WRITER'S POV:
The garden looked different now.
Not because anything had changed—same white roses, same stone benches, same overwatered petunias—but because Ivy was no longer looking at it as an outsider.
She belonged here.
Cassius joined her at dusk, dressed down in soft black, no gun in sight.
"This place makes you quiet," he said, sitting beside her.
"It's the only place that doesn't smell like polished anxiety."
He huffed a laugh.
They sat for a while, watching the sun dip.
Ivy reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the plane ticket—the one he'd given her when he offered her a way out.
She handed it to him.
He took it without question.
"Keep it as a souvenir .... Burn it. Frame it. Eat it. I don't care. Just don't give it back."
Cassius folded it carefully, slid it into his own pocket.
"Then it's settled."
"I want to build something here. But it has to be real. I want to earn it."
"You already did."
Cassius stepped closer.
"We're not normal."
"You wanted a choice. This is it. Normal's boring."
-----
Marcie filmed a TikTok in the hallway with MondayJason cooked breakfast in the kitchen wearing a t-shirt that said
'I killed a man and all I got was this apron'.
Aurora sipped tea in the corner of the lounge, glancing up from her book only long enough to ask if someone could silence the idiot energy vibrating off Jason.Cassius's smile was slow. "Sure".
Ivy woke up in her room.
In their house.Cassius was already gone—handling something with suppliers or smugglers or possibly both—but he'd left a note:
'Back soon. Don't water my mother's roses. She'll blame me. –C'
Ivy smiledShe wandered barefoot through the estate, nodding to the guards, waving at the staff who no longer flinched when she spoke. She passed the chair she used to cry in, the hallway she once got lost in, the bedroom where everything changed. And for once, there was no dread. No uncertaintyShe felt like a queen.She wasn't trapped.And she was ready for whatever came next.She'd chosen this.
----
Cassius returned that afternoon, shirt half-unbuttoned, tired and rumpled."You look like a very rich problem." Ivy teased him,tugging at his belt."You look like someone I'm never letting go of." Cassius mumbled while looking down at her."Smooth." Ivy blushed faintly.He pulled her close."Welcome home." She added with a shy smile while Cassius leaned closer with a smirk.And Ivy kissed him like the world wasn't on fire.Because for the first time—it wasn't.It was just... hers.And maybe, just maybe, that was enough.