Chapter Thirty-Five-Remy
Life is good.
No—life is fucking beautiful.
My wife loves me.
Andrea Falco. My Andy. My girl.
I swear, I smile a thousand times a day just thinking about it.
Sure, my father-in-law still looks at me like he’s trying to decide which knife in his collection would do the job fastest, but I’m okay with that.
Because I know if he actually stabbed me, Andrea would never forgive him. And I can live with Andres Ramirez's side-eye if it means my wife curls against me at night, her belly warm against my side, her heartbeat steady under my hand.
She loves me.
And that love? It’s better than any medal, any title, any mission I’ve ever survived.
I miss our morning rides together, but I can’t say I’m unhappy she quit her job at Volkov Towers.
She’s taking pictures now—dozens of them. Everywhere. Of everything.
I don’t love her in the darkroom, not when she’s pregnant, not when those chemicals sting my nose the second I walk in.
But I keep my mouth shut because the fire in her eyes when she talks about aperture and exposure is worth more than my peace of mind.
This morning, when I asked how long she planned on being holed up in there—since it’s Callie’s school play this afternoon—she surprised me with a laugh.
“You think I’ve been in the darkroom?” she asked, nose scrunched, looking at me like I was an idiot.
Hint: I was.
She told me she’s been using her digital cameras and editing software for her newest projects.
And of course, that just made me love her more. Because she was right, of course, she was right. I was an idiot. Andy’s already an excellent mom, and I should’ve trusted her to know what was best for her and the babies.
So, I showed her how much I loved her.
Dropped to my knees.
Pushed up that maternity dress she swears is the only thing she fits in.
Bullshit.
She wears them because she knows how they make me feel.
How hot. How feral. How desperate.
Easy access, too.
Always helpful when I can’t keep my hands off her.
Let’s just say I had my breakfast twice.
And I didn’t stop eating until she was screaming my name like a prayer.
Yeah, life is beautiful.
It’s two weeks till Christmas, and I’m in full spoiled-husband mode.
I want to give my girls everything.
So here I am, in a high-end department store on my lunch break, buying out half their toy inventory and every goddamn maternity dress that makes me think of her bent over the counter.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
I answer, still half-grinning like an idiot.
It’s my lawyer.
And in the next five minutes, everything turns to shit.
Julio Castillo.
A name I never thought twice about.
My sister’s ex.
Callie’s biological father.
The ghost who’s never given a single fuck about her in three years.
He’s back. And he’s suing me for custody.
Custody.
The word rattles around in my brain like a bullet ricocheting off steel.
I grip the phone tighter, jaw clenching as the lawyer explains the paperwork, the timeline, the fucking audacity.
Julio wants rights to a little girl he never once held, never fed, never tucked in. A little girl who calls me Dad.
Blood might be DNA, but family? Family is who shows the fuck up.
And that’s me. Always me.
I hang up, the happy haze I’ve been living in gone in a blink.
Because now I have to go home.
And I have to look into Andy’s hazel eyes.
And I have to tell my wife that the life we’ve been building, the love we’ve been living in, is under attack from a man I didn’t see coming.
Julio Castillo just declared war.
But what he doesn’t understand? No one—no one—takes what’s mine.