25. Gen
Chapter 25
Gen
W e relocated to my apartment, but I don’t feel any calmer at the moment.
If anything, the walls feel closer here. More suffocating. I feel weighed down by everything. I can’t breathe properly. But I’m playing possum. If I don’t, I’m pretty sure Silas might spontaneously combust.
He’s furious, muttering to himself under his breath, vicious words too low for me to catch. He’s pacing the living room in tight, furious strides.
Max sits on the couch, arms locked around my waist, anchoring me firmly against his chest. His touch is steady, constant, but the tension in his body is unmistakable. He isn’t any calmer than Silas; he’s just better at hiding it.
Thank fuck for Evie. She’s bustling around the kitchen, banging cabinet doors harder than necessary, filling the air with the clatter of mugs and the hiss of the kettle heating up. She hums off-key under her breath—something poppy and aggressively cheerful—and for a second, I want to laugh because it’s all so absurd.
Evie doesn’t do subtle. She’s angry too, in her own way. She’s just masks it under a veneer of normalcy.
I bury my face against Max’s chest, breathing in the steady, familiar scent of his cologne, the cotton of his shirt. It helps. A little. He slowly massages my tight shoulders, and for a while, no one says anything.
Max’s voice finally cuts through the quiet, low and measured, but with a sharp edge beneath it. "Why didn’t you tell him?"
I stiffen instinctively, and Max feels it. His hand stills on my back, but he doesn’t let go.
Silas stops pacing, pivoting toward me, his entire focus snapping into place like a predator scenting blood. The weight of their attention is suffocating, and for a second, I want to crawl inside myself and hide from it.
But I can’t. I owe them more than that. And, I didn't lie.
I pull back from Max’s chest just enough to meet his eyes, then Silas’s. My throat feels raw, scraped clean by the effort of keeping everything bottled up for so long.
"I tried.” I sigh and rub my hands over my face. Max’s hand resumes its slow path up and down my back, silently encouraging me to keep going. “I called. I texted. I emailed. I showed up at his offices.”
Max’s brows lift slightly, surprise flickering across his face.
"I didn’t make it past the lobby," I continue, my voice bitter. "Dom—his bodyguard, or fixer, or whatever he is—made it very clear I wasn’t welcome."
I force a laugh, brittle and humorless. "Short of hiring a singing telegram to show up at his office wearing a diaper and waving a 'You're Gonna Be a Daddy!' banner, I don’t know what else I could have done."
The words hang in the air.
Silas drags a hand through his hair, pacing again, his movements tighter now, more erratic. Max exhales slowly through his nose, the sound heavy with frustration.
Evie finally joins us, setting a mug of tea on the coffee table with a little more force than necessary. She doesn’t sit. She just plants herself near the edge of the room, arms crossed, watching all of us with sharp, assessing eyes.
"And you didn’t tell us," Max says carefully, "because...?"
I shrug, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks. "Because I wanted him to hear it from me. And, I don’t know, you have a relationship with him. I didn’t want you to feel obligated to fix it. To fix me."
Silas stops dead in his tracks.
"Obligated?" he repeats, voice low.
I press my lips together, trying to keep control of the spiral threatening to pull me under.
"I didn’t want to drag you into my mess," I say, each word chosen carefully, precisely. "You didn’t sign up for this."
Silas’s laugh is humorless, bitter enough to make my stomach knot.
"We signed up the second you let us touch you," he says, the words landing with the force of a body blow. "You think we stayed because we felt sorry for you?"
“No," I whisper, but the damage is done. I can feel the rift forming, widening between us.
Max shifts, pulling me closer, his arm tightening around me.
"You’re not a burden, sweetheart," he says quietly. "You’re ours."
I squeeze my eyes shut against the sudden sting behind them. I hate crying. I hate feeling weak. I hate that no matter how careful I am, no matter how many backup plans I draft and redraft in my head, I still end up here: bleeding at the feet of the people I care about.
