Listen Pitch

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  The baby wasn’t moving. Wasn’t breathing. Wasn’t doing anything—which made my heart stutter.

  It was made to look so fuckin’ real that it gave me the creeps.

  “Why?” I asked, sounding just as angry as I felt.

  Pablo didn’t pretend to misunderstand my question.

  “It’s either I take the baby, or you give me the money. I don’t hurt girls…but this one? He’s gonna grow up to be just like you. And I can’t have that. I can’t have someone else stealing what’s mine.”

  It was a good call dressing the baby in all blue, and covering the baby doll with a soft blue blanket. Joker had a few good ideas, that was for sure.

  “What about the other surrogate? The one carrying my little girl?” I asked. “If you don’t hurt women—females—what were they?” I hissed.

  I knew the answer.

  Michael.

  I just wanted to see if Pablo had known that his right-hand man had gone rogue.

  “I had nothing to do with that death.” Pablo snorted. “It was sad and unfortunate.”

  It was.

  Very much so.

  “You may not have had anything to do with it, but someone under your employ did…what’s wrong, Pablo? You can no longer control your people?” I pushed. “Sorry, correct me if I’m wrong but...isn’t that what you got so mad at my father for? Not controlling someone he was supposed to have the upper hand with?”

  Pablo bared his teeth. “No such thing…”

  I pulled up my phone, queued up the video I’d taken of Michael’s confession, then hit play with it at max volume.

  The denial on Pablo’s lips died.

  “I’ll kill him,” Pablo breathed, aiming the gun at the cradle. “After I kill your legacy.”

  “I think that’s quite enough,” Joker, the broker, said as he entered the room. “Plus, I already took care of him for you. That is my job, yes? To clean up messes before too many people get involved?”

  Pablo’s eyes narrowed on the broker, and then he turned his eyes to me, as if I’d betrayed him.

  Sorry, sucker. You betrayed me first.

  “It’s rightly my money,” Pablo snarled, cocking the gun.

  He didn’t look away from my eyes as he pulled the trigger.

  Lynn’s bullet hit Pablo in the forehead moments after the reverberation filled the room from the first gunshot, and I dropped to my knees, unable to catch my breath, as I watched Pablo fall backward.

  The moment his body hit the floor, I felt such a sense of relief that it was hard to catch my breath.

  “It’s good, yes, that I moved them when I did?” Joker asked, sounding proud of himself.

  I got up, walked over to the cradle, and looked in.

  The only thing in there was a small plastic doll wrapped up in a hospital blanket—a doll that now had a bullet hole through its plastic skull.

  If Pablo had cared to look, he’d have seen that the baby wasn’t real.

  If he had half a brain, he would know that babies that were as small as mine wouldn’t be in anything but an incubator to help them breathe and thrive—to help regulate their temperature.

  I switched over the app on my phone, taking a long hard look at the nurses and doctor that flitted around my children’s bedsides. They were both in huge plexiglass incubators, and they were both covered from head to toe with wires and tubes.

  It hurt my heart to see.

  “You missed one.”

  I whipped around in time to see Henley roughly force a man’s hand behind his back, twisting his thumb up high between the man’s back while also holding a gun to his head.

  Irrational anger surged through me.

  “What are you doing here?” I snarled.

  But in the next second, Lynn had the man by the hair and was forcing him to his knees at the same time Henley hit me like a wrecking ball.

  I threw my arms around her and squeezed her so hard that it was likely I was causing her pain.

  I didn’t stop, though, and she didn’t ask me to.

  “I came because Marsala said the safe word,” she whispered. “Her location said she was here.” She looked over at the baby doll that we’d used as a stand-in, and she shuddered. “I have a feeling Marsala was bad?”

  I laughed. “You have no idea. She gave her location away—which I knew she would do—and we transferred the babies via Medivac to a new safe house about eight hours ago. You weren’t supposed to leave.”

  Henley narrowed her eyes. “You could’ve solved all of this by telling me what the fuck was going on.”

  I didn’t miss the anger in her voice. Nor did I miss the way she was staring at me with a ton of accusations in her eyes.

  “I had to finish this,” I told her honestly. “And do you even know how to use a gun?”

  The anger. The helplessness. The worry. It was all still there.

  Pablo was dead. Michael was dead. Marsala was dead. There was nothing else that could hurt us…except it felt too good to be true.

  “You should really back away and keep some distance between you and the gun, just in case he tries to reverse y’all’s positions. Then you’re not in jeopardy of losing your firearm,” Lynn supplied helpfully.

  With practiced ease, he brought him up to his face and stared into his eyes for a few long seconds. “What is your name?”

  The man blinked. “My name is Artu—”

  Arturo didn’t get the chance to finish his name before his words were cut off with a swift twist of his neck. The slimy, sickening pop of his spinal cord severing followed those words.

  Henley bent over and threw up at Joker’s feet.

  “Holy shit,” she breathed, trying not to lose it a second time.

  That was futile when Joker let the man fall at his feet, directly in the puddle of puke that’d just been emitted from Henley’s body.

  “I’m so going to hell,” she wheezed.

