Page 131 of Unbound

“It’s not funny, it’s fuckin’ amazing.”

“What the fuck is amazing?” she’d snapped.

“Angelbaby, my beautiful wife. You feelin’ safe enough to throw a fit and push to get what you want, to tell me how important something is to you rather than shrinking away with a ‘Yes, Master’. It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful and I’ll do everything in my power to give you whatever it is that you want.”

She melted into me. “Don’t you want it, too?”

“Babies with you? Definitely. If I never get a baby with you, I’m okay with just havin’ you. We’ll be everyone’s favorite aunt and uncle and everyone in the family’ll love us because we’ll offer to take their kids constantly. But if we get to be parents together, biological or otherwise? Yeah. I want that, too.”

I’d give my girl anything I could give her to try to make up for what she’d been through. And besides, my queen deserved to have whatever the fuck she wanted in life just because.

We came to a compromise. Fertility drugs for a while to see if anything worked out. If they didn’t, we’d re-group and explore surrogacy or adoption. And if we got our family the natural way, in a couple years we’d seriously consider adopting anyway, to give some kid who needed a family, a family.

She skeptically went on fertility drugs but they worked like a charm; we got our wish. In triplicate.

Triplets on our second month of trying. Close to eight months after getting the news, we got our family. Two boys and a girl. Born early but very healthy.

Our first born: James, after my late brother-in-law Jimmy, with dark blond hair and sapphire blue eyes. He looks like me with his mother’s eyes. We call him Jamie.

Charles David, our little Charlie, after Angel’s dad’s best friend, middle name after her pop, he came next. He’s dark blond and blue-grey eyed, also looking like me.

And then we got our sapphire blue-eyed curly red-haired little girl. Darla Shae. Darla, a combination of Dario and Angelica. We got the Shae in short for Shayla after Lisa’s real name.

Leese sold Pop’s house but is still in our lives on an almost weekly basis because she’s become as close to Angel as she is to the other girls. We made her Darla’s godmother. She was thrilled about her secret little namesake.

Leese has started dating and she is heavily involved in fundraising for charities related to helping survivors of human trafficking. She does it quietly, never revealing anything about her personal experience. There may still be eyes on her. She wanted to help the Kruna victims we’d liberated. She couldn’t, of course, because there could be eyes on us, so it was a while before she could do what she wanted, and help other survivors.

We were approached by Stan Smith who approached on behalf of some remaining partners and expressed that we had no concerns whatsoever about her state of mind or her ability to keep her mouth shut.

We were concerned about those questions and considered taking action against Bart Shaw, the guy who I’d suspected was the one that asked. And in fact, I’m fairly certain she got a warning visit, though she won’t confirm that suspicion she also didn’t deny it when Tommy and I asked her about it.

There has been life after Kruna and after Pop for Shayla Townsend, aka Lisa Ferrano. A good life.

She dated Dex for a little while but it didn’t get too serious. I don’t think she’s ready for serious.

Stan Smith, still in Thailand, handles some of the areas we haven’t yet found our way out of overseas and is definitely earning his hefty retainer.

Our involvement in the demise of Kruna is still a secret as far as we know. A few of the partners are still out there, under the radar, and of course there are members. We’ve been approached more than once about starting up again but we’ve respectfully declined.

The way things went down, it seemed to work out okay. For now. I’m hoping nothing bites us in the asses later.

Tessa and Zack got together about a year after Jimmy died. It took some time for their relationship to progress and he earned respect by saving her from a tight spot that could’ve started a whole other war with me and Tommy and some dangerous people if Zack hadn’t been there to save her from her foray into the BDSM world, which we don’t like to think about, but it happened. Seems that her tour of Fete got her curious about that world but she wasn’t real smart in satisfying her curiosity.

After a bit of drama, they decided to give it a go and now they live together. He’s a good influence on Antonio and Lucas and he makes my sister happy. He and I are tight, I get where he’s coming from and how intricate his business is, why he does what he does. And what he does still benefits the Ferrano family on a fairly regular basis. Tommy busts his chops every chance he gets but that’s my brother. Deep down I know he’s all right with Zack, even if he doesn’t outright say it.

The business? We’ve sold off some more of Ferrano Enterprises. It still exists but it’s much smaller and most of it much cleaner. Mostly.

Some of it, we’ve dissolved. We’ve retained some of the relationships for the sake of history, favors, and protection. Tommy runs the construction company and maintains a few important key relationships that also mean that we occasionallyhave to do favors in order to have a surplus of markers, but everything else we’re investors, silent partners, get royalties, or we’ve dissolved or sold off. Our dividends from Fete alone could support us. The place rakes in the cash, hand over fist, and though he’s busy running the construction company, Tommy also manages our money. He’s excellent at it.

Me? I’ve got my finger in a couple different pies.

My day-to-day, I bought a small established charter company that has three planes. I fly a few times a week and have pilots on staff. I help Tommy out here and there. I’m still VP of Ferrano Enterprises on paper but I’m only in a suit a couple days a month.

I’ve helped Zack’s private eye agency and a few close friends a time or two, as well. We moved out of the condo into a four-bedroom house in a great neighborhood with plenty of parks and good schools. We did that as soon as Holly came to stay. She only stayed three months. But that’s another story.

Angel plans to go back to teaching after our kids are in school full-time. She might open her own little Montessori school instead of going back to work at a public school. Life is getting sweeter all the time.

Tia goes to university and she’s working toward her degree in social work, while balancing motherhood and my brother. He wanted her to do online school but she pressed for an on-campus experience and he relented.

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