"I just...I needed time to figure it out," I say finally, my voice small but steady. "I needed to be sure."
Silas’s jaw flexes, but he says nothing.
Max presses a kiss to the top of my head, whispering something soft and indecipherable against my hair.
Evie blows out a breath from across the room, the sound sharp enough to snap the tension.
"Well," she says dryly, "this is a real fun pity party we’re throwing."
Silas glares at her. I laugh, a sharp, startled sound that breaks the tension in my chest just enough to let me breathe again.
"I’m serious," Evie says, uncrossing her arms. "You’re all acting like she murdered a puppy or something. Newsflash: pregnancy isn’t a crime."
The corner of Silas’s mouth twitches, almost against his will.
Max snorts, the sound low and rough against my hair, and for a beat, everything feels almost normal.
Almost.
But it doesn’t last.
Silas isn’t ready to let this go. His smile vanishes as quickly as it appeared, and the air in the room thickens with a tension I can’t laugh away.
He mutters under his breath again, too low for me to understand, but I don’t need to hear every word to understand the intent. I catch enough.
“Silas, baby.”
"He's not taking you," Silas growls. "Or the baby."
The words land heavily between us, heavier than anything Sebastian threw at me earlier tonight. He says it with a conviction that borders on violence. It’s the kind of raw emotion that doesn’t belong in Silas’s usually careful, easygoing demeanor.
Max's arm stiffens around me, but he doesn't intervene. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s worrying about the same thing or if he knows this is something I have to handle.
I carefully peel myself away from Max’s lap, forcing my legs to steady as I cross the small distance between me and Silas.
He’s staring out the window with a posture so tight he may as well be made of stone.
I approach him slowly, carefully, like I would approach a wounded animal. Not because I’m afraid of him—never that—but because I know how deeply he feels. How hard he loves. How much it must cost him to stand there and pretend he isn’t falling apart inside.
I reach up and gently frame his face with my hands, forcing him to look at me.
At first, he resists, stubbornly keeping his gaze locked somewhere over my shoulder. But I stay patient, waiting him out, until finally—finally—his stormy eyes meet mine.
"No one is taking me from you," I say quietly, each word measured and deliberate. "Not Sebastian. Not anyone. I’m not going anywhere, Silas."
His jaw tics under my fingers, the muscles straining as he tries to hold back whatever ugly, broken thing is clawing its way up his throat.
I don’t let go. I don’t let him hide.
"You’re stuck with me," I add, softening the words just slightly, offering him a small, exhausted smile.
For a heartbeat, something flickers in his eyes. Hope, maybe. Fear. A lethal combination of both.
But it’s not enough.
His hands come up, gripping my wrists where they rest against his jaw, and he drags in a ragged breath.
"He had you first," he says, voice rough and splintered. "You admitted it. You had a connection."
The words are broken. Vulnerable in a way that guts me.
I nod, because lying would be crueler than the truth. "I did."
He flinches, and I can feel it reverberate through him, a shudder that works its way into my bones.
"But I have a connection with you, too," I continue, my voice steady even as my heart tries to tear itself apart in my chest. "And with Max. From the start. It was different, but it was real. It is real."
Silas shakes his head once, a small, desperate motion, but I tighten my grip on him, refusing to let him look away again.
"It doesn’t change just because he’s back," I whisper. "It doesn’t erase everything we built. Everything we are."
The words seem to break something inside him. His grip on my wrists loosens, his forehead dropping forward until it rests against mine.
I close my eyes, breathing him in. It’s the familiar scent of soap and leather and something uniquely Silas. The solid weight of him anchors me when everything else feels unstable.
I know what he needs to hear. I know what he’s too afraid to ask for.
And for once—for once—I don't hesitate.
"I love you," I whisper against his skin.
Silas stiffens. His hands tighten convulsively against my arms, and for a terrifying second, I think he might pull away. That he might not believe me. That he might not want to.
