Double Tap

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Downy nodded his head. “None taken,” he rumbled.

  “Code black. Code black.” The loud speaker announced as the staff and police officers that were supposed to be taking care of Andre finally realized he was missing.

  Andre groaned on the floor, and then suddenly I had a hundred and some odd pounds (‘cause Lord knows I wasn’t going for an exact estimate, she might very well castrate me!) collapse into my arms.

  She clutched her stomach and I lurched forward.

  The nurse squeaked and grabbed her around the arms long enough for me to get a better grip.

  “And I now pronounce you man and wife, you may kiss your bride,” Father Matthew said shakily.

  I was fairly sure he’d never stopped talking during the entire thing, so I was sure he’d said a few prayers over us like what was supposed to happen, but I couldn’t scrounge up the effort to care.

  “She needs to get up to the floor, now. She was at a nine when we left. There’s no telling what she’s at now, and we don’t have the babies on the monitor anymore,” the nurse said desperately.

  I’d been in the process of scooping up Georgia into my arms, but I froze with one hand at her lower back, and the other hand under her knees.

  The nurse looked at me like I was crazy. “Aren’t you the father?”

  I nodded, pulling Georgia up into my arms in time for her to pant, “Surprise!”

  I looked down at my woman and said, “Baby love, you’ve got some ‘splainin to do.”

  She grinned painfully up at me, looping her arms around my neck and said, “I was going to tell you.”

  I glowered down at her. “Honey,” I hesitated at the door, but Chief Rhodes opened it for me and allowed me to slip out sideways before I started heading to the elevator. “I’ve been at your side every night for going on two months now. There was time.”

  She shrugged. “I was holding a grudge.”

  Her brothers and my sisters, parents, as well as the nurse, got into the elevator car with us as the nurse pressed the number two button on the instrument panel.

  “I see,” I murmured, keeping my eyes straight ahead. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  She snorted. “Whatever.”

  “Them’s fightin’ words,” one of the brothers murmured from somewhere towards the front.

  My sisters laughed, and I wanted to smack them. Alas, my hands were filled with precious cargo, and I settled for stomping on the nearest one’s foot.

  Which happened to be Nikki.

  “You knew, didn’t you?” I glared.

  She glared back. “What would it matter if I did? You’ve been dead for nine months. What’d you want me to do? Tell your grave? Wasn’t it enough that I sent you prayers in heaven?”

  I was a smart man. Or at least I’d thought I was. Then I went and said something stupid like that, and just like that all my anger evaporated. “I love you, Nikki Whicki.”

  Her glare dimmed, and her eyes started to fill with tears. “It’s a miracle. I won’t complain. Just don’t ever die on me again. I don’t think my heart can handle that again.”

  I heard sniffles from down below me, and I looked down to see Georgia silently crying. “What is it, mi amor?”

  She sniffled as she said, “I want to have your babies.”

  And she did, only a few moments later.

  “Put me down, put me down!” She screeched.

  I hurriedly put her down on the first thing I saw once we exited the elevator, which happened to be a gurney with no sheet.

  “Not on that. You don’t know what’s been on that!” The nurse yelled, stripping the first thing she saw, which happened to be Ace’s suit jacket.

  Ace, surprised, didn’t fight as the nurse laid the jacket down, silk insides up. Then she grabbed the second nearest thing, which happened to be the Kevlar vest that was dangling from one shoulder where Georgia had shown how much a contraction had hurt only moments before.

  I didn’t have much of a choice about laying her down, because Georgia started to do some acrobats and she landed on the gurney on her hands and knees.

  “Whoa, I don’t think that’s the way…” Nikki cried, but Georgia was beyond listening.

  “If you don’t want to see the goods, I suggest you go the fuck away!” Georgia screamed frenziedly as she started bearing down.

  Her brothers and my father turned their backs, forming a shield of muscle and bone to block the spectacle of their sister bringing forth lives of my children.

  My sisters stood with their backs to them, as did my mom, as they watched with avid attention.

  I, of course, was on the end. I got to see fucking everything!

  “You’re taking pictures, right? I want documents of this!” Georgia yelled.

  So what do my sister’s do? They pull their fuckin’ phones out.

  “Please, for all that’s holy, don’t get that huge cooch in the shot,” Nikki yelled since she was closer to the head.

  Georgia snapped her tiny fist out and punched Nikki in the boob. “It’s not huge!”

  I snorted, and her crazy eyes turned to me.

  I shut my mouth.

  I was stupid at times…not suicidal.

  But motherfucker, her vagina was…massive.

  It’d looked like a gaping maw of a black hole…but then I started to realize it wasn’t a ‘black hole’ but a black head full of hair. Covered in stuff that I wished to not think about, but it was a head nonetheless.

  “Oh, my God! I need an epidural!” Georgia shrieked.

  I winced at the sheer volume she’d reached, but my eyes stayed glued to the miracle that was happening in front of me.

  I hadn’t thought that I’d be here to witness the birth of our child. I’d resigned myself to missing it. Now that I was here, though, experiencing it, I was humbled.