  I walked over to her, as sedately as I possibly could, and drew her back into my arms.

  “I can’t breathe,” Henley wheezed.

  I couldn’t seem to let her go.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t…I can’t…”

  She threaded her arms around my neck. “I can’t either. It’s okay.”

  But it wasn’t…then buried her face into my shoulder.

  And everything didn’t seem as bad as it seemed only a few seconds ago.

  ***

  “So, you’re telling me, over this past month, you’ve hunted down every single man in your uncle’s organization, with Joker’s help, and nobody is going to do a damn thing about it because Joker, this broker guy you were discussing as a neutral party, was the one to pull the trigger? And nobody will question him?” Henley said. “And, only eight hours before, our children had been in that room where Pablo had entered all because Marsala decided to turn bad?”

  “Marsala and the other surrogate were always bad. Pablo knew exactly what we were going to do—find someone to do this the expedient way—and he made sure to have a doctor on his payroll at each surrogate center in the area,” I explained.

  “And the one we called just so happened to have two ready and willing surrogates ready and waiting?” She shook her head. “I should’ve known that was too easy.”

  I agreed.

  I should have, but I hadn’t.

  That was what was really bothering me. I’d known Pablo my entire life, as he did me. I really should’ve been able to predict what had happened.

  Should’ve been able to protect everyone—yet it hadn’t worked.

  “Well, shit.” She shook her head, frowning.

  That frown turned into a bared set of teeth. “Did you find Marsala?”

  I nodded once. “Dead.”

  “Stupid bitch.”

  I noticed that she didn’t ask how she was dead when she’d been deemed as stable not five minutes after us arriving. She’d only taken the medicine that had st
arted her contractions—having gotten those from her doctor before this had all started in the instance that a situation such as the one she’d found herself in came to fruition.

  Now, she was very much dead.

  That was also thanks to Joker.

  If Joker was anything, he was thorough, that was for sure.

  “Are we safe now, then?” she asked, looking up at me with wide eyes.

  I nodded, tucking hair behind her ear.

  Henley blew out a breath, then stood up, heading in the direction of our children.

  We’d been in to see them both a few minutes before, and the only reason I’d gotten her away from them was due to a doctor asking us to step outside while machines were moved, and monitors were set back in place.

  The move earlier had been done hastily, and this new house just outside of town had better equipment thanks to me calling in a few favors.

  “Let me…” Henley never got to finish her sentence.

  In between her standing up and taking a few steps in the direction of the babies, she’d lost her footing.

  No, she hadn’t lost her footing.

  She’d fainted.

  “Henley!”

  ***

  “You’re mistaken.” Henley shook her head. “I’m not pregnant. I got my period just last week. I’m not pregnant. Periods and pregnancies aren’t something that go together.”

  The doctor smiled wanly. “Trust me when I say that you are indeed pregnant. And not just by a little bit. More like six months along.”

  Henley turned her head to stare at me with shock-filled eyes.

  “I told you to wear condoms!”

  Epilogue

  In marriage, you really have two conversations. The one you’re having, and the one your husband thinks you’re having.

  -Henley’s secret thoughts

  Henley

  Five months later

  Rhys rolled over in the bed, jostling me out of my semi-doze, and reached for the phone. I had my transmitter in so I could hear the babies if they woke.

  “Hello?” Rhys answered, sounding tired as hell.

  Which he probably was.

  Our twins were getting their first teeth in, and they were little baby spawns of the devil over the last two days.

  The only thing that had kept me sane was Rhys’ constant vigil at my side.

  He’d rock with me, walk the floors, and sing lullabies if nobody was listening.

  Then we’d switch kids and do it all over again.

  Thank God that our younger baby, who was three months younger than the twins, was such a good baby.

  Seriously, I’m not sure how the hell I would’ve done this without him. I still wasn’t sure that I was doing it with him, but at least him at my side made all of this bearable…until spring training started back up in T minus eleven days.

  Then there was the little added fact that not only was he starting spring training, but they were training in freakin’ Oklahoma of all places because the Lumberjacks stadium, as well as all team buildings and practice fields, were getting a facelift.

  Meaning he wasn’t just starting up practice from sun up to sun down. He was also going to be in a different state while he did it for three months.

  Though, I was following him there once we found a rental house—although Rhys said he was going to straight up buy one if it got to the point where he couldn’t find one that he liked in a good amount of time.

  “Hello?”

  I vaguely heard a woman’s voice on the other end of the line and wondered if it was Renata.

  “That your sister?” I asked with a sleepy voice.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  I hummed and closed my eyes, wondering if it’d be okay to go ahead and go back to sleep. He wouldn’t mind. I knew that he wouldn’t, yet I felt like a jerk for being asleep when he was just as tired as I was.

  “Okay, when do you need me?” he rumbled.

  That woke me up better than the coffee that I’d been mainlining since the birth of the twins.

  The twins had spent seven full weeks in the NICU. Marshall had gotten to come home first, as he was the first one to reach the five-pound mark and be breathing on his own. Maddie had followed a few days later, reaching the five-pound mark on her exact due date.

