Chapter 22 - The Anniversary
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It was the seventh anniversary of the day Victor and Lily had committed their lives to each other.
They did not celebrate the day they signed legal papers.
They celebrated the day they chose to survive together.
Victor wanted to give her the world.
He had offered trips to Paris, diamonds, and private islands.
Lily had refused them all.
“I don't want a grand gesture,” she had told him. “I just want you.”
So, Victor rented a small, rustic cabin on the edge of Lake Michigan.
No security details.
No staff.
No bulletproof cars.
Just the three of them, isolated in the quiet woods for the weekend.
The autumn air was crisp and cold.
Victor stood on the wooden deck, chopping firewood with an axe.
He enjoyed the physical labor.
It grounded him.
It reminded him that his hands could build a fire just as easily as they could destroy an empire.
Lily walked out onto the deck, wrapped in a thick wool blanket, holding two mugs of hot coffee.
“You look entirely too natural doing that,” Lily laughed, handing him a mug.
Victor buried the axe in the chopping block and took the coffee.
“It keeps me humble.”
She leaned against the wooden railing, looking out over the calm, glassy water of the lake.
“It is beautiful here,” she breathed.
“It is quiet,” Victor agreed, wrapping his arm around her waist.
Inside the cabin, they could hear Ethan laughing as he played with a wooden train set.
“Did you ever think we would get here?” Lily asked, leaning her head on his shoulder.
“To a cabin in the woods?”
“To peace, Victor.”
He looked at the water, reflecting on the endless violence that had consumed his early years.
He had always believed peace was a luxury reserved for innocent men.
“I didn't think I deserved it,” Victor confessed quietly.
“And now?”
Victor turned and looked into her eyes.
They were the same eyes that had seen the absolute worst of him.
And loved him anyway.
“Now,” Victor said softly, brushing a stray lock of hair from her face, “I know that I earned it. We earned it.”
He kissed her gently.
It was not a kiss fueled by desperation or fear, like the kisses of their past.
It was a kiss of absolute, unshatterable certainty.
“Happy anniversary, Mr. Blackwood,” Lily smiled against his lips.
May you like
“Happy anniversary, Mrs. Blackwood,” Victor replied.
They stood together in the cold air, completely surrounded by the warmth of the life they had fought so fiercely to build.
