Epilogue
Three months later…
Dublin, Ireland
“ I s your coffee all right?” Rhodes asked, nodding to the cup in front of me. We were sitting just inside of a cafe watching tourists run through the sudden winter rain that had begun to fall outside.
“It’s decaf,” was all I could say as I glumly stirred more sugar into it.
“Decaf isn’t that bad,” Rhodes said, reaching across the table to pick up my cup, taking a sip and doing a terrible job of hiding his grimace.
“Uh-huh, would you like to tell me again how not bad it is?” I asked with a grin as I reached across for his own cup of blessedly caffeinated bean water which he promptly pulled out of my reach.
“And I’m not the one who is three months pregnant,” he told me curtly with a shake of his head.
Shooting him a pout I settled back into my seat and glared at the cup, not even wanting it anymore.
“You’d think at least one of these cafes would make a decent cup of it, but we’ve been to about twenty of them at this point and I think they may actually be getting worse.”
Every day we drove into the city and visited a cafe for one purpose and it wasn’t to try the coffee.
We’d been putting it off today, the dreary weather outside making our daily task even more hopeless.
Rhodes reached into his jacket, pulling out the burner cell phone that had been in the large duffel bag waiting at the end of the tunnel that day.
I’d fought him the entire way, yelling for Edison until he hushed me when we heard footsteps overhead. Then he’d loaded me up into a car and we’d driven to a private airport to flee the country.
Leaving Edison behind had never been something that sat right with me even long after we’d left the estate.
Apparently, the two had hatched up this stupid plan when we all agreed to be a pack and decided that I didn’t need to know even a little bit about it.
If anything went wrong, Rhodes was to take me and leave and Edison was supposed to meet up with us later by contacting us on the burner phone currently in his hand.
We only ever switched it on in the most bustling parts of the capital of Ireland, not wanting to draw attention to ourselves if the wrong person had a hold of the other phone and could track us.
So every day we ventured into the city from the old stone cottage an hour and a half out and Rhodes switched the phone on to check it.
And every day I held my breath, hoping that Edison would be on the other end, ready to tell us that it was time to come home.
Rhodes pressed his thumb on the power button, waiting for it to switch on as his brows drew together in anticipation.
“Well?” I asked after a few minutes, my patience already thin from the lack of caffeine and my usual nausea courtesy of my unborn progeny who liked to make their presence known just like their father did even if they were currently the size of a plum.
“Nothing,” Rhodes said, sounding more disappointed than I felt.
I shouldn’t have expected anything. It had been three months and there was no news from our third packmate.
Maybe he’s dead , the nasty little voice that always decided to make itself known whenever we did our daily phone switch on whispered. Maybe that chest wound really did him in.
It had been bleeding a lot. More than I’d ever seen anything bleed before.
“I wish you could reach out to your contacts to ask how things are going.” My voice was glum as I slumped down into my chair and stared out the window at the crowded street outside.
It was almost February, but that didn’t seem to slow down the number of tourists that packed the cobblestone streets outside. A few streets over there were patrons filling the Temple Bar pubs, looking for a pint of Guinness even though it was only just after nine in the morning making the same cheesy ‘it’s five o’clock’ somewhere jokes to a bartender who really couldn’t care less.
“You know that will expose us,” Rhodes said, beginning his usual lecture about keeping me and the baby safe—one of his favorites for when my impatience got the better of me.
I was only half-listening as I continued to watch rain drizzle down the large cafe window.
Then I felt a tug on the bond.
“I’m listening, Rhodes,” I told him absentmindedly. “You don’t have to yank on the bond like you’d yank on my jacket in order to get my attention.”
Rhodes stopped mid-lecture, frowning at me. “What do you mean? I didn’t touch the bond.”
We both paused, staring at each other. I felt another tug, this time stronger.
My chair squealed on the tiled floors of the cafe as I pushed myself into a standing position, my eyes scanning the outside street with a renewed interest.
People still passed by the window in a blur, but I wasn’t looking at them. No. I was looking at the figure across the street standing in a dark coat with an umbrella held low so that it obscured their face.
But I didn’t need to see their face. I’d know that arrogant posture anywhere.
My feet were moving before I could really register what was going on and I heard Rhodes call after me, still confused because he hadn’t felt what I felt.
Three months ago my wayward, injured alpha had cut us off from his end of the bond, probably out of some misguided notion that we shouldn’t feel his pain, or in the worst case scenario, his death.
