Final Reckoning

by Mia Madison

  His first shot almost missed, but scored a groove in Matteo’s thigh. His second, though, struck the same spot as Matteo’s previous injury. So now those ribs are bruised all to hell on top of the earlier damage.

  A little girl, maybe three years old, comes up to Matteo’s bed. All the children have brought their favorite stuffed animals from home to cheer us up. She’s holding a well-loved lamb, which she offers him with great solemnity.

  “Thank you,” he says with equal gravity, and takes the animal. “What’s your lamb’s name?”

  “Lammie,” she says shyly.

  “Good name. Does Lammie have a favorite story?”

  My heart is doing all sorts of strange gyrations, watching them together. The little girl is not at all frightened of the huge man with the scarred face, and he’s been so patient and kind with all the children.

  A woman comes over and gently guides the little girl away after Matteo returns her lamb. He watches her go, then turns to look at me. Our gazes catch, and hold, for a long moment.

  He’s been sending me looks that say very clearly if not for the invasion, we’d be in one bed instead of two, bruised ribs or no. But his expression now is something altogether different, and it makes my heart burst in my chest, then knit itself together again.

  Last night, his first shot hit Santiago in the chest – but the man was sane enough to not believe himself immortal, and he wore a vest too. Matteo’s second shot, as he was falling, struck high on Santiago’s shoulder, spinning him toward me. It slowed him down, though, enough that I had time to get my gun free.

  Santiago’s bullet grazed my scalp. It hurt like hell and bled a lot, but wasn’t life threatening.

  I blew his brains out.

  Bree’s already talked to me about seeing the same counselor she did after her own ordeal. I’m sure it’s a good idea. For now, though, I’m pretty much at peace with what happened.

  Santiago made an endless series of choices that led to that moment, any one of which might have spared him if he’d chosen differently. Being the instrument of his death is not something I would have sought, but I don’t feel any guilt about it.

  Matteo reaches out and takes my hand, and as if by a prearranged signal, the room falls silent.

  “We’ve had hardly any time,” he says to me, “and no kind of normal. If I could ask you for just one gift, it would be this: that you give me the chance to do this right. The chance to give you time, and togetherness, and normalcy.”

  My eyes are suddenly full of tears. It takes a few seconds, and a lot of concentration, to will them away. “I can do that,” I say, in a voice that comes out in a croak.

  Matteo kisses the back of my hand, and I’m almost awash in tears again. “Thank you,” he says.

  I clear my throat. “I, um, have something else for you.”

  He blinks. “You do?”

  I look to Bree, who took care of wrapping it for me this morning. She brings me a small, rectangular package, and I hand it over to Matteo.

  The look he gives me is one of perfect bafflement, but he takes off the paper and opens the box. And pulls out the pregnancy test.

  There’s a moment of stunned silence. He stares at the test, then at me. Then he looks up and roars, “Get a priest in here. We’re getting married right now.”

  “Teo,” I say, caught between laughter and tears.

  “Right now, dammit!”

  I scoot across my bed, then his, till I’m right up next to him. The room is in chaos, but I barely notice. “Honey. The baby doesn’t care if we’re married or not.”

  The storm of emotion on his face almost undoes me. “We’re having a baby.”

  “Yes. Yes, we are.”

  He leans down and captures my mouth. There’s a chorus of “Eww!”s from some of the children, and “Ahhh”s from everyone else.

  And right then and there, wearing a hospital gown and sitting in a hospital bed, I have the best Christmas of my life.

  Epilogue

  Christmas, five years later

  “Mama?” Gavriella tugs gently on my sleeve. “May I please have more turkey?”

  “Of course, baby.” I smile at her, then at Matteo, who’s on her other side. “Can you reach the turkey, babe?”

  He puts a slice on her plate, and she dimples at him. “Thank you, Papa.”

  “You’re welcome.” He says it with a quiet warmth that never fails to move me. Gavi adores her father, and he returns the favor.

  “Papa!” four-year-old Benedict calls. “Can I go outside and play?”

  “It’s snowing outside, little one,” Carlo says.

  “I know! I want to play in the snow!”

