“You have got to be fucking shitting me.” Daniel sat across the bar from me a good hour before the first staff was set to arrive.

“Not even a little bit.” I fucking wished I had been, but things were just as bad as I told him. “What do you think?”

After the all shit hit the fan with Milton, my alpha instincts went into overdrive. I hired the best lawyer I could find. I made sure we had an extra big bubble around Bella so that she didn’t need to know about what was happening until it was necessary or if we ran into Milton. And I reassured Ethan every moment I could.

We brought the doula he was interested in for an interview, which turned out to be a great move. He saw the tension in Ethan and immediately started planning everything from yoga for pregnant omegas, to meditation afternoons, to who knew what. Josiah had been spot on about him being completely off his rocker, but at the same time a decent guy.

But even all that felt like I wasn’t doing near enough, and led me to sitting across from Daniel, asking him to do something I knew would bring up a past he wanted to keep locked away. But I was desperate.

After the drunk had slammed into the car Pete was driving, killing him instantly and leaving me scarred, but otherwise unharmed, Daniel had lost it. He had been the one who was supposed to drive me to my college interview, but had decided getting laid was more important. To be fair, at seventeen, getting laid was more important. And if he had been driving, who’s to say it wouldn’t have been Daniel dead instead of Pete? Daniel probably would have preferred that. I’d never blamed him, but he blamed himself.

While I’d spent the next couple of years dealing with the lawsuit and covering my body with tattoos to hide the scars, Daniel enlisted in the army. The second he had his two years in, he was recruited to be a CID investigator and from there I had no idea what, because that was when he disappeared for five years. He’d never shared with me what shit went down, but something horrible must have, because he would never talk about it, and one thing Daniel and I had always done too much of was oversharing with each other. The only thing I knew for sure was it left him with the ability to find out damn near anything, even things that were supposed to be hidden away never to see the light of day.

Now I was about to ask him to revisit that past in a roundabout way, and I felt like dog doo, but my family needed me, so there it was.

I waited for him to share what he thought about all that went down with Milton. When he was ready, he would answer, not a moment earlier.

I poured him another iced tea as he pulled out his phone, tapped away, then put it back in his pocket.

“My thoughts are, if this guy is as young as you think, and he was with Ethan when he was only eighteen, chances are he has a past that he wants hidden.” Daniel took a huge sip of his tea. “I can find the dirt.”

“But...”

“It might mean money. Big money.”

“Done.” He could take every penny I had. I didn’t even want to know what the money was for. Daniel would never take money from me he didn’t feel he earned. We’d fought over it when he first came back, but eventually he got it. He couldn’t stomach the thought of taking anything from the settlement. He never accepted that Pete’s death hadn’t been his fault, no matter what I said or did.

“Are you going to even hear me out, asshole?” He punched my shoulder from across the bar.

“Sorry, I’m a bit on edge.” Understatement of the fucking year.

“As you should be.” He twirled his straw around his cup, stirring his ice. “This guy is dangerous. He’s being too impulsive. I’m not sure what game he is playing at, but it doesn’t add up.”

“It doesn’t.” I walked out from behind the bar to sit next to Daniel.

“I will see what I can find, but if I need to use more resources, that’s where it will cost you.” Daniel flinched as he said “more resources,” and I could only guess what those were.

“I’ll pay you, of course,” I blurted, instantly regretting it. Money was the last thing he would want from me. That wasn’t him.

“Fuck off, asshole. You will do no such thing.”

“Then I’m not giving you any info.” Why couldn’t I shut up?

“Not like I need it.” He shoulder-checked me. “But listen, if you feel the need to spend money, then you can add that grill I’ve been begging you for, so we can add some burgers to the menu.”

“Tell the truth—you want this to turn into a full-on pub.” We eased back into a long-time argument and I felt more at ease. This wasn’t hitting him as hard as I thought it would. I’d known from experience anytime he thought of those contacts, things got rough. Maybe this time was different because he saw it as a way to make up for the past he didn’t need to make up for. And honestly if this did it for him and eased his burden, then I was all over that. Plus, he was so getting his fucking grill.

“What gave it away?” He flicked his straw in my face, a drop of his tea landing in my eye. “Me asking you every few months?”

“Done.” Because a grill was worth it, even if it meant a lot of added bullshit to the daily running of the place. Heck, I’d give him a full-on restaurant if he wanted it.

“Really? You always give me a dance about the added stress a menu like that would add blah, blah, blah.” He flicked his straw again.

“Because every bit of that is true, but this is my family.” And I would move mountains for them.

Shit, if we had to move to another country to get away from Milton, I’d be on the next plane with them. Not that that was Ethan’s best move as a threat. It really had given Milton ammunition.

“No grill needed. I was just giving you shit.”

He was still getting that grill.

“You deserve a family. The one you were born to was shit.” That was a freaking understatement. Not that Daniel’s was any better.

“True, but I had you and Charlie.” And Pete went unspoken. “And now? Now I have two amazing men, a beautiful princess, and two babies on the way. I’d say I lucked out in the family department.”

