Chapter 24 #2
Flint presses his forehead to hers. I see his shoulders start to shake, and I realize he’s laughing too, quiet, stunned laughter.
I feel it too. Joy. Wild, overwhelming, electric joy. I’m going to be a father, and so are my best friends. We’re having a family together with the woman we love.
“We’re having a baby,” Hunter whoops, breaking into a grin as he punches the air triumphantly.
“Three babies,” Flint corrects, awe thick in his tone.
“Triplets,” I add. “We’re going to have our hands full,” I chuckle, looking over at Tori with unbridled adoration. I don’t even remember moving, but suddenly I’m pulling her into my chest, wrapping my arms around both of them. Hunter joins. Flint encloses us all.
Tori’s crying into my shoulder, but I’m laughing, my heart pounding so hard it feels like it might crack my ribs. “I love you,” I murmur into her hair. “God, Tori, I love you.”
“We’re going to be dads,” Hunter says, almost disbelieving.
Flint cups her face. “This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
She pulls back suddenly. Her abrupt shift sets off alarm bells in my head. “You won’t say that if you know the whole truth,” she chokes.
“What truth?” I ask gently. I can’t imagine anything that could make us not love her or not want these babies. I tell her as much. Assuring her that there’s nothing she can tell us that will change our feelings for her. That we will love her and want to be fathers to these babies, no matter what.
Her face crumples. “When I first slept with you,” she whispers, voice breaking as she looks between the three of us, “it wasn’t because I loved you.”
The words sting a little, but I stay still, not giving anything away. Hunter chuckles and quips, “Well, shit, baby girl, we knew that. Love rarely comes before lust.”
“I had sex with you as a way to hurt my father,” she continues, casting her gaze down in shame.
“I wanted to humiliate him. I knew that sleeping with the Ghost Riders was the perfect way to get back at him. I thought if I could shame him enough, it would make him feel even a fraction of what he’s made me feel. ”
Flint’s jaw tightens, but not in anger at her.
I have to admit, it hurts to hear the words, but she’s not saying anything that we didn’t already suspect.
We had a feeling that her motivations weren’t simply through attraction, though there was plenty of that, even if she didn’t realize it herself.
Hell, I’m pretty sure that Hunter had similar reasoning when he took her virginity, though he mostly just thought with his dick.
“I used you,” she sobs. “I manipulated you. I’m just like Bella, and you hated her for what she did.”
Bella. The name tastes bitter, out of place. It’s the last name I’d want to hear while discovering I’m about to become a father. I cup Tori’s face, forcing her to look at me. “No,” I say firmly. “You are nothing like Bella. Don’t compare yourself to her, Tori, not now, not ever.”
“She lied to us to control us,” Hunter adds. “She twisted things to maintain power over us and to play us against each other.”
“You were trying to survive, to make sense of what your father had done,” Flint says quietly. “The two scenarios aren’t even close.”
I nod. “Yeah. Maybe a part of us knew, in the beginning, that it was one of the reasons you wanted to hook up. Maybe a small part of us even liked that it would piss your father off.” I huff a soft breath. “But that’s not what this is anymore.”
“It hasn’t been for a long time,” Hunter says.
“You think we don’t know what it feels like to want to hurt him? To humiliate him?” Flint adds darkly.
She stares at us, stunned. Whatever scenarios she’s been playing in her mind over the past week, this clearly wasn’t one of them.
“I fell in love with you,” I say simply. “Not because of your last name or who your father is. I fell in love with you for who you are.”
Her breathing falters, and she looks up at me with big, trusting eyes. Her lips part softly as she breathes in my words. I want to kiss her and hold her, but I need to let the guys have their say.
“This relationship,” Hunter gestures between the four of us.
“Grew. It changed and developed over time as we got to know each other. It became real. More real and honest than any lie it might have started from. And with three babies on the way, it’s about to grow a hell of a lot more,” he adds with a smile, gently touching her stomach. She places her hand over his and beams.
Flint presses a kiss to her forehead. “You don’t get to rewrite our story into something ugly.”
A shaky laugh escapes her. “I love you,” she says in the hushed tones of someone witnessing something awe-inspiring and momentous.
“We love you,” we answer in unison.
We fold into each other again, tighter this time, not just from joy at the news of our growing family, but also from forgiveness and understanding. Our love is far deeper than revenge or rivalry.
I rest my hand carefully over her stomach. There’s no visible change yet. But I know they’re there—three tiny babies who are all of ours, no matter what.
Terror flickers beneath the happiness. However wonderful this news is, it doesn’t change the fact that war is still raging.
The Raging Bulls won’t hesitate to exploit this weakness.
King won’t hesitate to hurt his own daughter if it gives him leverage, or to take her and our children away.
I know that Tori has already considered this, that this is part of the reason why she is so scared.
I press my palm more firmly against her.
“We’ll protect you,” I say, injecting as much seriousness into my voice as I can, praying that she will hear the truth in my words.
Flint nods. “With everything we have.”
Hunter smiles softly, a strange gooey expression on his face that I’ve never seen before. “Guess we’re building a nursery in a fortified room.” Clearly, he’s fallen for these babies as quickly as I have.
Tori laughs through her tears.
I kiss her tears away, gently kissing her lips.
Then I lean back to study her face. The face of the woman I love, who is now carrying three lives inside her.
I can’t believe that I’m going to be a dad.
That Hunter and Flint are too. The word feels enormous, exciting, and terrifying, but in all the right ways.
No matter what comes next, we will stand together as a family.
And I swear to God, I will burn the world down before I let anyone touch them.