  “I’ll take him,” Sophie says. She’s eight now, the eldest of all the children here tonight for Christmas dinner.

  “Let’s wait until some of the grownups can go too,” Heather tells her. “Maybe you could start a movie in the family room for everyone to watch in the meantime.”

  “Okay. Come on, Benny.”

  He thinks about pouting for a moment, then follows her. Most of the children are still eating.

  There are three long tables, holding a total of forty-seven people: twenty-five children and twenty-two adults. Plus one on the way, because Jade is pregnant with her and Romero’s second child. Three-year-old Emiliano sits between them.

  Matteo and I are hosting Christmas dinner at the old Callahan farm. We rebuilt the farmhouse, and now we live here with Gavriella and our one-year-old twins, Vincenzo and Violetta.

  “A toast,” Matteo says, raising his glass. “To Jade and Gina. Congratulations on your wildly successful show.”

  We all cheer, clink glasses, and drink. Most of us are sipping champagne, except for Jade. “Speech!” Kosta calls.

  Gina and Jade both give each other bashful you-go-first looks. Finally, Jade clears her throat. “I always loved my dad’s photography growing up, but I never imagined doing it myself. And then, a few years ago, I started taking photos and fell in love with it. And like Dad, I found myself really drawn to photographing wildlife.

  “I feel really fortunate to be able to follow my heart this way. And when I saw some of the paintings Gina was doing, and how well our styles complement each other, it just made sense for us to do a show together, especially one that would benefit the sanctuary.”

  That would be the Patrick Callahan Wildlife Sanctuary, named for our dad. Matteo and I run it, here on the farm. In addition to providing a habitat for rare and endangered species, we rehabilitate injured animals and return them to the wild.

  “Mama?” This time it’s Raul, Dante and Heather’s middle child at four years old. “Can I be excused?”

  She smiles at him. “Yes, you may.” Heather’s a kindergarten teacher now, and she loves it.

  Raul scrambles from his seat at the same time that his baby sister Catarina starts to fuss. Dante picks her up and cuddles her against his chest, and she quiets immediately. I smile at Heather. “So many daddy’s girls.”

  “Can you blame them?” Heather says. All the women laugh, and all the men grin.

  “Your turn,” Jade says to Gina, but baby Gemma lets out a wail.

  “She’s teething again,” Gina says, picking her up. Carlo roots in the diaper bag, looking for Gemma’s teething ring.

  At the next table over, Victor is helping four-year-old Renia, and Frankie is feeding two-year-old Pietro. “Frankie!” I call. “How’s the restoration going?”

  “Great!” She beams at me. “You know how I love the classics.”

  Frankie used to work for Carlo in his private security and investigations firm, but once she got pregnant with Renia, she and Vic agreed that she should do something less potentially hazardous. So now Frankie works at Revved, restoring cars, and Vic still runs the café, so they can see each other all the time.

  Rico handed over the keys to the Revved garage to a couple of the younger cousins, and he and Mickey moved up into the mountains, to the same town where Brando has his res
taurant. Rico has a small repair shop up there, but his manager oversees the day-to-day operations.

  Good thing, because he and Mickey have their hands full with their three sets of twins: Gino and Luca, now almost six; Abri and Adalina, three; and newborns Desi and Ciro. They’re blissfully happy being full-time parents.

  “Anyway,” Gina says when Gemma has settled, “I think Jade said it all. We really enjoyed putting the show together, so I think we’ll do another one in a few years. Of course, if we want to do annual fundraisers for the sanctuary, then we can contribute pieces for a silent auction even if we don’t put on a full show.”

  “Ooh, silent auction,” Bree says. “I can offer a Callahan’s gift certificate.”

  Funnily enough, it was my wanderlust twin who wound up settling down as a full-time businesswoman. She and Lando did a big trip for their honeymoon, and still travel together sometimes, but Brianna’s heart is at home with Lando and their three-year-old twins, Rosa and Renata.

  “I could do a set of blueprints,” Dani offers. She’s a big-shot architect now, or as big as she can be for someone who refuses to move to a huge city. Her son Felipo, also three, is sitting on her lap, and Wolf is rocking baby Rachele, who’s only a few weeks old.

