Epilogue
ONE YEAR LATER
Sloane
I am done. Clinically, spiritually, cosmically done being pregnant.
My feet are swollen. My hips feel as though they've been pried apart with a crowbar. The baby has spent the last hour testing how hard she can kick my ribs before I cry. I am ninety percent belly, ten percent willpower, and I have exactly one plan left.
Sex.
Specifically sex with my more-than-willing, fully obsessed husband, because I read on a perfectly reputable medical site at three in the morning that orgasms can help induce labor.
Knox has been walking around as though starving all day, and every time I catch him staring at my belly with that feral, possessive look, his hands flex at his sides.
He wants to touch me. He wants inside me.
And he's been holding himself back for approximately three hours because I told him I needed a nap.
I'm about to prove him very, very wrong about the nap.
I waddle into the bedroom with purpose.
Knox is halfway through pulling off his shirt when he sees my face. He freezes, shirt caught behind his neck, abs exposed, one hand tangled in cotton.
"Sweetheart," he says carefully, eyes darkening. "Why do you look as though you're about to commit a felony?"
I step into his space and yank the shirt the rest of the way off. He lets me. I grab his hands and place them directly on my stomach. Low, where the weight sits heaviest.
His breath stutters. His pupils blow wide. He's been this way my entire pregnancy, reverent and hungry, half feral every time he touches me. His cock hardens against my hip.
"I'm ready," I tell him. "She's ready. My pelvis is threatening mutiny. And you." I palm the bulge in his jeans. "Have been eye-fucking me all day."
His hands slide from my stomach to my hips. His grip tightens. "Jesus Christ, Sloane."
"I want you to put me in labor," I say, squeezing him through denim.
Knox lets out a sound somewhere between a growl and a laugh, and his mouth crashes onto mine. Hungry, possessive, filthy. His hands slide down to cup my ass, drawing me as close as my belly allows.
"You don't have to ask twice." He growls against my lips. "I've been losing my fucking mind watching you carry my baby and not being able to bury myself inside you for three entire hours."
I laugh against his mouth. "Three hours. You're so deprived."
"I am. It's been torture."
"Stop talking and fuck me."
He strips me efficiently, careful with my swollen body, but urgent. When I'm bare, he steps back to look, and the hunger in his eyes makes my thighs clench.
"Fuck, look at you," he murmurs. His hand slides over my belly, dips lower, between my thighs where I'm wet and aching.
"You're soaked, sweetheart."
"I've been thinking about this all afternoon," I gasp as his thumb finds my clit.
His voice drops into that dark, commanding tone that makes me shiver. "Get on the bed. Hands and knees."
I obey, grateful, because my back has been killing me and this position takes all the pressure off. When his hands grip my hips from behind, I moan.
"That's it," he murmurs, one hand riding up my spine. "Let me take care of you."
His cock notches against my entrance and he drives in, filling me inch by inch until I'm stretched around him, gasping.
"So tight," he groans. "Even now. Gripping me."
I rock back, taking him deeper. "Knox. Please."
"I know." He withdraws, slams back in. "I know what you need."
Deep, relentless, punishing in the best way. One hand at my hip, the other reaching around to rub tight circles on my clit, and I'm spiraling.
"That's my girl. Take every inch."
"Knox." My arms shake.
"You want to come and put yourself in labor?"
"Yes. God. Yes."
His thumb works harder, his cock driving deeper, hitting the spot that makes my legs shake, and I shatter. Crying out, clenching around him, whole body seizing.
Knox groans, hips stuttering, he's coming too, filling me, grip bruising on my hips as he buries himself deep.
He eases out, hand at my lower back.
I collapse onto my elbows. "Oh."
His hand stills on my back. "What's wrong?"
I blink. Once. Twice. Warmth spreads down my thighs, unmistakable.
"Oh," I repeat, breathless. "That worked."
There's a beat of silence. I look back over my shoulder. Knox's face is white.
"Oh fuck."
The hospital is a blur of headlights, contractions, and Knox white-knuckling the steering wheel of the truck as though it personally insulted him. He is calm about everything except this.
"Breathe," he keeps saying. "You're doing great. You're incredible. I have never loved you more than I do right now."
"I swear to God," I pant between contractions, "if you pass out, I will haunt you."
"I'm not going to pass out." But his knuckles are white.
"You look as though you might throw up."
"I might. But I'm not leaving you."
By the time we're admitted, a nurse hooks me to monitors and tells Knox they need a few minutes to get me settled. He squeezes my hand, sets his mouth to my forehead, and backs out of the room as if leaving costs him a physical ache.
The waiting room fills fast.
Malachi and Candace arrive first. A gold band catches the fluorescent light on Candace's left hand when she reaches for the sign-in sheet, a ring that wasn't there a year ago. They got married in the fall. Small ceremony. Malachi cried. He'll deny it until he dies.
East and Darla rush in next, Darla crying, East trying to look calm and failing. The twins are with a sitter tonight, and East looks as though he might vibrate out of his skin.
Nash and Ruby come through the door together. His hand is at the small of her back, settled, the way a hand rests when it's been there long enough to stop being a question. Ruby leans into his side, tablet tucked under her free arm. Whatever they figured out in the last year, they figured it out.
Maggie and James slip in without ceremony. Maggie begins organizing bags, snacks, and spare blankets because that's what Maggie does.
Frankie arrives with Arden close behind, both of them hovering near the back of the waiting room, steady and watchful. Frankie's eyes are shadowed.
Kyle slides in last, phone out, texting Rider updates. He drops into a chair and announces, "I'm going to be the cool uncle." Nash shakes his head.