It felt like I lost a piece of my soul that day.
A piece that was now standing in the rain not ten feet from me as I ran across the road, nearly stumbling on an awkward piece of cobblestone, making the figure drop the umbrella entirely and revealing the face that I already knew would be Edison Keane.
“Damn it, Perrie,” his voice that I hadn’t heard in so long met my ears over the sound of rain and the passing bystanders as I threw myself the rest of the way, expecting and knowing he would catch me. “Why are you running like that? You’re pregnant!”
I didn’t care about his scolding, I grabbed the lapels of his coat and dragged him in so that I could inhale his vanilla scent deep into my lungs. “You’re here. How are you here?”
A moment later another body was slamming into us as Rhodes made it across the street. His emotions were all over the place—anger, worry, and most overwhelmingly he was ecstatic over the return of our third packmate.
Pulling Edison’s face to mine, I relished in the desperate kiss we shared, not quite believing that he was actually standing in front of me until I watched him pull Rhodes in for a kiss of their own.
“We should get out of this rain,” Edison said a few moments later once we’d gathered quite the crowd of people watching our reunion. “I’ve rented a suite in a hotel nearby.”
“Where are the others? Why are you by yourself?” Rhodes began to question as we walked hand-in-hand in the direction of Edison’s hotel. “How did you even find us in the first place?”
“I’ve always known where you were,” Edison explained as he nodded to the front desk person, handing the man his umbrella. “Your neighbor, Mrs. Doyle? She’s Oona’s cousin.”
Mrs. Doyle was the friendly old woman who lived up the road from our little cottage. She was always checking in on us, but I figured that she was just nosey and lonely as she lived all by herself with just her dogs for company.
As soon as we stepped onto the elevator I gave his shoulder a hard shove. “So you knew where we were but you couldn’t get us any message telling us you were okay? What the hell, Edison?”
All of my relief that my husband was okay was quickly replaced by anger. I’d barely kept it together—but at least I didn’t feel the guilt that Rhodes had.
It oozed off of him for weeks because he felt like he’d failed to protect Edison which was his entire job.
“I couldn’t,” Edison said with a shake of his head, pressing the top button for the penthouse and scanning his room card. “That night I only took out about half of the older generation and it took me up until last week to make sure that each and every one of them was taken out of commission and that it was safe enough for me to bring you two back.”
I didn’t say anything until the elevator doors opened into a well-lit suite. “Collum and the rest of the security team is a floor below this,” Edison continued, slowly answering the questions that Rhodes had pelted at him rapid fire on the street. “I was by myself because I wanted our first meeting after three months to be, well, private. Though the tourists snapping photos of us will probably live on in their iPhones forever.”
He was trying to make a joke. I knew it, but I still didn’t find it very funny.
Edison glanced between the two of us before shrugging. “Well, I had to try at least.”
I flopped down onto the hard leather couch that filled up most of the suite’s space, pulling a throw pillow into my lap for something to hold on to as I watched my two alphas settle in across from me.
“You were shot that night. How did you survive?”
“I didn’t do it alone. Liam Flannagan and his men had taken most of our guys who were in the mansion that night hostage and I was running out of options,” Edison began, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees as his fingers hung threaded together between them.
“So you used the maids,” Rhodes provided with a shake of his head. “Well there goes that secret.”
“The maids?” I frowned, thinking of Aoife and Quinn, the sweet girls who always helped clean my room. “How did you use the maids, you didn’t use them as distractions did you, Edison? Because I won’t stand for you using those poor girls like that.”
Even as I spoke, Edison’s grin told me that I was way off.
Rhodes leaned over to me and put his hands over mine. “No, Perr, the maids are anything but distractions. Oona has trained them to defend themselves and the manor if need be.”
“ Oona ? Sweet housekeeper Oona? Oona, who looks like Mrs. Claus?” I snorted with disbelief. “Yeah, right, and I’m secretly a ninja.”
“Well you better brush up on your throwing star skills then, pet, because there’s more to Oona Coughlan than meets the eye.” Edison’s laugh was almost a bark as he grinned at me. “Her husband was a part of the IRA in Northern Ireland in the seventies before they fled to come to America. The woman knows her way around a gun fight.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of the grandmotherly woman holding anything other than the silly feather duster that she always carried around.
