Chapter 30 Ethan
ETHAN
Iran.
I didn’t stop running until I hit the concrete of the parking garage beneath Tessa’s building. The air down here is heavy with the smell of motor oil and Texas humidity. It’s suffocating, but it barely registers over the rush of blood deafening in my ears.
I’m gripping a concrete structural pillar so hard the rough surface bites into my palms. I welcome the pain. It’s the only thing tethering me to reality.
A baby.
The word echoes in my head, bouncing around the empty space where my rational brain used to be.
Pregnant.
I close my eyes, and instantly, the expensive suits and the startup empire dissolve, dragging me back to that cramped, terrifying trailer in Oklahoma, twenty years ago.
I’m twelve. Owen is seven. Asher is ten.
We’re hiding in the closet, buried under a pile of dirty laundry, listening to the sound of breaking glass in the living room.
Kids ruin everything! The voice is slurred, heavy with whiskey and a lifetime of failures. My father, Richard, is yelling. I could have been something. I could have had a life. But I’m stuck here, feeding three mouths that just take and take and take.
I remember Owen’s fear. He’d wet himself, soaking his pajama bottoms, shaking so hard his teeth chattered. Beside him, Asher rocked back and forth, whispering numbers under his breath to create order out of the chaos. Two, three, five, eight…
My hand clamped over Owen’s mouth so he wouldn’t scream.
I remember the sharp, pulsing ache in my own ribs where Richard had kicked me an hour earlier for leaving a toy truck in the hallway.
You’re a burden, the voice whispers through the years. Children are anchors. They drag you down until you drown. You resent them. You hate them. And eventually, you leave them.
I open my eyes, gasping for air. The memory fades, but the scar tissue remains. It throbs.
“I can’t do it,” I whisper to the empty garage.
Markus Vance is out there right now, plotting to burn us to the ground. He just hacked our servers. He hired Greg to break into our home. He’s hunting for a weakness.
And I just gave him the ultimate weapon.
A baby isn’t just a scandal. It isn’t just a PR nightmare or a violation of the Morality Clause. It’s a target.
I failed.
I failed to protect the company. I failed to protect my brothers from the fallout. And now, I’ve failed Tessa.
I left her.
I see her face—terrified, clutching her stomach. She looked at me for reassurance. She looked at me to be the Protector. And I looked at her like she was a risk.
Like Richard looked at us.
I gag, my stomach heaving. I lean over a rusted dumpster, breathing hard, fighting the nausea. I’m just like him. It’s in my blood. The selfishness. The fear. The instinct to run when the walls close in.
I hear the heavy metal fire door of the stairwell creak open behind me.
I don’t turn around.
“You’re lucky I didn’t punch you in the face,” Owen’s voice echoes off the concrete. It isn’t the easy-going, charming voice the world hears. It’s cold, hard, and undeniably dangerous. “I might still do it.”
“Go ahead,” I say, my voice raspy. I keep my eyes fixed on the dirty pavement. “I deserve it.”
“Yeah, you do,” Owen snaps.
He steps to my left while Asher moves to my right, flanking me seamlessly. Even when I break formation, they fall back into place around me out of pure, drilled habit.
“She’s crying,” Owen says, his tone merciless. “She thinks you left because you see the baby as a mistake. She thinks you see her as a risk to the bottom line.”
I flinch. The accusation hits me hard. “I don’t. God, Owen, I don’t.”
“Then why the fuck did you walk out?” Owen demands, grabbing my shoulder and jerking me back to face him. His grip is bruising. “Why did you leave her alone up there?”
“Because I’m terrified!” I roar.
The confession rips out of me, leaving my chest heaving. It’s the first time I’ve admitted fear to them since the night I packed our bags and stole Richard’s car keys.
“I’m not you, Owen,” I say, my voice shaking. “I’m not the fun one. I’m not the one who knows how to play games and make pancakes and make her laugh when the world is ending. And I’m not Asher. I don’t have a manual for this. I can’t code a solution to fatherhood.”
I step away from the pillar, running my hands over my face, scrubbing at the exhaustion.
“Look at us. We’re at war with a sociopath. We’re barely keeping the lights on. And now… a child? I’m bad for children. You know that. You remember him.”
