Page 72 of Redemption

“Wow, we get a brownie?” Pete teases as he takes his.

She flips him off, “Hey, I can share.” She smirks and adds, “Sometimes.”

“How are you feeling?” I ask her.

“Sore, but I didn’t need any stitches or anything, thank everything,” she says sounding understandably relieved. That was one of the things that I accidentally found out about when I was researching. Lyric thankfully continues, pulling me out of my thoughts, “I’m tired, but I’m so incredibly happy. I have never felt anything like the love that I feel for her.”

“So, what’s her name?” Pete asks, wriggling his eyebrows.

“Is Jynx still calling while you’re here?” Ezra asks, not so subtly changing the subject as they all come back in and sit down. Thankfully, like our home, Lyric’s has more than enough space for us all to sit.

“Yeah, actually I said that I would call her when we arrived, but we got a little distracted,” I reply, pulling out my phone. “I just need to message her first and make sure that she’s in a place where we can call her.”

Lyric frowns. “Has she told you what’s going on yet?”

I shake my head. “Nope. You know Jynx, she won’t until the situation is truly dire.”

“I tried getting it out of Ace when he was being all gooey over the baby, but he saw straight through me,” Dominic frowns, they’re clearly all as worried as we are.

My phone starts ringing in my hand pretty much as soon as I send the message, and Lyric grins, squishing her face next to mine so that Jynx can see us both.

“Lyric!” Jynx and the guys who are all trying to squish in the frame say at once.

I hand the phone over to Lyric, and she chats away as she gets up and goes around the guys and then shows the others the baby in Jonah’s arms, and they all spend a while gushing over how beautiful she is and promising that they’ll try to get away as soon as they can and come to visit.

They also avoid any of our questions asking if they’re okay.

Lyric comes to sit back down next to me, and Quinn appears, giving her a glass of water and some painkillers, which she accepts gratefully. I take the opportunity to study Jynx, to look for any signs that there is something going on that she can’t handle. They all look tired, really tired, but none of them are showing any signs of bruises or anything like that.

Jynx meets my eyes and smirks slightly, she knows what I’m doing because it’s what she would do in my position. It’s also because she knows me so well that she’s made sure that there is absolutely nothing identifiable behind her that would mean that I would know where she was and turn up to help.

“So what’s she called?” Jynx asks.

Lyric’s smile widens, and her men’s expressions all change to anticipation, all of them smiling.

“What?” I ask, slightly worried.

“Her name is Ophelia Everleigh Jynx,” Lyric says with a misty gaze.

“Oh, Lyric,” I whisper, my voice choked with emotion. Tears stream down my face.

“Would you like to hold her?” Jonah asks me.

I nod rapidly, incapable of words.

“Oh, it’s fine. I planned to bawl my eyes out today anyway,” Jynx says with snark, a huge smile on her face and tears streaming down her cheeks.

Lyric grins, “Good.”

They carry on shooting barbs back and forth, but all of my attention is on my niece that Jonah has just placed in my arms.

“Hello, beautiful girl, I’m your aunty Ever, and I love you so much already. You’ve got lots of aunts and so many uncles that loved you before they even met you. You’re going to love being in this family,” I say quietly.

“Well now you made everyone cry,” Lyric mutters with a sniff.

“Way to go, Ever,” Jynx adds, her voice full of emotion.

I look over at them, Jynx, most of her men, Lyric, and Peter are all crying, and when I look up at the others in the room, most of them are misty-eyed too.