The Beginning (The Life 1)

There were times, though, that I would find her staring into space, and I knew her mind had gone back there to that place that day, and it killed me that that was the one thing I couldn’t protect her from, her memories.

I’d offered to bring her papa here to live with us, but she declined. She didn’t know where he was, and he’d made it clear to her when they parted that it was to be for the last time.

I tried convincing her that no one would dare come here and harm her, but she wouldn’t give in, and eventually, I left it alone with the thought of one day bringing it back up again. I know that her papa is what she’d want most in life, and I want to give her every single thing she needs.

In the meantime, she’d started to lose that haunted look from her eyes, her body had filled out, and she started breaking out of her shell more and more as time went on. Sometimes I think she even forgot that it wasn’t my child she carried, and we’d spend hours on lazy days planning their future.

My brother Garret had started spending school holidays with us at the new place I’d bought with part of my inheritance from Gramps. Something I had tried to dissuade him from doing since I knew how much it would hurt mom. But the hardheaded little shit had totally ignored all my arguments and did as he pleased. I know it was his way of showing me support, and I’ll never forget his show of brotherly love as long as I live. At least I used to feel that way until he got my wife involved in his shit.

He and my Sofia are thick as thieves, always up to some mischief that usually involved harassing me in some way. They have no greater joy than when they are ganging up on me about something or the other.

Now he was out there pacing the waiting room while I held her hand and coached her to breathe. “Since you find this so easy, why don’t we switch places, culo?” she panted out the words in between, fighting for breath, and I found my first grin. If she was cussing at me, she couldn’t be in too much danger.

The hospital staff was busy running around the room doing what they do while I made sure she stayed with me as she labored to bring our son into the world.

Hours later, when the doctor announced, ‘it’s a boy,’ I could barely see her through my tears. My heart opened up and let him in the first time they placed him in my arms. “Hello, little one. Welcome to the world.”

There was no one else in that room with us, no specter of the man who’d violated her all those months ago. There was just a mother, a son, and the man who loved them both beyond reason.

If it were at all possible to take over the parentage of a child through the sharing of my seed with her, then some part of me was in that kid. Wishful thinking, I know, but it’s how I choose to process, and I’d done everything in my power to make it so.

DRACO

He was a beautiful boy. My inner fear that I may look at him and see the man who’d violated her was for nothing. There was no anger or hate in me for him, no blame; how could there be? I’d also worked on her enough that by the time he came into the world, she no longer associated the darkest time in her life with him. He was ours, plain and simple.

The truth is, I’d been ready to step in if she couldn’t do it. If it had been too hard for her to cope, I would’ve shielded him until she came around. I needn’t have worried, though, because my beautiful wife, although a bit traumatized still, didn’t have it in her to hate her own flesh. I know it was impossible for her to forget how he came to be, but I gave every effort to erase that shit from her mind and for her to see our boy as just ours. It worked.

As for me, I did my part. I didn’t forget, but I’d be fucked if anybody were going to blame my son for shit that he had no hand in. And because of this, the kid had more love and cossetting than most. Everyone around me knew without a doubt that he was the Russo heir and not to be fucked with. From the moment he came from his mother, through his early years as I watched him grow, he was always by my side.

Even when his mother gifted me with twin daughters two years after his birth, he was still my little shadow. Because he was her heart, he became mine too, and the love we have for each other as father and son is absolute.