Page 237 of Arrow

Orion’s smirk faded into something more genuine—understanding, maybe even approval. He nodded once, then disappeared down the hall.

The front door closed with a soft click. My eyes tracked the clock on the wall as I held my family close. The afternoon light slanted through the windows, casting long shadows across the polished floors. I’d never imagined this life for myself—a home, a wife, a child. Before Harlowe, I’d been content with power and violence, with the cold satisfaction of watching my enemies fall.

But she had changed everything.

“Daddy?” Luca’s small voice broke through my thoughts. “Can we have pancakes for dinner?”

I looked down at my son’s hopeful face, at the earnest gray eyes so like my own. “Pancakes for dinner?”

Harlowe laughed against my shoulder, the sound warming something cold inside me. “He’s been asking since we left the cemetery. His Uncle Luca loved pancakes, too.”

The mention of her brother made something tighten in my chest. I’d never be able to go back in time and choose to save Luca Virelli, but sometimes I wondered what he would think that his sister married a Romanov, or that he had a nephew named in his honor, and a family built from the ashes of two warring houses.

“I think pancakes for dinner sounds perfect,” I said, pressing a kiss to the top of Luca’s head.

Harlowe’s fingers found mine, squeezing gently. “We’re okay,” she whispered, as if she could read my thoughts. “We’re all okay.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice. The physical wounds had healed—the bullet holes, the broken ribs, the mangled fingers that still ached when it rained. But some scars went deeper than bone.

She had killed her father to save me.

I had watched her face as she drove the knife into his chest. I’d seen the horror, the relief, the terrible freedom of that moment. She had ended her bloodline with her own hands, and I had been powerless to stop it.

But I had been powerless to stop the man with the gun, the bullets meant for her, the way my body had moved without thought to shield her from harm.

Four bullets.

Four chances for me to die.

Four reasons why every breath I took now felt like a gift.

I’d spent months in the ICU, and when I woke, Harlowe was four months pregnant with our son. A child we’d never planned for. Another reason for me to fight. Another reason for me to live.

“Arrow?” Harlowe’s voice pulled me from the memories. “Where’d you go just now?”

I looked down at her, at the woman who had killed for me and almost died for me. The mother of my child. My wife.

“I’m right here,” I said, pulling her closer. “Always right here.”

She smiled, and even with her eyes red from crying, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. The sunlight caught the diamond ring I’d placed there on our wedding day, which felt like a lifetime ago.

“I love you,” she whispered, her fingers tracing the scars on my chest through my shirt.

“I know,” I said, because saying “I love you” still felt like exposing something raw and vulnerable. But she knew. She’d always known.

Luca wiggled in my arms, impatient with our adult emotions. “Pancakes now, Daddy?”

“Pancakes now,” I agreed, setting him down gently. He immediately grabbed Harlowe’s hand and started pulling her toward the kitchen.

As I followed them, my body still aching in places that would never fully heal, I thought about the doctors who had told me I wouldn’t survive. The specialists who had warned about permanent damage, about limited mobility, about a life defined by pain and restrictions.

They didn’t know me.

They didn’t know what I would endure to come back to Harlowe.

They didn’t know what it meant to have something worth fighting for.

In the kitchen, I watched Harlowe lift Luca onto the counter and help him pour flour into a bowl. His small hands were clumsy, spilling more than he measured, but Harlowe didn’t scold him. She just laughed and wiped his cheek with her thumb, leaving a streak of flour across his skin.