CPOV

I left Ana to rest around four this morning, I didn't want to sleep so I went out into the living room where I found my mother looking dreadfully tired with a large glass of red wine in her hand. Stress, that would be the cause of this. So much has happened in the last seventy two hours and she is trying her hardest to keep up.

"Mom?"

"Oh! Christian you startled me."

"Sorry, does dad know you're awake?"

"Does Anastasia?" She spat.

"Mom, please don't be so angry with her. She is really trying, we knew that she was not like everyone else we knew when we found her."

"When you found her."

Elliot, Kate, Mia and I were walking around the East Village, for some reason the girls really love the shops and cafe's there whereas Elliot and I would prefer to shop on fifth. Anything to make the girls happy though so that we don't have to listen to them whine and complain for hours on end when we do what we want.

"You go ahead, I'm going to find a Starbucks to get a decent coffee," I had announced.

"Dude, you just coffee at that little shop," Elliot laughed at me.

"It tasted like shit. I'll catch up."

They went one way while I went the other, twenty minutes later I was still mindlessly walking when I felt someone try to pick-pocket from me. Dad had taught us what professionals, gifted and amateur pick-pockets felt like when trying to lift your phones and wallets. In the corner of my eye I saw her brown hair and let her take it, and then I followed her to some alley in Tribeca. When she noticed me she tried to hit me, but I was a black belt in everything so I stopped her and held both her hands in one of mine. She looked up at me with her big blue eyes.

"What's your name?" I asked. She didn't answer so I tried in Italian, Spanish and Sign Language but no response. "Look, if I know your name I can help you but if you don't I will go to the police and you will go to prison."

"Anastasia… Ana," She stammered.

"Beautiful name for a beautiful girl, where do you live?"

She looked around the alley and I noticed a couple of duffel bags stashed by the trash bins, thats when I knew that she was a runaway and living on the street. I looked at her and she was dirty, sickly thin and scared.

"Anastasia, would you like to come with me. I can give you a place to stay tonight and help you figure something out."

"No, I'm fine. Just take your wallet back."

"Look, I can tell that you are running. I can tell you are scared and I am giving you no reason to trust me. At least let me take you to get something to eat, maybe a coat for at night or if it rains. You can trust me."

"I don't know you and you don't know me."

"How old are you?"

"I'll be sixteen in seven weeks, why?"

"Come with me."

"No."

"Please?"

God, she was stubborn. It took me forty-five minutes to talk her into bringing her bags and coming with me. If she didn't like my place then she could leave, but I figured my parents and siblings would like her.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" She asked when we were sitting in a restaurant eating.

"I got my GED at sixteen, shouldn't you be in school?"

"I got my GED before I ran, why are you doing this?"

"I care. I just want to look out for you, a girl like you shouldn't be living like garbage, you are much too precious. We have a tonne of spare rooms, stay with me and my family while you get on your feet. I'll help until I start school in the fall, I leave in six weeks."

That night she snuck into my room and sucked me off, said it was her way of thanking me for everything. Two weeks later we were sleeping in the same bed, three weeks in we started to fuck like rabbits. When I had to leave for school she knew what our family did, found out she was pregnant and she came to Boston with me. We gave her the option of staying in New York but she was adamant about coming with me like she was scared to stay behind.

I look at my mom who is watching me with a confused expression, I really zoned out and had no idea what just happened. She thanked me for giving her a roof and food with a blow job when she was fifteen. You got to wonder if that should have been a clue into her life, should I have known how broken she was back then.

"Mom, Anastasia has issues, demons in her past which caused her to run here and then run away again. I don't understand it yet but I think she is okay now."

"Christian, Elliot told me that yesterday before everything else she tried to kill herself. If she is that unstable maybe you should put her in a clinic. That way she gets help and can't run once things get too much for her."

"Dad never institutionalized you when you were suffering from severe depression so what makes you think I would do that to Ana? You slit your wrists and ankles in front of Mia and me when we were nine and ten, Ana ran and put her life together the best she could."

I stood and stormed off to the kitchen, I just wanted to break something but chose to just sit back with a smoothie in hopes that something would help life go smooth for once. Taylor walked into the room with Gail who started to cook. Taylor sat and looked at me with a grim face, I slammed my head onto the table.

"John and Rhian were compromised while with the Westies, they are being treated at Memorial but injuries were severe. I recommend moving them to the first floor and hire people to monitor them, if we leave them there the Westies can get someone in there to finish the job which we can't let happen," Taylor explained.

"Deal with it before noon, I don't care about the costs just don't let those fuckers get to them before we do. It won't turn out well for you."

"Of course sir. Anything else?"

"No Jason, but bring alert everyone about the attempted hit. They hit us, we hit back and I don't care who is on it as long as we win. If you get your hands on Kevin O'Malley take him to the restaurant, he's mine to kill."

Taylor stood up and left, I could hear the ping of the elevator when he left. Gail smiled softly at me. She was prepping the breakfast casserole that is always a hit when everything is here, one thing everyone will eat even the picky eaters.

