Every cent of Elias’s money came to me. Well over ten billion dollars, and there was nothing I wanted less. I had offered money to both Harper and Jonah, though neither of them accepted, and instead, I donated it all to women’s and children’s shelters across the country while also putting a large chunk into rehabilitation centers for victims of domestic and sexual abuse.
I won’t lie, I kept only a fraction for the sole purpose that we might have to drop a bomb on fighting for custody of one very beautiful and very tiny little girl.
It’s almost comical. Mae assumed that money was coming her way, but even in death, my brother still found a way to fuck with his wife. She didn’t get a thing, and while I haven’t had a chance to look for myself, apparently, there was an ironclad prenup, and Mae was so desperate to marry him that she didn’t bother to read the fine print that declared that even in the case of death, not a cent from the Slater fortune would be signed over to his wife.
It’s bittersweet, really. At least Harper thinks so. I catch her grinning to herself all the time.
It’s not as though Mae needs the money where she’s going. She’s been behind bars for six months, and apart from the occasional visit from her court-appointed lawyer, she hasn’t had a single visitor.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. She had one visit from Harper and me a little over four weeks ago when she gave birth to little Maddison, and apart from physically walking in, signing a custody agreement with the state, collecting the baby, and walking out, that’s about as much of Mae as we’ve seen since the night of the ship explosion.
Her trial is still four months away, but she doesn’t stand a chance. We have the best lawyers her dead husband’s money could buy, and as for Izzy, she’s ready to go in hard. She wants Mae to be put away for as long as possible. And she’ll succeed. From what our lawyers discussed, we could potentially go for a maximum of twenty years, but realistically, she’ll probably get ten, with the chance of early parole.
As for little Maddison? These past four and a half weeks have been a wild ride.
Who could have known that such a little thing could shit so far and wide? Shit, sleep, eat, repeat. I swear, these tiny humans have it all worked out. They have someone prepare all their meals, wipe their little asses for them, bathe them, and tuck them in at night. It’s fucking brilliant. If I were smart, I never would have grown up. But now, I get to be the man who that little person relies on. I get to be her father, and it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever experienced. Without Harper, I never would have had the chance, and I owe her the fucking world for giving me that.
The only hurdle we’ve had along the way was the baby’s biological father. The courts insisted that he be found. And I get it. Maddison is technically his child, and it would only be right to offer her to him first. However, the second he heard that Mae was pregnant, he made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with any of it. Not only did he not want his name connected to Mae’s, he wanted to pay us to make sure that news of this baby’s bloodline never got out. And while not claiming this sweet angel is the biggest mistake he has ever made in his life, I can’t help but feel grateful.
It took a lot of umming and ahhing over whether Harper wanted to be viewed as this child’s older sister or her mother, and she still hadn’t decided when we arrived at the hospital to collect her. Only the second Harper laid eyes on that sweet baby girl, she knew. She was going to be her mom, and in turn, I automatically became her dad. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
A sheer layer of sweat coats my skin as we finally get home and follow the pathway to the front porch. It was just a chill run today, and while that usually is all I need to clear my mind and burn some energy, with Ace and Diesel currently at each other’s throats, it wasn’t nearly as peaceful as I’d hoped.
I reach for the front door just as it’s ripped open from the inside, and I stand face to face with a raging Harper, her arms crossed over her chest, glaring at me like she can’t wait to tear my balls clean off my body.
“Mortic—”
“Don’t even start with that Morticia shit,” she says. “No shirt? No fucking shirt? I thought we discussed you leaving the house looking like a walking thirst trap? I don’t need these other bitches coming for you in the street and trying to take what’s mine. You wanna look like a slut, then fine, be a slut, but be a slut at home. Be my slut.”
“The fuck, doll?” I laugh, striding into the house as I look down at the sleeping baby in the stroller I’d just pushed around Blackstone for the past hour. Ace and Diesel do what they can to muffle their laughter behind me. “I was with my baby. Nobody is looking at me when I have a baby.”
Harper scoffs, staring at me as though I’ve lost my mind. “You literally couldn’t be more wrong,” she tells me, scooping the sleeping baby out of the stroller before striding across the living room to deposit her in her bassinet. “Do you have any idea what it does to the women of Blackstone, seeing a man of your . . . grand sexiness with not only his man titties and muscles on display, but also pushing a stroller with a sleeping baby? It would have been a fucking riot. A goddamn stampede. Don’t be surprised if you wake up in the morning and someone has murdered me in my sleep, only to climb into my body and wear me as a human skin bag just to have my life. Seriously, Knight, you need to be mindful of this shit.”
“Uh-oh,” Ace mutters. “Mom and Dad are fighting.”
A grin pulls at my lips, and I step into my girl, pulling her into my arms as she immediately melts against me. “Mindful of horny women wanting to wear you as a skin bag?”
“Exactly,” she murmurs. “From now on, you wear full body armor with a chastity belt on your runs. Can’t have these thirsty hos trying to whip your dick out while you’re running. And they will, you know. They’ll be on their knees with it in their mouth so fast, you won’t even know what happened.”
I laugh. “Okay, doll. Chastity belts from here on out. Anything else?”
“I—”
Her response is cut off by the shrill ring of her phone, and she hurries across the living room to answer it before Maddison wakes. “Oh shit,” Harper says, her eyes wide. “It’s the lawyer.”
She quickly accepts the call, and just as she brings the phone to her ear, little Maddison stirs in the bassinet. “Fuck,” I mutter, only Diesel pulls some parkour bullshit to beat me to her, effortlessly scooping her up and settling her back into a deep sleep.
He grins at me. “Too fucking slow, bro,” he says, refusing to put her down and opting just to hold her while she sleeps. “And you call yourself a dad!”
I roll my eyes, but the moment is over the second Harper gasps and drops to her knees, her eyes filling with tears. “Ahh, shit,” I breathe, my heart already breaking as I make my way over to her, realizing this is the call we’ve been waiting for, only it’s clearly not going our way. That doesn’t mean we’re going to stop fighting. We will get full custody of this baby girl, come hell or high water.
Harper wraps up the call, and as she sobs on the floor, I drop down beside her, pulling her right into my arms. “It’s okay, doll. We’ll find another way.”
Harper buries her face into the side of my neck, her arms thrown around me. “We got full custody,” she says, her words muffled by sobs. “These are happy tears. She’s ours. Mom signed over her parental rights. She’s completely ours.”
My eyes widen, and I grip her shoulders, pulling her back to meet her stare. “What? We got full custody?”
“Yeah,” she says, her cries quickly morphing into a laugh. “We got full custody.”
