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He swallows hard. “I want to make it up to you though. I want to be your brother, and an uncle.” He looks down at my rounded belly and I rub a hand over it protectively. Maybe if I didn’t have these two little babies to think about I would handle this differently, but I do. And they are the most important things in this world to me. I wanted him to be my brother so much. I was desperate for some family I could call my own, but I realized that I already have the best one I could have ever hoped for.
“I can never trust you, Hayden. I know you had your reasons, but you betrayed me.”
He chokes down a sob. “Jessie!”
“This is hard for me, too.” I wipe a tear from my eye. “But I can’t have people I don’t trust around my children. They won’t allow people they don’t trust around their children.” I look over at my husbands. “I would never be myself around you, Hayden, and that is not the kind of relationship I want. It would be unfair to all of us.”
“But I can prove myself, Jessie. Please let me,” he sniffs as tears roll down his cheeks.
“You don’t have to prove anything to me, Hayden. I love you just as you are, but I can’t have you in my life.”
He blinks at me but he nods his understanding.
“I’ve paid off your mom’s medical bills and there is fifty thousand dollars in your bank account.”
“What?” he shakes his head. “No. Please don’t. I don’t deserve that.”
I squeeze his hand in mine again. “You deserve a good life without the worry of a debt that should never have been yours. Go do some of that traveling you dreamed about.”
“Thank you,” he sniffs as he wipes his cheeks.
Conor walks over to us and places a hand on Hayden’s shoulder. “Time to go, kid.”
“I’m so sorry,” he says to me again and I stand up and pull him into a hug.
“I know. I forgive you. Go live your life without any regrets. Okay?”
“Okay.” He nods and then he turns and walks away, with Conor escorting him.
“Kid,” Shane says as he walks past.
“Yeah?” Hayden stops and looks at him.
“Your sister is the best person you will ever meet. She saved your life today, because every single one of us would prefer to carve you into pieces and toss you into the Hudson.”
Hayden swallows hard.
“She is also the smartest person you will ever meet, and make no mistake, if you ever speak her name to anyone, or discuss anything of what happened here, she will find out, and I will kill you.”
“I w-won’t… e-ever…” Hayden stammers.
“Good. Now have a nice life, kid,” Shane smiles at him and then Conor escorts him out of the room.
“You think I did the right thing?” I ask once Conor and Hayden are gone.
“Yes,” Shane, Mikey and Liam say in unison.
After Hayden left and we all took a shower – separately to my disappointment, we are sitting in the den waiting for our take-out to arrive.
I’m sitting on Liam’s lap and he is holding on so tightly to me, I can barely move.
“Liam,” I squirm in his grip but I smile at him. “I’m not going anywhere. You can relax a little.”
“Sorry, baby,” he whispers before he kisses my forehead.
“I think we can all agree, you are never leaving the apartment again without at least one of us, Jessie,” Conor says as he flops onto the sofa beside us and his brothers mumble their agreement.
I suppose they expect me to refuse and to assert my independence like I usually would, but I’m kinda over getting kidnapped. Besides, there’s not just me to think of now.
