Page 99 of King of Ashes

“It won’t be long before we’re having to wrestle with more kids,” Jenna says to Blaise.

“Lucky for us, we have a built-in grandma.” Blaise grins.

“How is your mother?” I ask Jenna.

Jenna beams. “She’s doing really well.” Her eyes mist. “I never thought she’d see me married or her grandkids. Thanks to Blaise… to all of you… we have this marvelous life.”

Blaise kisses her temple.

"Uncle Ash is here!" Brigit announces, already climbing out of the pool and wrapping herself in a towel.

I turn to the house to see Hannah and Ash emerge. Hannah’s baby bump is now prominently showing at six months. She's radiant, laughing as she tries to wrangle their two boys—four-year-old AJ and two-year-old Finn, who bolt down to the pool deck.

“I got ‘em,” Ash says. Of all my brothers, I’m most surprised how he’s found a happy life. I’d been sure he’d never get over the guilt and pain of losing Meghan. I suppose some of those feelings remain, but there’s no denying the happiness he’s found with Hannah and their two, almost three, children.

"Sorry we're late," Ash says as he scoops up a kid in each arm like it was nothing. "Someone insisted on making pie from scratch this morning." He gives Hannah a wink.

"Worth the wait," I reply, setting the final burger on the platter.

“I want to play.” AJ squirms in Ash’s arms. He sets the boys down and AJ rushes straight to Brigit, who high-fives him. Finn makes a beeline for Liam, and within seconds they're engaged in some elaborate game involving dinosaurs and superheroes.

Looking around at all of us, my brothers and their wives, our children playing together, I feel a completeness I’d have never thought possible during those dark years we were hiding and plotting our comeback.

“That used to be us,” I say, nodding to the kids.

For a moment, my brothers look out over the scene. Our children running and laughing without a care in the world. We’d had a happy childhood. Happier than Keira had.

"Dad would be proud of you. Of how you reclaimed his legacy,” Ash says.

In some ways, it’s a fucking miracle we’re here. None of us were old enough or experienced enough to survive in theworld we’d grown up in. Flint and Blaise, only seventeen, gangly teenagers suddenly thrust into a war they didn't start. Ash, barely twenty, still carrying the weight of Meghan's death along with our parents'. And me, twenty-one and suddenly the head of a fallen empire and three brothers looking to me for answers I didn't have.

We survived on hatred for years. Hatred kept us moving, kept us planning, kept us from falling apart completely. I remember those endless nights mapping out our revenge, teaching my brothers everything our father taught me, watching them harden into weapons when they should have been living normal lives.

Now look at them. Married, happy, raising children who will never know the fear we lived with. Somehow, we not only got our revenge and reclaimed what was stolen from us, but we also found something none of us expected. Love. Women who saw past the damage and the darkness, who loved us not despite our broken parts but because of how we fought to piece ourselves back together.

Our business has flourished beyond what even our father achieved. The Ifrinn name commands respect throughout Boston and beyond, but it's a different kind of respect than what the Keans built. We protect our own, deal fairly, and never forget where we came from. That stability has eased tensions with the other families, which is not to say we didn’t have a few skirmishes in the beginning.

The peace we've found still feels fragile sometimes, like I might wake up tomorrow back in that safe house, planning our next move with nothing but rage to fuel me. But then I look at my children, at Keira's smile, at my brothers surrounded by their families, and I know this is real.

This peace wasn't handed to us. We clawed our way here through darkness and pain. We earned every moment of this happiness, paid for it with scars both visible and hidden.

Sometimes, I still resent my father for his effort to keep me and Keira apart, to hide my child from me. But another thing Keira has taught me is to not think about the what-ifs or harbor resentment. My father did what he thought was best. I don’t agree with him, but the truth is, all of us go through life trying to do our best. I’m hoping my best is better than his. That I don’t hurt my children as he’d hurt me.

“We all did it,” I respond to Ash’s comment. “Dad would be proud of all of us.”

As I watch my family live and love, I remind myself that what my brothers did in reclaiming what was taken from us isn’t what matters most. The most important thing is the family we built.

“You’re looking contemplative,” Keira says, slipping my arm around her.

“Feeling grateful.” I pull her to me for a hug, savoring the feel of her arms around me because I can still remember the time we were apart.

I kiss her temple. “We did it, Keira. We got our happy ending.”