I scan their faces. Recognition flickers in their eyes. The flicker of shadow. They know exactly who he is.
“Richard said we ruined his life,” I say, my voice dropping to a whisper.
“He said we were the reason he failed. What if he was right? Not about him, he was a drunk piece of trash, but about the pressure? What if I turn into him? What if I resent the kid for risking the company? What if I look at that baby and only see the fifty million dollars I might lose?”
“That is a logical fallacy,” Asher says.
I turn to look at my middle brother. Asher is standing perfectly still, his hands in his pockets, his posture rigid.
“You are projecting a historical data set onto a future variable,” Asher continues, his tone clinical, but his eyes intense.
“You share fifty percent of his DNA. That is a biological fact. But your behavioral patterns are diametrically opposed. Richard was a parasite. You are protective. Richard consumed resources. You provide them.”
“I walked out,” I remind him. “That’s what Richard did. He walked out.”
“You walked out to calculate a solution,” Asher corrects me. “Richard walked out to escape responsibility. There is a fundamental difference in the intention.”
“Asher’s right,” Owen says, his anger softening into something sadder. He steps closer, encroaching on my personal space. “E, look at me.”
I try to look away, but Owen won’t let me.
“Who made sure I ate dinner when Dad passed out?” Owen asks.
I swallow hard. “I did.”
“Who sat up with me all night when I had the chickenpox because Dad was at the bar?”
“I did.”
“Who helped Asher with his math homework because the teachers thought he was ‘slow’ and wanted to put him in remedial classes, but you knew he was a genius?”
I look at Asher. He nods once, a sharp confirmation.
“I did,” I whisper.
“Who took the beatings?” Owen asks, his voice cracking. “When he came home mad? When he couldn’t find his wallet? Who stood in front of the bedroom door and took the belt so he wouldn’t touch us?”
I turn away. The damp air settles deep into my bones, making my old fractures ache.
“I did.”
“You’ve been a father since you were twelve years old, Ethan,” Owen says. He puts both hands on my shoulders and shakes me, forcing me to acknowledge the truth. “You raised us. You didn’t ruin us. You saved us. You’re the best father I know.”
The confession wrecks my defenses. Tears prick at the corners of my eyes—hot, humiliating tears I refuse to let fall. I’ve spent my life building a fortress around my emotions, but Owen just walked right through the front gate.
“I’m scared,” I admit, my voice breaking. “If Markus finds out… if I lose the company… I can’t provide for them. I can’t protect them if I’m bankrupt. I promised I would never let you go hungry again.”
“Mosaic is just code,” Asher says, stepping up beside Owen. “We built it once. We can build it again. We can code in a basement. We can code in a library. But the biological unit? The family? That is unique code. It cannot be replicated.”
“We don’t need fifty million dollars to be good dads,” Owen says. “We just need to show up. And right now, Tessa needs you to show up.”
I take a deep breath, the damp air filling my lungs. I look at my brothers. They aren’t children anymore. They aren’t the scared kids in the closet. They’re men—brilliant, strong, loyal men.
Men I raised.
The panic recedes. The cold, hard resolve takes over. They’re right. Running is what Richard did. Fighting is what we do.
“Nebula,” I say. “Markus knows. Or he suspects. That’s why he hacked the Confessions. He’s looking for ammunition to leak to the press.”
“He’s fishing,” Asher agrees.
“Then we don’t let him,” I say. The strategist in me is waking up. The panic attack is over; the War Room is open.
“How?” Owen asks.
“We go on the offensive,” I say. “We stop playing defense. We stop worrying about hiding from Sterling, and we start worrying about burying Markus Vance.”
“That sounds dangerous,” Owen says, a slow, predatory grin spreading across his face.
“It is,” I agree. “But he threatened my family. He threatened my child.”
I look at Asher. “Can you trace the hack back to Nebula? Definitive proof? Not just a shell company?”
“If I dig deep enough,” Asher says. “If I stop patching and start counter-attacking. I can penetrate their server. Find the payment trail to Greg. I can find the communication logs between Greg and Markus.”
“Do it,” I order. “Burn it down, Ash. Get me the proof. If Markus wants a war, I’ll give him a war. I’ll destroy Nebula before I let them touch a hair on Tessa’s head.”
“And Tessa?” Owen asks gently. “What about her?”