“After that night I was out of commission for two weeks while I recovered from the gunshot wound—which was another bit of luck. Three inches to the left and the bullet would have ripped through my heart.”
Just hearing him talk about it made me feel nauseous and despite my anger with the alpha I found myself getting up and crossing the space. I crawled into his lap and wrapped my arms around him as he continued.
“Once I was out of the woods I knew there was no bringing you two back unless all of the older generation was out and the younger men were installed at the new branch heads.”
“And it all worked out?” Rhodes prodded, also sliding in close so we were basically all in contact with each other in a huddled mass on the couch.
“More or less, though I will say that we have a couple less branches on our family tree now… and I found the mole who was leaking our information.”
Rhodes frowned, clearly confused. “Wasn’t it Rory?”
“Nope. Liam dragged his son with him that night and it was clear that there was no lost love between the two. We almost lost him too as he was a little worse for wear after a week of being locked up in a basement. He should recover soon and take his place as the head of his branch once we get back. No, as it turns out Liam Flannagan wasn’t the only one Yulia was messing with. Finneas, it seems, was also getting his dick wet in between playing video games on the job and while he was doing that, Yulia was getting into all of our systems.”
“The IT guy ?” Rhodes scoffed disbelievingly. “Jesus and here I was thinking one of the guys I personally vetted had betrayed us.”
“Nope. Just Finneas who is now under serious lock down until I decide what to do with him.”
“Are you going to kill him?” I asked, trying to hold in my gasp. Even seven months after becoming the wife of a mob boss, to hear them talk about it so frankly still shocked me.
“I haven’t figured that out yet, pet.” Edison brushed my hair over my shoulder. “But seeing as it was his negligence that nearly got all of us killed, I’m leaning towards yes.”
I still didn’t like thinking about it, so instead I changed the subject. “How is everyone else? Is Romey still hanging around?”
My question seemed to damper Edison’s mood even further. “Unfortunately yes he is in fact still hanging around. The little weasel is still going to classes and dates with that girl like he didn’t sell you out to be experimented on by a fucking mad scientist.”
Rhodes growled in agreement, still clearly just as pissed off at my brother as Edison was.
“He didn’t really have much of a choice,” I pointed out, glad that their anger towards Romey made it easier for me to forgive him. “But I am glad he’s still going to class. What about Luscinia? Have you heard anything about her?”
My nightmares about that night still haunted me every once in a while and every time I dreamed about that operating room I could hear Luscinia’s garbled scream echoing in my mind.
Whatever Andrey had done to her, I knew it hadn’t been good.
But Edison just shrugged, pulling me in even closer. “The Italians closed ranks after that night and have been quiet ever since. I’m sure something is going on behind the scenes, but I’ve been too focused on my own house to worry about theirs.”
Edison’s hands traveled down to my belly that was just barely beginning to swell.
“How is the baby?” he asked, sounding nervous for the first time since we’d reunited. “Healthy?”
I nodded with a grin. “Healthy enough to make me throw up anything vaguely fried. The doctor says everything looks great for where I’m at, but it’s too early to tell whether it’s a boy or a girl still.”
“Either is fine by me. If it’s a girl I think a female heir might be just what the Keane clan needs to finally step into the twenty-first century,” Edison assured me proudly as Rhodes reached into his jacket pocket to pull out the ultrasound photo the tech had given us earlier this week. He handed it over to Edison who stared at the vaguely baby-shaped blob with wide eyes.
“I can’t believe I’ve missed so much of it already,” he whispered, running a finger along the edge of the blob.
“You’ve still got six more months of it, my love, though I’m hoping we can spend those six months back at home?” I asked hopefully.
“Yeah,” Edison agreed, looking between me and Rhodes with a soft smile as he wrapped his arms around us and pulled us in even closer. “Let’s go home.”
7 more months…
HOME
“You’re getting the sun right in her eyes, Edison, you need to angle the umbrella like this.”
“She’s fine. Her hat is doing more to keep the sun out than your flimsy umbrella ever could.”
The two continued to bicker as they knelt shoulder to shoulder on the sandy bank of the lake that sat on the Keane estate.
I smiled as the object of their bickering let out a squawk—or at least as much of a squawk as a month and a half old baby could make.
Imogen Keane was a surprise to everyone, coming a few weeks earlier than expected on the night of a summer storm.
