Page 60 of The Dante

After a moment, she tilted her head, searching his eyes. “Where do we go from here?”

Titus didn’t hesitate. “From here, we build something new.”

Jazz raised a brow, teasing now, aglint of something lighter in her expression. “Everything legal and aboveboard?”

For the first time in what felt like forever, Titus laughed. Low, husky, filled with something that tasted a lot like release—like the burden he’d carried for so long had finally begun to lift. It wasn’t just relief. It was disbelief, exhaustion, and something dangerously close to happiness, all tangled together in a way he didn’t know how to unravel. “Oh, of course. All legal and aboveboard.”

Jazz narrowed her eyes, knowing better. “Titus...”

He grinned, leaned in, his voice a whisper against her lips. “Mostly legal.”

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling now, the last of the darkness between them lifting. The room felt different—lighter, warmer, likethe past had finally loosened its grip. Titus’s hold on her hand tightening just slightly, as if he, too, could feel the shift. Something solid. Something real. Something theirs.

And for the first time, they could finally move forward—together.