Chapter 6 - The Choice
"Put it down," Dominic said.
Victor smiled.
Claire could hear the children outside.
Too close.
Her greatest fear wasn't the gun.
It was that one of them would come back inside.
"Gabriel!" she shouted.
Victor flinched.
"Drive!"
Dominic understood immediately.
Outside, tires screamed.
Gabriel had listened.
The children were leaving.
Victor's expression twisted.
"Always protecting somebody."
Dominic kept himself between Victor and Claire.
"That's what fathers do."
Victor laughed.
"Your father would be ashamed."
"Good."
Claire saw movement outside.
Police?
No.
A customer.
She prayed they would keep walking.
Victor lifted the gun.
"Give me Margaret's recording."
"It's already federal evidence," Claire said.
Victor looked at her.
For one second, the weapon shifted away from Dominic.
Dominic moved.
The next moments happened too fast.
A crash.
A gunshot into the ceiling.
Glass breaking.
Claire dropped behind the counter.
Dominic struck Victor's wrist.
The gun slid across the flour-covered floor.
Claire grabbed it and kicked it beneath an oven.
Victor reached inside his coat.
Dominic tackled him.
Then sirens approached.
Victor stopped fighting.
Not because he surrendered.
Because he understood.
The bakery's security system had triggered a silent alarm.
Police entered.
This time, Victor Sloane did not escape.
Claire watched him leave in handcuffs.
He looked back once.
She felt nothing.
Not triumph.
Not fear.
Nothing.
Dominic stood beside her.
Blood ran from his eyebrow.
"You okay?"
"Are you seriously asking me?"
"Yes."
She touched his face.
"You're bleeding."
"I've done that before."
"Not helping."
His hand closed around hers.
Then five children burst through the door behind the police.
"DAD!"
Chaos.
Claire laughed and cried simultaneously.
Lily demanded to be picked up.
Noah explained that Gabriel had driven "like Batman."
Gabriel insisted he had driven exactly the speed limit.
Nobody believed him.
Sophie hugged Claire.
Ben discovered the bullet hole in the ceiling and announced it looked expensive.
For ten minutes, the bakery was noise.
Family noise.
Claire stood in the center of it.
Then she noticed something on the floor.
A small black velvet box.
It must have fallen from Dominic's coat.
She looked at him.
Dominic looked at it.
Five children went silent.
"Oh," Gabriel said.
Sophie covered her mouth.
Noah whispered, "DO IT."
Dominic closed his eyes.
"This was supposed to be different."
Claire started laughing.
"Different how?"
"No armed criminal."
"High standards."
"No police."
"Very demanding."
"No blood."
"Now you're being unrealistic."
Dominic smiled.
Then he picked up the box.
But he didn't kneel.
Not yet.
Instead he looked at Claire.
"I don't want you to answer because you're grateful."
Her laughter faded.
"I don't want you to answer because the children love you."
Claire's eyes filled.
"I don't want you to answer because you're afraid you'll never have another chance at a family."
He stepped closer.
"I want you to answer only if you choose me."
Claire could barely breathe.
Dominic opened the box.
A simple ring.
Elegant.
Warm.
Nothing ostentatious.
"Claire Donnelly, I have five children, a complicated past, terrible cooking skills, and apparently an inability to propose without attracting law enforcement."
She laughed through tears.
"I know."
"I love you."
Behind him, Sophie began crying.
Dominic continued.
"I don't need you to give me children."
His voice broke.
"I need you to keep teaching me how to deserve the ones I already have."
Claire covered her mouth.
"And if you'll let me, I'd like to spend the rest of my life deserving you too."
He finally knelt.
"Will you marry me?"
Claire looked around.
Gabriel.
Sophie.
Noah.
Ben.
Lily.
Five faces waiting.
Not because they needed a replacement mother.
Because somewhere along the way, they had become hers in every way that mattered.
Claire looked back at Dominic.
"Yes."
The bakery exploded with noise.
Noah screamed.
Ben threw flour.
Gabriel hugged Sophie.
Lily shouted "MARRY!" despite clearly not understanding the concept.
Dominic stood and kissed Claire.
For one perfect minute, nobody cared about the broken window.
Then Claire pulled back.
"Wait."
Dominic's face fell.
"What?"
"I have one condition."
"Anything."
"No more people pointing guns during major relationship milestones."
Gabriel laughed.
Dominic kissed her again.
"Agreed."
Victor's arrest broke open the old criminal network.
Margaret's recording connected him to a decades-old murder.
The Vale ledger implicated corrupt officials.
The investigation into Elena's death reopened.
Two months later, prosecutors confirmed that Victor had arranged the crash.
Dominic received the news quietly.
Claire sat beside him.
He didn't celebrate.
He went to Elena's grave.
Claire offered to stay home.
Dominic asked her to come.
The children came too.
They stood beneath bare trees.
Dominic placed flowers beside the stone.
"She would've liked you," Sophie whispered.
Claire looked at her.
"How do you know?"
"Because Mom liked people who fed Dad."
Gabriel laughed.
Dominic actually rolled his eyes.
Claire touched Elena's headstone.
"Thank you," she whispered.
She didn't know exactly what she meant.
Perhaps thank you for these children.
Perhaps thank you for loving the man Claire now loved.
Perhaps simply thank you for having existed.
They walked back together.
That winter, wedding plans began.
Claire wanted small.
Greyhaven wanted enormous.
Noah wanted a chocolate fountain.
Ben wanted a horse.
Lily wanted a dinosaur.
Gabriel wanted everyone to stop asking his opinion.
Sophie wanted Claire to wear Aunt Margaret's necklace.
Dominic wanted Claire.
That part was simple.
But happiness made people careless.
And Claire had learned that old secrets rarely disappeared merely because the worst man had been arrested.
One afternoon, she received a call from the hospital where she had undergone surgery at nineteen.
"Ms. Donnelly?"
"Yes?"
"We're reviewing archived surgical records as part of a legal audit."
Claire frowned.
"Okay."
The woman hesitated.
"There appears to be a serious discrepancy in your file."
Claire sat down.
"What kind?"
"The procedure listed in the summary you received isn't the procedure documented in the original operative notes."
Claire stopped breathing.
"Are you saying my records were wrong?"
"I'm saying we need you to come in."
Claire looked through the bakery window.
Dominic was outside with Lily on his shoulders.
Sophie and Noah were throwing snow at Ben.
Gabriel pretended not to participate.
Claire pressed the phone harder against her ear.
"What exactly are you telling me?"
The woman took a breath.
"Ms. Donnelly, I'm telling you that at nineteen, you may have been given information about your fertility that was never medically accurate."
May you like
Claire stood so quickly her chair fell backward.
And the woman on the phone said there was one more page Claire had never been allowed to see.