East says, "Absolutely not." Kyle grins.
Knox is pacing.
East grabs him by the shoulders. "Hey. Look at me."
Knox does.
"She's strong. You're not going to break her by worrying. Trust her body. Trust yourself."
Knox swallows. Nods. A nurse opens the door and nods him back in. He comes straight to me, takes my hand, and holds on.
Hours later, when our daughter finally arrives, furious and perfect and loud, the world narrows.
Knox is crying. I'm crying.
The nurse places her on my chest, warm and wriggling and alive, and I look down at her tiny, scrunched face.
"Lena," I whisper.
Knox lifts his head from watching her. His eyes go wide. His throat works, jaw tightening, and he looks at me with an expression I've only seen once before: the night I told him who I really was.
"Lena," he repeats. His voice breaks on it. His hand cradles our daughter's head, fingers spanning her entire skull, so gentle it makes my chest ache.
I nod, tracing her tiny hand. "The night we met, that's who I told you I was."
His eyes hold mine.
"It was a lie then," I say softly. "But she was real. The woman who ran. Who survived. Who found you." I swallow past the tightness. "I want to give her this name. So it means something true."
His thumb strokes over Lena's impossibly small fingers.
"It always meant something true," he says, voice rough. "You just didn't know it yet."
Tears slip down my cheeks. He leans forward, forehead to mine, careful, Lena warm between us.
"It's perfect," he whispers. "She's perfect."
My phone buzzes on the bedside table. Knox draws back, easing his hand from Lena's head, and reaches for it. He reads the screen, turns it toward me.
Anna. A wall of exclamation points, a string of hearts, and one line: I'm on a plane. Tell her aunt to save me the first hold.
I laugh. It comes out wet and broken and real.
Knox sets the phone down and puts his hand back on our daughter's head.
We stay that way. The three of us. The room is quiet, the hallway bright, the world outside doing whatever the world does when it's no longer the thing you're bracing against.
Knox
I'm sitting in a chair that's too small, in a room that smells of antiseptic and clean cotton, with my daughter tucked against my chest.
Lena.
The name Sloane gave me the night we met. When she was running.
Now it's our daughter's name.
She's warm and impossibly light, wrapped in a blanket that keeps slipping because I don't quite know how to hold her yet.
My hand spans most of her back. My thumb rests between her shoulders.
I'm terrified to move and terrified to stop moving, so I settle for a rhythm.
A steady rocking that seems to work because she stays quiet against my chest.
I've handled weapons without hesitation. Planned operations that could get people killed if I miscalculated by half a second. Walked into rooms knowing exactly how much violence it would take to walk out.
This girl weighs seven pounds and I'm afraid to breathe too hard.
Sloane is asleep a few feet away, hair loose, face softer than I've seen it in months. She gave everything she had and came out the other side standing.
Lena makes a small sound, more breath than noise, and my body adjusts without permission, angling her closer, curling tighter. The instinct is the same one that puts me between Sloane and every door. Protect. Hold.
"Hey," I murmur. "I've got you."
Her fingers curl, tiny and fierce, and grab onto my shirt.
I huff out a breath. Almost a laugh.
"You and your mother. Have me wrapped around your fingers. I didn't stand a chance."
I look down at her. Tiny nose. Serious mouth. Lashes that will break hearts in eighteen years, and I'll hate every single one who tries to deserve her.
Sloane stirs. Her eyes flutter open, unfocused, find me. Find Lena. The smile she gives me is small and tired and full.
"Hey," she whispers.
"Hey."
"She okay?"
I look at Lena, asleep against my chest, fingers gripping my shirt, heartbeat tapping against my palm.
"Yeah," I say. "She's okay."
Sloane reaches across the space between the bed and my chair, and I take her hand. Her grip is loose, exhausted, warm.
The room is quiet. The hallway hums with distant voices and soft-soled shoes. Through the window, the sky is going dark, the last light catching on rooftops and fading.
Down the hall, our people are in the waiting room. I can hear East's laugh through the wall. Kyle arguing with someone about uncle rankings. Maggie shushing both of them. Malachi's voice, low and steady, cutting through the noise the way it always does.
They'll all want to hold her. East will pretend he's calm about it and his hands will shake.
Candace will cry and deny it. Darla will bring the twins next time.
Our daughter will grow up in a compound full of cousins who aren't blood, uncles who carry weapons, and aunts who would burn the world down for her without hesitation.
Nash will teach her patience. Ruby will teach her to fight with information. Frankie will teach her things I'll pretend I don't know about. Maggie will feed her until she can't move. James will tell her stories that are mostly true. Kyle will be the cool uncle whether we want him to or not.
And Sloane will teach her what it means to stand up and stay standing. What it costs. What it's worth.
I'll teach her the rest. How to read a room. How to trust the right people. How to love someone so hard it scares you and do it anyway.
She'll ride on the back of my bike before she can walk.
Lena will know the sound of the compound gate, the smell of the clubhouse bar, and the weight of a family that chose each other when the world gave them every reason not to.
She'll know her name. Where it came from.
What her mother was when she carried it.
And she'll know that the woman who gave it to her turned a lie into the truest thing in this room.
I look at Sloane. Her eyes are closing again, her hand in mine, her body giving in to the exhaustion she's earned.
I look at Lena. Seven pounds. Serious mouth. My shirt in her fist.
The life we're building starts here. In a hospital room that smells of clean cotton. With a woman who survived everything her world threw at her and a daughter who will never have to.
That's the promise. The only one that matters.
I set my mouth to Lena's head, close my eyes, and let the future in.
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