Chapter 43
CAL
Noah’s asleep on my chest, his small body finally relaxed after an hour of trembling, his breathing deep and even. His face is turned toward me, one tiny hand fisted in my shirt like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go.
He looks so much like me it’s almost painful.
Same honey-amber eyes—currently closed, but I’ve seen them when he’s awake, sharp and observant, taking in everything around him. Same nose, same jawline that’s going to be sharp when he grows up, same tendency to go quiet and still when processing information instead of talking it out.
But he’s also so much like Silas.
The way he finds calm in chaos. The way he stopped shaking the moment I picked him up and started analyzing the security feeds, like the familiar rhythm of work and screens and data somehow soothed him. The way he processes fear by going internal instead of external, thinking instead of crying.
I’ve seen it before—that particular combination of analytical thinking and emotional control that only comes from learning too young that the world isn’t safe.
Silas learned it at eighteen when his parents had him forcibly sterilized.
I learned it at twelve when I watched my father beat my mother unconscious and realized no one was coming to save us.
And now Noah’s learning it at five because someone opened fire on him in a park.
Fuck.
I shift slightly, trying not to wake him, and glance across the room. Jace is on the couch with Parker tucked against his side, both of them holding Liam who is—despite the late hour and the trauma—still asking questions.
“—but how did you all meet?” Liam’s voice is small but persistent. “Were you friends when you were kids?”
“Something like that,” Jace says, his voice gentle in a way I rarely hear. “We grew up together. Me, Cal, Silas, and your Uncle Charles. Our families knew each other.”
“So you were like us?” Liam asks. “You and Uncle Cal and Uncle Silas? Like brothers?”
“Yeah, buddy. Like brothers.”
“And you were in gun fights when you were kids too?”
Parker’s entire body tenses. I can see her struggling with how to answer, how much to tell, how to balance honesty with age-appropriate information.
“Not when we were your age,” Jace says carefully. “But when we were older, yeah. Sometimes bad people tried to hurt us or the people we cared about. So we learned how to protect ourselves.”
“Were you scared?”
There’s a pause. Jace doesn’t lie—never has, not about the important things. “Yeah. Sometimes. But we had each other. And that made it easier.”
“Like how we have you?” Liam asks. “And Uncle Cal and Uncle Silas and Mommy?”
“Exactly like that.”
I watch Noah’s face as he sleeps, tracing the features that could be mine, could be Silas’s, could be Jace’s. The results are coming—tomorrow, the day after, soon. We’ll know which of us gave Parker which boy.
Except I already know Silas can’t be Noah’s father.
Can’t be Liam’s father either.
I’ve known for years. Ever since I hacked into the medical records of the private clinic Silas’s parents used. Ever since I found the file marked “Silas Vale - Permanent Contraception Procedure” dated three days after his eighteenth birthday.
He had a vasectomy. It was forced on him by parents who decided their son was too damaged, too violent, too much like his father to be allowed to reproduce.
They didn’t ask. Didn’t give him a choice. Just told him he was going to the clinic for a “routine procedure” and when he woke up, it was done.
I found out because Silas spent three days in our organization’s private infirmary after, and I was curious why someone who’d just had “routine bloodwork” needed that much recovery time and pain medication.
So I looked. Because that’s what I do—I find information.
And then I never told anyone. Because that’s also what I do—I keep secrets that aren’t mine to tell.
Jace doesn’t know. Parker doesn’t know. Charles doesn’t know.
Only me.
And I’ve watched for years as Silas carried that knowledge alone. As he built walls around himself, convinced himself he was too broken for anything soft or good. As he turned himself into the Reaper—efficient, deadly, emotionally distant.
Until Parker came back.
Until he met Noah and Liam.
Until he let himself love something knowing he could never claim it as biologically his.
That’s the thing that gets me, that makes my chest tight every time I watch Silas with these boys. He knows he can’t be their father. Knows with absolute medical certainty. And he loves them anyway.
No, not anyway. He loves them just because. Because they’re Parker’s. Because they need protection. Because they’re good and innocent and everything he convinced himself he could never have.
Silas’s love for these boys is pure choice.
Not biology. Not obligation. Not even hope that the DNA will prove something.
Just choice.
And watching him earlier—holding Noah, making hot chocolate with too many marshmallows, promising he’d come back, calling this place home—I realized something.
Silas Vale has a soul.
We all thought it was dead. Buried under violence and trauma and the horror of what his parents did to him. We thought the Reaper was all that was left.
But these two boys with their tiny noses and their million questions got under his skin. Found something we all thought was gone.
Parker did that. Parker and Noah and Liam.
They gave him back something he thought he’d lost forever.
The ability to love without expectation. To protect without possession. To be a father in every way that matters even if biology never confirms it.
That’s growth. Real, fundamental, beautiful growth.
And I’m so fucking proud of him I can barely stand it.
“Uncle Cal?” Liam’s voice pulls me from my thoughts. “What does your name mean? Is it short for something?”
I look up to find all three of them watching me—Jace with knowing eyes, Parker with gentle curiosity, Liam with innocent interest.
“It’s Callum,” I say. “My full name is Callum Voss.”
“Callum,” Liam tests it out. “That’s nice. Why don’t people call you that?”
“Cal’s easier. Shorter.” I shrug carefully, mindful of Noah sleeping. “And when you’re a kid trying to sound tough, ‘Cal’ sounds better than ‘Callum.’“
“I think Callum sounds tough,” Liam says seriously. “Like a knight or something.”
Despite everything, I smile. “Thanks, buddy.”
“Why didn’t your parents protect you?” The question is sudden, cutting. “When the bad people came. Why didn’t they keep you safe like Mommy and you guys are keeping us safe?”
Fuck.