  A doctor exiting the cafeteria must’ve heard the commotion as she came over. She quickly shouldered her way in between my sister’s and the line of brothers to Georgia’s back, snapping on gloves as she went.

  She got there just in time to catch my first child. A boy.

  I had a fucking boy!

  “It’s a boy!” I whooped as the very pissed off infant started squalling.

  The lady doc turned to me and plopped my kid down in my arms, and I didn’t see the gunk and yick on him. I saw his scrunched up face. His skin coloring that matched mine. The black hair that was also from me. The lips, though. Those were all Georgia. Every last bit.

  A shirt was passed over to me, and I wrapped my first born son in a KPD SWAT shirt, courtesy of Downy.

  Luckily, I saw that he was now wearing the Under Armour with his Kevlar vest over that.

  I cleaned my son’s face with the corner of what I guessed to be a sleeve, but he was positively swallowed in the shirt, only making him all the cuter.

  “Oh, God. It’s back again,” Georgia moaned, bringing my attention back to my wife.

  This baby had much the same color hair as the one in my arms, and slipped out much, much faster than his brother.

  As in, practically shot out of Georgia like a fucking jet propelled rocket.

  “Jesus,” was echoed by not just the doctor, but my mother, and sisters as well.

  The doctor caught him, though, cradling him awkwardly in her arms as she handed that one to me as well.

  Another shirt landed in my arms and Nina, who was on my right, covered the baby with the shirt, wrapping him up and placing him back in my arm on the other side of the screaming one.

  This one, though, was much more laid back.

  He had my black hair, and skin tone, but Georgia’s nose and eye shape.

  Neither baby had their eyes open, so I couldn’t tell on eye color yet, but I knew they’d be beautiful.

  When I looked up again, I saw the doctor back between Georgia’s legs, and I started to get nervous. However, Nikki saw my panic and started to laugh, which caught Georgia’
s attention.

  “What are you laughing at?” She asked tiredly.

  Nikki laughed. “The look on his face when he thought there was another one in there.”

  Georgia smiled a serene smile, all the sass that she’d had earlier completely gone. What was left was exhaustion and a calmness that I hadn’t seen on her in quite some time.

  “Nicolas?” Georgia asked.

  I moved closer to her and squatted down so she could see the tiny little lives we’d created together. “Yes, baby love?”

  And without cracking even a smile she said, “You left those in my vagina.”

  I kissed her nose. “Yes, I most certainly did.”

  Chapter 22

  A good day is when everyone gets to go home.

  -T-shirt

  Georgia

  I covered my eyes as my brothers, yet again, replayed all the horrid things I’d said not only during my wedding ceremony, but as I was delivering my children as well.

  “If you don’t turn that off, I’m going to shove that iPhone up your fuckin’ ass,” Nico said with a deadly calm voice that sent shivers down my spine.

  I opened my eyes and smiled at my husband.

  For the first time in nearly an hour, he wasn’t holding one of our children.

  He hadn’t given them up except to receive baths and be weighed before he had them back in his arms again.

  Now his mother had one and his father had the other.

  He was laying down next to me, but trying not to touch me so he didn’t wake me.

  Talking quietly to his mother, he looked down at me when he saw my eyes were on him.

  “Hey, niña. You feelin’ okay?” He asked.

  I took stock of my body.

  It felt like I’d been hit by a Mack Truck.

  I grimaced and shifted, moving so I could put my head against his chest. “I’ve felt better.”

  My admission caused Lolita to smile. “I remember when my Nicolas was born. He ripped me from my anus to my…”

  “…mom! Nobody wants to hear about that!” Nikki yelled from her perch by the door.

  I visibly shivered. I wasn’t into listening about anus rippage either. That sounded painful.

  “He was so hard to push out too. You’re lucky your babies were only six pounds. Nico was nearly nine pounds and I was in labor with him for sixty hours. Then I pushed for nearly six. Just imagine if they would’ve let me do the others vaginally!”

  “They would’ve come shooting out like a cork from a wine bottle under pressure,” Sol laughed lightly.

  Lolita narrowed her eyes at him, and I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped my lips. “Oh, God. That’s horrible.”

  “I don’t know why you’re saying that’s horrible. That’s what your second did,” Callum replied helpfully.

  Nico launched what looked like a half empty water bottle at his head, which Callum deflected easily enough.

  He wasn’t prepared for the bag of chips that I launched shortly after Nico’s water bottle, and it hit him in the face and chips exploded all over the floor.

  “Now go get me some more, you big raging asshole. I can’t believe you’d do that to me,” I whined.

  He laughed and got up to head to the door, but when he opened it, he couldn’t get out because a wall of muscle was blocking his way.

  That wall of muscle being my baby brother Banks.

  Well, he wasn’t much of a baby anymore, at twenty three, but he was still younger than me, and always would be.

  He clapped his twin on the back and walked inside.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  Awkwardly, I got up out of the most uncomfortable bed in the world and hurried quickly to my brother.

  He looked good.

  He was in the ugly BDUs that the Air Force wore, but he was still extremely handsome. And he’d put on a little weight, as well as a lot of bulk.

  Which I found out after I launched myself at him.

  He caught me easily and lifted me off my feet, hugging me to him snugly.

