Chapter 62 Faith
FAITH
As we sat around the bonfire in my backyard, I studied the group of people who had become my closest friends.
I’d been slowly moving into Ryker’s penthouse.
And don’t get me wrong; the place was incredible, but for all its luxury, it didn’t have this: a patch of dirt where we could build a fire and sit under the stars.
The last time we’d gathered around flames like this, everything had been different. The threat to my future had been crashing down around me.
Now, there was nothing but freedom.
I watched Axel and Dakota share a smile, their breath coming out in white puffs on this cold night.
They were laughing as orange flames licked up into the sky, crackling through the logs.
Then there was Jace and Scarlett, so lost in love that it was like they didn’t see anybody else around them.
Blake and Tessa snuggled under a thick blanket, his arm wrapped around her, keeping her perfectly warm.
Rainbow had apparently decided Axel was her new best friend. She was sprawled across his lap like a furry hot water bottle, her tail thumping contentedly against his thigh.
“Why?” Axel said flatly, staring down at her. “Why do you always choose me?”
“She must think you have a heart,” Ryker said.
“Poor, misguided dog,” Jace added.
Axel pulled a blanket over Rainbow, tucking it around her weird little body. “Don’t get comfortable. This is a temporary arrangement.”
Rainbow licked his hand.
“Traitor,” he muttered, but didn’t push her away.
“We have an announcement.” Tessa’s voice cut through the peaceful crackling of the fire.
“If you’re about to tell us you’re going to start having a lot more sex, save it,” Axel snapped, not missing a beat. His hand was still absently stroking Rainbow’s ears.
Tessa rolled her eyes. “You know, you’re nothing if not consistent, Axel.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You shouldn’t.” But she smiled.
“Tessa,” Blake warned, his voice gentle but cautious, “are you sure about this timing?”
“Look, if things don’t work out, these are the people I’m going to call over to bring a box of tissues and let me cry snot all over their shirts.”
“That’s really disgusting imagery,” Axel sneered, making a face.
“It’s early,” Tessa cautioned, her hand moving unconsciously to her stomach. “But we’re expecting.”
Scarlett’s eyes flew wide, her mouth curving into a delighted smile. So did Dakota’s.
“Oh my God!” I chirped, practically bouncing in my seat.
“Expecting what?” Axel cocked his head with exaggerated confusion.
Dakota smacked his chest. Rainbow’s head popped up, like she was ready to defend him. “A baby, Axel.”
He looked from her to Blake, his expression shifting to mock horror. “Gross, dude.”
“A baby is not gross,” Dakota protested.
“The thought of him planting his DNA flag in someone is.”
“Axel!” Dakota smacked his chest again, but she just laughed. Jace and Scarlett snickered. Rainbow barked once, sharp and pointed, like she agreed with Dakota.
“Even the dog thinks you’re an idiot,” Ryker said.
“The dog has four and a half legs and ate an entire cake last week. Her judgment is questionable at best.”
“Wow.” Ryker wrapped his arm around me and pulled me tight. “Here you were, giving me grief about dating your sister, while you’re busy knocking mine up.”
“She’s my wife,” Blake growled, but there was affection in his tone.
“My wife,” Tessa repeated dreamily, like she still couldn’t believe it.
“And now, the future mother of my child.”
“Tessa, you look like you’re about to jump his bones. Save it for private, yeah?” Axel grinned wickedly.
“You have no idea what ‘my wife’ and ‘mother of my child’ do to us women in the romance book world,” Tessa sighed dramatically.
“Jesus. You need to read a good horror book instead. Oh!” Axel snapped his fingers, jostling Rainbow, who gave him an offended look.
“I should write one about Blake. The Curious Case of Dr. Blake Morrison’s Missing Personality: A Tragic Tale of a Man Consumed by Responsibility and Absolutely Zero Fun. It would be a bestseller.”
Blake glared at him. “I hate you.”
“The feeling’s mutual, but here we are, sitting around a fire, like a found-family Hallmark movie. Life’s weird.”
The conversation lulled for a moment, everyone processing the baby news in their own way. Scarlett and Jace exchanged a loaded look. Dakota’s smile turned wistful. And Ryker’s hand tightened on my shoulder.
“Where’s your new friend?” Tessa asked, glancing around like Harper might materialize from the shadows. “Harper, right?”
“Went to bed early. She started her new job at the penitentiary,” I said, poking at the fire with a stick. Sparks danced up into the night.
“At the prison?” Dakota’s head snapped up, her eyes suddenly bright with something I couldn’t quite read. Hope? Calculation? “Knox’s prison?”
Right. In all the chaos of my charges and Ryker being investigated and not charged, I hadn’t filled Harper in on Knox.
“Maybe Knox will get out soon,” Dakota continued, her voice almost cracking as she stared at Tessa and Blake. “How great would it be if he was home before we all start our families?”
The mention of her brother shifted something in the air. The firelight caught on Dakota’s face, highlighting her love and longing and a grief that came from years of separation.
Axel’s usual smirk faded. He looked down at Rainbow, his jaw tight. “He should be here.”
“He will be,” Ryker said, his voice firm. Certain. Like he could will it into existence. “Soon.”
