EPILOGUE… TWO YEARS LATER

Grace walked past Gavin’s study door for the third time, still not able to go in.

“I hear footsteps and I see you walk past but you don’t come in,” Gavin commented.

“I’m trying.” Grace replied, stopping, finally in the doorway. “We’ve got to talk.”

He got up from the desk and walked over to her. “What’s up, beautiful?”

She hesitated. She was trying to bring up a subject Gavin had tried to get her to talk about before…but she’d always avoided it. “Do…do you want another baby?”

He stopped, as if considering. “Beautiful, that’s up to you. You know I love kids and I’d be perfectly happy to have another one, but you were the one in the house when it happened. Not me. And I’m certainly not gonna push you into having another baby.”

Grace hesitated. “I do. I want to have another baby…” She stopped. “I just…I don’t want to feel like we’re trying to replace him.”

“No one’s ever going to replace him, honey, but I think he’d understand.”

“If we have one…and it’s a boy…I don’t want…” She trailed off, not able to form the words.

“Shh. If we have a baby, I promise you, it’ll be safe. Maybe… maybe I’ll even try to convince Garrett to set up some sort of alarm so if someone got in his people would respond… he might do it, now.”

“I just – It’s not that I’m worried it won’t be safe…I don’t want to forget about Nathan.”

“We’re never going to forget our son, Grace.”

Grace paused, biting her lip. “I don’t want you to call your brother. I don’t want us to have anything to do with… that… ever again.”

“Even if that means your sister? And your nieces and nephews? I can pick us up and make sure we never come across them again, Grace, but you’d lose that.”

“I know what it would mean. And I just want us to be safe. I want Chelsea to be safe.”

He nodded. “Alright. After the funeral… we’ll go. Split off. We’ll say our goodbyes and that’ll be the end of it.”

“Thank you, Gavin.” She kissed him. “I… I don’t want to have to worry about whether or not someone’s going to walk through the front door…”

“Shh. It’s okay. We’re going to be gone. We won’t be connected with that ever again.”

The funeral was over; Holly Spencer had been buried that morning. The funeral had been rather pompous; Cassidy thought it was disgustingly overblown, but that was how Holly would have liked it. Now, finally, people were leaving the reception. Garrett had already sent the kids home with one of the agents, and essentially the only people were left were Gavin, Grace, and the pair of them.

Grace gave her sister a hug. “Everyone okay at your end?”

“Yeah… Garrett’s… not as distraught as he’s pretending to be, and the kids are calm. It took a little bit for them to deal with it, but they’re alright now. Yours?”

“I’m not quite sure Chelsea completely understands what it means, but she seems okay, and Gavin’s fine. Like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders…”

Cassidy nodded; she hadn’t really expected Gavin to be too distraught. “What’s going on that you two aren’t telling us?”

Grace looked up at her sister. “We’re leaving.”

“Leaving for good. Taking off and running like hell, not looking back. I thought you might.”

“That’s the general idea…I just wanted to come and say goodbye. Gavin’s telling Garrett right now.”

“And we certainly won’t see each other again.”

“Yeah. We need to do this, Cassidy, I hope you understand…Gavin’s been done with the organization for a while, and we just need a clean break from everything.”

“I understand… but that doesn’t mean I like it. It doesn’t mean that it’s nice and easy for me to say goodbye to the little sister I’ve spent most of my life looking after.”

Grace nodded, felling the tears in her eyes start to well up. “I just can’t do it anymore…and after Nathan…” She stopped. “I don’t want to say goodbye to the only one who cared about me while we were growing up either…”

Cassidy gave her sister a tight hug. “You’ve got to look after yourself now. I guess it was bound to happen someday anyway.”

Grace nodded, swatting a few tears away. “Everyone’s got to grow up, huh?”

“Everyone’s got to grow up.”

Gavin pulled his brother aside. “Listen… we’re leaving. And I don’t mean leaving for the day. I’m taking Grace and Chelsea and we’re done, Garrett, we’re taking off and I’m *not* looking back.”

“You’re deserting.” Garrett told him. “You can’t just run away.”

Gavin had known his brother wouldn’t understand. “Watch us. Listen to me. No phone calls, no e-mails, not so much as a Christmas card every five years. We’ve got to be completely done with each other.”

Garrett shook his head. “We’re never going to be done with each other. You can try and run, but something will happen and you’ll be back before you realize what’s going on.”

“Honest to God, Garrett, I’m hoping the next time we see each other one of us is in a six-foot-long box. We *can’t* have anything to do with each other. I want my family safe. I want my family out.”

“You tried that before, remember? You won’t ever be out. The organization is in your blood, Gavin. Nothing you do, nowhere you try to run and hide, is going to change that.”

“I’m done, Garrett,” Gavin said sharply.

“You’re never done, Gavin. Gavin *Spencer.* Don’t you get it? It’s a dynasty. And you can’t run from what’s inside you.”

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