57. Reid
Chapter fifty-seven
Reid
Genevieve had only been gone maybe five minutes before I registered I was alone in bed without her. I followed the faint light, down the quiet hallway, ready to drag her back to bed, hold her steady through the rest of the night.
But when I reached the kitchen—
I stopped, gazing at the sight before me with caution.
Her son… our son, Eugene, was folded into her arms.
His face buried in her neck, shoulders shaking, fists curled into the fabric of her robe like a child afraid someone might pull him away.
And Genevieve—
She held him like he was still three years old and she’d been waiting her entire life to hold him again. Her hand cradled the back of his head, fingers in his hair, whispering something that broke him, and broke me even more.
“Lovebug,” she murmured, voice soft enough to undo a man. “My sweet boy… I’m right here. Mom’s right here.”
I leaned against the door frame, watching silently. I had no right to step into that moment. They needed this alone. The years they both lost, the pain they both carried, finally colliding into something fragile. So sacred and human.
I’d imagined this for years.
Imagined what it would look like if she ever got him back.
If he ever let her.
But I never imagined I’d see it first-hand.
I stepped back, turning away as I headed back to the guest room. If he turned and saw me, he’d run, close himself off again before he could get hurt.
So I let him have his time with her. Let them both have this moment that should’ve belonged to them years ago.
And for the first time since learning he was mine—
I grieved the time we lost, the years stolen from all of us.
But I also felt something else build inside of me, something fierce and possessive. Because no matter how broken, no matter how fragmented this family was… it was still my family—my little girl to hold, my son to protect, my wife to love—and I wasn’t going to let us break again.
The morning in the Russel estate on Christmas Day smelled like cinnamon, coffee and a peace I didn’t quite trust yet.
I stood at the kitchen counter, pouring myself a cup of black coffee that Benjamin had offered, watching the early morning light spill over the marble. The estate was filled with a gentle quiet, family members filing in slowly, taking places at the dining room table as they greeted one another.
Then footsteps padded softly behind me.
“Morning,” Brielle whispered, hair a little messy, cheeks flushed from sleep, baby settled on her hip. She looked softer today, less shattered than yesterday, still holding all of her emotions and feelings together.
“Good morning,” I murmured, taking a sip of my coffee as I glanced down at what was my most recent grandchild. She blinked up at me with her big bright eyes, confusion and curiosity laced with one another.
“Coffee?” I asked, turning to Brielle, and she nodded, placing a “World’s Best Dad” mug beside me.
I quirked an eyebrow as she smiled. “For Killian.”
I nodded in understanding, pouring a cup when, as if on cue, Killian walked into the kitchen, dressed in matching pajamas to Brielle. We acknowledged one another with a simple glance before he walked over to his wife and daughter, kissing both on the forehead as she handed him his coffee.
My attention wandered back to the dining room.
There were kids. Everywhere.
Too many to count.
Different ages, different parents, different branches of whatever sprawling tree these people called family. Yet somehow, it worked.
Somehow, it felt… easy for them. Natural.
Delilah sat beside Archer Lockwood, holding their daughter who was chewing on mushed banana.
Calvin had wanted a dynasty merger. What he got…
was a son who built a one-sided obsession for the woman he was groomed to love…
which, ironically, made for better leverage than any forced arrangement ever could.
Footsteps echoed into the area again. I glanced over to see Eugene.
He stepped into the dining room, eyes down at first, then lifted when Juliet smiled at him from the table. He bent down, kissed her on the lips, soft and slow. Then he kissed Melanie’s head before brushing his knuckles across her cheek.
His gaze was tender, movements automatic and familiar.
But when his gaze drifted across the room to Brielle—
Nothing.
There was a brief moment of stiff eye contact before they both looked away like strangers.
I sipped my coffee, watching them with a patience that seemed fleeting. “Are you going to say good morning to your brother?” The words slipped out before I could stop them.
Brielle stiffened. “No,” she muttered, eyes as defiant as her mother’s as she stared up at me. “Absolutely not.”
I arched a brow at her. She matched it with one of her own, stubborn and fiery, the same spark Genevieve had when she was being impossible. I almost smirked.
She sure had her mother’s defiance, and the longer I looked the more I could see myself in her too. For years, I trusted my gut that she was my daughter, and standing here watching her, I knew I’d been right.
