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I hold Damien to my chest, then stand and wrap my other arm around my wife, kissing the top of her head and inhaling her scent. I swear it’s different since she became a mother. I tell her, “We’ve got a new plan now, a better one. Make the Family more legitimate. Keep our children safe. Love them. Support them. Cherish them. You’ll get your degree and kick ass as an accountant if you want to. I could use your help.”
“Idowant to,” she says, “but for now, I just want to be with the babies. Does that make me lazy?”
I laugh gruffly. “Lazy, you? I’ve seen how you care for these two. You get up even when you don’t have to just because you don’t want to miss a single moment. Emma, you’re the best mom there is, and that’s no small feat.”
The four of us embrace—my perfect family.
“I love you,” she whispers.
“I love you too.”
EPILOGUE
EIGHT YEARS LATER
Dario
“But it’s the truth,” Leo says, grinning at me across the marble kitchen island.
I’ve got to say that big brother has done well for himself. He’s always looked powerful, ever since I was a kid. However, I feel something standing in his large, modern kitchen. He’s in his silver suit while his wife prepares dinner behind him, and his kids play a board game on the dining table.
Maybe jealously. Once, I would’ve thought,This is what Angelica and I could’ve had, but those thoughts faded a few years ago. Lately, I’ve wondered if I could find somebody else and be happy too. Leo’s setting one hell of an example.
“He’s off in the clouds,” Emma says, smiling at me over her shoulder.
“Are you, Uncle Dario?” Damien wanders over, so big for his age, with broad shoulders and dark hair like mine and Leo’s used to be. “Is that why he’s staring into space like that? Oh, no, Uncle Dario, is something wrong?”
“Can it, kid,” I say, and he laughs as I reach over and pull him in for a hug, ruffling his hair. “Soon, you’ll be too big for me to wrestle with.”
Damien puffs himself up. “We can still wrestle. Just maybe I’ll let you win now and then.”
“You hear that, Leo? You’re raising an honorable boy here.”
“He’s not sohonorablewhen he’s eating all the nachos,” Rosie says, and I swear, she’s a picture of Rosa at the same age, right down to the brown hair, bangs, and her eyes.
She carries over an empty bowl and places it down.
“No refills,” Emma says, snatching the bowl up. “It’s dinner soon.”
“Okay, Mommy,” Rosie says, “but only because your food is so delicious.”
“Food and numbers, both are simpler than people.”
Rosie laughs in that special way she does for her mother. Emma is an excellent mother to all four of her children, but she and Rosie, maybe because of her age, are starting to form a more sister-like bond as well as a mother-daughter relationship. I guess it’s an inside joke.
“Is it time to eat?” five-year-old Tommy calls over from the table, kicking his legs as he fiddles with his board game piece.
Heis his mother through and through, right down to the curly hair and the same eyes. Honestly, seeing all these mini-mes walking around makes me a little jealous. It makes me wish I could find a woman of my own. Am I ready?
“Soon, honey,” Emma replies.
“Did you hear me, Dario?” Leo says.
I wink at my brother. “You said you want to introduce me as CEO of Bulwark at the meeting tomorrow. You think I should be proud of my position and good work, keeping people safe for a fee. Do you think I should leave out thefor a feepart?”
Leo grins, taking me back a few years to when I was a kid. Now, his hair has gone full silver, and mine is starting to go too.
“Uh oh,” Rosie says, walking over to Enzo’s playpen and scooping the little two-year-old up. “Somebody’s getting jealous. Am I holding him right, Mommy?”
