The Lawyer (Book 1 of the New York Brotherhood Series)

Epilogue

Vanessa

Five years later

"Mommy." I feel the blanket over me being pulled off of my body. I groan and open my eyes. Its Saturday which means Mateo is in charge of breakfast since every other day I handle breakfast.

"Hi kiddo." I say to Victoria her light brown hair and green eyes are right in my face.

"Daddy made breakfast are you hungry?"

I start to sit up. "Yeah, I'm going to get your brother and I'll be down there in a second."

"Okay." She responds and runs out of the room downstairs.

I walk down the hallway to the nursery and walk in seeing the youngest of our kids bouncing in his crib. After the twins were born, we had two more children. A daughter, Marissa that was born almost exactly nine months after Mateo came home. Then six months ago we had a son Dominic. Picking up Dominic I walk out of the nursey; he has dark hair like Mateo and looks more like him every day.

Walking into the kitchen I see all of the kids sitting at the bar. Marissa and her blonde curly hair and Julian with his dark brown hair all having their backs to me.

"Good morning." I say and all three of their small heads turn and look at me with bright smiles. Who knew those smiles would be the cutest thing I've ever seen and they all say in unison "good morning mom."

Mateo turns around and smiles at me. Walking over to me he gives me a soft kiss. "Morning." He says to me.

"Morning." I respond back. I put Dominic in his high chair and sit down at the bar next to the kids. Mateo sits right next to me and we enjoy breakfast as a family. The rest of day is like any other Saturday where we spend time as a family watching tv, being outside by the pool or just relaxing from the week.

After all of the kids are in bed, Mateo and I sit out on the deck. I have a glass of red wine and he has a beer.

"So I was thinking." Mateo says.

"You do that a lot." I smile at him.

"Ok smartass." He snicker. "I was thinking that maybe tomorrow we drop the kids off at your brothers and the two of us do something fun."

"You really want to send the four them over to his house seems like that's a lot to put on him."

"Ehh its nothing, he loves having our kids at his house. I also may have already asked him."

"So you're more telling me than asking that's what we're doing tomorrow?" I smile at him.

"Sure we'll go with that."

"So what's the plan for tomorrow?"

"You'll see." He winks at me.

"If it involves another kid that's not happening four is already enough." I snicker.

"You said three was enough and look at us now."

I snicker and roll my eyes at him. "Yeah, well we both said no more 'planning' around kids again." I air quote the planning part considering the last time we discussed having another kid it was almost like I was already pregnant considered I was pregnant within three months of the conversation.

"This is me not discussing it then." He smiles taking a sip from his beer side eying me. I just laugh at him.

The last five years has been almost like a blur. I decided to never go back to the hospital even though there was a time I considered it. We decided I would work for Gino and patch up any of the guys who got hurt. Which happens more than anyone cares to admit. Mateo still stays out of the blood after everything but he is back to being the family lawyer as he likes to call it. We spend most of our time between our house and Gino's. Gino and I have become closer than I ever thought we could be. After missing out on having a brother my whole life he has become the person I go to for advice. There were times my entire life that I felt like I didn't belong but this family I didn't know I had, has become the family I could never live without.