Page 7 of Knot The Nanny We Planned

At three in the morning, I finally give up on sleep.

I walk to the kitchen in the dark, not bothering with lights. I know this penthouse blind, every corner, every piece of furniture, every window. I built this place from nothing, just like everything else in my life.

I pull a bottle of water from the fridge and drink half of it in one go. My throat is raw, from the growling, from the silence, from swallowing every sound I wanted to make while I listened to her breathe through the wall.

"You're up."

I turn and find Deklan standing in the doorway of the kitchen, his dark hair disheveled, his glasses absent. Without them, his face looks younger. More vulnerable. He's wearing a faded t-shirt and plaid pajama pants, and he looks nothing like the razor-sharp strategist who runs our financial modeling.

"So are you," I say.

He crosses to the fridge, pulls out a water bottle, and leans against the counter. For a moment, neither of us speaks. We don't need to. We've known each other for twenty-five years, since a group home in South Boston where the beds were infested, and the food was moldy, and the only way to survive was to band together.

I was eight. Deklan was seven. Knox was six. Three unwanted boys with nothing but each other.

And then Mara came. Deklan's half-sister, born to a different father, dumped into the system when their mother overdosed. She was two years old, and Deklan, seven years old and already old beyond his years, took one look at her and decided she was his to protect.

We all did.

We raised her. In group homes, in foster placements, in the apartment we finally scraped together enough money to rent when I was eighteen and legal. Mara was our family. Our light. The reason any of us bothered to get up in the morning.

And six months ago, a drunk driver ran a red light.

Now she's gone. And Lily, her daughter, two years old, with Mara's dark eyes and Deklan's stubborn chin, is ours.

"You felt it," Deklan says. It's not a question.

"Of course I felt it."

"Knox too." He takes a drink of water. "All three of us."

"Yes."

He's quiet for a long time. "It's never been like this before. The other one, the agency's previous match… it was convenient. Comfortable. This is..." He trails off, searching for the word.

"Dangerous," I finish.

"Yeah." He sets the water bottle down. "She's going to want to leave. You saw her face. She's terrified."

"She said she wasn't leaving."

"She said that while her slick was soaking through her clothes. People say a lot of things when their biology is overriding their brain." His jaw tightens. "Mara said she'd never leave too. She said she'd always be there for Lily. She promised."

The grief in his voice is a living thing, raw, gnawing, and barely contained. I recognize it because I carry the same grief. We all do.

"This isn't the same," I say quietly.

"Isn't it?" He pushes off the counter. "We bring an omega into this house, into Lily's life, and what happens when it doesn't work? What happens when the scent-match fades, or when she gets tired of being shared between three men, or when she decides small-town life wasn't so bad after all?" His voice rises, sharp and bitter. "Lily's already lost her mother. You want her to lose another one?"

I don't have an answer. Because he's right. The risk is real. The match is real, but so is the danger. And if Willow gets close to Lily, becomes a mother figure, becomes family, and then leaves... It would destroy her. It would destroy all of us.

"Then we don't let her leave," I say.

Deklan's eyes snap to mine. "That sounds a hell of a lot like a cage."

"That's not what I mean." I set my jaw. "I mean we do this right. We give her a reason to stay. A real reason. Not just the match. Not just the biology. We make her want to be here."

"And if that's not enough?"