“You fucking hit the jackpot, that’s for sure.” He went back to stirring his drink, a sadness tainting his voice. “Ok, I’ll need the night off. Want me to call in Marc? I’ve been teaching him the back of the house stuff.”

Excellent. He was starting right away.

“I’ll call him.” Or I’d work on my night off. Either way, he didn’t need to worry about it, not at all. “You go ahead and—thanks.”

“Anytime brother, anytime.” He climbed off his stool. “I have a feeling this guy is going to be easy to find dirt on. It sounds like he thinks his shit don’t stink and people like that tend to be sloppy. Give me a week.”

I nodded. Shit, he could have up until the time of our hearing, which according to the lawyer would be at least a month because he was ‘king of dribbling in paperwork.’ “And boss?”

“Yeah?” I stood up to walk him out.

“If I find things that are bad—like real bad, should I handle them? Or do you want the information to decide?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to even know what he would do with any information if it were bad enough to warrant that question.

“Use your best judgement. I trust you—”

“I know—with your life.” He mimicked my voice—quite poorly at that.

“No—with my family and they mean more to me than my life.”

I walked him the rest of the way out and saw my men pulling into the Princess spot. Perfect. I needed to see them, touch them, feel them.

“Looks like my cue to leave. See ya, boss.” He gave me a forced smile as my men made their way to me. “Bye, guys. I’ll see you around.”

They both gave their good-byes to Daniel and we walked up to our place.

Ryan had the day off work due to a water main break at his school, which gave us a few glorious us hours. I loved our time as a family, but I also enjoyed our time just the three of us, especially when we were good and naked.

“Bella excited about her book report?” I asked no one in particular as the door closed behind us. She’d done her report on one of her bazillion princess books and left the house dressed as the main character.

“Anytime she gets to dress up as a princess for school, she is excited.” Ethan held up his phone, so I could see her standing in the “story time” frame her teacher had made for the hallway. She was beaming.

“I need to text Marc, but after that I am yours until pick up time.” I winked at both the guys before whipping out my phone and texting. He pinged back almost instantly with a yes.

“Hmmmm, I wonder what we should do?” Ryan tapped his finger to his lips as if he had no idea whatsoever.

“We need to put the cribs together. UPS delivered them this morning.” Ethan, very unhelpfully suggested.

“I was leaning to the side of blowing Ryan while he blew you, but yeah, furniture assembly works.”

“There are only two cribs.” He pointed to the boxes I’d missed when we had come in. He’d mentioned that he’d been nesting and wanted everything done, but I’d never known him to pass up good head. His pants told me at least his lower half was on board, though. And the babies were months away from arriving, but that was not a discussion I wanted to start because then he would go on and on about babies having their own time table and twins coming early and we’d never get to the fun.

“I mean how many parts could there be?” Ryan asked with a tinge of humor. Ethan did not take it as such.

“A thousand.” He stated as fact. “I already looked up the online tutorial. There are a thousand.” Of course he did.

I held in a laugh knowing it would be less than helpful.

“So, you really are choosing furniture assembly over blowjobs?” I saddled up to him, using my scent to my advantage because everything from his tone to his body language told me he wanted to push aside the cribs, but his stupid nesting instincts weren’t allowing him to relax enough to do so.

“It has to get done.” He leaned his head on my shoulder.

“I have an idea.” Ryan stepped up close and whispered between our ears, “How about I blow Larry as he blows you and then you take a nap while Larry and I put the cribs together?”

Fucking sexiest alpha alive.

“You are killing me now, Ryan.” I groaned, my cock practically breaking through the zipper on my jeans it was so fucking hard. “You know that, right?”

Smug bastard nodded.

“Ethan, you need to say yes, you do realize that. Your boner doesn’t lie.” I placed my hand there to add to my proof and—because I wanted my hands on him.

“But twins can come early and—” He started into his very lackluster argument as Ryan took two steps back and pulled out his phone. “Who are you calling?” Ethan reached for the phone and Ryan’s stealth step back finally made sense.

I’d had no idea what he was up to, but the mischief dancing in his eyes told me it was going to be glorious.

“Hey, Julian.”

Or not. He was calling the Brit, who I’d had to start liking for Ryan’s sake.

“Yeah, I have a favor to ask you. Yes, another one.” He rolled his eyes and I held in a smirk and grabbed Ethan’s hand. “You know how you are like the god of Ikea assembly? Yeah, if I hook you up with whatever you want at the bar, can you possibly assemble two cribs for me after you get off work?” There was a far longer pause than the rest. It wasn’t a simple yes.

“I meant drinks, not men—jerk.”

Ethan shook his head at that in mirth.

“Besides I think Marc has an alpha,” Ryan lied. Good man. “Larry is nodding yes, he does.”

I so was not.

“But there’s beer and fried mushrooms. No. They don’t have steak pie and now you are just being obstinate. Excellent. I will see you at five thirty.”

He slipped his phone into his pocket.

“Done.” He closed the distance between us. “Now, what was it we were going to do today, my sexy mates?”

Everything. It turned out that we spent the day doing everything we had discussed and so much more. By the time we had to get ready to pick up Bella, we were all completely sated and all of the things from my conversation with Daniel had been pushed aside. It was just what the three of us needed.