“We’ll always protect our family,” Nick murmured.
The words settled somewhere deep in my chest.
Not like my father.
I waited for the familiar sting—guilt, grief, something resembling loss. It never came. There was no sharp ache when I thought about the call, about the quiet confirmation that his body had finally given out after years of drowning it in whatever poison was closest to hand.
He had drunk himself into the end he’d been walking toward my entire life.
I felt… nothing.
No sorrow. No relief dramatic enough to name. Just a dull sense of inevitability, as if a chapter had closed exactly the way it was always meant to.
Elliot would never know that kind of father.
He wouldn’t learn to brace for disappointment or measure love in borrowed money and empty promises. He wouldn’t wait for footsteps that never came or flinch at a slurred apology.
Not with these three.
Whatever else they were—possessive, obsessive, unhinged in their own ways—they were not absent. They were not weak.
Elliot wouldn’t miss a thing.
“A bit of choking is part of the caveat,” Alec added lightly, earning a snort from Rowan.
I smiled through my tears and pulled Elliot closer until he nuzzled instinctively into my breast.
“He’s hungry,” Rowan said, stating the obvious.
I didn’t move.
They worked around me anyway—adjusting pillows, shifting positions, murmuring instructions over one another until Elliot’s mouth was clumsily searching.
“No. Not like that,” Alec grumbled, shoving Nick aside.“Didn’t you watch the video I sent you?”
I settled back against the pillows, listening to them bicker as I inhaled the unique, indescribable scent of my son. Ours.
I didn’t need to worry about anything. They had schedules prepared months ago. Charts. Timelines. Contingencies. It should have unsettled me—especially knowing I’d overheard them plotting when they thought I was asleep.
Six months, they’d decided. Before trying again.
I stroked Elliot’s dark hair, wondering—briefly—whether he was Alec’s or Nick’s. His eyes were a deep, indistinct grey for now, giving nothing away.
I realised I was still caring for others.
Just in a different way from my patients.
I winced when Elliot’s toothless gums clamped down with surprising determination.
Alec’s.
It had to be.
They all cooed and praised him instantly, voices soft and reverent, and I watched the pride and joy shift differently across their faces—each of them reflecting something distinct, something deeply personal.
A few weeks later, Elliot’s eyes settled into a vibrant mirror of Nick’s.
The six months became three.
And this time?
I wasn’t complaining.
The End.