But then he exhales, a shuddering, broken sound, and his arms wrap around me so tightly it knocks the breath from my lungs.
He buries his face in the curve of my neck, holding me like I’m the only thing tethering him to the ground.
"I love you, too," he murmurs, voice raw and shaking. "God, G, I love you so much."
Behind us, Max shifts, and when I glance over Silas’s shoulder, I catch Evie watching from the kitchen, her arms still crossed, a rare softness in her gaze. It’s fleeting—she masks it quickly with a smirk—but I see it. For a woman who pretends the world can't touch her, she feels everything far more deeply than she lets on.
I pull back just enough to look at Silas, keeping my hands on either side of his face. His eyes are a wreck—red-rimmed and stormy, barely holding himself together—but he’s here. He’s mine.
And so is Max.
I tilt my head, catching Max’s eye where he still sits on the couch. He still has a handle on his emotions, controlled the way he always is. But I’m starting to learn how to read him. His patience has always been one of the most dangerous weapons in his arsenal, but I don’t want distance now.
"Come here," I say softly.
For a second, Max hesitates, as if he thinks he’s intruding on something sacred. But then he sees my face—sees that I mean it—and rises in one smooth motion, closing the distance between us.
I reach for him with one hand, pulling him in so that we form a small, closed circle. I’m at the center, held between two men who have wrecked me in all the best ways.
"I need you both to hear me," I say, willing my voice to stay steady even as emotion clogs my throat. "I belong to you. Both of you. This isn’t a fluke. It isn’t confusion. It’s real."
Silas’s breath catches audibly. Max’s hands curl gently around my waist, steady, grounding.
"This is real to me," I continue, pressing my forehead briefly against Silas’ chest before tilting my head up to meet Max’s steady gaze. "And I need it to be real for you, too."
"It is," Max says immediately, voice low and certain. "It has been from the beginning."
Silas nods against me, his arms tightening around my shoulders. "You’re ours, G. You always have been."
I let out a shaky breath, sagging into them both, feeling a fragile peace settle over the three of us for the first time in what feels like days.
Of course, because the universe has a twisted sense of humor, that’s exactly when Evie ruins the moment.
She saunters over from the kitchen, mug in hand, her grin wicked.
"God, this is so gross," she says, wrinkling her nose dramatically. "If I wanted to watch a Hallmark movie, I would’ve stayed in my room."
Silas groans under his breath. Max rolls his eyes. I snort against Silas’s shirt, laughter bubbling up before I can stop it.
Evie isn’t done.
"You’re really building yourself an old-man harem, huh?" she teases, nudging Max’s leg with her foot. "Couple more and you could start charging admission."
Max snorts. Silas mutters something into my hair that sounds suspiciously like, "She's not wrong."
I turn just enough to shoot Evie a mock glare. "I’m not building anything. It just...happened."
She raises an eyebrow, sipping her tea. "That’s what they all say. First, it’s two. Next thing you know, you’re juggling a starting lineup."
I shake my head, laughing despite myself. The tension lifts, just enough for the room to feel breathable again.
But the reality isn’t far behind.
I straighten, pulling slightly away from Max and Silas, though they both keep at least one hand on me like they’re afraid I’ll vanish if they let go.
"We still have to deal with Sebastian," I say, my voice quieter now. "He’s the baby’s father. No matter how complicated everything else is...we have to figure that out."
Max nods once, his expression shifting back to the careful calculation I know so well. He releases me gently, reaching into his back pocket for his phone.
"I’ll set up a meeting," he says, already scrolling through his contacts. "Face to face. No fighting. No drama. We get everything on the table."
"Are you sure that’s a good idea?" Evie asks.
Max doesn’t look up. "It’s the only way."
I press a hand to my stomach, the small but undeniable swell of it reminding me what’s at stake.
We can’t afford to let this spiral further.
We need answers. We need clarity.
We need to find a way to coexist, whether Sebastian wants to or not.