Chapter 4
A week later, they moved me to a safe house.
It was a small, warm ranch on the edge of the city, nothing like Daniel’s cold marble estate.
There were rocking chairs on the front porch, a big backyard with oak trees, a nursery already painted soft blue.
My brothers had done it all while I was in the hospital.
Ethan carried me inside, setting me down on the couch in the living room.
The smell of chocolate chip cookies filled the air.
Alexander was in the kitchen, covered in flour, looking very proud of himself.
“Tried to make Mom’s recipe,” he said, holding up a slightly lumpy cookie. “Close enough.”
I laughed.
It was the first real laugh I’d had in three years.
That night, we sat around the kitchen table, eating takeout pasta, and I finally said what I’d been wanting to say since Ethan showed up at the estate.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
All three of them looked at me.
“For what?” Ethan said.
“For leaving,” I said. “For cutting you off. For not listening when you warned me about Daniel. I thought… I thought love was enough. I thought if I just tried hard enough, I could make him love me the way I deserved. I was so stupid.”
Ethan reached across the table, covering my hand with his.
“You weren’t stupid,” he said. “You were in love. And you were brave enough to try for something you wanted. We never blamed you, Liv. Never. We just waited. Hoped you’d call when you needed us.”
Tears ran down my face.
Ryan nodded, his eyes soft.
“Family doesn’t keep score,” he said. “We’re just glad you’re home.”
Alexander pushed a plate of cookies toward me.
“Besides,” he said. “Now we get to be uncles. Best job ever.”
I cried then, but they were happy tears.
For three years, I’d thought I had no one.
I’d thought my family was gone forever.
And here they were.
Ready to burn the world down to keep me and the baby safe.
The next few weeks were a flurry of activity.
Ryan’s legal team filed for divorce on my behalf, along with a civil suit for damages.
The criminal case against Daniel was moving fast.
Sophia had given the DA everything—texts, emails, recordings of Daniel bragging about his fraud, about how he was going to leave me penniless.
The DA said it was an open-and-shut case.
I spent my days on bed rest, as the doctor ordered.
Ethan worked from the house, his office set up in the guest room, so he was never far.
Ryan came over every evening, updating me on the case, reading through depositions with me.
Alexander spent his free time building furniture for the nursery—a crib, a changing table, a bookshelf for all the children’s books they’d bought.
One afternoon, I was going through a box of old things the team had retrieved from the estate.
My wedding dress.
The ultrasound photos I’d hidden.
A stack of letters from my brothers, sent over the three years I’d been gone, all unopened.
I sat on the floor, reading them one by one.
Birthday cards.
Christmas notes.
Letters telling me they loved me, that the door was always open, that no matter what, I was their sister.
I cried so hard my sides hurt.
Ethan found me there, the letters scattered around me.
He sat down on the floor beside me, pulling me into his arms.
“I’m here now,” he said. “We’re all here. And we’re never letting you go again.”
I held onto him, tight.
For the first time in my life, I knew exactly what home was.
It wasn’t a big house.
May you like
It wasn’t a rich husband.
It was the three men who’d moved heaven and earth to get me back.