  We’d gotten them all to ourselves for a whole month—exactly thirty-one days—before our final little girl, Mellie, had made her arrival.

  Overall, Mellie and the twins were eleven and a half weeks apart.

  “I’ll be there. Just send me the flight info when you have it. Text it to me, that’s fine. Yes. I’m sorry. Yes. I’ll be there, it’s no trouble at all. Thanks, have a good day,” Rhys said as he hung up the phone.

  He dropped his head to my chest and then moaned into my breasts.

  The movement caused things inside me to clench in need, but then the telltale cry of one of our children sounded out, and the moment was lost.

  “Fuuuuuck.”

  I snorted and pushed his head off my boobs, then reached for my shorts that were on the ground next to the bed.

  “Don’t go,” he whined.

  “If I don’t go, whoever is awake will wake up the others. Do you want that?” I teased.

  We both knew he didn’t. That was why he didn’t complain as I walked out of the room and went to our eldest baby—Marshall’s—crib and gently pulled him out.

  The moment he was in my arms, his cries instantly waned.

  “You’re such a turkey,” I whispered to him, glancing at the other babies who, thankfully, were still fast asleep.

  He laid his head down on my chest, and I felt something akin to peace stir through me.

  The last year had been one hell of a ride, but I wouldn’t trade a single thing for the world.

  Not one thing.

  “He okay?”

  I looked up to find Rhys, in only a pair of underwear, staring at me with his arms crossed tight over his chest.

  His sun-bronzed skin was darker than usual thanks to him and his teammates putting together a jungle gym for our children—a jungle gym that Rhys had insisted that we get despite the fact that the kids wouldn’t really be able to enjoy it for years to come.

  I nodded and handed Marshall over to Rhys, who immediately snuggled in close to his daddy’s chest.

  Seeing them together, Marshall in only a diaper, chest to chest with his daddy, sent a thrill shooting through me.

  God, I loved my family.

  He backed away and held his arm up, and I didn’t hesitate in moving so my side was against his, his arm around my shoulders and pulling me in tight.

  He walked quietly with me back to our room. Once we got there, we all climbed back into bed.

  “What was that call about?” I asked quietly, burrowing under the covers and scooting until my body was in the crook of Rhys’ arm.

  Rhys pressed a kiss to Marshall’s head—who’d fallen asleep again—before answering.

  “There’s a little boy that I was supposed to go see for that Make-A-Wish campaign next week. Unfortunately, the little boy took a turn for the worse, and they asked if I’d be willing to come now while he’s still with us. I said yes,” Rhys murmured, sounding sick.

  I looked up at my husband. “You’re a good man, Rhys.”

  Rhys didn’t smile.

  “A good man wouldn’t have brought you into my messy life,” he murmured. “A good man would’ve given that money to Pablo, not put my sister or her family in danger, and definitely not brought you into the middle of my drama.”

  I pressed a kiss to his chest. “Your sister is fine. Her husband and child are great. I’m fine. You have three sweet babies.”

  The one baby that we’d had to bury thanks to Michael’s actions wasn’t forgotten. We both felt that loss deep in our soul and still found ourselves visiting that tiny little grave when we thought about her. Which was a lot. More than one would think. />
  Sometimes, when I was feeling the urge to go visit, I’d find Rhys already there.

  But instead of interrupting him, I gave him the time that he needed. And he did the same for me.

  “I just wanted you to know that, technically, you’re allowed to divorce me if you want to.”

  I turned in Rhys’ arm and looked at him, a knot of fear climbing up my throat, and swallowed. “I guess that goes both ways. You’re allowed to divorce me, too, if you want to.”

  His eyes took on this weird, almost possessed look. Then he leaned forward until my face was so close to his that even a sheet of paper couldn’t separate us. “I’ll never, not ever, leave you. At least not willingly.”

  I settled back down into his arm.

  “I love you, Rhys. The only time I’ll ever leave you is in death.”

  His arm tightened almost painfully around me, and he pressed a kiss to my head—right above my transmitter.

  “I love you, too, baby. Your supposed flaws and all.”

  I gave him a look that clearly said what I thought about his comment.

  I did have flaws.

  Just because he chose not to see them as flaws, didn’t mean that I didn’t have them.

  I’d had to completely change how I lived my life since having children. I had to constantly wear my transmitter to bed so I could hear if our children cried, and sometimes I got debilitating headaches that took me out for hours.

  Thank God for my sister, brother, and mother—as well as Rhys.

  I didn’t know what I’d do without them.

  “No flaws. Just perfectness,” he murmured, bringing his arm up and pulling my head closer to him so he could drop another kiss onto my head.

  I smiled and closed my eyes, realizing that this was what life was all about. Happiness. Love. Acceptance.

  Rhys gave me all of that and more, and I was so lucky that he found me—or that I found him.

  It was hard to think that a year ago I was sitting at his bedside, hoping that he’d wake up from a coma.

  What a difference a year makes.

  A year ago, I was struggling to make ends meet. Now, I was living with a millionaire that had literally donated every single penny—down to the last million dollars—to March of Dimes and hadn’t even blinked as he wrote the check.