Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 32755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 131(@250wpm)___ 109(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 131(@250wpm)___ 109(@300wpm)
“Push, baby,” he said.
She screamed and pushed. Her face was red, and all he wanted to do was take the pain away from her. He didn’t want her to feel anything.
“I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.”
She pushed again and then he heard it. His daughter had finally come out and she was letting the world know she was here. Her screams filled the air and his heart.
Callie collapsed against him, panting. “Do you hear that?”
“I hear it.” He kissed her head. “How are you feeling? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
The doctors were doing their usual checks and Ruin watched them all, checking on his wife. Childbirth was not safe and he’d read up on the statistics. If anything happened to his wife, then everyone in this room would die. It was as simple as that.
Seconds passed and then the midwife came toward them. “You have a beautiful baby girl,” she said. She handed them a squirming girl, swaddled in a pink baby blanket.
Ruin looked down at his daughter. The fear he had that he’d feel nothing when it came to his child evaporated. He looked down into his baby’s face and love, unlike anything he had felt, even different than what he felt for Callie, swept over him.
This was his child.
As a boy, abandoned at an animal kill shelter, he had never known parental love. He didn’t think he would ever be capable of feeling anything for a tiny human being he helped to create, but yet, as he looked at his little girl, that feeling was there.
“Ruin?” Callie asked.
“She is so beautiful, Callie. You did amazing.”
Callie chuckled. “This is both of us, Ruin. You and me.”
“Us.”
“Do you want to hold her?” Callie asked. She held their daughter toward him.
He looked at his wife, terrified. “What?”
Ruin panicked. There was nothing for him to do but take his daughter from his wife’s arms. Their baby settled against him.
“She knows who her daddy is,” Callie said.
Ruin hadn’t cried in a long time, not since the first beating when he was a boy. But in this moment, his eyes glistened over. His little girl trusted him and wanted to be near him.
He looked at Callie. “I love you,” he said.
“And I love you.”
Wrapping his arms around his woman, he dared to kiss his daughter’s head and as he did, she opened her eyes and then screamed.
“Your little girl is hungry,” the midwife said.
Epilogue
Ten Years Later
“I said no, Lily!” Ruin said.
Callie smiled as she heard their eldest daughter scream. Lily had started to become a handful. Lily wanted to learn how to fight, how to shoot, how to do everything her father did.
Ruin just wanted his little girl to stay a little girl. At ten years old, Lily constantly talked about wanting to know her own path.
“I think Daddy is going to cave soon, don’t you?” she asked, doing her baby voice for their six-month-old son.
“Go to your room!” Ruin said.
She heard Lily’s door slam a few moments later.
Callie didn’t need to turn to the door to know that Ruin had come to the nursery. She felt him as he came close, putting his hand on her hip. After ten years of marriage, not once had her feelings waned when it came to him. He still made her heart race.
“How are you?” Callie asked.
“Lily will be running out here soon, telling me how sorry she is, and that she loves me, and that she thanks me.”
Callie turned to her husband and he smiled. “Ah, our little angel has you wrapped around her finger.”
Ruin tutted. “No, not at all. It was you asking me if I wanted our daughter to be able to take care of herself or to get hurt. Not that it matters. No guy is coming near my girls.”
Ten years of marriage, six children. Four girls, two boys. After Lily, they had Charles, Talia, Ashley, Maisy, and then little Paul. For Callie, it had been ten amazing years. Ruin hadn’t wanted her to get pregnant again after the birth of Lily, but he also didn’t like to use condoms, and, well, abstaining from each other was never going to work. So, six children it was. He gripped her hip.
“You’re a good dad, Ruin.” She found herself telling him that often. He always doubted his ability.
He’d admitted to her more than once that he was scared, that he worried about screwing up their kids. It wasn’t possible. Ruin was amazing with kids. He was a great husband and father. Callie knew if her parents were alive, they would adore him.
He squeezed her hip.
Paul gave a gurgling sound and Ruin picked him up and held him close. She knew he was the Bogeyman and that he worked close with Giordano. He had also promised her his world would never touch her or their children. Ruin had kept that promise. She trusted him and had forgiven him.