Parker’s hand tightens on Jace’s arm. Jace’s expression goes carefully neutral.
“Our parents weren’t like your mom,” I say carefully. “They... they had different ideas about what keeping us safe meant. They thought making us tough was more important than making us feel protected.”
“That’s sad,” Liam says quietly.
“Yeah,” I agree. “It was. But we had each other. And we learned how to protect ourselves. And now we get to protect you. So maybe it worked out the way it was supposed to.”
“Was Dominic—” Liam pauses, glancing at Parker. “Was our grandfather a bad guy?”
Parker’s entire body goes rigid. This is the question she’s been dreading, the one she’s going to have to answer eventually but hoped wouldn’t come this soon.
“Why do you ask that?” she asks gently.
“Because...” Liam’s voice gets smaller. “Because Uncle Charles said bad people tried to hurt us today. And I heard Grandma Evelyn telling Auntie Sienna that Dominic would never have let this happen. That he would have protected the family better. But you always look sad when people talk about him. And you left and didn’t come back until after he died.
So... was he bad? Did he hurt you? Is that why you left?
Is it because he didn’t like me and Noah? ”
Jesus Christ.
This kid is five years old and he’s already pieced together more than most adults would notice.
He’s definitely got my analytical brain.
And Silas’s observation skills.
And Jace’s tactical assessment capabilities.
Fuck, these kids are going to be terrifying when they grow up.
Parker’s eyes are shining with tears she’s refusing to let fall. She takes a shaky breath, clearly trying to figure out how to answer honestly without traumatizing her five-year-old further.
“Dominic was... complicated,” she says finally. “He loved his family in his own way. But he also made choices that hurt people, including people in his own family. Including me.”
“Did he hurt you?” Liam presses. “Is that why you left?”
“He scared me,” Parker admits. “And I was afraid that if I stayed, he might hurt you and Noah. So I left to keep you safe.”
“But he’s dead now,” Liam says, his child’s logic trying to make sense of adult complications. “So we can be here now. And Uncle Charles and Uncle Jace and Uncle Cal and Uncle Silas will keep us safe instead.”
“Exactly,” Parker says, her voice breaking slightly. “Exactly right, baby.”
“And Dominic...” Liam hesitates. “He didn’t not like us, right? He just... he never met us?”
“He never met you,” Parker confirms. “And that’s his loss. Because you and Noah are the best things that ever happened to me.”
Liam seems satisfied with this answer, settling more comfortably against Parker and Jace.
But I catch Parker’s eyes over his head, see the pain there, the guilt, the fear that she didn’t protect them well enough, that she should have done more, that this is somehow her fault.
It’s not. None of this is her fault.
Dominic Carter was a monster who hurt his own daughter. Who would have used these boys as weapons, as leverage, as tools.
She saved them by running. By staying away. By building a life in California where they could be safe.
And now she’s here, trusting us to keep them safe when she can’t do it alone anymore.
That’s not weakness. That’s strength.
That’s love.
Noah shifts against my chest, making a small sound in his sleep. I adjust my hold automatically, one hand supporting his back, the other cradling his head. He settles immediately, his breathing evening out again.
So much like me. Chaos all around him—questions about dead grandfathers, trauma from shootings, upheaval and fear—and he finds peace in the middle of it. Processes it by shutting down, going internal, sleeping it off.
I do the same thing. Always have.
Silas too, though his version involves violence and work instead of sleep.
This kid is ours. Both of ours, in different ways. The perfect combination of my analytical brain and Silas’s emotional control.
Except he can’t be Silas’s. Not biologically.
The vasectomy makes sure of that.
There’s a tiny chance—less than one percent, failure rate on those procedures—but I’ve seen Silas’s medical records. The procedure was thorough. Verified. Tested multiple times in the years after.
He’s sterile. Has been since he was eighteen years old.
Which means if Noah is mine biologically, then Liam is Jace’s. Or vice versa.
Either way, Silas gets neither.
And he knows that. Has known it all along.
Yet he’s loved them anyway. Protected them anyway. Called this place home. Promised to come back. Held them when they cried. Made them hot chocolate with too many marshmallows.
That’s who Silas Vale really is, underneath the Reaper facade.
A man who loves so fiercely he doesn’t need biology to claim it.
A man who had the ability to create children stolen from him and chose to be a father anyway.
A man who was broken and is healing, piece by piece, through these two boys and the woman who brought them into our lives.
I look down at Noah sleeping peacefully on my chest, and I let myself hope—just for a moment—that he’s mine.
That the DNA will come back and confirm what I see in his features, in his mannerisms, in the way he finds calm in chaos.
But even if he’s not—even if the results say Liam is mine and Noah is Jace’s, or some other combination—it doesn’t matter.
Not really.
Because we’re all their fathers now.
All of us.
Biology might determine which boy came from which man.
But love?
Love makes us all their dads.
And that’s what matters.
“Uncle Cal?” Liam’s voice again, softer now, sleep finally pulling at him. “Do you think Uncle Silas is okay? He’s been gone a long time.”
I check my phone. Forty-five minutes since Silas left. No check-in yet, which means he’s either still gathering information or things have gone loud.
Knowing Silas, probably the latter.
“He’s fine,” I say, projecting confidence I don’t entirely feel. “He’s tough. And he’s got backup with him. He’ll be home soon.”
“Promise?” Liam’s eyes are drooping.
“Promise.”
It’s a lie. I can’t promise that. Can’t guarantee Silas will come back unharmed, can’t guarantee the Ramirez situation won’t explode into something bigger, can’t guarantee any of us will survive what’s coming.
But these kids don’t need truth right now.
They need comfort. Safety. The belief that the adults around them have everything under control.
So I lie.
And I hold Noah closer.
And I hope to God I’m right.