I OPEN MY EYES AND jerk when my last memories hit my like a tsunami.
Mark. The knife. The lamp. And my will to live—to fight.
“She’s waking up, honey.”
I move my head and look at my mom, who is standing on the left side of my bed. My daddy is standing right behind her with his arms wrapped tight around her, their eyes red and swollen. I move my eyes around the room and see Nate, his eyes dripping with tears. I give him a weak smile, and he turns his face from mine as he struggles to take control of his emotions.
I continue my rotation until I look down at the weight pressing against my hip. The dark-brown hair buzzed on the side and overgrown on the top. The strong shoulders heaving with emotion. And I feel his tears wetting my hand he’s holding against his parted lips.
My heart breaks for the pain he’s in, and I know there isn’t anything I can do to ease it until he works out on his own whatever is running through his mind. I squeeze him, anxious to see those dark-brown eyes. I need him to see that I’m okay—I need to see that he’s okay.
“Cohen—” I rasp and clear my throat. “Baby,” I beg, feeling my own tears roll down my cheeks.
His shoulders start to heave when my voice hits his ears. I watch helplessly as the man I love falls apart. I look over to my parents and pray for answers, but I watch as my mom’s own tears cascade down her porcelain skin. My dad has his head bowed and his forehead resting against her shoulder, his body hunched in a way I know can’t be comfortable. I hear the door click and look over to see that Nate has left the room.
Without getting any help, I move my attention back to Cohen and try again. “Baby, please look at me. I need your eyes.”
He struggles to control his emotions, and I watch with my eyes filling with tears as he lifts his head and I get a good look at my handsome man.
His chocolate eyes are filled with pain, and through the red-rimmed swelling around them, his tears continue to fall. His lips are dry from what I’m guessing is the sobbing I felt against my skin.
I reach up and run my fingers across his cheek. “It’s you and me against the world, Cohen. Never goodbye, remember?”
He closes his eyes at my words and gives me a nod. I watch as he struggles again, but he wins against his pain, and when he opens his eyes again, I see my Cohen looking back at me.
“Just see you soon,” he sighs.
“Every time I close my eyes.”
He smiles. It’s slightly wobbly, but it’s a smile nonetheless, and I return it.
“We have a son,” he says in reverence.
“He’s okay?” I study his face for clues, and when the little sadness that was left in his eyes vanishes and he hits me with the full force of his smile, my heart bursts.
“He’s perfect.”
“Perfect,” I cry. “Tell me more,” I beg.
“He’s big considering he was preterm. Just under five pounds, but he’s a fighter, Dani-girl. They have him in NICU being monitored, but when I spoke to the nurse, she said she could see him coming home in a month at the most. He looks like me,” he adds with his smile growing. “With your lips.”
I soak it in, the fact that we have a son. Cohen and my baby together. Our little fighter.
Seems fitting that a love we’ve both been fighting to withstand, overcome, and, in the end, fight for would produce a little miracle that was a fighter in his own right.
“Our little fighter,” I say, repeating the words I just thought.
He nods, and I swallow the lump in my throat.
“I thought I lost you,” he says after studying my face for the longest time.
“Never, baby. Never.”
“I thought I lost you, and that was one of the most terrifying experiences I have ever felt. I won’t spend another second without you being mine. I mean it, Dani. When we get you and our boy home, I’ll drag you right to the courthouse, but you will be mine.”
I reach out, wrap my hand around the back of his neck, and pull him towards me. “When you learn how to ask me, then we’ll talk.”
His eyes flash, and his leans down to give me a deep kiss. I hear a growl from my side and smile against his lips.
“Hush, Axel.”
I feel Cohen laughing softly against my mouth, and I join him only seconds after.
Four Weeks Later
“Cohen!” I yell up the stairs. “We don’t need the diaper bag. Come on please. I need to get him home.”
I smile when he comes bounding down the stairs and scoops me up in his arms, twirling me in a circle before placing me back on my feet.
“Our boy is coming home today!” he bellows through the room, the sound bouncing off each wall and echoing through our house.
