“Shay, you f**king stay with me! She will wait a little longer for you. Dammit, Shay! Fuck!” I feel his hand go limp in mine as he slips out of consciousness.
“Help! Somebody help! Man down! Fucking help! Someone!” I yell as police storm through the bedroom door. I feel the tears stinging my cheeks.
“Stay still!” I hear a man shout to me as he reaches down and takes Silas’ pulse.
“Gone,” he says before moving over to Shay’s lifeless body. He leans down to feel his pulse, shaking his head to his colleague before he sees me clutching on to Shay’s limp hand.
“You need to let him go,” the officer says as I shake my head, unable to talk. I watch him lean down and hold two fingers to Shay’s neck again, shaking his head as he carefully rises back to his feet. “He’s gone, sir. You have to let him go now,” he says again, his low calming tone pissing me off.
“No! Help him! He’s not gone. He can’t be gone!” I shout at him, my voice losing strength. I hear Elle sob loudly behind me.
I look back over at her. She lifts her head and opens her eyes, fixing her gaze on me, tears streaming down her face.
“He’s gone, baby,” she whispers, barely able to be heard as she reaches her free hand out to me, her right hand still bound to the headboard.
“Cut them free!” Devon yells, pushing his way past the officers and running into the room, coming to a standstill when he sees the bloody scene confronting him. “Holy shit. Brax? Elle?”
He pushes past the two cops in the room and comes to my side, pulling out a Stanley knife from his pocket and cutting the rope that binds me to the headboard.
I hold my hand out to him. “I’ll free her,” I say as he places it in my hand and I reach over to free Elle from her binds. Dropping the knife on the bed, I pull her into my arms and onto the bed. She wraps her arms around me as I bury my face into her hair, sobbing for the man we’ve both just lost.
A brother, a partner, a best friend.
We sit like that, clinging to each other on the bed for what seems like hours. There is movement around us, but neither of us can move. Devon stands against the wall, his head dropped to his chest, not saying a word. It’s like we’re all stuck there, in that room, our prison cell, on a night that will forever be etched in our nightmares.
Realizing that our nightmare may now be over, but the heartache and loss has just begun.
Epilogue
It’s another warm sunny spring day in the South.
I’m sitting on a park bench looking over at Elle. She is just as breathtaking as she was six years ago when I forced myself into her life. Her hair is still a gorgeous deep brown, her porcelain skin is ageless, and that body of hers still cuts me to the quick every time.
She’s standing by the fountain in the waterfront park in Charleston, intently watching over our three year old son. I smile at the joy I see on both their faces as the water starts gushing out, almost getting Elle, and definitely splashing our little boy who is shrieking with delight. Her smile is huge, as it always is whenever she looks at him.
Our lives have been a hell of a lot calmer in the past five years. We could never forget those that we have lost but thanks to the events of that time, I’m closer to Devon and Sylvia than I ever have been. I have Elle to thank for all of that. Her strength and determination along with her belief in family and her unwavering love for me, has brought us all here. And of course, none of us would be here today if it wasn’t for my best friend giving up his life for us.
After we gave our statements to the police, and Shay’s body was wrapped up in the cold black body bag and wheeled away on a gurney, I asked to speak to the officer in charge.
Standing to the side, leaving Devon to hold Elle who was in shock and shaking uncontrollably, I proceeded to tell the detective who I was, who I used to work for, who my father was, and explained in detail everything that Silas told us about the Halliwells’ murders and how Victor Bertorelli had ordered the hit.
Three days later, we got a phone call from the detective advising us that Victor had been arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Sylvia flew in the next day having seen the news, and never returned to the West Coast.
It went some way to easing the guilt I felt but it took a long time for me to come to terms with Shay’s death. We’d been through so much together; basic training in the Army, our discharge and the sudden decline and death of Roger. Then, he’d helped me try to deal with the overwhelming debts, even coming with me to work for Victor.
Elle quickly made peace with what happened. Don’t get me wrong, there were many nights that we clung to each other, Shay’s loss and my guilt threatening to swallow me whole. But just like how I helped keep Elle’s nightmares at bay, Elle showed me that we could honor Shay in so many other ways. That his death did not need to be in vain. And ultimately, he was now back with his one true love, the woman that captured his heart and saved his life. He put himself between that life ending bullet and the woman I love. The ultimate sacrifice, one that I’ve struggled to come to terms with while also being eternally grateful for.
Elle finished college two years later, just a month before we eloped and a month to the day that we found out that we were expecting our first child.
Our wedding was in a word, a once in a lifetime event. And it doesn’t matter how staunch you think you are, hearing the woman you love devote her life to you, in front of family and friends, will bring any man to his knees. The emotion of the moment consumed us both as we vowed to have and to hold, to death do till us part.
We held the ceremony in Hawaii on a private beach with the softest sand at a beachfront resort. We had both lost so much that we wanted our day to be just for us and our close family. Since we’d never been to Hawaii, we decided to start the rest of our lives together with a new memory. We knew that Shay would be with us wherever we were, even if it was only in spirit.
As part of the ceremony, we set a lantern alight and placed a lei around it before setting it off to sea. The winds picked up then suddenly died down, a sign that he was right there with us. The belief is that when the wind stirs at a wedding, it signifies the presence of family who can’t be with you physically, but continue to surround you with their love, support and blessing. We were both in tears as we set Shay’s memory away from us, knowing that he’d be forever in our hearts.
I get up from the seat and walk over towards my little family, wrapping my arms around my wife’s waist as I lean down and kiss her forehead gently. “You’re glowing, my little minx,” I say with a smirk.