Broken Warrior

Epilogue

Eirene

I slipped in through the door, my footsteps soft as I padded down the hallway to the bedroom. I could hear the soft shifting of paper that told me she was reading. It had been a couple weeks since I had last seen her, travelling the world collecting intelligence and hunting down enemies to Knight Corp. Enemies to those of us who would have the world not be run by monsters. Not a great deal had changed. I had a wealth of resources at my fingertips and more information with which to narrow down my search, I compiled detailed reports and sent them to Timothy. He would then use them in his other operations or send me assistance if I needed to act on what I had found.

And I would stay in contact with Eliza through it all as the phone Knight Corp had encrypted allowing her to know where I was, even if we couldn't speak or text. Though it delighted her even more when I sent her postcards from wherever I was. They would sometimes arrive after I had already returned home, but she kept them on her fridge. I never wrote anything but her nondescript post office box address on them.

But she treasured them.

I was returning to North America for a few weeks, after several weeks of running around Russia and China hunting down leads. Both Carbry and Ryker would be in Europe with the big gathering of all the orders that had all the important people from around the world gathering in one place. There had been an odd silence throughout several networks that could only be explained with the unusual activities of a gathering of such a magnitude. I steered away from any concerns about it, knowing that Ryker was in charge of the security and would not appreciate my meddling.

Tim had suggested it would be a good opportunity for him to familiarize me with the running of Knight Corp and various introductions that usually took place when people first joined the company, while both men I was avoiding were out of town.

I had heard... something off in his tone during our last verbal brief, though. And when I had mentioned it to Eliza, she had told me that he had lost someone close to him recently, and not to mention it. I had not heard of anything serious happening, nothing within the networks or in the files I saw from Knight Corp, though I did not know enough about the man to know if whomever it was, was even on the radar of the company. Either way, it wasn't my place and I trusted that Eliza would tell me if it was something that would endanger me.

Despite those thoughts, I grinned as I slipped in the door, seeing her glance up over her book and give me a smile. "I had hoped you would get home soon."

She stood up off the bed and I smiled, seeing that she had known exactly when I was coming home and had been waiting naked for me in bed. I didn't respond, merely stood and took in the sight of her, appreciating the fact that despite everything else that had and was happening, I still had not lost this woman I loved more and more every day.

She didn't approach me, merely stood with her hands on her hips watching me. "I need to see that you're not injured."

Fighting my own grin, I inclined my head and slowly stripped out of my armour and clothing, before holding out my arms and spinning in a slow circle. She put her book down and beckoned me closer, prompting me to close the distance between us and slide my hands across her soft skin as she ducked her head to kiss me.

We weren't perfect, we were still figuring it all out. But I loved every part of her.