I close my eyes. I broke her heart tonight. I have to fix it.
“I need to go to her,” I say. “I need to make this right.”
“She doesn’t want you to grovel,” Owen says, clapping me on the back. “She wants you to lead. She wants to know you’re all in. She wants the Protector.”
I nod. I adjust my cuffs, rolling down my sleeves, buttoning them. I straighten my spine. I’m not Richard Branson’s son anymore. I’m Ethan—the oldest brother. The CEO.
And I’m a father.
“I’m all in,” I say. “Whatever it takes. The company, the money, the reputation—it can all burn. But we keep the baby. We keep her.”
“Agreed,” Asher nods.
“Let’s go back upstairs,” I say.
We walk back to her door. Using my key, I push it open and step inside.
The apartment is quiet. The lights are dim, casting long shadows across the floor. Tessa is still on the sofa, curled onto her side, hugging a pillow to her chest as if trying to hold herself together physically. Her eyes are red and swollen.
Her head snaps up when I walk in.
She flinches.
It’s a small movement, barely a tremor, but it guts me. She’s bracing herself for bad news. She’s bracing for me to hand her a severance package, or a check for an abortion, or an NDA.
I cross the room and drop to my knees on the rug beside the sofa, ignoring the ache in my joints to get eye-level with her stomach.
“Ethan?” she whispers. Her voice is wrecked.
“I’m sorry,” I say. My voice is jagged, raw. “I panicked. I was a coward.”
“You left,” she accuses me, a fresh tear sliding down her nose. “You walked out.”
“I know,” I say. I reach out, my hand hovering over her hip, asking for permission. She doesn’t pull away. “I was scared. I thought I would fail you. I thought I would be like my father.”
She searches my face, knowing my history, seeing the demons I carry. She sees the truth in my eyes.
“And now?” she asks, her voice trembling.
“Now I know,” I say firmly. “I’m not him. Because he saw children as a burden. He saw them as the end of his life.”
I place my hand on her stomach. Gently. Possessively. The warmth of her skin seeps into my palm, grounding me.
“When I see you…” I whisper, my thumb stroking the fabric of her shirt. “I see the only thing that matters. I see the beginning.”
Tessa lets out a sob, a sound of pure relief, her hand covering mine. “We’re going to lose the funding, Ethan. The clause… Sterling…”
“Fuck the clause,” I swear. “Let Sterling pull the money. Let Markus try to blackmail us. I don’t care. We’ll find another investor. We’ll bootstrap. We’ll sell the servers and code on laptops in a garage if we have to. But we’re having this baby.”
“We?” she asks, hope fragile in her voice.
“We,” I confirm. I look up at Owen and Asher standing by the door. “All of us. This baby will have three fathers. And god help anyone who tries to mess with that.”
Owen grins, the tension finally leaving his shoulders. He vaults over the back of the couch, sliding down to sit behind Tessa and pulling her back into his chest.
“Told you he’d be back,” he says aloud.
Asher sits on the coffee table, close to us. He opens his laptop again, his fingers flying across the keys as he pulls up a medical database.
“I have already begun researching prenatal nutrition,” Asher says seriously. “You are likely deficient in folic acid. I have ordered a supplement regimen. It will arrive by drone delivery in one hour.”
Tessa laughs. It’s a wet, shaky sound, but it’s real. “You guys are insane.”
“We’re the Unit,” I say, leaning in to kiss her forehead, then her lips. I taste the salt of her tears, but beneath it, I taste the fire that made me fall for her. “And we’re going to fix this. We’re going to destroy Markus Vance, save the company, and build a nursery. In that order.”
“In a few days?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.
“We work better under pressure,” I say, standing up. I pull her and Owen up with me, keeping my arm wrapped tight around her waist. “Asher, get the laptops. Owen, clear the coffee table. We’re working from here tonight.”
“War Room?” Owen asks.
“War Room,” I confirm.
I turn to Tessa. “Are you with us, Strategist?”
She wipes her eyes, resting her hand protectively over her stomach. “I’m all in.”
“Good,” I say.
I turn to my brothers. Asher is already typing, a terminal screen reflecting in his glasses. Owen shoves the binders off the table and sets down three mugs.
I pull out my phone, opening the secure dialer.
“Let’s go to work.”