Chapter Fifteen
KAIA
Nurses swoop in, urgent now, taking her from Dr. Adams and rushing her to the warmer. Their voices turn clipped, professional. “Clear the airway. Suction. Stimulate.”
“She’s not breathing,” I scream, thrashing, trying to tear myself off the bed. Ingrid and Lani pin me down, their weight is the only thing stopping me from launching after my daughter.
“They’ve got h-her, Kaia,” Ingrid cries, her own tears streaming, her voice breaking as she fights to keep me in place. “Trust them. You have to trust them.”
“Please, oh God. Please, nooo!” My sob is pain, broken.
I can’t lose her.
I’ve already lost him.
Please, God, not her too.
Lani clutches my shoulders, sobbing into my ear. “She’s strong. She’s her daddy’s girl. She’s going to fight. You know she will.”
But the silence stretches.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Thirty.
I hear everything, the frantic rub of tiny limbs, the suction pump whirring, the nurses’ clipped commands. My vision tunnels, black creeping at the edges.
My lungs won’t work.
I try to draw in breaths, but I can’t. Fucking. Breathe.
Just like my little girl.
“Breathe, baby girl, come on,” Dr. Adams mutters fiercely from across the room, her hands moving fast. “Come on, fight.”
Every second is a knife to my chest. My mind is moving to places I don’t want it to.
What if she doesn’t cry?
What if she’s gone?
What if I have to have a funeral for both my husband and my daughter in the same week?
The silence grows unbearable.
A minute feels like a lifetime.
Finding an inner strength I thought had gone, I thrash harder, Ingrid and Lani straining to hold me down as my body wracks with sobs. “Let me go! I need her, I need her!” My voice is shredded, raw, unrecognizable.
But then…
… a sound.
Small at first.
Weak.
Then stronger.
Louder.
Relentless.
My heart thumps in my chest as a wail erupts from the warmer, piercing and defiant, roaring through the room like thunder cracking the sky wide open.
A gasp erupts from me as I collapse back against the bed, sobs bursting out of me, and I am shaking so hard I feel like I’ll shatter. Ingrid’s forehead presses into my temple, her tears mixing with mine. Lani is laughing and crying at the same time.
“There she is,” Dr. Adams says, her own voice ragged with relief. “There’s our girl.”
The nurses move quickly, checking her as they had her brother, their voices murmuring reassurances.
I can’t breathe.
Can’t speak.
All I can do is sob as I watch her tiny arms flail, her cry weaving into her brother’s, the two sounds braiding together like threads of the same soul.
“Katrina,” I whisper hoarsely. “Trina for short.”
Named after the storm that gave her father his road name.
The storm that shaped who he became.
And then, finally. Finally, they lay both of my babies against my chest.
Warm. Squirming. Breathing.
Alive.
Their cries blend together, filling every shattered place inside me.
I cry openly, clutching them close, my whole body trembling.
My babies. Hurricane’s babies. His legacy.
My storm-born twins. I laugh through the sobs, shaking my head.
“God, they really are like their father. Couldn’t just make a quiet entrance.
Had to rampage in, loud and impossible.”
Because as I hold these babies against my chest, their cries filling the room, I realize something with absolute clarity. Hurricane isn’t gone. He’s here. In their eyes. In their voices. In me.
And we are going to be okay.
I sag back against the bed, drenched in sweat, tears streaking my cheeks. I’m emotionally spent, physically broken open, and yet, I’ve never felt more whole.
“Look at them,” Ingrid whispers, awe in her voice as she strokes Trina’s cheek. “They’re perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
“Hurricane would’ve been over the moon,” Lani adds, gently touching Lynx’s tiny hand. “He’d be insufferable already, telling every person in a hundred-mile radius about his twins.”
I laugh, hiccupping through tears, because she’s right. I can see it, him pacing with his chest puffed out, snapping pictures every few minutes, already planning their first rides on a Harley.
And though the ache of his absence will never leave me, for the first time, I feel something stronger than grief.
Hope.
Suddenly, there’s a soft knock on the door, and Dr. Adams steps over to check.
