“I’ll follow,” I told them.

Kai led Mads onto the other boat with Banks, and I let them peel out of here before I immediately followed.

Ilia’s head hung, bobbing with the bounce of the boat, and despite the cold air rushing at me, sweat dampened my skin.

We’d found them.

And Winter’s words came back, winding their way through my head.

Our life creates enemies.

We chose this. The kids didn’t.

What were our options? Separate as a family? Stop building? Go our separate ways?

The kids were in danger, but the kids also wouldn’t want that. They all adored each other.

We threatened others, but we didn’t ask for this. Others’ behavior might end up being our problem…but not our responsibility.

We deserved what we had, and I wasn’t fucking teaching Athos—or my son—that they didn’t deserve exactly what they wanted. The last thing I would teach my kids was to cower, hide, or run.

We docked the boats, the ambulance already waiting to load Ilia onto a gurney.

But I was pretty sure he was already dead.

Or would be soon enough.

Emmy talked to the police, and I wasn’t sure what story she was feeding them, but they knew we weren’t going anywhere. We’d be here if they had questions tomorrow.

“Can we still open presents?” Octavia chirped, her usual cheerful voice back.

“Yeah,” Damon laughed, hugging her to him again.

He put her in the car, Mads and Winter climbing in after her, but Kai hung back, running his hand through his hair.

As usual, he worried about everything, and I knew what he was worried about.

I was worried too, but I knew what was going through his head was far bigger than the doubts in mine.

I headed over to him, Will and Damon joining us.

“Jesus Christ,” Kai murmured, needing to clear his head before he got in the car.

“We don’t know anything,” I reminded him.

He always got worked up before he knew he had something to worry about.

“‘That kid’s crazy,’” he said.

I studied him. “What?”

“That’s what Dinescu said when his eyeball was hanging out of his head.” He stared straight ahead. “‘That kid’s crazy.’ You think Madden killed that guy at the house too?”

Will and Damon remained silent, and I knew what everyone was thinking. It freaked us out, but were we upset he did it?

“I think he’s the reason they failed tonight,” I told Kai, keeping my voice low. “Don’t do this. I don’t give a damn what happened to those pieces of shit. And neither should you.”

Kai shook his head. “Michael…”

“Our life makes enemies,” I stated. “Our strength threatens people.”

I looked around, making eye contact with all of them. For years, I didn’t stop them from doing whatever they wanted, because I wanted them to embrace what they were, but I was not going to let Kai feel like he’d done something wrong, when the alternative was Mads doing nothing and those kids being lost to us forever.

“We’re not changing,” I told them.

Kai stepped up to me, almost glaring. “And in another ten years when another enemy, or the child of an enemy, creeps up to surprise us again?”

“They won’t want to mess with your kid in ten years,” Will joked.

“This isn’t funny!” Kai growled, not caring who heard him. “My kid—”

“Didn’t go looking for any of this!” I finished for him. “None of this is his fault. He did what any animal on this planet does when someone threatens its life.”

Kai fell silent, and I didn’t back down. I knew what he was worried about. I understood. What if a bully got on Mads’s last nerve someday? What if he got into a fight and caused more harm than he bargained for?

What if everything he’d learned at the dojo and with his grandfather had turned him into something we couldn’t control?

But none of that would happen.

Not really.

Mads was taught just as much about when to fight as he was taught how to fight. The only thing that unnerved me was how much more efficient he was at it than me.

“Now, let’s go home and light the fucking tree and tuck our kids in,” I told all of them. “With any luck, what happened tonight spreads like wildfire, and anyone with a beef will think twice about coming for us or our kids again.”

“Hell yeah,” Damon muttered.

He and Will headed off, climbing into the cars, while Kai and I stayed with our gazes locked.

“We’re all watching him,” I assured Kai. “We’re all raising him.”

Kai wasn’t alone.

His jaw flexed.

“He could be a million miles away, living in hell right now,” I pointed out. “He brought himself and that little girl home tonight.”

We taught soldiers to kill people to save a nickel on a barrel of oil. Whatever Mads did or didn’t do tonight, he’d had no choice.

Finally, Kai’s eyes dropped, and his chest caved as he nodded.

Mads was safe. That was all that mattered.

We walked to the cars, climbing in.

“Did someone say presents?” I called out as I buckled my seatbelt.

Octavia gasped and then yelped, already forgetting the incident, her sights set on the promise of everything under the tree.

After picking up Athos and the rest of the kids, Will driving the busload back, we returned to St. Killian’s to find the winner of the treasure hunt waiting and ready for their prize.

The kids were shuffled upstairs to get bathed and into their pajamas, while Rika and I pushed through, presenting the trust to Tucker Adams and his girlfriend, Amanda Leigh. While David stayed at the Pope with Taylor and Kai, Damon and Will smuggled the body out of the house to the waiting truck, so Lev could deliver it to the coroner.

We had so much shit to deal with tomorrow.

And to try to keep quiet.

A round of applause, a champagne toast from the remaining guests, and the house finally started to empty after about forty-five minutes.

The kids rounded the fifteen-foot tree, lighting more candles as only a few remained lit in the whole house, the wind outside howling through the nooks and crannies of the old church.

I stood back, watching the kids open presents—except for the one they saved for Christmas Day—playing with their toys, showing off their new gadgets, and throwing the books to the side that we tried to make sure was on every holiday list, just in case they ever took an interest.

Damon held a package wrapped in brown paper, looking at it almost nervously, like he wasn’t sure he was ready to open it, while Octavia ran to the window bench, plopping down next to Madden. She colored with her new Crayola markers that her parents had refused to trust her with up until now, as Mads sketched with his new pencils and pad.

She kicked her legs back and forth.

I slipped my arms around Rika, hugging her close. “Kids bounce back, don’t they?”

My God.

She laughed. “I think Octavia knew what the rest of us didn’t.”

“Which was?”

“She was never in any real danger.”

I watched the kids, Mads probably drawing another bird, as his cousin tried to act just like him with her purple marker.