I’m not entirely sure who their biological father is. Well,fathers.
Plural.
When they were born, I noticed the differences first—their coloring, their cries, even the way they breathed. Liam came out quiet, eyes wide and unblinking, skin pinking fast underthe delivery lights. Noah arrived two minutes later, fists already balled, lungs announcing himself to the world. The nurses joked they couldn’t possibly be twins—one dark-haired and solemn, the other fair and furious. I laughed because it was easier than googling if twins could have two separate fathers.
The doctors ordered the standard newborn panels, pricked their heels, and took their tiny vials of blood. Routine, they said. But later, one of them frowned at the chart. Something about the results didn’t make sense—the paternal markers were completely different. My boys have different fathers, and that was more of awowmoment than a terrifying moment. I felt like a medical oddity, to be honest.
I told her not to worry about it, signed the discharge papers, and made sure the records went under my mother’s maiden name.
Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, but I was twenty-eight, terrified, and just wanted to be a good mom. Even if that meant not ever reaching out to Jace, Cal, or Silas. At least, not back then. Now? I don’t really have a choice when it comes to seeing all three of them again.
Tomorrow we bury Dominic Carter. Natural causes and a lifetime of unnatural debts.
Charles sits diagonally from me, long body folded into buttery leather like he was born for it. The soft overhead lights carve new lines around his eyes, gray threading his temples—empire weight settling into his bones. He watches the boys with that careful smile, half pride, half apology.
“Liam looks like you,” he says, and we both step around the lie.
“They have the Carter jaw,” I reply. “Noah got my eye shape, though.”
His phone buzzes, that insect sound that rearranges air molecules. The screen lights his face as he answers, voice already shifting into business mode.
“Yeah,” he says, “what’s up, Sy?”
My hands still on my lap. The sound bleeds through the speaker: gravel and smoke, a voice that tightens every nerve ending I own. My shoulders lock, breath catching like I’ve been struck.
That same voice whispering against my throat in blue-hour darkness: “Firefly, look at me.”
I turn toward the window, using clouds as my mirror, but my fingers find the hem of my sweater, worrying the cashmere between thumb and forefinger.
“How did the negotiations go?” Charles asks, lazy as a cat. Then that laugh I know, not his public smile, but the one reserved for back rooms and blood-cleaned hands. “How many did you leave alive?”
The phone crackles. Silas’s voice filters through, distant but unmistakable, that particular rhythm that used to make my pulse stutter against hotel pillows. I catch fragments: “...warehouse secured...” “...message received...” The timbre hits my spine like a tuning fork.
The weight of him behind me, hands spanning my ribs, voice rough with want: “Tell me you feel this too.” The way he’d appeared in the hotel corridor like a shadow made flesh, still wearing his tuxedo but with the bow tie undone, shirt open at the throat. Blood on his knuckles from something, someone, he’d handled quietly while the reception continued downstairs.
My breath catches. I press my palms flat against my thighs, fabric bunching under my grip.
Three sets of hands. Three voices saying my name like a prayer. But it started with Jace’s control, the way he’d gripped my wrist in the elevator, voice cutting through my champagne haze: “You’re drunk, princess. And you’re making choices you’ll regret.” Except I wasn’t drunk. Not on champagne. Just drunk on the way they looked at me like I was something precious and dangerous all at once.
The memories hit like physical blows: sharp, visceral, unavoidable.
“Crazy fucker,” Charles continues, and there’s affection in it, the kind reserved for monsters who belong to you. “Contact the cleaners to purge the warehouse.”
The way Jace’s control finally snapped when I whispered “yes” against his mouth. How his hands tightened on my throat, not to hurt but to claim. “Say it again,” he’d demanded, voice rough as gravel. “Say you want this. Say you want us.”
“When do Jace and Cal land?” Charles asks.
My pulse skips. Ridiculous for a woman who’s birthed twins and built empires, but there it is. That soft stutter I hate, can’t control. My fingers twist the sweater hem tighter.
Cal’s triumphant laugh as he spun me toward him, amber eyes blazing with something between victory and worship. “Angel, you have no idea how long we’ve waited to hear those words.” His hands mapping my face like he was memorizing it, thumb tracing my bottom lip. “No idea what you do to us.”
Through the speaker, static and distance: “...flight delayed...” Silas’s laugh, low and rough. “...personal package secured...”
I know that laugh. Felt it rumble against my ribs in blue-hour darkness, tasted it on whiskey-slick lips.
Silas behind me, his voice a prayer against my ear: “Firefly, you’re going to destroy us all.” But his hands were reverent as they found the zipper of my dress, sliding it down like he was unwrapping something sacred. “And we’re going to let you.”
“Parker hasn’t returned calls,” Charles says, casual as discussing the weather. “She might attend. Sienna and the kids set up the guest house just in case.”