Blake nodded once. Jace stared into the fire, his expression unreadable but intense.
We all felt it—the Knox-shaped hole in our group.
The brother, the friend, the founding member of the Sinners and Saints, who’d been locked away for over a decade for a crime none of us—save for maybe Ryker—fully understood.
“When he gets out,” Scarlett said quietly, “we’re throwing him the biggest party this town has ever seen.”
“With the worst possible music,” Axel added.
“And enough food to feed an army,” Tessa agreed.
“I’ll bake him a cake,” I offered. “A good one. Not the one Rainbow ate.”
Rainbow’s tail thumped against Axel’s leg like she knew we were talking about her.
The weight of the moment settled over us—this strange, beautiful family we’d built from broken pieces and second chances. We were all rooting for Knox. All waiting for him.
Jace cleared his throat, shifting forward slightly. “So, Faith, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”
I blinked, surprised by the sudden shift. The firelight played across his features, making him look every bit the serious CEO. “What about?”
“About the safe house you opened for the aged-out foster kids.”
My heart fluttered. The safe house was my baby. My purpose. The thing that made me feel like maybe I could take all the garbage from my past and turn it into something good.
I needed to see the kids again, soon, if only to wrap my arms around them and remind myself that I wasn’t going to be locked in prison, missing them forever.
“What about it?”
“Jace is a savvy businessman with basically unlimited capital,” Ryker explained, his hand moving to rest on my knee. A grounding touch. “And Axel, despite being a wiseass, runs a company that helps rehabilitate people coming out of the prison system.”
Axel shrugged, his fingers still buried in Rainbow’s fur.
“I help ex-cons reintegrate into society. When I heard about your safe house, I wanted in. I’d like to expand my operations to include the foster care system.
Open safe houses across the country. Rehabilitation services, counseling, addiction support, and more.
Everything we offer to former inmates, we could extend to foster kids aging out of the system. Tailor it to their specific needs.”
I couldn’t breathe.
The words hit me like thunder in a beautiful rainstorm. The good kind. The kind that knocked the air from your lungs because you couldn’t believe what you were hearing.
For over a year, I’d been one girl with one house and three kids I talked to every single day. Three kids who called me when they were scared, when they couldn’t sleep, when the world felt too big and too cruel. Three kids who deserved so much more than I could give them on my own.
And now …
Now Axel was talking about safe houses across the country.
“We’d like to call it The House of Faith,” Jace added quietly, his eyes meeting mine across the fire.
My throat closed up. My eyes burned.
The House of Faith. Not just my house. Not just my small corner of the world, where I tried to make a difference for three kids. But houses. Plural. Everywhere. A legacy. A movement. A chance for hundreds—maybe thousands—of kids who’d been forgotten by the system to have a soft place to land.
“You have no idea what this means to me,” I whispered, my voice cracking on the last word. Ryker’s arm tightened around me, holding me together.
Because they couldn’t possibly understand. They came from families—complicated families, sure, but families, nonetheless. They had people who loved them, who claimed them, who would burn the world down for them.
I’d had no one. Blake had no one.
Until we had them.
And now, they were offering to take the one good thing I’d built and multiply it across the country. To take my small act of defiance against a system that had failed so many of us and turn it into something that could actually change lives.
I pressed my hand to my mouth, trying to hold back the sob that wanted to escape.
“We’d love to pick your brain about everything you’re doing at the safe house,” Jace continued, his voice gentle.
He knew. They all knew. This wasn’t just business to me.
This was personal. “Use that as our starting point. I’ll organize meetings with a team we’ll hire to take your vision and make it reality.
Whatever you need—funding, staff, resources—consider it done. ”
“They need mentors. They need real human beings. One-on-one connections they can call when they’re scared or feeling down. Not just therapists, but actual …”
“Friends,” Ryker finished softly.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“It’s a brilliant idea, Faith,” Axel said, his voice unusually serious.
Even Rainbow seemed to sense the shift, going still in his lap.
“We have a mentorship program in the prison system with volunteers all across the country, made up of friends and family of people affected by incarceration. It’s like having a sponsor but more personal.
We could adapt the same model. Build a network of people who actually give a shit. ”
“People who show up,” Dakota added softly.
“People who stay,” Scarlett agreed.
Tessa reached across the space between us and squeezed my hand. Blake nodded at me, his doctor face replaced with something warmer. More human.
And Jace smiled. “You’re going to change lives, Faith.”
The fire crackled between us, casting dancing shadows on all our faces. For the first time in my entire life, I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. With exactly who I was supposed to be with.
These people—these beautiful, chaotic, wonderful people—were my family.
And if everything fell apart tomorrow, at least I’d found them first.
“So”—Dakota shifted, her voice careful. Hopeful—“Ryker, be honest. When will Knox get out of prison?”
Ryker hesitated. I felt his body tense beside me, his lawyer brain calculating risks and probabilities. “That depends,” he said quietly, his jaw tight. “On whether he’s finally ready to come clean about what he actually did. And why.”
The fire popped, sending sparks spiraling into the dark sky.
And somewhere, in a cell, Knox was waiting for his turn at freedom.
His turn at family.
His turn at life.
Soon, I thought, watching the flames dance. Please, let it be soon.