  “That would be great,” I tell her. “It really means a lot to me to have you all contribute like this.”

  “You’re family,” Kosta says with a smile. “It’s what we do.” He plucks his and Erin’s six-month-old daughter Fia from her high chair and tucks her against his chest. “Tonio and I could contribute the grand prize, eh, cugino?”

  Kosta’s done quite well with his investments. These days he’s a full-time philanthropist, overseeing his own charitable foundation. Erin finished law school at the same time as Romero and his cousin Kara were looking to expand their law practice, so now the three of them work together.

  “Of course,” Tonio says. He’s holding Nico, who’s only two and a half and has fallen sound asleep. “And my bride could contribute a poem, perhaps.”

  Caitlin blushes. She and Tonio are still like newlyweds, except they’re not gooey about it. You can just tell that they’re never going to stop being crazy about each other. “I could do that,” she says.

  Cait’s come into her own as a poet, and has had two collections published, but I think she hasn’t quite adjusted to thinking of herself as a serious artist yet.

  “I’ll do a gift certificate too,” Brando says. He sends Sasha a fond smile. “A free coupon for a social work consultation might be a little tricky, however.”

  “Ba ba ba ba ba!” Clara announces. She and her twin brother Angelo are in highchairs on either side of Sasha and Brando.

  “A gift certificate for free baby babbles?” Sasha says, laughing. “I could record them and send them out to people who need cheering up.”

  “You’ll start a new trend,” I tell her. “I would be more than willing to bet there are people who’d pay for that.”

  “And why not?” Rico agrees. “A happy baby is one of the best sounds in the world.”

  “You would know, cugino,” Kosta says.

  The sound of grownup laughter, it turns out, is pretty therapeutic too.

  Everyone helps with the cleanup, but still, it’s late by the time all my cousins and their spouses and kids have gone home, and later still by the time Quinn and I have our own brood settled and asleep.

  “Mmm,” Quinn says, her fingers tracing circles on the small of her back. “That was great. I really loved having everyone here.”

  “Nothing better than family.”

  I take over rubbing her back. She leans forward and braces her hands against the wall, groaning appreciatively when I dig in with my thumbs. “Want a shower?” I ask when her muscles are loose and warm.

  “Yeah.” Quinn smiles at me. “Want to join me?”

  “I can do that,” I say, as though that weren’t the idea all along. I trail her into the bathroom, bringing a baby monitor along and setting it on the counter. I untie the sash of her dress, then undo the buttons. Sliding the fabric from her shoulders, I lift her hair and brush my lips against the back of her neck.

  “Teo.” Turning, she slides her hands up my chest. “You know you’re the greatest gift life has given me. Every moment of every day of every year.”

  My wife never gets tired of saying things like that to me. Truth be told, I never get tired of hearing them. She changed my life the day she handed me that ice cream.

  “You know you’re my heart.” I kiss the palm of her hand, then lay it flat against my chest. “Always.”

  She presses against me, winding her arms around my neck. It’s late, and we’re tired, so I keep the kiss slow and sensual, backing her up without breaking the connection until I can reach the shower and turn it on. Steam rises around us while we undress each other, touching, tasting.

  When everything with Santiago was finally wrapped up, and I was free to go on leave, I did exactly what I’d imagined. I took every day I had coming, and I spent it with Quinn. We didn’t stay in bed the entire time, but we were about as far from celibate as you can get. And every day, I wanted her more.

  Now, I lift her with my hands under her ass and set her against the wall of the shower. She wraps her legs around my waist, inviting me in. I nudge at her wet heat with my cock, then slowly slide inside her.

  “Teo,” she moans against my skin. “My Teo.”

  “Quinn. Always mine.” I build up speed as gradually as I can, savoring the interlude, trying to make it last. Eventually the urgency takes over, until I’m pummeling her, driving into her hard and fast. I’m just about to tell her to find her clit and finish herself off when she cries out and clamps down, sending me over the edge with her.

