Do I Wanna Know?

EPILOGUE

HARRY POV

I used to have this dream every night that I'd be stuck out in the middle of the ocean, somewhere far enough out that I could see nothing but the deepest blue water for miles in every single direction. It was storming, and the waves thrashed like they wanted me to know I wasn't welcome that far out where no person should be.

The thing that frustrated me about the dream the most, was that the harder I swam, the faster I'd start to sink. I tried fighting the water, but it was almost as if that was the wrong choice. It's like I was supposed to give up and let myself drown. When I gave into the waves, and felt the water filling my lungs, only after the sensation of real pain did I wake up.

And then I met Grace.

I remember being so petrified the first time she stayed with me, that I would wake up in a panicked state, drenched in sweat. I was so scared to scare her or to hurt her like I knew I was absolutely capable of doing. But that same night, the dream never came. As long as I had known her, I never had it again.

"You're making the right choice, Harry," William spoke, but I stayed with my eyes focused on The Atlantic below us.

"I never said I wasn't."

William was quiet again, but I could see out of my peripheral vision that he leaned over the table between us, studying me. "You are so...different. Do you know that?"

I looked at him then, and he wasn't being smug about it. He looked at me like I was an alien from another planet like he was fascinated and beyond the point of curiosity. "I'm not."

"You are," he insisted without hesitation. "I can literally see it in your eyes. You're not the same as you were."

When I said nothing and just held my crystal glass of whiskey on the table, he continued to push the issue.

"Why didn't you listen to me? Not only did you stay with her for way too long, you went and had a baby? I mean, Jesus, Harry. Of all people, you were the last one I expected to be so irresponsible and thoughtless–"

As I ripped the knife out of my suit jacket and stabbed the table no more than one inch away from his hands, he shut himself up. "You want me to prove to you that I'm the same as I was? Fucking try me."

Slowly, he sat back and glanced out the window as we both felt the plane begin to descend. "I was trying to help you when I warned you against that. You only made this a million times harder for yourself. And you cannot let them know that you're hurting like this. I mean that, Styles. Or it's fucking over for you, and you know what that means."

"I know what I have to do," I mumbled, downing the last of my whiskey as I took the knife back, retracted the blade, and shoved it back in my pocket. "Don't fucking patronize me. I know what I'm doing."

"Yeah, well," he checked the time on his watch. "You'd better get ready to do it then. They're going to be waiting for us at the warehouse when we land, and they're expecting Harry Styles."

William wasn't my actual father like he told Grace he was, but he did teach me everything I know. He was me, once upon a time, and I think he had to be the first boss in the history of our world to willingly give up the job and pass it along to someone else. Without a doubt, that someone else was me.

I hated that even now he was always one step ahead of me, that he was still so aware of what was going on with my men–things that I had failed to pay attention to. He wasn't smug about it, but I didn't like the idea that he had to remind me what I had to lose. I should have known that already.