They weren’t the ones who had me locking it down. It was the small pink bundle the nurse had finished cleaning.
“Let me go,” I demanded.
There was a long moment of hesitation before my brothers let go of me.
I stepped over the blood. Freya’s blood.
The only thing that kept me from tearing this whole place apart was her, Eva. She had Freya’s eyes. She was my fucking anchor.
EIGHT HOURS LATER
They tried to take her from me, the nurses. My fucking baby. They tried to take her out of my arms, spouting shit about feeding her, putting her down to sleep, changing her. I barked at them to get me the fuckin’ bottle. She didn’t need to be put down to sleep. She slept in my arms. When she needed changing, I changed her. Not one single person touched our baby. The next person who touched her would be Freya.
Had to be.
I’d been sure, fucking certain that I’d never hold a baby in my arms, especially not my own. My resolve was iron-clad. I had been and would’ve been if I had continued getting in my own fucking way. Freya had given me this, she’d given me fucking her, she’d given me fatherhood. It terrified me and filled me up at the same time.
“She’s beautiful.”
Swiss sat down beside me. He wasn’t technically allowed in here, but the hospital had given up on their rules with the Sons of Templar. My brothers had set up camp in the waiting room as a show of support. I didn’t give a fuck. It hadn’t meant shit. Freya opening her eyes and holding our daughter … that was all that mattered.
She’d come out of surgery. Lost a lot of blood, the doctor had said. They couldn’t tell me when she’d wake up, and I couldn’t shake it out of him because I was holding my daughter.
“Yeah, she is.”
I kept my eyes on Freya, my mind focused only on the steady beating, signifying that she was still alive, that my world was still whole.
“I only got to hold mine in my arms once.”
That almost had my eyes moving from Freya.
Almost.
No one knew about Swiss’s past. All we knew was that his current life was plenty fucked up, so some fucked up shit must’ve happened,
“My wife, she died at eight months,” Swiss continued. His words were fucking daggers. Dripping with blood. His own blood.
That’s why I let him place his hand on Eva’s beanie-covered head.
“They tried to save the baby,” he added, his hand settling on Eva with a barely-there touch. “They didn’t. I got to hold her, though. So beautiful. And heavy. Like I was carrying a universe. Walkin’ around with empty arms, well, it’s a special kind of hell.” His hand stayed on Eva’s head for a moment longer. “You’ve got the future in your arms, brother. And in that bed.” I saw the jerk of his head in my periphery as he nodded to Freya. “She’s gonna wake up.”
“I know,” I bit out, unable to say a fuckin’ word to him about what he’d just told me.
He slapped me on the shoulder then walked out. With empty fucking arms.
I held Eva tighter.
A couple of hours later, Freya woke up.
And I could fucking breathe again. Because I had my world.
FREYA
Hades didn’t talk about what happened after Eva’s birth. He couldn’t.
With tears in her eyes, Macy had told me enough to raise the hairs on the backs of my arms. As did Marilyn when she clutched my hand in a death grip and ordered me to never have another fucking child as long as I lived.
Aunt V hadn’t said much, nor had she shed a tear, but she held onto my hand for a very long time when she entered the hospital room.
Hades barely left my side. And the only time he wasn’t holding Eva was when I was holding her or nursing her. She didn’t even sleep in her crib. Hades was completely and perfectly content with letting our infant daughter sleep in his arms.
My Old Man loved his daughter so much that he couldn’t stand the idea of her sleeping without feeling his arms around her. He cradled our daughter with the same hands he’d ended lives with. I didn’t care whether it made me completely insane, but that meant so much to me. It meant fucking everything.
For a man who had been so convinced that he was a monster, he was an incredible father. He took care of almost everything while I recovered, despite the numerous hands available to help at all times. Our house was never empty. Aunt V had decided to move to Garnett, purchasing the closest house to ours. One that very conveniently went up for sale the second that Aunt V announced she was moving—about one hour after I was discharged from the hospital.