“No, it wasn’t,” Thomas reminded.
Aiden ignored him. “It was, I remember. Our vows said I’m going to spoil you and when the baby comes, I’m going to spoil him, too. We both are and you know it.”
There was a mini-baby boom in the Mulvaney family over the last few years and Thomas couldn’t have been happier. Lucas and August had a son now, Alastair, and were already discussing having one more. Thomas would have never guessed in a million years that August would be the one who took to fatherhood so well, but he should have. The boy had never failed at a single thing.
Avi and Felix were eagerly anticipating the arrival of their twins. Also boys. Also identical. Lola had graciously agreed to donate her eggs, though not her body. They had hired a surrogate for that. A lovely girl named Genevieve, who was blissfully clueless about the Mulvaneys’ secret life of crime.
Asa and Zane said there was no need to have children of their own just yet as they lived with Avi and Felix and were happy to be a second set of hands. Thomas suspected there was more to it than that but didn’t look too closely at the relationship between the four. They were all happy and it was really none of his business.
Jericho and Atticus had their hands full with the boys at the shelter next to the shop, but it hadn’t stopped them from adopting a four-year-old boy with red hair and freckles named Jett, and a three-year-old boy with brown hair and brown eyes, who they’d renamed Jagger. With the boy’s permission, of course.
They hadn’t sought out the children, but through some twist of fate, they’d found their way to them anyway. Atticus had insisted on continuing the Mulvaney family naming tradition, but with the twist of all their children having J names like Jericho. It was the best present Atticus could have given Jericho.
Thomas choked up whenever he thought of it. Atticus had been the one who worried him most. The one who was so fussy and particular and determined to be different from his brothers. Yet, somehow, Jericho had found him and had seen all of Atticus’s perceived flaws as attributes. And Thomas had never seen his son so domestic and so content with the messes that came with having two small children.
Mac and Archer were determined to be nothing more than the fun uncles, but Thomas was fine with that. The work they were doing for the Watch was important and, somehow, despite everything Thomas had gotten wrong, the kids there seemed to be thriving.
The government was happy with how the pilot program was working and had even installed a full-time sociologist to study the way the students interacted with each other. Her name was Dr. Sasha Mackey and she said it was fascinating work.
Adam and Noah had finally married in an affair fit for royalty. It had provided a nice distraction after Thomas’s book was published, drawing the eye from past family scandals to current family events. While there had been a feeding frenzy after the book went live, reporters lost interest when they realized there was no scoop left.
Especially when the Mulvaneys were willing to feed them a steady diet of weddings, babies, and minor scandals to make it feel like business as usual. Zane had refused to write the book, saying it would only make reporters more curious, not less, thinking that Zane had been coached through the piece. Instead, Thomas had reached out to a world-renowned journalist who just happened to have a child in Project Watchtower. His reputation was impeccable and nobody dared question the book once his name was attached.
Adam and Noah had talked about children, but Noah wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to bring himself to do it. The constant stress of worrying something might happen to his child like it did to him would be a near constant strain on his mental health. The boy’s scars ran deep. But he was young. They both were. They had plenty of time for babies if they decided they wanted them.
Look at him and Aiden. They were far too old to be raising a child but there they were, waiting for the birth of their son. Calliope had agreed to be their surrogate, though unlike Cricket, she did not provide her eggs. She said she was done parenting kids and if Thomas and Aiden were raising her baby, she’d feel obligated to be more than just Aunt Calliope.
Thomas and Aiden had both understood. Instead, they’d paid for an anonymous donor and fertilized eggs with both their sperm. Three eggs had implanted but only one survived. Their son. Theodore. Theo for short.
Some small part of Thomas had hoped for two, a boy and a girl, like the siblings he’d lost. But real life wasn’t like that. And he refused to let any of his children live in the shadow of the Mulvaneys who came before them. Not anymore. Theo would be his own person, even if he was named after his uncle.
“Kendrick asked for a meeting at the end of the week to discuss the project,” Aiden said. “Archer asked me to mention it to you since he knows we had plans.”
Kendrick. That was how Aiden referred to his father now. No attachment, no anger, no anything. Just Kendrick. In a way, it was the ultimate revenge. Though Thomas’s first official meeting with the man after their wedding had been tense, it was Mac and Archer who’d taken the brunt of his fury. But they were used to being yelled at. Angry was his default setting.
“I’ll let Noah know to get in contact with him and find a time. I’m not putting off our trip to Bali. It will be our last vacation before diaper duty and formula runs become a thing.”
“You sure you don’t want to hire a nanny?” Aiden asked again, taking Thomas’s hand and playing with his fingers.
“What was the point of retiring if I’m only going to hand over the baby to someone else? Then what will I do all day?”
“I don’t know,” Aiden said. “What do other retirees do?”
“Move to Florida and die on a golf course. No, thank you. I can take care of Theo and focus on the charity.”
“Sorry, I forgot you’re a strong independent man,” Aiden teased.
Thomas had taken a step back from his company, preferring to work more on his philanthropic goals. The board had appointed a perfectly adequate CEO until Noah was old enough to decide if he wanted to take over those duties himself. But until then, Noah had his hands full coordinating the family’s extracurricular activities. There was no shortage of terrible people out there needing to be put down.
Luckily, their network had expanded. Dimitri now worked for them. Jericho’s boys, too. It had taken a year for them to hunt down all of Nathan Jeffries’s associates, but they’d done it, taking them out one by one, quickly and quietly without anyone knowing there had been numerous active serial killers on the loose for several years, acting as one cohesive unit.
“What are you thinking about?” Aiden asked, turning so he was on his side, eyes falling shut when Thomas combed his fingers through his hair.
He wore it much shorter these days, but he still had the scruffy chin that Thomas couldn’t get enough of. “Us. The family. The usual.”
“You’re getting sentimental in your old age.”
Thomas smiled. “I’m just…happy. Aren’t you happy?”