When she returns, she’s smiling. “There is an absurd number of bikers outside asking if they can come in,” she says with amusement.
“I told them you need time to rest and clean up first, but they’re very… ” she tilts her head, “… persistent.”
“Let them in,” I say without hesitation. “They’re family.”
And that’s exactly what they are.
Dr. Adams simply grins, knowing what Defiance is like. She shrugs and heads back to the door. When it opens, it’s like a dam bursting. Brothers, old ladies, and family members pour into the room, their faces full of joy, love, and wonder.
Bayou is one of the first inside, his eyes immediately finding the twins in my arms. When he sees them, his face crumples for just a moment before he regains control of himself. “Jesus, Kaia,” he breathes. “They look just like him.”
“They do, don’t they?” I reply, adjusting them so he can see better.
Bikers flood the space behind him, people filling every inch of the room as it loads with gifts, flowers, stuffed animals, baby clothes, enough supplies to stock a nursery three times over. And even though I am tired as all get out, I can’t help but smile and feel the love.
Everyone wants to touch them.
To hold them.
To be part of this moment.
Torque gets all misty-eyed when he holds Lynx.
Hoodoo immediately starts making plans for their first medical training.
City stands back and watches it all with that calm expression, but I catch him wiping his eyes when he thinks no one is looking.
Pono is talking about their first trip to Hawaii.
Sin tells me in no uncertain terms that Lynx is going to Las Vegas on his twenty-first birthday, and the guys are going to show him a ‘good time.’
I don’t even want to think about that kind of stuff right now.
Toxin thinks she’s going to have Immy and Trina in training to be the next female patches into Defiance. My daughters can be anything they want to be, and that includes following in their father’s footsteps and becoming members of Defiance. I won’t stop them.
Other Defiance members continue making plans for my children, and I can’t help but feel whole.
I think I was holding a grudge these past few weeks.
Maybe that’s why I was hiding in my room.
Because I felt like I couldn’t face these people.
Because I felt like they took him from me.
But they didn’t.
Not really.
Hurricane gave his life for a cause he believed in. He fought to keep countless people alive, knowing that it would end his life in the process.
He was as brave as they come.
He was as selfless as they come.
His life was Defiance.
And these people would do the same for him. They would lay down their lives for him if the cause called for it.
Because this is what family looks like.
This is what Defiance is about.
Showing up for each other, celebrating together, grieving together, holding each other up when the world tries to knock you down.
“Mama!” I look up at Immy, who’s in the doorway, Bayou holding her hand. Her eyes are wide with curiosity as she looks at the babies in my arms.
“Come here, sweet girl,” I call to her. “Come meet your brother and sister.”
Bayou lifts her onto the bed beside me, and she studies the twins with the serious concentration that only a three-year-old can manage.
“They’re so tiny,” she observes.
“They’ll get bigger,” I assure her. “Just like you did.”
“Can I hold them?”
I let out a soft chuckle. “When you get a little bigger, yes. For now, you can just sit with us.”
She nods solemnly, then looks up at me with Hurricane’s ice-blue eyes. “Daddy would like them, right?”
My throat closes up, but somehow I manage to answer, “Daddy would love them so much, baby girl. Just like he loves you.”
“Good,” she says simply with a firm nod, then settles against my side like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
And maybe it is.
Maybe this is exactly how it’s supposed to be—chaotic, loud, overwhelming, and perfect.
Maybe Hurricane’s children entering the world surrounded by this much love and chaos is exactly what he would have wanted.
As I sit here holding my three children, Immy nestled against my side, Lynx and Katrina in my arms, surrounded by the brotherhood that Hurricane built, I know that no matter how hard things get, we’re going to be okay. Because this is what he left us.
Not just his memory, but his family, his legacy, his love, multiplied across multitudes of people who will spend the rest of their lives making sure his children know how much they were wanted.
The twins are here.
Hurricane’s children have entered the world on the day we celebrated him, and somehow, that feels exactly right.
Just like their father…
They sure know how to make an entrance.