PROLOGUE
Saber
When I was four,I met the woman who would own me heart and soul, that is until the day she ripped said heart from my chest and stomped on it, obliterating it to the point that it was deflated, love would never inflate it again.
That organ is nothing more than a limp noodle that my body needs to pump blood through my veins. I’d vowed then and there to never put myself out there for another woman to make me feel as if I had no control over any part of my life.
I can’t recall the very day we met with any sort of clarity, but I can distinctly remember the day she filled my entire soul with hate and loathing. We were both child prodigies. Too damn smart for our own good, but we always lived life confused about how we should act our ages. Our classmates were years ahead of us, and with the way our minds worked, our brains were on the same page as them but our bodies were not.
As I stand here with my back leaning against the counter that holds our medical supplies at the club’s infirmary while she does the triplets' well-care check, anger from when we were freshly seventeen years old resurfaces—the memories of the day that changed the course of our relationship assaults me.
“We can’t, Weston,” Foxy cried, devastated tear stains streaking down her face. “We’re still in school and have no way to support a baby. The best thing we can do for him or her is to put the baby up for adoption so it’s with a stable Mom and Dad who aren’t trying to pave out their future.”
“Don’t do this, Foxy. Don’t give our flesh and blood away to strangers. We can do this. I can apply for family housing and additional scholarships to get us through until we graduate.”
“Don’t be foolish,” she admonished. “We still have medical school once we get through our core classes. That’ll take years. Especially since we both want to specialize in different fields.”
“We can double our classes and graduate early,” I protested. “We basically skipped high school and went straight to college, Foxy.”
“Medical school is different and you know it, Weston.”
“It’s not,” I continued to argue.
“It is,” she vehemently contested. “Babies are expensive. On top of its everyday needs, we’d have to figure out childcare, study time because babies eat every two to three hours, sometimes four if you’re lucky. We have no family to depend on since we both grew up in foster care. It’s too much! I can’t do it and keep up with my schooling and I refuse to live in a rundown home while we barely scrape by… because whether you agree with me or not, one, if not both of us, will end up dropping out of school and working blue collar jobs. I don’t want that kind of struggle for us or any children we’ll have in the future.”
“What future, Foxy? You’re throwing our future away!” I belligerently shouted.
“Please don’t do this, Weston. Be logical here and think about this baby and what’s best for it.”
“Would you stop calling our baby an it, Foxy?”
“I have to,” she whispered.
“Why? Why do you have to, Foxy?” I asked, eating the distance between us as I stepped into her space. “Tell me.”
“Because if I think of it any other way, I’ll cave. And Weston, if I do that I’ll end up resenting you both.”
Those words were like an arrow to my heart as I staggered backward. “What?” I hissed. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do,” she claimed, bobbing her head. “I’ve loved you my entire life, don’t make me hate you now.”
“Naveah isn’t thriving as much as her siblings are,” Foxy says, interrupting my thoughts. My eyes narrow into thin lines as I squint at her, but mask my features before Laney twists, looking at me horrified.
“That doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with her physically, Laney,” I quickly reassure my president's old lady. “It just means she’s a little behind and we need to make sure she has more calories, vitamins, and other nutrients with high additives added to her daily diet. We can do that with supplement drinks or larger helpings of veggies.”
“Saber’s right,” Foxy agrees. Anytime my road name leaves her tongue, I flinch. “We can give her a few pediatric shakes to give her what her body’s lacking. In no time, she’ll be caught up with Nix and Nova.”
“Thank you, Roxy and Saber. I’ll let Dragon know and he’ll make sure we have a stock for her,” Laney states. “Now, it’s lunch time and then I’m gonna put these three down for a nap so I can get some things done around the house. See y’all later.”
Laney gathers her three little ones and places them in their stroller with a little help from me, corralling three infants is easier said than done, and leaves the two of us alone in this room. Suddenly, it feels suffocating in here and I reach up to adjust the collar on my shirt.
“You can go now,” Foxy says with a sharp tone. “I know how to do my job, I’m pretty good at it. I don’t need someone standing over me like I’m an intern.”
“Put your bitch away, Foxy. I know how good you are at your job, it’s why I picked you to watch over the triplets.”
“Picked me!” she huffs and harrumphs, saying some unflattering words about me beneath her breath. “You mean it’s why you kidnapped me.”
“You say kidnapped but I don’t think of it that way,” I debate. “My president’s kids were in peril and I got that for him.”