Chapter 66 Knox
KNOX
The maternity ward smelled like baby powder and hope.
Harper’s hand was warm in mine as we filed into Tessa’s room, and I found myself cataloging every detail the way I used to catalog threats in the yard. Old habits. Except now I was cataloging something worth remembering.
Tessa sat propped up in the hospital bed, exhausted and glowing in that way new mothers do. Blake stood beside her like a sentinel, cradling a tiny bundle wrapped in pink.
His daughter.
“You going to hog her all day, or are you going to let us meet her?” Axel’s voice cut through the reverent silence.
Blake didn’t even look up. “I’m considering it.”
“Ignore him.” Faith crossed the room to her brother’s side, her eyes already glistening. “She’s beautiful, Blake. She’s so beautiful.”
Blake finally tore his gaze away from his daughter long enough to address the room. “Everyone, meet Elaine Morrison. Ellie for short.”
Ellie.
I tilted my chin down, letting the name settle into my bones. It suited her. Something delicate but resilient. The kind of thing that grew, even in the darkest places.
“Ellie,” Harper breathed beside me, and I felt her squeeze my hand. “That’s perfect.”
“Tessa picked it.” Blake’s voice was rough. Wrecked. The kind of wrecked that only comes from watching someone you love bring new life into the world. “I just agreed to everything she said.”
“Smart man.” Ryker moved to stand beside Faith, his arm sliding around her waist like it belonged there. “Happy wife, happy life. That’s the secret.”
“The secret is epidurals,” Tessa said from the bed, her voice tired but amused. “The secret is definitely epidurals.”
Scarlett laughed, leaning into Jace’s chest. “Noted for future reference.”
Jace’s hand tightened on her hip, and I caught the look that passed between them. The kind of look that said future reference wasn’t hypothetical.
“Who wants to hold her first?” Blake asked, though his grip on Ellie suggested he wasn’t entirely ready to let go.
“Me.” Faith stepped forward immediately, arms already extended. “Aunt privileges. I’m invoking them.”
Blake hesitated.
“Blake”—Tessa’s voice was gentle but firm—“give your sister the baby.”
He transferred Ellie into Faith’s arms with the kind of care usually reserved for handling nuclear material, and I watched something shift in the room. Faith’s face transformed. Softened. Lit up in a way that made Ryker go completely still beside her.
I caught the look on his face. Want. Not the desperate kind. The patient kind. The kind that said, Someday, when she’s ready, I’m going to give her this.
Man. These people. This room full of chaos and love and terrible life choices that had somehow led to the best outcomes.
“All right”—Tessa pointed at me—“your turn.”
I froze. “My turn for what?”
“To hold her.”
“I’m good.”
“Knox.”
“I’ll drop her.”
“You won’t drop her.”
“I haven’t had practice with fragile things in a long time, Tessa.”
“And now you’re going to hold a baby.” Harper pushed me toward Faith with surprising strength for someone half my size. “Consider it character development.”
Faith was already extending her arms, and before I could protest further, seven pounds of new human was being transferred into my hands.
Everything stopped.
I looked down at Ellie Morrison, at her scrunched-up face and tiny fists, and felt something crack open in my soul, realizing I hadn’t missed this.
I hadn’t missed a milestone like this, one of my best friends becoming a father.
“You’ve got her,” Harper murmured, her hand on my back. “You’re doing great.”
I wasn’t sure if she meant the baby or the emotions threatening to drown me.
Maybe both.
“She’s got your nose,” I said to Blake because I had to say something. Had to break the spell before I did something embarrassing. Like tear up in front of my brothers.
“Poor kid,” Axel quipped.
Blake ignored him. His eyes were on me, and I saw something there. Understanding. The weight of years and prison cells and second chances neither of us probably deserved.
“She’s lucky,” Tessa said quietly. “She’s got four uncles who’d burn down the world for her.”
I looked around the room. Jace with his arm around Scarlett. Ryker with his arm around Faith. Axel with Dakota tucked against his side. All of them watching me hold this tiny, perfect thing.
My brothers.
Blood didn’t make family. I’d learned that lesson the hard way. But these men, the ones who’d stood by me when I was arrested, who’d visited me in prison, who’d never once looked at me like I was less than human …
They were my family.
“Damn right she does,” I said, and carefully transferred Ellie back to her father before I did something stupid. Like prove Axel right about me going soft.
Harper slipped her hand back into mine, and I felt the familiar soothing rhythm of her pulse against my palm. Steady. Calm.
Home.
“So …” Jace cleared his throat in that businesslike way of his. “How’s the new venture going now that you and Axel are officially partners?”
I glanced at Axel. “We’re getting there. The program’s already helped twelve guys transition out successfully. Jobs, housing, therapy. The whole package.”
Someday, Ronan would be on that list. I couldn’t wait.
Dakota beamed at us like we’d just announced world peace. “I’m so proud of you both. My brother and my boyfriend, changing lives together.”
I still wasn’t thrilled that Axel Pierce was dating my little sister. The man had the emotional range of a Check Engine light. But watching them together, watching the way he softened around her, the way his hand never stopped touching her, like he needed to confirm she was real …
I was getting there.
“And, Faith”—Harper turned to her friend—“how’s the House of Faith going?”
Faith’s face practically glowed as she thought about the program she and Jace and Axel had developed to help foster kids aging out of the system.
