Eli
By the next morning, the Sin Bin feels different. Not quiet—this house doesn’t know how to be quiet—but altered somehow.
Somewhere downstairs, Ryan is swearing at the coffee machine, Thorn’s voice carries from the kitchen, low and irritated, followed by Roman telling him to stop standing in front of the fridge with the door open because he isn’t communing with the fucking leftovers.
Someone drops a pan. Liam says something sharp.
Damien laughs once, but even that sounds careful.
He’s leaving today, and I’m sure this isn’t how he thought he’d be spending it.
The baby is asleep in the bassinet beside my bed, one tiny fist poking free from the blanket, her face turned slightly toward me.
I’m sitting on the edge of the mattress in sweatpants and a wrinkled shirt, elbows on my knees, watching her breathe because I still don’t fully trust the silence.
Every soft inhale feels like a miracle I’m responsible for keeping alive.
Every quiet second feels loaded, and she’s waiting for me to prove I know what the fuck I’m doing.
She looks too peaceful for the amount of damage she has done to my life in less than forty-eight hours.
No, that’s wrong. She hasn’t done damage; adults did that. Celeste did that. Her parents did that. Maybe something worse did that, something my brain still refuses to touch directly because the second I look at it too long, my stomach turns cold and my skin feels tight.
The baby just exists. She breathes, and I lose my mind a little more.
I’m still staring at her when there’s a soft knock at my open door. It’s not Julian; I know that before I turn my head. Julian doesn’t knock like that—he knocks once and comes in. This knock is controlled, quieter, and somehow more intimidating.
Killian is standing in the doorway with two cups of coffee from the cafe close to campus. He’s already dressed for the day—black jeans, Henley, and an expression carved into that calm, unreadable look that makes half the campus step out of his way without knowing why.
“Can I come in?” he asks.
I almost laugh, because this is Killian’s house, and he can walk into any room he wants. He still asks, and for some reason, that makes my throat tighten.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice rough. “Sure.”
He steps in and sets one coffee on my nightstand. “Liam said you haven’t eaten.”
“Liam needs to find a new hobby when Nate isn’t around.”
“Liam’s hobby is pretending he doesn’t care while caring hard enough to piss everyone off,” Killian says, taking the chair from my desk and turning it around before sitting on it backward. “Drink the coffee before it gets cold.”
I reach for it because arguing feels like a waste of energy.
The first sip burns my tongue, and I welcome it.
Pain, I can understand, because it has rules.
It starts somewhere, does damage, and fades if you wait long enough.
This thing in my chest doesn’t fade. It just shifts position every few minutes and finds a new place to press.
Killian’s eyes move to the bassinet, and his whole expression changes almost imperceptibly.
“She sleep okay?” he asks.
I look at her too. “I think so. She woke up once. Jules handled most of it.”
He nods. “Julian’s good with her.”
The words hit in a place already bruised. I look down into the coffee because it’s easier than looking at him. “Yeah. He is.”
Killian doesn’t comment on whatever he hears in my voice.
He’s too smart for that, or too kind in his own fucked-up way.
He doesn’t say the thing everyone in this house has been thinking since yesterday afternoon, that Julian knows what the fuck he’s doing, and I keep moving like I’m afraid my own hands are weapons.
He leans his forearms across the back of the chair, coffee hanging from one hand. “I need to talk to you about today.”
My stomach drops at the thought.
Lawyers. DNA. Child services. My parents. Celeste. The ugly blank spaces in my memory. The baby who is currently sleeping in a bassinet I didn’t own forty-eight hours ago.
I nod once. “Okay.”
“My father’s sending our family lawyer this afternoon. Her name is Mara Ellison. She handles family law, custody, private disputes, and the kind of paperwork rich people use to keep their skeletons from dancing in the street.”
My heart fucking tightens at the thought of Senator King knowing this. “Your father knows?”
He takes a sip of coffee, then lowers it. “He knows a baby was abandoned on his property with paperwork naming you as the father. He knows Celeste’s parents are involved enough to have legal counsel. He knows you need protection before anyone tries to corner you into signing something stupid.”
I stare at him. “Does he know the other part?”
Killian’s eyes cool by a degree, and his jaw shifts slightly. “No. That stays with you unless you decide otherwise.”
