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“Beautiful, aren’t they?” he murmurs.
I nod. “I think Ari needs it.”
“He does. We’ll give him everything he asks for. Just like you, little goddess.”
James is the last one to enter the kitchen, and he walks over, pulling Phoenix to the side so he can take his place. Phoenix grabs the chair next to me and pulls my hand into his, lifting it to kiss my wrist.
“Do we have anything special planned?” he rumbles against my skin.
Kane laughs softly, grazing a touch down my jaw before placing his hand over Phoenix’s. The weight of them both holding my hand is so much, and it’s not enough because there’s room for two more still.
“I think we’ve had enough adventure for one day,” Kane eventually says.
He’s not wrong. I’m exhausted, and we all have a thousand more miles to go before any of this feels real, but for now, this is enough.
Epilogue
PHOENIX
I’mno stranger to pain. I never have been. Not for myself, and not for the people that I love. It was an almost comforting constant in my life. Things have calmed down in the months after Guido’s death was announced, and more of the Romano leaders turned up lying with their throats cut in alleyways or shot to death in their offices. Peace began to fall in the city.
Kane didn’t say much, but I knew he was steadily providing a fat income stream for the detectives investigating the cases because they were all open-and-shut. Muggings gone wrong, suicides, jilted lovers who left town.
The same happened in our family. When Kane said he was going to clean house, he meant it. I’ve never been so busy in my life. None of us have. But it’s a necessary evil.
No one seems to be mourning the loss of Aldis. In fact, Kane came home one afternoon and said there seemed to be a collective relief now that he was gone. Many of them suspected, but no one had the balls to tell Kane to his face that his second was double-crossing him.
I think that hurt him worse than anything—knowing that his own people were too afraid to come to him with honesty. But there was no real way to change it. This was not a place hecould rule with love and togetherness. He had to be vicious and brutal, and all the blood he was spilling in the streets just went to remind everyone that he could be a benevolent god, but he could also be a vengeful one.
But all of that blood and death doesn’t compare to the way Alice’s voice sounds as she lies in the hospital bed, clinging to my hand, begging for it all to stop. And there’s nothing I can do for her. There’s nothing to ease the pain except time and patience.
“God, why did I agree to this?” she begs.
I lean over, dropping my forehead against her cheek. It’s almost time to push, the doctor has already said, but Alice is so damn tired now. It’s been twenty hours, and she’s refused anything but a little painkiller in her IV. She’s read too many goddamn articles on the internet, so she’s choosing suffering.
I tried to step in and force the issue, but Kane shot me down with a quiet threat, and I know better than to not take him seriously.
So now we’re just taking turns holding her and waiting for her body to do this thing that the doctors swear up and down it was meant to. But she’s clammy and sweaty, and it just seems like torture more than anything. I’m struggling to wrap my mind around the fact that just days ago, she was in my bed with her back against my chest, letting me rub soothing circles around the mound that contained our restless child.
The child we would meet in a few hours.
God willing.
The contraction ends, but there are only seconds between them now, so I take the swift opportunity to press a cool cloth to her forehead and then kiss her. “Not long now, princess.”
“I hate everything,” she groans.
“I know.”
“I just…uhgggg.” She makes a strange noise, and I feel panic rushing up on me as she sits up, knocking my cheek with her head. “Oh shit.” Her voice is low and rough, and I hear the telltale squeak of the doctor’s shoes.
“You feel like you need to push?”
“I,” she gasps, and she makes another low noise that cuts off. She’s bearing down now, I can tell.
“Kane!” I shout.
I don’t pay attention to anything else after that except Alice, who’s coming close to breaking my fingers. The screaming has all but stopped. The labor has stolen her breath, and the doctor’s quietly urging her on.