Thankfully she came right as I was finishing up my finals and it didn’t force me to have to take an incomplete like I had to in the fall. I wasn’t sure how I was going to juggle a baby, two alphas, and college classes but I was determined to finish and be an example for my daughter and any other children we may have.
Imogen surprised us early and just surprised us by being who she was in general. During all of my scans the doctors had sworn up and down that we were having a little boy, so when the doctors held her bright red body up to the three of us I could still remember the shock.
But she was perfect, right down to the pair of golden eyes and dark red hair on the top of her head.
So perfect that her daddies spent most of their free time arguing about the best ways to spoil her rotten.
“My umbrella is fine, Edi, all of the information online says that a hat is good but you really need to protect all of the baby’s skin,” Rhodes insisted as he shifted the umbrella staked in the sand just a smidge more until every bit of Imogen’s pale skin was covered in the shade.
I held my camera up to my eye, shifting the lens until both grinning men were framed as they talked in silly voices to their frowning daughter.
Both of my alphas were idiots for her and ready to give her the world. Edison especially. The man had been working nonstop for the past seven weeks to start laying the groundwork for Imogen to one day take over the family entirely.
I still didn’t know how I felt about my baby one day doing all of the dangerous things that Edison and Rhodes did every day, but for now she was just my little girl and could grow up in a life much better than I had.
After snapping a few more pictures my phone pinged with a text message and I already knew who it was from.
Romey had been trying ever since that night to try and smooth things over with me—even going so far as to try and show up to the estate again to try and talk to me. Edison and Rhodes still hadn’t forgiven him, but I missed my little brother and I felt bad that his entire life seemed to have derailed because of me.
He and Kailey dropped out of school that semester and never came back and I knew that our parents had also cut him off, leaving him without the lifestyle that he’d grown accustomed to. Last I heard, he and Kailey were living down the coast in Florida, seeming to enjoy their lives far away from the city and far away from Ethan and Miranda Chandler.
Ever since Imogen had been born I’d been sending him pictures of her and the lines of communication slowly opened up enough for us to exchange pleasantries.
We’d never be able to go back to the way it was before. That Perrie and that Romey were gone forever now, and while he’d been my first baby, I had Imogen to think about now.
“That your good-for-nothing brother on the phone?” Edison growled as I approached, typing a response to Romey’s gushing over his niece in a sundress.
“Yes,” I replied, refusing to argue with him about it on such a nice day. “Now will you two stop fussing over the baby so we can do what we came here for?”
Edison looked like he wanted to argue, it was his favorite pastime after all, but instead he just patted the sand in between where he and Rhodes were sitting with a smile. “Come have a seat, my lady.”
I had force myself not to roll my eyes as I settled in next to them, accepting my squirmy baby from Rhodes. “You know, the umbrella is nice.”
Rhodes’ expression lit up as he reached behind me to give Edison a shove. “I told you it was the better option.”
Edison ignored his jab, leaning in close to the shell of my ear.
“Traitor,” he whispered, though there was no actual anger behind it.
“You love it,” I teased, my eyes going out over the still water. “Are you sure it’s happening today?”
“It happens around this time every year and when I sent Oona out to check she said they were starting to get restless… look!” Edison pointed to the thick cattails that lined half of the lake as the flock of geese and ducks that usually milled around the lake day in and day out started to take flight.
Edison took the baby from me without even needing to be asked and I lifted my camera up once again to get as many snapshots of the birds as they took their flight south for the winter. I didn’t stop until they were just specks in the distance.
Pleased, I let the camera drop only to find that instead of watching the birds, both of my alphas were watching me with soft smiles on their faces.
When Edison suggested coming out to watch them migrate, I worried that it would bring back bad memories of his mother. I didn’t want him to have to relive any other trauma while I was here to take care of him, but when he’d insisted I’d agreed, eager to maybe get some pictures of it.
But Edison didn’t look sad, no with our daughter cradled in his arms he looked more content than I’d ever seen him. It was like he finally felt like he was at peace.
“I guess one chapter finally closes,” I told him, as we settled in together to listen as the sun started to set and the lake came alive with all manner of other wildlife. “And another one opens.”
“I still think we need to get some chickens,” Edison said, making me and Rhodes laugh. “Though I am willing to compromise for some swans.”
“And where are you planning on getting these swans, Edi?” Rhodes asked, a grin already on his face because he already knew the answer.
Edison shrugged, lifting Imogen up so that he could press a feather soft kiss to her chubby cheeks.
“I know a guy.”