at 2 AM.
Unknown number.
He almost ignores it. But something makes him answer.
Silence. Then breathing. Then a voice he hoped never to hear again.
"Congratulations, Blackwood. You won."
Kaelen.
Liam sits up. Isla stirs beside him.
"You're supposed to be in jail."
"I am. They let me have a phone. Ineffective assistance of counsel, they'll argue. But right now?" A pause. "Right now, I just wanted to hear your voice before I go."
"Go where?"
"Transfer. Maximum security. They're moving me at dawn." A soft laugh. "I'll be gone for a long time. Maybe forever."
"Good."
"But here's the thing about forever." Kaelen's voice drops. Intimate. Cruel. "It ends eventually. And when it does—when I get out, when I'm old and broken and have nothing left to lose—I'll find you. Both of you. And I'll finish what I started."
Liam's blood runs cold.
"Isla?" Kaelen's voice softens. Mocking. "Tell her I said goodbye, little one. Tell her I'll be thinking of her. Every day. Every night. Every time she thinks she's safe."
The line goes dead.
Liam stares at the phone.
Beside him, Isla's eyes are open. She heard.
"He's being transferred," Liam says quietly. "Maximum security. Decades."
"But?"
He meets her eyes. "But he promised to come back."
She doesn't flinch. Doesn't cry. Just nods.
"Then we'll be ready."
"How?"
She takes his hand. "Together. Remember?"
He remembers.
They lie in the dark, holding each other, while the city hums and a monster waits and tomorrow brings no guarantees.
But tonight—
Tonight, they have this.
And for now, that's enough.