  When we’ve recovered, we finish the shower and dry off. I love our kids, but I’m thankful that Quinn and I managed some quality alone time without any interruptions. A few minutes later, we’re in bed together, and my mind starts to drift.

  One day, when my leave was almost up, I took Quinn to meet Gavriella at the private facility where she’d been lingering in a coma since suffering an overdose. I held my cousin’s hand, and told her how much I loved her, and how thankful I was that she’d been a part of my life. I told her that in my mind, she was blameless; but if she felt she wanted, or needed, my forgiveness for anything, then she had it.

  Then it was Quinn’s turn. She told Gavi how much she loved me; that I was a good man, one who cared deeply about people, about right and wrong; and that she, Gavriella, had been instrumental in making me who I was.

  The next day, Gavi slipped quietly away. Quinn believes that our visit gave her the peace she needed to let go. I’d like to think that’s true, that we’re a small part of the reason she’s not suffering anymore.

  Not long after that, Quinn and I got officially engaged. When our baby girl was born, it was Quinn’s idea to name her after Gavi. Our wedding was small … for an Adamo event.

  “Teo?” Quinn says sleepily.

  “Hmm?” I roll to my side so I’m spooning her. The injuries I got from Santiago have long since healed, except for some scarring along my ribs. It doesn’t hurt, and Quinn doesn’t mind it, so most of the time I forget it’s there.

  “I forgot to put Gavi’s pediatrician appointment on the calendar; that injured swan came in just then. Help me remember to write it down tomorrow, please.”

  “Gavi, pediatrician, calendar. Got it.”

  “Thank you, baby. Love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  I should be asleep already, but all the conversation at dinner has dredged up old memories. When my leave was up, Garcia tried to get me to come back to the force. But my heart wasn’t in it anymore, and I wouldn’t have been doing my fellow cops any favors by staying.

  I thought about joining Carlo’s firm, but I’m too independent to take orders well. Then Quinn mentioned the idea of the wildlife sanctuary, and it brought back my childhood love of animals, and in a weird sort of way it
all seemed to fit.

  Quinn says it’s not weird at all, that I’m a protector at heart. My wife is wiser about such things than I am. I only know I’m a damn lucky man, and the rest of my life is not too long to show my gratitude.

  I tuck her closer and slide into slumber.

  Also by Mia Madison

  Adamo Family series

  Tempting Tonio, Kissing Kosta, Craving Carlo, Vexing Victor, Reaching Rico, Lone Wolf, Dreaming Dante, Baring Brando, Risking Romero, Leaving Lando

  The Forbidden series

  Forbidden Intern, Forbidden Heat

  Dad's Best Friend stories

  Marcus Mine, Latin Spice, Forever My Lady, Zayum Zaddy, Dad’s Billionaire Buddy, A Day and Forever, Falling for the Star, His Shy Librarian, My Secret Crush, Dad’s Royal Buddy, Hot Single Dad, Major Dad, The Man Next Door, Hot Cop Next Door, Angel’s Fantasy, Soulmates

  Naughty Boss stories

  My Dad’s Boss, Bossy Christmas Party, My Boss’s Boss, Business with Pleasure, Bossy Valentine, Bossy Billionaire, Dangerous Curves Ahead, Bossy Daddy, The One and Only, Bossed by the Single Dad, Dangerous Temptation, Bossy Christmas Party 2, Babysitter for the Single Dad, Snowed in with my Boss

  Sexy Professor stories

  What Happens In Vegas, Late Night Confessions, Beneath the Mask, My Hot Professor

  Other Older Man / Younger Woman stories

  Bossy Billionaire, Weekend in Paradise, Head Over Heels, Temptation Next Door, Filthy Sweet Mechanic, Scream Come True, Lady and the Champ, Bad Santa, Rock This Christmas

  Fireman series

  My Filthy Fireman, Playing With Fire, Burning For You, On Fire, Babysitter Wanted, Caught by the Fireman, My First Time Fireman, Light My Fire, Falling for the Single Dad

  Love At First Sight series

  Touch & Taste, Work & Play, Protect & Serve, Wants & Needs, Bend & Break, Past & Present