Page 397 of Wicked Brutal

“You don’t know that.”

“Sit down,” I tell him.

He looks at me. “I know how to hold a baby.”

I just look back. He sits, and I lower Piper into his arms, and he goes rigid. “Relax.”

“I am relaxed.”

“You look like you’re defusing a bomb.”

“Shut up.” Then Piper yawns, and Kaid stops, his whole face changing. “Hey,” he whispers. He looks down at her for a long time, then at me. “She’s perfect.”

I glance at Ally, who’s crying again. “Yeah,” I say. “She is.”

Penny gets her next — already crying before I put Piper into her arms, X behind her with a hand on her shoulder. “Oh, sweetheart.” She looks down. “She looks like Ally.”

“Thank God,” I say, and Ally turns her head slowly.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re beautiful.”

She stares at me, then melts. “Oh.”

I lean over and kiss her. “Yeah. Oh.”

X looks down at Piper. “She does have Ryan’s eyebrows.”

“Don’t ruin this for me.” Penny laughs.

Piper’s hand opens, and X reaches down, and her fingers close around one of his. He goes quiet. “Hey, little girl,” he says, softer than I’ve heard him in a long time.

Penny leans back against him, and he kisses the top of her head without looking away from Piper.

And that’s how I know I’m fucked. Because this isn’t just my daughter anymore — not in the way she’s mine and Ally’s, but in the way family claims space in your life simply by loving you enough. Piper has been alive a few hours. She already has them.

My parents come back in before the others, and Mom gets her turn. I’ve watched Cassandra Harrington do a lot of things — interview people who could barely look her in the eye, walk into rooms full of powerful men and make every one of them nervous, stand beside Ally through shit no eighteen-year-old should ever have to survive. I’ve never seen her look the way she does when I put my daughter in her arms.

“Oh, Ryan.” That’s it. She looks down at Piper and cries. Dad wraps an arm around her, and she touches Piper’s cheek. “Hi, sweetheart.” Then, “She’s beautiful.”

“She is,” Ally says.

Dad looks over Mom’s shoulder. “Can I hold her?” Mom doesn’t move. “Cassandra.”

“I just got her.”

“You’ve been holding her for five minutes.”

“That isn’t long.” Dad looks at me. “Your mother is refusing to share.”

“I wouldn’t get involved.”

“Coward.”

Eventually Mom hands her over, and the second Piper is against Dad’s chest, he shuts up, his hand covering almost her entire back. “Hi, Piper. I’m Walter.”

Tobias appears at his elbow. “MY Walter.”