I walk back to my bedroom to check in on Ana, when I get there she isn't in bed but by the window in one of the plush chase's that I have in here. She is wearing my shirt from yesterday which can't smell good with how much I sweat, her eyes are kind of glazed like she is somewhere else. I sit in the chase across from her and wait for her to notice me.

"Christian?" Her voice barely audible.

"Kitten," I smile.

"I'm scared."

"Of?"

"Everything. No one wants me here so I'm scared they'll do something, I'm scared I will mess up the kids more, I'm scared about being pregnant and screwing that up and most of all I am scared of me. I'm scared of what I will do when I get pushed too far in any direction, your mom even hates me and she hates no one."

"You heard us talking?"

"I woke when you got off the bed so I went to find you, it's all just. Christian it feels like so much in such a small time period. It's like my head will explode!"

I smile and scoop her into my arms, carrying her into the master bathroom. I run the bath and then set her in the warm water with lavender and jasmine oils, I use them with Maia when she is having panic attacks and it calms her faster then anything else, so hopefully it will help Ana and she will sleep.

"Do you remember our first night? After dinner when we were out on the terrace at my parents place in SoHo? Do you remember what I told you?"

"There are millions of people in New York City, I chose to pick your wallet out of everyone I could have and your wallet gave me food, a home and a safe place to land. The past is just that, the past and it will never effect the now or the future, but that when I was ready you would always be there to listen." She thinks for a moment. "I am so sorry Christian, I just… I still… they…Christian I can't talk about it. You don't want to know about it."

"You told me bits yesterday."

I remember when she was panicking and wanting to die, almost twenty four hours ago, and she talked to me in a way that she never had before. Yesterday I saw how broken and alone she has been most of her life and it hurts more then I thought that it would. It made me see more then I have seen before and I thought I saw the world in bright colours, I guess not.

"Bits," She giggles. "Yeah but that is nothing compared to what you want to know."

"Anastasia…"

"Christian?"

"You really know how to push my buttons, don't you?"

She laughs hard and I relax a bit, I help her out and dry off her body, kissing parts of her every so often until I reach the apex of her thighs and latch onto her clit, sucking hard. I hold tight to her ass so she doesn't fall while her moans grow louder, her cunt dripping with sweet nectar that I drink up. I carry her over my shoulder to our bed, plunging deep into that hot and wet cavern that I have craved for a decade. The joy that fills me up when I watch her moan and writhe under me, when I feel her grip me as she climaxes in pure ecstasy, she passes out in the middle of her fifth orgasm that I kind of forced her through. She is just so beautiful each time, I want to see her like that all the time. I pour into her before leaving to shower, when I come back to dress for the day she is curled up in a ball in the middle of the bed, no covers so I can see that her cunt is glistening with both of our juices. I'm proud… of myself.

I leave the room and most of the kids are awake and eating in the dining room, Ava is straddling Jude in the living room, her face buried in his neck and looks like she is asleep. I know what those two were up to last night, I will get Noah a new mattress once they leave. Maia runs at me and into my arms, she starts to sign at me about what she wants to do today and how I can get back at the people who were shooting at us yesterday. I look at her ears and her hearing aids are not in them which is really weird.

Where are your hearing aids? I ask, she shrugs and struggles to get to her feet.

The library doors are open so I peer in and see Noah drawing Kate and the baby in his book, until Rachel starts to cry and Kate begins to breastfeed which makes Noah run out of the room fast. Kate looks at me and smiles, she looks really tired.

"You okay?" I smirk.

"You try pushing a watermelon out a small hole from your body and then ask that question. Men!" She teases.

Point well made, I do not think that I would ever be able to do what any of the women in our family have done. Giving birth looks like hell but I love that they go through it because we have beautiful kids in the family.

"How's Ana?" Kate asks, switching Rachel to her other breast when she wants more. "I mean after everything that's happened. This is normal for us, but it's foreign to her."

"Holding it together as best she can, she's sleeping right now. Rough night."

"Yeah, I bet. Elliot hates the two month ban on sex one I've given birth."

"Technically he still has access to your ass and mouth."

"Mr. Stubborn has his preference. What are the plans for today?"

"Keep the kids indoors, on the three floors I own at least. You will rest and recuperate while everyone else does what they want. Anything you need? I think that I brought everything up for a baby."

"See if Erica can come back, I want her to check Ava. I think she might be pregnant so it is just a precaution. I was going to do it once we came back but now we're here and can't go out. Please and thank you."

I nod and leave when Elliot walks in, nodding at me while carrying two plates of casserole with huge servings on both plates. I laugh because it is like some people hoard it when they are served it here. My dad is in the living room and motions for me to follow him, we go into the laundry room because it is one of the only unoccupied rooms on this floor at the moment which is ridiculous.

"You got married to her after everything she put you through?" He frowns.

Fuck.