Lily looked up, her face lighting up. “Damon! Look! I made a big sun for you!”
He crossed the room and sat on the rug beside her. “That is an extraordinary sun, Lily. I’m pretty sure it’s the brightest sun in the entire state.”
She giggled and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Are we going to stay here forever?”
Damon wrapped his arm around her. “Forever,” he whispered, kissing the top of her dark curls. “Nobody is ever going to hurt you again, Lily. You’re home.”
Outside, the city lights blinked on one by one. But inside the penthouse, the only light that mattered was the quiet warmth of a broken family finally put back together — proof that sometimes the hardest hearts are cracked open by the smallest, most vulnerable hands.