I look toward the bassinet because I can’t sit in the relief. My daughter twitches in her sleep, her tiny mouth moving like she’s dreaming of a bottle. Or maybe newborns just do weird little things because they’re fresh humans and nobody gave them a manual.
“What does the lawyer need from me?”
“The letter. The legal paperwork and hospital discharge papers Celeste attached. I’ll hand over the surveillance footage of the baby being dropped on the porch, too.
Also, anything Celeste sent you recently.
Texts, voicemails, emails, missed calls, social media messages, all of it.
Don’t delete anything, even if it makes you feel sick to look at, especially if it makes you feel sick to look at. ”
My hand tightens around the cup.
He notices. Of course he does.
“Eli, I’m not saying you have to read through all of it alone.
You don’t. But the lawyer needs a clean timeline.
When Celeste left. When she stopped responding.
The last time you saw her. Any conversations about pregnancy, sex, your relationship, or her parents.
Anything that establishes what happened and when. ”
My pulse starts thudding harder. “And if I don’t know?”
“Then you say you don’t know.”
The answer is too simple. Too impossible. “That sounds bad.”
“It’s honest.”
“It sounds like I’m lying.”
Killian’s gaze hardens. “People who are lying usually over-explain. People who’ve been fucked with doubt the shape of their own memories. Mara knows the difference.”
My throat locks, and the room tilts again. I see Celeste’s room. Her string lights. The soft pink blanket on her bed. Her mouth against my neck. Her hand around my wrist. Her voice, sweet as sugar, telling me I was being dramatic, telling me I must not love her right if I kept holding back.
I take another sip of coffee so I don’t have to speak.
Killian lets the silence sit for a moment before continuing. “Someone is coming along with Mara to take DNA samples from you and the baby. They’ll do it here, privately. Cheek swabs, nothing invasive. Proper chain of custody, because if the results matter legally, the process has to be clean.”
My eyes move to the bassinet again. I want the test. I need the test, but I’m terrified of it.
If she’s not mine, someone else belongs in the blast zone. If she is mine, then I have to look at the empty spaces in my memory and call them what they might be.
I don’t know which answer I’m praying for, and that makes me feel sick.
“What happens if she’s mine?” I ask.
“Then you’re legally her father, and Mara helps you establish that properly,” he answers. “Custody, parental rights, birth certificate corrections, medical decisions, emergency guardianship if there’s any gap, protection from Celeste’s parents trying to interfere, and whatever else applies.”
My skin prickles. “Celeste signed away her rights.”
“Maybe.”
I look at him sharply. “Maybe?”
“That paperwork means something,” he says carefully.
“But I don’t know if it means everything Celeste thinks it means.
That’s why Mara’s coming. There are laws about abandonment, surrender, custody, and parental rights.
There may be court steps. There may be agency involvement because the baby was left at the door.
We need the facts before anyone decides what the letter means. ”
I rub my hand over my mouth. “So, she could come back.”
Killian’s jaw shifts. “That’s one of the things we’re preparing for.”
The coffee turns sour in my stomach.
Celeste coming back, crying, apologizing, and saying her parents made her do it, that she was scared, that I’m cruel if I keep her from her baby.
Celeste turning the whole thing around until I’m the monster for being angry.
The old reflex rises before I can stop it—the impulse to understand her, excuse her, make room for her version because that’s what I did for months.
Every fight became my fault eventually. Every boundary became punishment.
Every ‘no’ became proof I didn’t love her enough.
Then the baby makes a soft, sleepy sound, and the reflex dies so fast I almost feel it snap.
“No,” I say, and look at my daughter—maybe daughter, but fuck maybe right now—and my voice comes out rough.
“If she’s mine, Celeste doesn’t get to just walk back in because she changed her mind.
Not after leaving her outside in the cold.
Not after that letter. Not after…” I stop because the rest is too big.
Not after maybe doing something to me.
Killian finishes the thought without forcing the words. “That’s why we document everything.”
I nod, but my hand shakes when I set the coffee back on the nightstand.
He leans forward slightly. “There’s another part.”
“Great,” I mutter. “Love another part.”
A faint, humorless smile touches his mouth. “If there’s a chance you were drugged or assaulted, that matters legally. It matters medically, too.”
Drugged.
Assaulted.