EPILOGUE #3
I consider blowing him off, but the panic etched into his features is too thick. “Not wrong. She’s”—my mouth splits with an idiotic smile—“pregnant.”
He scrubs a hand over his dazed face. “Pregnant. Thank fuck.” As he hauls me into a hug, he continues muttering, “I thought … I was so scared.” His voice rises with increasing excitement.
“Congratulations, Chief. Jesus , I’m so happy for you guys.
For us .” He pats me on the back and as he steps away with a firm grip on my shoulder, his jaw falls lax, as though he’s been handed the answers to all life’s mysteries. “I’m gonna be a goddamn uncle.”
And with that epiphany, I’m forgotten. Liam sprints into the house, shouting expletives, while I guide Landry up to Ivy.
The clamor of the chaos currently unfolding in my bedroom reverberates throughout the house, reaching us before we’re even on the second-floor landing. Liam must have gathered up Gage and Ty on the way in because all three are fussing over the mama-to-be.
“Freckles! Holy shit! A miniature Freckles,” Ty bellows.
Ivy’s voice is fainter, but filled with so much joy that it causes a crest of emotion to swell inside my chest. “Or a miniature Chief,” she counters.
“Fuck, that could be fun too,” Liam says. “We get to boss this one around.”
Ivy laughs. “That’s an angle I haven’t—”
“Fuck that. I want a girl,” Gage barks in his gruff tenor.
The room falls silent, and even though Landry and I are about to enter, I motion to him to pause, eager to hear how this plays out.
Ivy is the first to speak, her tone a sweet warble. “Really?”
“Yeah. Really?” Ty parrots.
Gage grunts, and I can hear Liam quietly snickering at his discomfort, but he finally answers, “If anyone should be raising a woman, it’s Ivy. One branch without spoiled fruit.” There is no higher praise from Gage Porter.
I don’t have to see or hear the tears to know they’re there. Landry and I walk in to witness Ivy enfolded by the three men who’ve stood by me through everything. Our beginning was rotted with so much sourness; it’s a wonder any of us made it here.
Tasting hope.
Ivy catches sight of me before the guys do.
Our eyes lock, and in some unspoken way, I know we’re thinking the same thing.
Tom is here with us. The twisted roots of all his labor have flourished into vines twining around my girl right now.
We might be bringing our child into a precarious world, fraught with threats and deception and far more risks than we’d like, but there will be no baby loved like this one.
No family more diligent or protective. That’s all he ever wanted for his little girl—for her to seize what was hers. And that she has.
After I shoo the guys away, Landry performs an ultrasound on Ivy with his portable machine, revealing she’s eleven weeks along. Everything looks good. Relief floods us both, as well as a gratefulness that she’s been eating better lately and consuming limited alcohol.
With so many people visiting today, Ivy was excited to share our news, but I nixed that quickly. We won’t be able to divulge this pregnancy until we thoroughly ascertain the threat level. She’s annoyed but compliant—I hope.
The party takes off smoothly. Many of our guests flew in, so people traipse in at various hours in the afternoon, which provides us with an easiness to greet and mingle.
Of course, the guys won’t let Ivy lift a finger.
If the four of us were less doting under ordinary circumstances, I’d say that was a dead giveaway, but those who’ve been around us don’t tend to notice a difference.
It’s Celeste who tracks the guys’ movements with a scrutinizing eye.
She watches as they amble by, kissing Ivy’s hair or asking if she needs anything while she’s tucked inside my arms. I’m sure, to others, it begs a myriad of questions, but to the men who spent years merely existing, she’s the one who stoked the spark of life back into their lives.
She’s the one who’s growing a new one now.
At the moment, Ivy is on my lap, resting for a beat. Celeste is seated next to us, drooling over the Noire brothers while also decidedly gauging her best friend’s new environment.
Liam drops into the empty chair beside Celeste, parking an equally scrutinizing gaze on her. “What’s your problem, Carver? No one here to fuck you into a coma?” That’s nearly a direct quote from the fraudulent text he sent from Celeste to Ivy. Always stirring shit.
“Jesus Christ,” I hiss as Ivy quietly groans.
She must be waiting to see what Celeste’s response is because it’s unlike my Little Storm to hold her tongue.
Celeste rolls her whiskey eyes, a sardonic smirk lifting one corner of her mouth. “I knew it was you. Nothing better to do with your time than study me, huh? Trying to be someone you’re not— again . Does it sting, Graves ? Knowing you’re always playing a part and never the one getting your fill ?”
Ouch. What the fuck is happening here?
