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Glancing over, I laugh breathlessly at the looks on my brothers’ faces, so full of astonishment and adoration.

The world narrows to just the five of us as we each meet our son in our own way.

Justice’s minuscule fingers grasp at nothing and everything all at once, and as Pace reaches down to stroke the fine, downy hair covering his head, Wicker extends his own trembling finger, face slackening when Justice’s flailing hand latches onto it.

Mama B tearfully says, “He’s beautiful.”

Wicker doesn’t even make any smirking, vain comments about him taking after his father. He just swallows, speaking through a tight throat, “He’s strong.”

“Of course he’s strong,” Pace says, clapping Wicker on the back and pulling him in for a hug. “Just like his mom and dad.”

It’s barely five minutes later that the EMS crew comes in to load Verity and Justice onto a gurney. It’s difficult to watch someone else touch them, a possessive heat coming over me as the medic covers her—myPrincess—in a blanket.

“You did good.” Mama B’s warm palm comes to rest on my shoulder. “Let them take it from here.” Glancing over, I’m taken aback by the tenderness in her eyes.

“Yeah,” I agree, although my brothers and I may as well be fused to the stretcher as they wheel her from the gym, onto the crowded West End street.

Still shell-shocked in a way, I don’t expect the sight that awaits us.

On one side of the street is a long row of handcuffed DKS.

On the other is a line of PNZ.

As soon as the gurney emerges through the doors, all of them turn to look our way, a sea of hopeful, nervous faces. But thenJustice releases another one of those squawking, raspy cries, and the crowd erupts as one.

DKS cheers while PNZ claps, and we make our march to the ambulance with congratulatory shouts of, “‘Atta girl, Princess!” and, “To the Victor, Ver!”

Maybe I never fully bought into Rufus’ bullshit—maybe East End was built on a foundation of suffering and degradation—but looking at my Princess, no five words have ever rang truer.

“To create,” I whisper, pressing a kiss to her damp forehead, “is to reign.”

Fresh from a shower,I pull the green scrub top over my head, and hear the nurse say, “Let’s help you out of this.”

Glancing over, I see her slipping Verity’s stained dress over her head, revealing her post-birth body to the entire postpartum room. Despite knowing this is a purely medical arena, it bothers me. I’m used to it just being us down in the palace’s medical wing, and right now, nurses are scrambling around us, in and out.

We were a mess when we came in, both of us covered in blood and fluid. They sent me to shower and get sterile, while the OB team checked both Verity and Justice.

“You did good work,” Dr. Hoffman says. “Both of your patients are in perfect health.”

“I didn’t do much,” I say, taking in Verity as they sponge her down. “She did the heavy lifting.”

He shakes his head. “Modesty will get you nowhere in this business, Ashby. Take the compliment—and congratulations.” He claps me on the back. “You’re a lucky man.”

When I turn back to where the team is assessing Justice, I lurch forward. “Can I do that?”

The nurse practitioner on staff pauses, holding up the syringe. “You want to administer the vitamin K injection?”

I take it. “Yes.”

I swab my son’s squirming thigh with an antiseptic wipe before uncapping the syringe. But when I look down at his tiny, writhing body, I freeze, a chill running through me at the thought of pushing the needle into him.

At causing him pain.

It twists in my stomach like sickness, the memory of all the times Father’s whip lashed my back with hot, stinging slashes.

Yakov, the NP—a burly guy I worked with occasionally during my internship—gently takes the needle from my stiff hand. “I wasn’t able to do it with mine, either. You wanna look away?”

Sighing, I turn, allowing him to administer the injection. “You’ve got kids?” I ask, watching Wicker pulling another scrub top over his head on his way out the door. He’d taken off his shirt right before EMS came to swaddle Justice in. So much for the sanctity of Versace.