Chapter Forty-One Tyler #2
I clutch my son tighter at the nurse’s intrusion, ready to wage war just to keep him in my arms. It takes me several guarded heartbeats to register her words and reasoning as she slowly lowers her offering.
Staring down at my son, I gape at the similar bundle in her hands—longer, slimmer, this one wearing a pink beanie.
Confusion gives way to astonishment as the nurse’s eyes crinkle, soaking in the shock in my expression, her amused comment for Tula.
“Non lo sapeva?” He didn’t know?
My eyes fly to Tula, who stands at the doorway, dipping her chin in confirmation, her lips lifted just enough to see her own reward in my astonishment.
The accompanying emotion thundering through me as I immediately shift my son to cradle him in one arm while offering the other for my daughter. My daughter.
A son and a daughter.
Definitive love utterly consumes me as she’s gently laid inside the crook of my arm, and I begin to frantically flit my eyes from one miracle to the next, stifling the sobs threatening to erupt from me.
“Dai, lasciamolo solo per un minuto.” Come, let’s give him a minute alone. Tula ushers the nurse away as I glance up, eyes connecting to the donna I’m certain had a hand in gifting me this. It’s then I recognize the humanity staring back—and her acceptance of my gratitude before she stalks out.
Within a few mangled heartbeats, I’m utterly absorbed in my sleeping babies.
Babies.
It’s as I gaze upon them that I finally shatter under the weight of every emotion threatening.
Joy being most prominent, it mercifully starts to snuff out the fear of the unknown.
The underlying ache amplifies as Larissa’s face reflects from every detail she graced each baby with.
Her presence and absence lending to the sledgehammer pangs of regret over the births I missed.
Shifting just after to gratitude for the generosity in giving me what she has.
To the sheer wonder of what we created together.
Undeniable evidence of our coupling in my arms. Tangible.
Real. Alive and beating within twin hearts because of the fighter who gave them life.
Within the same breath, I relive the sight of that Styrofoam plate melting into that fire.
Never so thankful in my life for her defiance, contempt, and bravery.
In facing this alone, enduring it, and carrying our babies in the wake of what I put her through.
The sight of her victory reminding me of the beauty of my ignorance, as well as the necessity of my downfall.
Reminding me of the gifts they are as they continually stoke the strengthening beat within me.
The whirring of each one in my ears growing stronger as I shoot up another of the few prayers in my life.
“Please,” I whisper to Delphine’s God, “Please, please.” Let me protect them.
Let me know them. Let me love them. Let me be their father.
Could Delphine’s God, Larissa’s God, be so fucking cruel as to deny me some semblance of a life I don’t want to blink out of?
“Please,” I whisper once more, and as if hearing me, my son’s wrinkled, slim fingers slip free of his blanket, flexing toward me—as if he’s reaching out to console me.
The sight of it balms the ache in my ticking jaw as my pulse kicks more erratically.
The thunder in my chest sending a surge of determination through, urging me to be more than what I’ve become. A new mission.
“Sta salutando!” He’s waving, the nurse says as she reappears. I look up to see Tula leaning against the wall, scrolling on her phone, unsure of how much time has passed as I will it to stop.
“Tula,” I rasp, every question I need answered asked within the prompt of her name.
“You deserved to see them.” She flashes me a cursory glance. “I can’t help with anything further.”
Swallowing, I nod to that truth, though it’s the last thing I want to do.
The woman who saved me and gifted me my son and daughter is nearby.
Maybe doors away, she sleeps. Or doesn’t.
Maybe she’s thinking of me holding her children.
Our children. Is she hating it? Regretting agreeing to this?
Marching here right now to end it and banish me?
Part of me wants that to be the truth, if only to lay eyes on her.
The rest of me knows that would truly end me.
“She knows,” Tula relays, reading me. “Of course she knows.”
My hope dims as I stare down at my babies, imagining a future for them in the same grove where I almost lost my life.
Hearing their collective laughter echoing along the expanse of trees as they run through, sun-kissed, with matching smiles.
Making faces at guards who can’t help but chuckle at their typical antics.
Summoning the sight of them bringing creepy crawlers to Larissa as she stirs a simmering sauce.
The answering mock disgust on her face as she shoos them to wash for dinner, the table set for three.
Her eyes darting to the vacant fourth chair as her smile dims.
It’s that image that has my need ramping. To rectify this, for them, for her, for myself. For what could have been. That necessity amping with every heartbeat as my babies strengthen it. Lost in my thoughts, I’m brought to when Tobias appears, slowly bending down before me, eyes widening.
