Chapter 25
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— Colt —
The text from Lilac made me stop. Can you come by after school? The boys want to tell you something.
I stared at the screen, rereading it three times like the words might change. I was at the clubhouse, going over paperwork with Dutch, but suddenly nothing mattered except those words.
The boys wanted to tell me something. Not Lilac telling me the boys had done something, or Lilac asking me to help with something. The boys wanted me for something.
My hands were shaking as I texted back: I’ll be there.
I was at Betty’s house by 3:45, waiting on the porch when the school bus pulled up. Knox spotted me first and came running, Luca close behind.
“You came!” Knox was practically bouncing. “Mama said you’d come but I wasn’t sure because sometimes grown-ups are busy.”
“I’ll never be too busy for you boys.” I crouched down to their level. “Your mama said you wanted to tell me something?”
The boys exchanged a look—that twin telepathy thing they did that still amazed me. Then Knox grabbed my hand and started pulling me toward the house.
“Inside,” he said. “It’s important.”
Lilac was in the kitchen, watching us come through the door. She looked… soft. Almost nervous. Like she knew what was coming and wasn’t sure how I’d react.
“Hey.” She wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Boys, do you want something to drink first, or—”
“No, we want to tell him now.” Luca positioned himself next to his brother, both of them facing me with matching expressions of determination. “Something happened at school today.”
My gut clenched. “What kind of something? Are you okay?”
“We’re fine.” Knox rolled his eyes with all the drama a six-year-old could muster. “It’s a good something.”
“Our class is doing this thing,” Luca explained. “Where everyone has to talk about their families. Like, what their parents do and stuff.”
“Career day,” Lilac supplied quietly. “They’re doing a unit on community helpers.”
“Right.” Luca nodded. “And everyone was talking about their dads. Tommy’s dad is a firefighter, and Maria’s dad works at the hospital, and—”
“And then it was our turn,” Knox interrupted, too excited to wait. “And Mrs. O’Donnell asked about our dad, and I said—” He stopped, suddenly shy, looking at his brother for support.
Luca took over. “He said our dad is Colt. That you’re the VP of Venom Riders MC.” He paused. “And I said yeah, he is.”
The world went very still.
I stared at them—these two perfect boys with their green eyes and stubborn jaws, my sons who’d spent weeks looking at me with suspicion and fear—and tried to process what they’d just said.
“You…” My voice came out rough. “You told your class I was your dad?”
“You are our daddy.” Knox said it like it was obvious. “That’s what Mama said. And you’ve been here every day. You taught us to ride. You helped Luca when he got in trouble, and—” He shrugged. “You’re our daddy.”
I turned away, one hand coming up to cover my face. I was not going to cry in front of my sons. I was not going to—
“Colt?” Luca’s voice was uncertain. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” The word came out strangled. “Yeah, I’m okay. I just—” I had to stop, had to breathe, had to get myself under control. “I’ve been waiting a long time to hear that.”
“Hear what?” Knox moved closer, his small hand finding mine. “That you’re our dad?”
“That you want me to be.” I finally turned back to face them, not bothering to hide the tears tracking down my cheeks.
Knox leaned toward his brother. “Mama said he’d like to hear this,” he whispered—loudly enough that I could hear every word. “She didn’t say he’d cry.”
Luca elbowed him. “Shh.”
“I know I wasn’t here before. I know I missed so much. And I know I was mean to your mama when we first met. I never—” My voice broke. “I never expected you to forgive me for that. To accept me.”
Luca was quiet for a moment, studying me with those eyes that mirrored my own.
Then, slowly, he stepped forward. “You’re different now,” he said.
“From how you were at the store. You’re nice to Mama.
You show up when you say you will. You—” He hesitated.
“You listen to us. Like what we say matters.”
“It does matter. Everything you say matters to me.”
“So.” Luca glanced at Knox, then back at me. “So yeah. You’re our dad.”
Knox threw himself at me, wrapping his arms around my waist. After a moment’s hesitation, Luca did the same.
I gathered them both in my arms. “I love you,” I said, the words tearing out of me. “Both of you. I know I haven’t earned the right to say that yet, but I do. I love you so much.”
“We know.” Knox’s voice was muffled against my chest. “That’s why you keep coming back.”
“We love you too,” Luca said.
?
Later, after the boys had gone to do homework and I’d pulled myself together enough to function, I found Lilac on the back porch.
She was sitting on the steps, watching the sun set over Betty’s garden, a mug of tea cradled in her hands.
The evening light caught her hair, turning it bronze.
I stood there for a moment, just watching her, memorizing the curve of her profile, the way her shoulders had finally relaxed after weeks of carrying tension.
I sat down beside her—not too close, respecting the boundary we’d established, but close enough that I could smell her shampoo.
She didn’t look up when I sat, but she didn’t move away either. And maybe I was reading too much into it, but her breathing seemed to change slightly. Quicken. Like she was aware of me the way I was aware of her.
“Thank you,” I said. “For letting them… for not poisoning them against me.”
“I would never do that.” She took a sip of her tea, and I watched her throat move as she swallowed. Watched the way her fingers tightened on the mug. “Whatever happens between us, you’re their father. They deserve to know you.”
“A lot of women wouldn’t feel that way. After what I did.”
She was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was measured, like she’d been sitting with this and had decided to say it.
“What did you really do, Colt?” She wasn’t accusing.
She was asking. “You were lied to. By people you trusted. People who were supposed to be your brothers.” She set down her mug.
“They showed you fabricated evidence, forged my name on divorce papers while I was still in a coma. You didn’t leave me.
You were deceived into believing a lie.”
“I should have known—”
“How?” She turned to look at me, and there was something complicated in her face—a flash of something sharp that she smoothed away before it fully formed.
“How were you supposed to know? You trusted them. That’s what brothers are for.
” She paused, jaw working slightly. “Part of me is still angry you believed it. That you didn’t—” She stopped herself.
Shook her head. “But I can’t hold that against you.
Not honestly. You’re as much a victim in this as I am.
I need you to understand that I see that. ”
The weight of it settled over me. Since the night the truth came out, I’d been carrying the blame. And she was handing it back to me, piece by piece, telling me it didn’t belong to me.
I didn’t know what to do with that.
“I had Betty and Graham telling me who you really were.” She finally looked at me. This close, I could see the gold flecks in her eyes, the way her pupils dilated slightly as she looked at me. “They told me about before. About how you were with me. How much you loved me.”
“I still do.” The words came out before I could stop them, rough and raw. “I know I shouldn’t say that. I know you don’t remember, and I have no right to—”
“Colt.” She held up a hand, and for a second I thought she was going to tell me to leave.
But her hand trembled slightly before she lowered it, wrapping it back around the mug.
“I’m not… I’m not ready for that. I need you to understand that.
But—” She paused, choosing her words carefully.
Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and I had to look away before I did something stupid.
“I see it. The man they told me about. He’s in there, underneath the anger and the hurt. ”
“He never left. He just got buried under seven years of believing the worst.” I risked a glance at her and found her watching me. I became hyperaware of how close we were sitting—close enough that if I shifted my weight, our shoulders would touch.
Lilac nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving mine. “I believe that.”
Her hand shifted on the mug, and her pinky finger brushed against my thigh—just the barest contact, probably accidental. But heat shot through me, and I saw her breath catch, saw her eyes widen slightly like she’d felt it too.
When she finally went inside I didn’t move. Just sat there a while longer, watching the sky go pink, my thigh still warm where her hand had been.