The cruel irony wasn’t lost on me.
I had a daughter now.
Aurora Julianna Moore, born at 3:47 AM on August sixteenth, weighing six pounds four ounces.
Perfect. Beautiful. Alive.
And Julie was dead.
She hemorrhaged and threw a clot. That was what the doctors said. Postpartum hemorrhage caused an embolism that went straight to her head. They tried to stop it, tried to save her, but there had been too much blood, too much damage, too much of everything except time. I refused to look at my daughter. I wanted nothing to do with her as I held my Julie’s hand in the days after. I felt nothing for the life we brought into thisworld, only rage and grief and a terror so profound it had nearly brought me to my knees.
How the fuck was I supposed to do this without her?
How was I supposed to raise a little girl when I didn’t know the first goddamn thing about being a father? Especially when every time I looked at her, all I saw were Julie’s eyes, Julie’s nose, Julie’s delicate features, and felt the loss all over again like a fresh wound.
The rain had started to fall now, soft and silent, dampening the raw earth. The mourners were dispersing, offering final words I didn’t hear, touches I didn’t feel. But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t walk away. Couldn’t leave her here in this cold, dark ground.
My feet were rooted to the spot, my eyes locked on the coffin. A polished wood that gleamed even in the gray light, covered now with roses and lilies and all the flowers she loved. I put the white rose in my hand on top of them all, as my fingers trembled and my vision blurred. “I love you,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “I love you, baby. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Sorry I couldn’t save her. Sorry I couldn’t keep my promise to always protect her. Sorry that our daughter would grow up without her mama, without the woman who would’ve loved her fiercely and completely and perfectly.
The world felt wrong. Irrevocably altered. Like someone had tilted the axis and everything was off-balance, spinning out of control. I built my entire life around Julie. She had been my constant, my anchor, my reason for everything. And now she was gone, and I was adrift in a sea of grief with no shore in sight.
Digger’s voice cut through the fog. “Brother. We gotta go. Aurora needs you.”
Aurora.
My daughter.
Julie’s final gift to me, and the cruelest reminder of what I had lost.
I took one last look at the grave, at the flowers, at the headstone that readJulie Marie Moore, Beloved Wife and Mother, and felt something inside me shatter completely. Then I turned and walked away, each step heavier than the last, leaving my heart buried six feet under Tennessee soil.
Chapter One
Slaughter
I stood in the nursery at the clubhouse, staring down at Aurora sleeping in her bassinet. Three weeks old. So fucking small. Her tiny fists curled against her chest, her mouth making those little sucking motions babies did in their sleep. She looked like Julie. Same nose. Same chin. Same dark hair that would probably lighten to brown as she got older.
I couldn’t breathe.
My hands were shaking so badly I had to shove them in my pockets. Tears burned behind my eyes, but I wouldn’t let them fall. Not here. Not where the brothers could see me falling apart worse than I already had.
I tried. God knows I had tried. But every time I looked at Aurora, all I saw was what she cost me. Every time she cried, I heard Julie’s heart monitor flatlining. Every time I held her, I felt Julie’s hand going limp in mine.
It wasn’t Aurora’s fault. I knew that. She was innocent. Perfect. Everything Julie had wanted.
But I couldn’t be her father. Not like this. Not when I was drowning in grief so deep I could barely function. Not when holding my own daughter made me want to put my fist through a wall and scream until my throat bled.
She deserved better than a broken man who couldn’t look at her without falling apart.
I reached down, my hand hovering over her head. I wanted to touch her. Wanted to be the father she needed. But I couldn’t. I just fucking couldn’t.
“I’m sorry, baby girl,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Then I turned and walked out.
Stella was in the hallway, leaning against the wall like she had been waiting for me. Digger’s old lady. My sister-in-law. The woman who had been helping with Aurora since we brought her home from the hospital.