“Twenty-three kids as of last week, with more applications coming in every day. We just got approval for the expansion, so we’ll be able to take in another fifteen by spring.
And we’re opening more in five cities next year. ”
“Twenty-three aged-out foster kids with somewhere to go,” Ryker said, his voice rough with pride. “Twenty-three kids who know someone gives a damn about them.”
“Twenty-four,” Faith corrected softly. “We got a new referral yesterday. Seventeen-year-old girl from Oregon. She ages out next month and has nowhere to go.”
“She does now,” I said.
Faith smiled at me, and I saw in her eyes the same thing I felt in my chest.
Redemption.
Not the kind you earned with good behavior or parole hearings. The kind you built, one day at a time, by showing up. By being present. By refusing to let the worst thing you’d ever done be the only thing that defined you.
Harper leaned her head against my shoulder, and I felt her whole body relax. Safe. Content. Here, surrounded by the people we loved, in a room filled with new beginnings.
I thought about everything it had taken to get to this moment. Fourteen years in a cell. Years of parole denials. The weight of what I’d done and the reasons I’d done it.
And what came after.
The slow, careful work of rebuilding a relationship with my daughter. The therapy sessions. The hard conversations. The moments when she looked at me and I saw myself reflected back, not as a monster, but as her father.
We weren’t there yet. But we were closer every day.
And then there was Harper.
The woman who’d seen through my walls before I even knew I had them. Who’d looked at a convicted killer and found someone worth fighting for.
I wasn’t the man I’d been fourteen years ago. Hell, I wasn’t even the man I’d been a year ago.
But standing in this room, holding hands with the woman who’d saved me, watching my brothers build lives I’d never dared imagine for myself …
I was finally becoming the man I was supposed to be.
“What are you thinking about?” Harper murmured.
I tilted my chin down, brushing my lips against her hair. “You.”
“Liar.” She pulled back to look at me, those green eyes bright with amusement. “You were thinking about how you almost cried, holding that baby.”
“I didn’t almost cry.”
“Knox, your jaw was doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you clench it so hard, I’m afraid you’re going to crack a molar.” She rose on her toes and pressed a kiss to my jaw, right where the stubble was thickest. “It’s okay. Your secret’s safe with me.”
“I have a reputation to maintain.”
“Your reputation is that you’re a terrifying ex-con who once made a man wet himself in the prison cafeteria.” She smiled against my skin. “I think you can survive one moment of emotional vulnerability.”
“That story got exaggerated.”
“Did it?”
“No.”
She laughed, and the sound settled into my chest like sunlight.
Across the room, Ellie let out a small cry, and Blake immediately went into full protective mode, checking her diaper, her temperature, her general state of being with the intensity of a surgeon.
“She’s fine,” Tessa said patiently. “Babies cry.”
“Right, but why is she crying?” Blake countered.
“Blake. Sweetheart. Light of my life.” Tessa patted his hand. “She’s expressing herself. It’s healthy.”
“She’s been alive for six hours. What does she have to express?”
“Opinions, apparently. She gets that from you.”
I watched Blake fumble through new fatherhood with equal parts amusement and recognition.
That little girl had no idea what she’d been born into.
Five men who would commit actual felonies for her without hesitation. Okay, fine, I’d learned to seriously hesitate, but still, she had five men who’d walked through fire for each other and would do it again in a heartbeat.
Ellie would never be alone. Never be unprotected. Never wonder if someone had her back.
Because she had us.
Harper squeezed my hand, reading my thoughts the way she always did. “You’re going to be an amazing uncle.”
“I’m going to be a terrifying uncle,” I corrected. “Any boy who comes near her is going to have to get through five background checks and a psychological evaluation.”
“Only five?” Harper smirked.
“Jace insisted on being thorough.”
“And Axel?”
“Axel insisted on being present for the interrogation. Apparently, he has ‘techniques.’ ”
“Should I be concerned?” Harper asked.
“Probably.”
She laughed again, and I pulled her closer, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She fit against me perfectly. Like she’d been designed for exactly this spot.
This was my life now.
This.
Family. Love. Second chances I’d never dared hope for.
I looked around the room one more time, committing every detail to memory.
The way Ryker watched Faith like she was his whole world.
The way Jace and Scarlett whispered to each other about futures and possibilities.
The way Axel pretended to be unaffected by the baby while sneaking glances at Dakota that said he was already doing the math on timelines.
The way Harper’s hand rested over my heart, like she was checking to make sure it was still beating.
It was.
For the first time in fourteen years, it really was.
I’d missed years of moments like this, stolen by choices and consequences and steel bars. But starting now? I wouldn’t miss another second.
Harper looked up at me, those green eyes soft in the afternoon light. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“I love you.”
Three words. Simple. Devastating. The kind of thing I’d never thought I’d hear from someone who knew the truth about me.
“I love you too.” I pressed my lips to her forehead. Gentle. Reverent. “More than I ever thought I was capable of.”
“Good.” She smiled, and it was the kind of smile that made me want to burn down the world and rebuild it just for her. “Because you’re stuck with me now.”
“That a threat?”
“A promise.”
I looked at her. At this woman who’d walked into a prison infirmary and changed everything. Who’d seen my scars and my sins and my silence and decided I was worth saving anyway.
I’d spent fourteen years surviving.
Now I was finally going to live.