It’s then that I realize I’m clutching them too tightly, blinded by their scent, their lives, and their futures—without me.
It can’t happen, I won’t let it. Dire need races through me as I defy the future I just saw, resetting myself to fight it for all I hold now, hold dear.
A reason to live, breathe, and remain present.
A reason I never thought I would have again.
A reason in the hearts beating in my hands, and in my own chest. Hope and desperation clash as my resolve settles to do whatever I have to, to make things right. To be a part of their futures.
“Let Tobias hold them, Tyler,” Tula urges, dropping her eyes to my trembling hands as I fight to steady them. “You will hold them again.”
Staring back at Tobias, I see the disbelief in his expression as he scours my son and daughter. “Even with all the intel I gathered, brother, they hid it well.”
“Your egos are astounding,” Tula retorts dryly. “You act as if you all invented the wheel.”
“My hat is off to you, Tula DiGiovanni,” Tobias admonishes with unguarded respect. “What you’ve done is mind-blowing.”
“Happy for your approval,” she mocks before lifting my boy and placing him in Tobias’s waiting arm.
Standing, I let him take the chair before settling my daughter in the other.
As an astonished grin grows on his face, for the first time in long years, I picture us as kids.
The four of us running at breakneck speed through the woods before huddling at a fire we built beneath the stars.
Laughter spilling from us, our fights back then so few.
A simpler time. A time I want so much for the children he holds.
A peaceful start I’m determined to provide.
“Has …” I swallow, unable to rip my eyes away. “Has she named them?”
“She has,” Tula says. “That nearly seven-pound ham who took all his sister’s food is Alexander.” A rock lodges in my throat as she names my daughter just as I realize what it is. “Your daughter is Macey.”
I drag a palm down my wet jaw as the weight of it threatens to undo me.
“You know of this?” Tula presses. “Of why? She won’t tell us.”
My heart seizes as my brother relieves me of any explanation.
“Alexander the Great’s full name is Alexander III of Macedon,” Tobias answers for me. “He’s one of Tyler’s heroes.”
“I see,” Tula considers, her lingering silence telling.
“Can I see her?” I blurt.
“She won’t see you. But she will allow you six weeks with the children.”
“Six weeks,” I whisper as what hope their namesakes sparked threatens to dwindle just as swiftly. “And then?”
“And then you part ways,” she answers vaguely.
Slowing the pound in my heart, I force every other question to die on my tongue, save the most important. “Is this your law?”
“It’s her law, until she decides otherwise.”
When I close my eyes at the gutting truth, Tula demands I remain present.
“Tyler, you want this so much. Why couldn’t you trust her?”
“It wasn’t her I couldn’t trust,” I rasp out.
“Then what?” she prods.
“Life,” I admit.
She tilts her head, scrutinizing me. “The perfection you seek in humankind will never exist.”
“I know that. I’ve always known that.”
“In some ways, she is just as marred as you.”
“I know that, too.”
“Though far more disciplined now,” she boasts, a foreboding smirk lifting her lips, “and maybe I should thank you for that.” She shakes her head ironically.
“The sad truth is, a girl only becomes the woman she’s meant to be once her heart is truly broken.
And my God, what a woman and donna you’ve created, Marine. ”
“I have to see her,” I utter, the need to fix what I’ve broken becoming more unbearable as her words slice through my raw chest, cutting where intended.
“Don’t make me regret this courtesy,” she warns, “it’s the last I have left to offer either of you.”
“You have my word,” Tobias says.
“And mine. But I don’t want to give it to you,” I confess.
“Feed your children and then Tommaso will show you to your room.” She turns to Tobias. “You and I have unfinished business.”
“We do,” Tobias agrees easily, grinning at the sources of weight in his arms.
“You’re thorough, aren’t you? Two.”
“I have two sets of twins,” Tula says, lingering in the doorway, eyes darting to mine in question.
“I have twin cousins,” I reply. “Runs in my family too.”
“No big mystery then.” She nods to Tobias. “Come to me before you leave, King. You can collect him when his time is up.”
“Yes ma’am,” he agrees distractedly, enamored by my son and daughter.
As Tula’s clicking heels fade with her retreat, Tobias lifts incredulous eyes to mine. “Okay, brother, one of the most lethal mafia bosses on earth just gave you an in. How are you going to play it?”
I stare back at him as he holds my delicate future in his arms, growing desperation flooding my veins as the need to act clouds my vision.
“Like a man with everything to fucking lose.”