  “I missed you, sissy,” he whispered.

  I laughed at the nickname he’d always called me. All my brothers did it, but he did it the most consistently.

  “How are you here?” I cried into his neck.

  He was supposed to have another month of deployment left. I’d even made arrangements to pick him up at the airport already!

  He laughed. “I asked for emergency leave, but they said I could just head home. We were supposed to be leaving in a week, they just hadn’t had the chance to tell us yet. So I came home. Couldn’t miss my sister’s babies’ baptism, now could I?”

  Tears scalded my cheeks. “I love you, Banks.”

  His arms squeezed me a little tighter and then put me back down on my feet. “Now let me meet these babies.”

  ***

  I walked to the door, curious as to what’d kept Nico out there so long, and was startled to see he was talking to someone.

  “… was disinherited when he did something the kingpin didn’t want done. We’re not a hundred percent sure, but from what we can tell, there won’t be any retaliation. In fact, if I’m understanding right, there’s no controversy whatsoever. They’re happy that you took care of everything that they’d been trying to do for years now,” a man in a suit said to Nico.

  Nico had his broad back to me.

  His arms were crossed, and he was looking down at his boots as he listened to the man talk.

  He nodded his head, and as he spoke, I saw the visible difference in him after he heard the words.

  “So I don’t have to go into Witsec? I’m married now, you’d have to take my family with me,” Nico said, somewhat desperately.

  I felt my heart get heavy at the tone of his voice. The poor man.

  Here I was thinking about myself all the time Nico was away, but what must Nico have gone through?

  Had he laid awake worrying about me? Missing the smell of me like I missed the smell of him.

  He practically missed the entire pregnancy. My God, that had to have killed him.

  Nico was probably torn up inside.

  I opened the door all the way.

  The man I guessed was some sort of cop looked up, but Nico was deep in thought, and didn’t notice me until I wrapped my hands around his waist and pressed my belly against his back.

  His arm came back and pressed me to him slightly harder as he leaned back and kissed me awkwardly on the top of my head.

  The cop smiled at me. “Congratulations. I hear you had twins.”

  I smiled widely at him. “Yes. They look exactly like their daddy, too.”

  I could practically feel the pride emanating from Nico’s body.

  He loved them both already, even after only hours of them being born. And if I had to guess, he loved them way before that, too. Even when he thought there was only one.

  The man smiled at me, winking and said, “Well, I’ve kept you long enough, son. I’ll be going. Let me know if there’s anything I can do. I’ll keep you updated on the family, but I honestly don’t think you have a thing to worry about. It was nice to meet you, dear.”

  And with that, the man left, walking quietly down the darkened hall, disappearing into the shadows once he was four doors down from our room.

  Nico turned in my arms and pushed us back until he could close the room of our door, then he wrapped his arms around me squeezed so tightly that my breath squeaked out in a wheeze.

  I let him do it, though, realizing on some level that he needed that right then.

  So I just hugged him back, relishing in the fact that he was there with me to do it at all.

  His grip around me loosened after a few more long seconds, and I felt him take a long, deep shuddering breath before letting it out slowly.

  “I was lost without you,” he admitted quietly.

  I laid my head down at his shoulder, until my lips were resting against his neck
, and said, “I missed calling you during the day. I missed going to sleep with you. I missed watching you chop wood because I said something to piss you off. I missed you leaving your dirty underwear just outside the laundry room where you dropped them on the way. I missed how you’d open my jars for me. Which, might I add, I have about ten of them on the counter at home just waiting for you to open.”

  He started laughing, which was what I’d wanted him to do.

  “I’ll open them as soon as we get back home. But we’ll have to move them back to my house,” he rumbled. “You don’t have the room for two kids.”

  I snorted. That was the truth. My brothers had kind of taken over the little trailer made for a lot less people.

  “The house will be done in another few weeks,” I admitted. “They planned on making the room next to mine into a nursery.”

  The house had started slow at our property since nobody could agree on what it should look like and where it should go.

  They’d settled on the same exact spot the old home had been, since there were still existing water and utility lines that they’d have to redo if they put it somewhere else.

  However, that was where the similarities ended.

  The old house had been a pier and beam foundation old farmhouse.

  The new place was sleek and modern with everything eco-friendly this world had to offer.

  I’d been the one to suggest that. Now, during the summer months there wouldn’t be an electric bill due to the new solar panels that’d been put in place.

  His eyes darkened as I mentioned not living with him. “You’re my wife, you’ll live at my house.”

  I moved my head from his neck and looked into his eyes. “And will my husband be there?”

  His eyes became hooded. “You bet your sweet little ass that I will. That’s what that meeting was all about. Agent Lawrence just let me know that I was in the clear. He believes there’s still some worry about retaliation, but they’re minimal at best. The man who came into our wedding today, Andre, was disavowed from his family. He’d come down here in a vain attempt to start up something of his own. However, over time, he’s gotten nearly his whole organization killed by his actions of trying to get his daughter. The rest that weren’t killed are in prison. Agent Lawrence doesn’t believe I have anything to worry about, and I’m inclined to agree with him.”