Epilogue 2
~Nico~
One Year Later
Sleep regression.
Who knew those two words could strike fear into even the most hardened?
We did.
We fucking knew it now.
I jolted awake as insistent screams reached me.
The slightest cry could awaken me now. I’d become so attuned to it. All four of us had.
I sat up, blinking rapidly to get my bearings in our bedroom.
The renovations had gone ahead, and we’d ended up combining my room and Caterina’s old room into one massive space. And, yes, I’d given in and allowed Julian to put his own splash of flamboyant décor, mixed in with everybody else’s mark on the room. Cobalt-blue shimmering paint adorned the walls. There was also a bold zebra-print shag rug that was centered in the space. The room was a mishmash of different styles that didn’t quite go together. But that was fine—at least when it came to our shared bedroom. We were a mishmash of personalities. And it worked between us in a large part because we were able to blend that together so well. So the room was somewhat of a physical testament to that.
I frowned as I looked to see that only Milo was in the bed with me now.
No. That wasn’t supposed to be the case.
I mean, Milo was actually meant to be sleeping right now, because he’d taken the earlier shift. But Caterina and Julian were also supposed to be with him, not out of bed and dealing with the little nightmare next door. The two of them had a highly publicized ceremony to attend tomorrow, the opening of their first mega hub via LC Entertainment. They needed to be well-rested and at their best.
I eyed the monitor on the nightstand, finding the crib empty. Yet the little cries were still as strong as ever.
The situation wasn’t calming down.
I pulled on my boxers, then rushed out of the bedroom, making a right turn for the nursery.
As I neared the door, Julian’s voice reached me.
“Vicious things tangling in the night/ She was made for one hell of a fight/ Fuck it, she was born for this/ Born to be merciless/ Girl’s got claws and she’ll sure as fuck bite.”
I stilled for a moment.
Was he seriously singing those lyrics right now?
They belonged to Levi’s love, Colton Sharp, via his band, Mythic Cry, that had blown up to unbelievable heights lately. You could rarely turn on the radio without hearing one of his songs. To say he’d hit it big would be an absolute understatement.
I burst into the room, startling them.
Caterina was holding a warmed bottle of her breast milk as she lounged tiredly on the amazingly comfortable turquoise couch, while Julian was singing in his tone-deaf way and rocking our little bundle of screams over by the insanely extravagant golden crib.
“You’re supposed to be asleep,” I told them. “I had it.”
“We were actually already up,” Caterina informed me.
“Yeah. We were too wired about tomorrow to manage to sleep through the night.”
“Hmm. Is that her excuse as well?” I asked, gesturing at our three-month-old in Julian’s arms.
“Her excuse is that she’s a baby,” Caterina said, chuckling. “This sleep regression at her age is normal, the extra fussiness, refusing to go to sleep at all sometimes too.”
“You made sure of that when you had her checked by three fucking doctors,” Julian said.
Of course I had.
I’d wanted to make sure she was truly okay. I wasn’t taking any chances where her wellbeing was concerned. Ever.
“Watch the language around her. It’s bad enough you were singing that song to her.”
“What? You don’t want her to be tough and fierce when she grows up?”
“She doesn’t need to be. Especially not right now. She just needs to be a kid.” Something none of us were allowed to be. “Safe and happy and loved.”
“And she is, Nico,” Caterina told me. “She’s so loved by us.”
I reached out and Julian handed our daughter to me.
I adjusted her in my arms, holding her against me, and nuzzling her soft cheek as I stared into her stunning sapphire eyes.
Her cries started to calm a little as I stroked her fuzzy light brown hair.
“Bottle?” I called to Caterina.
She was there in the next moment, coming to us and handing it over.
“Here, little love,” I spoke softly, brushing the bottle over our daughter’s lips. She took it eagerly, clearly hungry.
“Ah… yes,” Julian breathed. “The cries finally cease.”
“Now that you’ve stopped singing.”
“Hey, I was gonna bring in Milo, but you were adamant that he rest tonight. Cat’s voice is as bad as mine. And who knew Milo had a voice like fucking silk? I’d never heard him sing before, or so much as whistle a tune in all the time we’ve known him.”
Yes, that had definitely come as a surprise.
“Not even in the shower?” Caterina asked me.
“Not even then.”
“Well, it’s definitely come in handy with this little one.”
I smiled and stared down at her in my arms.
Lucia Leone.
The perfect addition to our family.
Caterina had wanted to give her the last name Leone , the notion that she and Lucia would reinvent the Leone legacy, that Santino’s version of it would perish fully in the process, eventually as though it had never existed in his image at all.
She was our chance.
She was our hope.
The love of our lives.
Our daughter.
She’d changed so much for us.
She’d brought out different facets of all of us.
She’d challenged us and also given us so much joy.
Every day, she changed and grew.
And I would relish every single day of the four of us watching her grow together.
“Everything okay in here?” Milo’s voice sounded, and I turned with Lucia in my arms to see him stumbling tiredly into the room.
“All good. Go back to bed.”
“Nah,” he said, coming over to us. “Who cares about sleep when there’s this sweet little picture here, all of us gathered around this little beauty?”
I chuckled.
He certainly wasn’t wrong there.
It was picture perfect.
Something none of us had believed we could have.
But we’d fought harder than anything to make it so, against ruthless enemies who’d threatened to take every fucking thing from us.
They’d all failed.
They’d all fallen.
And here we remained.
Stronger than ever.
A true family of our own making.
I looked out at them all and smiled widely. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
THE END
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