Ivy squeezes my hand, as if asking the same question.
Liam raises his beer bottle to his mouth, his eyes swirling with both mirth and irritation as they slowly, deliberately, rake over Celeste’s curves.
“Don’t flatter yourself, dollface. I had you figured out in less than a minute.
You aren’t that deep. Horny, desperate, and hiding behind your pearls.
Case solved.” He sputters when Ivy stabs him with a reproachful glare.
“But,” he continues, “even if it had taken days, it would’ve been worth it.
Hearing from you made our girl happy.” He digs into his jeans for his cigarettes, but as he looks at them, his eyes snap to Ivy, so he shoves them back down and stands. “Taking care of Ivy is what matters.”
Noticing his hesitation, Ivy shimmies off my lap to stand, too, pointing for Liam to sit. “Keep Wells company. Celeste and I are supposed to rescue Rena.”
At first, I’m assuming that’s completely fabricated, but Axel and Ryker are laying into an exasperated Rena about God knows what. That poor girl will never find a guy with those two hovering and the other three close behind, even with Ivy in her corner.
“Don’t be long. It’s getting dark.” I rise up to kiss her cheek, my hand sliding possessively over her lower back. “Fireworks.”
Although the Noire brothers are coming and going in shifts because of their duties at the resort, they’re setting the fireworks off for us. Jax, in particular, enjoys explosions, so he’s experienced. Ivy even smooth-talked him into coordinating it to classical music for my benefit.
“I’ll be back. Fifteen-ish minutes.” She shrugs at Liam for confirmation, and he winks, letting her know that’s adequate.
As soon as she and Celeste wander away, I resume my seat and glance at him as he lights a cigarette and pulls a lengthy drag, plunking into the chair Celeste was occupying.
“Thanks,” I tell him, impressed he thought of the precaution himself.
He blows a plume of smoke up to the sky. “Don’t thank me until I quit.”
“Quit?” The question wheezes out of me in shock. He called me a cocksucker when I quit, insisting the brain doctor psycho-manipulated me into it. He loved Tom, but I think it bugged him that I was influenced by someone outside the four of us. Little did he know, it was the brain doctor’s daughter.
“That’s the plan. Can’t have this shit around them.” He flicks the glowing cherry, and my lungs tighten. I’m awed by that level of commitment from him for my wife and child—his family too. The Little Storm strikes again. Liam doesn’t change for people .
“Listen.” His inflection shifts deeper, business mode. “I’m not sure what I’ve got, but something fucked up is happening with Carver Homes.”
That’s Frank Carver’s company, Celeste’s father. He isn’t clean by any stretch. He’s a member of The Order, but his dirt and indiscretions are generally well covered in his construction sites.
“Elaborate.”
“I can’t.” He pauses for a hit, releasing it with his clarification. “Looked like a steep contract out against him. Not sure for what. Dark web chatter. Parts missing. It was a shadow, taken down, but from what I can tell, it involves the Skulls.”
“Fuck,” I hiss.
The Skulls are an underground group. They operate by no one’s rules—ugly and rabid.
You do what they want, or you pay in blood.
That’s their mantra. But they never mess with KORT.
That’s asking for war—a war that would end them, although not without catastrophic loss to our organization. They aren’t to be taken lightly.
“Get security on the Carver family,” I order. “Eyes on them twenty-four/seven. I’ll contact Frank. Keep digging. Do you have tracking on Celeste’s phone?”
“Got it.”
“What’s with you two?” I ask, noticing the vexed cut of his jaw. “Is this because she accused you of faking your death or keeps rubbing the misconception of Ivy’s rejection in your face?”
That’s all behind us. We’ve come to an understanding, and he’s content with how things are between him and Ivy, between all of us.
“No.” He sighs. “Not that specifically. I’ve never felt rejected by Ivy. The opposite actually. So, the jab doesn’t bother me. But Celeste bugs the shit out of me—so goddamn pompous.” His face twists in aggravation.
“She’s important to Ivy,” I remind him.
“I know,” he says, the ashes of his cigarette growing longer as he stews. “That’s why I held my tongue.”
“Right,” I roar before barely coughing out the words, “Well done, brother,” and shoving a handful of Sour Skittles into my mouth. No scotch today. I’m suffering alongside my bride.
IVY
On our way to rescue Rena, Celeste and I run into Ty. Although a more accurate depiction would be that Ty accosts me. He beelines for me from across the yard, where he was playing bartender, abandoning a conversation with Luca and Rosaline—Wells’s grandparents.