He chose this life. He knew that. And if he looked back, all he’d see was a long receipt of blood-soaked regrets—John’s death, the grave dug with his name on it, pulling the trigger on Alfie, losing Grace. Not losing—she was taken. And she never really left. She clung to the edges of everything, haunting the silence between moments, living in the things she once touched.

Her death didn’t just wound him. It rewired him.

Now there was Lizzie, bound to him by name and circumstance. They shared a child, not love. He hadn’t asked her to keep the baby—it was her choice. But he never thought he’d actually become a father this way. He never thought he’d still be breathing at all.

Now he was wrapped in a suit and a title, dancing with devils like Mosley in rooms that reeked of politics and rotted men. After the failed assassination, after being outplayed and outmaneuvered, something inside him cracked. Something final.

So he went to the field, his shoes sinking into the soaked earth, the sky dull and heavy overhead. He pressed the gun to his temple, finger trembling over the trigger.

Click.

Nothing.

Arthur had taken the bullets. Always a step ahead when it came to keeping his brother alive, even if Tommy didn't want saving anymore. He collapsed into the muck like a man already dead.

Lizzie came after. Her silk pajamas dragging through the mud, her face tight with anger. “Coward,” she hissed, her voice barely hiding the tremble. “You pulled the trigger and left your family behind without a goodbye.”

She opened her palm. “If you still need a way out,” she said, and dropped the bullets beside his face. One by one.

Then came the sound of footsteps—rushed, uneven, the kind made by someone who hadn’t bothered with boots. Lizzie turned sharply. You.

She glared. You’d never gotten along. Not because of anything you did—because Tommy never looked at her the way he looked at you. His friend. That word was a poor disguise.

You’d heard he went for a “walk.” He never just walked. And after Mosley slipped through his fingers, you knew exactly where his head would go.

You knew him. Better than Arthur, maybe. There was a softness between you and Tommy, an unspoken rhythm no one else could fall into.

He heard your footsteps before he saw you. And he didn’t lift his head, but something shifted inside him. A warmth in his stomach. A quiet kind of relief.

You were here. You came.

He didn’t believe in God, not really. But today, he almost did.