Page 31 of My End (Iron Fiends #10)

Five weeks later…

Stretch

Cue Ball’s painting was still drying.

Tilly had finished it twenty minutes ago when her brush finally dropped to the side of the easel like a white flag surrendering to exhaustion.

Now she was curled up in the middle of my bed, with her knees tucked to her chest, and the curve of her spine rising and falling with every deep breath she took.

Her hair was fanned out across my pillow, wild and tangled and goddamn perfect.

She hadn’t even changed clothes, still in those paint-smeared leggings and my old Iron Fiends shirt she’d claimed as her own.

I leaned against the dresser, arms crossed over my chest, and just watched her.

She looked peaceful. Completely spent. She’d run herself ragged for five weeks, working sunrise to midnight to finish all ten portraits for the premiere.

And she’d fucking done it.

If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be standing here, free, alive, and in love, I would’ve called you crazy.

If you’d told me I’d be standing here watching my woman sleep in my bed , with the ghosts of Boone and Gibbs behind us and a second chance ahead, I would’ve laughed in your face.

But here I was.

I pushed off the dresser and walked over to the bed to sit on the edge. Her hand twitched in her sleep, like she was still holding a brush, and I smiled. Even in her sleep, she was painting.

“You wore yourself out, sweetheart,” I whispered and bent to press a kiss to her forehead.

She mumbled something that sounded like “Cue Ball has a weird nose,” and I chuckled.

She rolled toward me instinctively and snuggled into my chest without even waking. Her arm draped across my stomach, and her head found my thigh to rest on.

This club had been through hell.

I had been through hell.

But this woman? She made all of it worth it.

I never thought I’d find someone like Tilly. Never thought I’d find a love that felt solid. Real. Like it was going to last longer than the next job, the next lie, the next fight. I thought I was a ghost, just a shadow meant to drift through the cracks of this world until I burned out.

But she saw me.

And I wasn’t going anywhere.

Tomorrow, we’d go to that premiere. We’d shake hands with studio people and drink cheap champagne and watch everyone ooh and aah over those paintings like they weren’t made in the middle of total chaos. But tonight… tonight was quiet. Tonight was just ours .

In the end, after all the lies, the blood, the broken promises, this was what mattered. Not the club politics. Not the ghosts I’d chased or the men I’d helped bury.

It was Tilly.

Tilly was my end.