“Stop acting crazy and take me to our son,” I beg with a smile on my face.
For four long weeks—a solid month of going back and forth—we’ve been spending every second we had between the house and the hospital. With the help of our mothers, his sisters, and Megan, our house was fully decorated and the baby’s nursery fully stocked before I even left the hospital. They kept me for four days to monitor my injuries as well as my recovery from my C-section, and since my emotions were so crazy when I got home, I cried for hours as I walked from room to room before finally settling in the nursery glider.
It was hard to come home without our baby, and I suffered from a bit of postpartum depression, so things amplified after that. I needed my son home and there just wasn’t anything that would make that feeling better.
Cohen was my rock through it all. He held me when I needed to cry and then again when I needed to scream. He talked me through every second of pain I felt over the events that had happened and taught me that it wasn’t right to feel guilt over a second of it.
Easier said than done. Because some crazy man had fixated on me, and I’d entertained that by thinking he was a friend. We’d almost lost our son—and Cohen had almost lost us both.
I know it’s irrational, that guilt, but it’s part of the healing process. Or so I’m told by my therapist. But it’s a feeling I’m not alone in carrying. Nate had a hard time coping after the attack. He felt guilt worse than mine because he hadn’t been in the room. Lee was dealing with similar issues, but he was able to rationalize his pain and focus on the positive—that he was able to save me. They have both joined me for more than a few of my therapy sessions, and I know they’ve been helping us all heal. Cohen is there for everyone. We’ve talked about how he felt and how he’s coping with it all. I wasn’t surprised in the least that he was still feeling a deep fear about losing me.
He’s been working on his issues with letting me out of his sight. It took my father’s sitting him down for him to finally come to terms with the fact that what had happened was a horrible, traumatic experience, and that, if we can’t focus on moving forward and healing, then it will just drag us down until we’re smothered in memories.
In the end, we were helpless and in a situation beyond our control. Had it not been for their swift response, I have no doubt that both the baby and I would have died in that apartment.
Chance is another part of the reason I’ve been struggling with so much pain. It kills me that he blamed himself—likely still does. But until he’s ready to cope with that and work on healing, I’m afraid there isn’t anything I can do.
It’s been easier. He comes around, but I notice that his eyes never leave mine. Like he’s afraid to look away for fear that someone might attack. He threw himself into the investigation of Mark Seymour like a man possessed.
We found out about two weeks after I was released from the hospital that Mark had been staying in the apartment directly under Cohen’s. Not only had he been watching me for over a year, but he had also had a sick collection of photos of him and me that were horribly Photoshopped. He had created a whole fantasy life—albums after albums of us.
If that weren’t bad enough, he had set up the apartment with items of mine that he had stolen throughout the year. Things I hadn’t even known were missing. He had a whole life made up for us, and the only thing that was missing was . . . me.
After his death, the police were able to locate the bodies of the two men he had slain before he’d stormed us that day. He had left detailed notes about where he’d tossed their bodies. At least, with that, their families would get some closure.
It’s been hard for everyone. We are struggling with just how insane the man who almost stole my life before it could truly begin was, but we’re all slowly healing. Today will be a big step in that process.
“I can’t wait to get him home, Cohen. To show him the house and have him under our roof.”
Cohen reaches over and grabs my hand, the one he placed a ridiculously huge diamond on three weeks ago—without proposing. “Same here, Dani-girl. It’s going to feel damn good to have my family together in our home.” He kisses my knuckles, flicks my ring with his thumb, and looks out the windshield with a huge grin.
We make it to the hospital in record time and have our son discharged and strapped to his car seat as soon as the last form is signed. I hug all the nurses we had gotten to know over the last month, and we make quick work of leaving the hospital behind on our way back to our house.
It is past time to get our family home.
Owen—meaning little fighter—James Cage. Our gorgeous son. I smile to myself and look over at his sleeping face from my spot in the back seat.
Just like Cohen said, Owen looks just like him. His dark hair, tan skin, and perfectly handsome face.
But those lips are all mine.