Chapter 45

One of the Family

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Kyle (POV)

I silently closed the bedroom door behind me and crept away from the door and down the hall. I paused for a moment, seeing Amanda out on the balcony, two glasses of wine on the table beside her. She was beautiful. I couldn't see myself with any other person, and that is what made leaving that much harder. Ever since I made the decision to adopt Brice as my son and let myself love Amanda again, I've worried about the danger I've exposed both of them to.

I stepped out onto the balcony and wrapped my arms around her waist, the back of her head leaned into my chest and she sighed.

"He finally fell asleep?" she said.

"Yeah," I whispered softly.

We stayed quiet for a moment, just enjoying the view of the New York sky line. Moments like these are what I missed, holding her in my arms, the comfortable silence, enjoying one another's presence. She had placed her hand over mine, her delicate fingers played with my wedding band.

"I missed you," I finally spoke. "I missed this."

"I did too," she said. "Are things going to start getting back to…Normal?"

"I hope so, Amanda. I'm sorry that these past…six months, have been so crazy. I just, with everything Latnok have done, and everything they were planning to do, it needed to stop." I moved to sit on the bench.

"What exactly where they planning on doing?" she asked, sitting beside me.

"When Jessi and I went in to break, Nathan, out. We found that they had plans for cloning Nathan, for an army." I didn't have to see her face to know the expression she had.

"An army?" she was finally able to form the words.

"I don't know what for, but it makes sense. They wanted to do the same thing with my DNA but after I destroyed the formula, years ago, I guess they didn't want to take the chance of creating disobedient soldiers."

"But how do you know that they won't try again?" she questioned.

"I don't." That was the truth. "But, once we were able to get Nathan out safely, I went back in. Latnok's plan for creating an army was just one of the many programs they were working on, some of it was…noble. I was able to copy all the information that had ever been recorded there, just like I had done at Zzyzx, but they will never know I did it. Because after I did that and was out safely, Foss took over."

She placed her hand on my shoulder, and I took a rather large sip of my wine.

"Kyle," I knew that she knew what happened and I also knew it didn't need to be said.

"I know… we did what we had to do," I muttered. "One of the things I was able to record was a list of board members, along with that was a list of members that the board collectively found untrustworthy."

"This list would be of people you can trust?" She caught on, and I nodded. "What does that mean for you?"

"It means that I have the upper hand," I said.

I couldn't help but think of a conversation I had with Nicole, many years ago. She was the first one to realize how much I had changed just by being associated with Latnok. 'It's just not you, it's not who you used to be…' Were her exact words.

"I just hope that now my connection with Latnok is over, and I can finally start to move on with my life." I sighed, not really wanting to talk about it any longer.

"Me too," she agreed.

"What are Lori and Declan up to?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Lori went to take a bath, and Declan is doing some work," she provided. "When do you have to be at the airport?"

"I should probably leave in the next hour," I sighed. "My flight leaves at 11."

"That soon?"

"Yeah," I mumbled, kissing her temple.

"Once you're back in Seattle, what then?" she questioned.

"I'm hoping to get back to some sort of constant. I have a meeting with the Chef of surgery on Monday so I can start back with the program, continue my internship. I have to work with Nathan, to help him get adjusted and sorted out. Then just wait for you and Brice to get home," I enlightened with a trivial smile.

"Nathan is going to be staying with us, right?" I was kind of glad that she brought the subject up.

"I was planning on that, I don't really know where he'll sleep but we can figure that out later. Who knows, maybe we'll have to buy a new house," I smirked.

"A new house?" She raised an eye brow at me.

"I've thought about it once or twice," I admitted. "It probably wouldn't be a bad idea."

"No, it wouldn't. But, can we afford that right now?"

"I'll look into it, when I get back," I said, sitting back and wrapping my arm around her shoulders. "But for now, let's just enjoy this."

She smiled slightly and rested her head on my shoulder. I kissed the top of her hair and rested my chin on her head.

MONDAY MORNING

It felt wonderful to be back in Seattle, it was like things were finally falling back into place. I had woken up at seven that morning so I would have had time to get ready for my meeting with the Chef of Surgery. After I got out of the shower I wrapped a fluffy blue towel around my waist. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, my skin showed the exposure to the sun I had gotten from all the training outside we did at the cabin. I opened the cabinet to the left of the mirror and snatched my razor from the third shelf. With Brice, Amanda and I had made a habit of leaving our razors out of his reach.