“One of you needs to be the bigger person… Break the ice so things can settle.”
“Why does it have to be me?” she asked.
I placed the mug on the counter, turning to face her, as a father would when lecturing his daughter… because in that moment, I felt that was exactly what I was doing.
“You know your brother better than I do… He was hurting, same as you. He probably feels guilty for what was said.”
Brielle scowled. “So I’m supposed to fix everything? Again?”
I shook my head. “Didn’t ask you to.”
“He said it himself. He doesn’t want me to try and fix him… fix us.”
“And you don’t have to be the one to do it all. He has to work for your forgiveness. I’m just asking you to start.”
She looked down at the counter, a heavy sigh escaping before she spoke reluctantly. “Maybe I’ll talk to him.”
I hummed, sipping at my coffee once more. “Maybe you should.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Eugene enter the kitchen, low murmurs of his version of good morning escaping him, and Brielle, as if our conversation flew out of the window, stepped past him as she left to go sit at the table. God, she was stubborn.
Genevieve entered the kitchen, a small smile grazing her lips as her gaze landed on me and our son. “Good morning,” she said to me, and I placed a gentle kiss on her lips before she pulled away and walked cautiously over to Eugene.
“Good morning, Eugene,” she said gently.
He cleared his throat as he finished pouring his coffee. “Morning…” he said, almost nervously.
Genevieve kept the conversation light. “Did you sleep all right?”
He shrugged. “Slept as best I could.”
She didn’t say much in response given she herself hadn’t slept much either. “Tensions are still a little high with Brielle, I assume…”
Eugene glanced over to the dining room. “You could say that…”
“Soon, we should all sit for a discussion… answer questions, clear the air. But you should talk to her first.”
“Why?” he muttered, just as stubbornly as Brielle.
“Because she’s your sister and you love her,” Genevieve answered calmly.
I could see the screws in Eugene’s brain turning as he took a sip of coffee.
“…But she started it…” he muttered childishly.
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.
With a bit more convincing, Genevieve urged him gently over to his sister.
Once she heard his footsteps, her eyes flicked up, and their gazes collided warily.
Eugene cleared his throat, barely audible.
“…Morning.”
Brielle blinked, her lips pressed together. And for the first time this morning… she didn’t fight back.
“…Good morning,” she whispered back.
Beside me, Genevieve exhaled, a tremor leaving her body, her shoulders softening as Eugene sat down.
I wrapped an arm around her waist. “I’d say we got this parenting thing down pat.”
“I would hope so… Our children are in their early forties.”
I shook my head. “You’d think they were still four.”
That earned me the softest of giggles and a gentle kiss on the cheek.
We made our way to the dining room, sitting amongst the crowd they called family. There were too many names to recall.
I hadn’t known Killian’s ties to the Masahiko family were this close. I had contracts with their company that outlasted the late Masahiko, and here was his fully grown son, wife, and children sitting at the table facing me with no clue.
Across from me, Kimiko Masahiko sat beside Sterling Reynolds, future successor of Reynolds Capital Group, one of Silicon Valley’s most influential power players. The boy grinned at her, and she shoved him in the shoulder, cheeks pink.
It made me think how interconnected we all were. The higher you got in wealth, the smaller the circles became. This was obviously no different.
As the morning went on, the dining room slowly began to empty. The younger kids went first, Trinity, Tyler and Melanie running off to the East wing, Ivory and Jin making their way to the living room, Nicolas and Zachary following behind, which left the older children.
Delilah was the first to speak. “So… is anyone gonna address the elephant in the room?”
Archer clenched his jaw. “Delilah…”
Before anyone else could speak, Blaine leaned forward, mouth full of eggs from what I’d concluded was his fourth plate going strong.
“Which one?” He waved a fork around the table. “There’s like… nine elephants in here.”
Maia slapped his shoulder. “Blaine.”
But the comment landed as every pair of eyes swung straight toward me and Genevieve.
She froze beside me. Her hand twitched nervously in her lap. I grabbed it under the table, steadying her as she let out a sigh.
“Gonna take a wild hunch here…” Sterling began, “and say I—well… we—are probably not equipped for this situation here… Feels like there’s gonna be some heavy trauma dumping.”
Kimiko and Archer both shot him a pointed glare.