I had to trim down the growth of hair that had taken over my face, before I was able to actually shave it off. Once I had managed to clear it all, I ran my hand across my cheek and felt the smoothness of my skin. I put on some after shave and brushed my teeth and left the bathroom to get dressed. I decided that it would be best to dress well, considering I was meeting with the Chef. I grabbed my kakis, white dress shirt, light grey sweeter and a blue and white striped tie. Once I was clothed and slipped my watch on, I fixed my hair and left the apartment.

I had a sense of familiarity as I drove to the hospital, it had been a few weeks since I had last made this drive and nothing about it had changed. I entered the hospital and had the same feeling, sure the patients had changed, but the cases and the people that worked on them were still the same. I found my way to the third floor and the Chef's secretary, Cindy, let me right into his office. I sat in one of the two leather chairs that faced his desk and waited for the Chef.

"I'm sorry I'm late, Dr. Trager, I was caught up in a board meeting." Chef Stone was an older man, tall, early fifties; his dark brown hair had flecks of grey.

"It's not a problem, sir, I understand." I stood to shake his hand.

"Now, what can I do for you?" he asked, sitting down behind his desk.

"I wanted to talk to you about letting me back into the program," I proposed the idea, sitting forward slightly.

"Done," he simply said.

"What?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Kyle, your absence was a shock at best but my hospital can't afford to lose doctors like you," he explained making a few notes on a piece of paper. "I'll get all the right paper work taken care of and you can start here again on Thursday."

"Thank you, Chef Stone," I stood up again to shake his hand in gratitude.

"You'll have to work slightly harder to catch up, but I really don't think that will be a problem for you," he added.

"I'll do whatever it takes," I smiled. "I'll see you Thursday morning."

The meeting was shorter than I had expected so when I left the hospital I decided to take a trip out to the land Adam had left me. It was a pretty cloudy day but the sun still poked out from time to time. I walked across the land, just taking it all in.

My thoughts were on Nathan and how he would adjust to the family, I knew that the Tragers wouldn't have any problems with him, but he might be a little over whelmed. Once he was here I would have to take him to the high school to enroll him for the new school year. Hopefully Nicole would make the trip with us: she was really good at dealing with principle Hooper.

I peered over the land and tried to imagine the house that Adam had planned to build here. I tried to imagine myself living in this house, but I couldn't bring myself to imagine a life with Adam that was more difficult because of his death. Instead I thought of Nathan and me living here, along with Amanda and Brice. That's when I knew I didn't want to buy a house; I wanted to build a house. Here on this land, and I wanted to build it like Adam would have wanted. I knew I would have to change the layout slightly in order to accommodate for the family that Amanda and I would soon have.

I left the land and went back to the apartment to begin drawing up plans for a new house. I had the original blue prints spread out in front of me and a separate, rather large piece of paper to make new additions.

After a few hours, a house that I could see myself raising a family in began to form. The first floor was relatively the same as the one Adam had planned. I had added a few more rooms off of the hallway from the kitchen. I had also created a new hallway entirely, to the right of the front door, from that hallway there would be an office for myself, a bedroom for Nathan, along with an additional bathroom for him as well.

The upstairs still had a loft that over looked the first floor, mainly the family room, dining area and part of the kitchen. The master bedroom was still the same with a personal bathroom along with the two bedrooms that where connected by a bathroom. The only addition I made there was another bedroom with its own bathroom. The floor plan was really starting to come together, and it was forming into a home that I could see myself living in.

It was nearing two o'clock in the afternoon when I remembered I was supposed to meet Foss at the warehouse before I went to have dinner with Stephen and Nicole. I rolled up the plans I had created along with Adam's old ones and slid them into the tube that protected them. I decided to take the plans with me, to show to Foss.

When I drove to the warehouse I noticed that the clouds had cleared up a little and the sun was more visible. The tires of the car crunched as I proceeded along the gravel that led to the warehouse. I climbed out of the Jeep and snatched the plans from the passenger seat.

"Foss!" I called as I continued through the heavy metal door.

"Back here!" he called back.

"I just talked to Jessi, and they've made it passed the border into the U.S.," he informed me, peering up from the computer. "What do have there?"

"You know that land Adam left me?" He nodded. "I figured out what I want to do with it."

"And what's that?"

"Well, the apartment is becoming too small. Eventually, Amanda and I will start having more kids, and with Nathan moving in with us, a two bedroom apartment just isn't going to work," I explained as a smile began to form on my lips.

"You want to build a house," he concluded.

"Yeah," I grinned, showing him my plans.

"These look great, Kyle. What does Amanda think about all this?" he asked, glancing over the prints.

"I just started putting this together today; Amanda and I have barely even talked about a new house. I doubt I could even afford this right now," I said with a heavy a sigh.

He was quiet for a moment looking over all the plans and he turned to me.

"What if I told you that you could?" he proposed.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Before Adam died, he put me in charge of all of his finances. He wanted me to look after them when he died. There is an account in your name, that he wanted me to give to you when I felt you were ready. I've just been waiting for the right time, I was going to give it to you after your wedding but things got a little crazy," he trailed off.

"He left me money?" I confirmed.

"Yeah, enough to last you a life time. You could build this house, send your kids to college, pay off your own student loans, and retire comfortably."

"That sounds like a lot of money; he's already given me so much, Foss." I felt slightly guilty.

"Adam wanted you to have this money. It's written in his will. He wanted to know that after he died, you would be taken care of." He paused, placing his hand on my shoulder. "Kyle, I can see how excited you are about this house, he would want you to have this."

"What about Nathan?" I pointed out.

"That's up to you," he countered.

"Nathan is Adam's son too, even though Adam didn't know about him, Nathan should get half," I explained. It was only fair.

"That's fine; you'll still have more than enough money. But if you're planning on giving Nathan half I hope that you'll wait until you feel he is old enough to handle that kind of responsibility."

"The way you did with me," I concluded, resting my knuckles on the table. "You said I would have more than enough money, how much did he leave me exactly?"

Foss chuckled. "The last time I checked, it was around 16.3 million, it may have accumulated some interest since then," He smirked.

"16.3 million. 16.3 million?" my jaw dropped. "Where did he get that kind of money? Foss you have to take a share."

"Adam has already taken care of me," he confirmed. "When Adam was younger he had inherited a lot from his grandfather, who was one of the founders of Latnok."

"Why didn't that money go to Christopher?" I asked.

"It was his grandfather on his mother's side…" he trailed off.

"He used his own daughter in the experiment?" I already knew the answer, but Foss nodded anyway.

"Adam felt that was why his grandfather left him so much money. He felt bad about what he had gotten his daughter into," he scuffed.

"Wow…" was all I could say. There was so much I didn't know about Adam's family, in some sense my family as well.

Before I left the warehouse, Foss gave me a number to a contractor that he knew very well. Apparently Foss had worked with this guy on one of the many hide outs he had built for Adam. He also said that if I didn't call he would and that he would head to the bank in the morning and make all the arrangements for me to take over the account.

I pulled up in front of the Trager home and saw Josh's car parked outside. I climbed out of the car and proceeded into the house.

"Hello?" I called.

"Kyle!" Nicole made her way to the hall to greet me. "You're home. It's so good to see you!"

"It's good to see you too, mom." By then Stephen, Josh and Andy had also gathered in the hall.

"Good to have you back, bro." Josh greeted with a hug. "Lookin' snazzy, by the way," he laughed.

"I had a meeting with the Chef this morning," I explained as I hugged everyone else.

We migrated into the kitchen and I caught them up on everything. Nicole wanted to make it clear that Nathan was to feel as welcome as anyone else in the family, just like they had done with myself and Jessi.

"So…when are Jessi and Nathan coming home?" Nicole was first to ask.

"They should be here tonight," I provided.

"They're welcome to stay here, if they want to," Stephen offered. "I don't think you have enough room at your apartment."

I smiled and continued to explain to them what I had just found out from Foss.

"Half of the money would go to Nathan, of course. But I want to give some of the money to you guys as well," I explained.

"Kyle, we can't let you do that," Stephen was first to oppose.

"Of course we can dad," Josh jumped in, and Andy slapped him on the arm.

"My share of the money is roughly 8.15 million dollars. Mom and dad, I want you to have a million, Josh and Andy you would get a million and so would Lori and Declan."

"Kyle-" Nicole started.

"I want to take care of you guys," I interrupted.

"Kyle, this is your money, I want you to be absolutely sure about this." Stephen looked me directly in the eye.

"I'd feel bad if I didn't," I said simply.

"Why would you feel bad?" Andy chimed in.

"He's Kyle," Josh grinned.

Everyone had resided in the living room after dinner, and Josh had been probing me about all the experiments Latnok had conducted. Prior to Josh asking yet another question, there was a soft nervous nock at the door. Before Nicole even had a chance to get up to answer the door I knew it was Jessi and Nathan.

"Hi," Nathan greeted nervously once inside.

"I'm Nicole," she introduced with a welcoming hug that took Nathan by surprise.

"Stephen," he too welcomed him with a hug.

"I'm Josh," he paused. "Since you're Kyle's brother, I guess that makes you my brother too?"

"I…I don't…Know what to say," he admitted, looking to me for help.

"Nathan, this is my family, well part at least. But you are my family as well, so by relation they're your family and you're part of their family as well. If you are comfortable with that?" I explained knowing that the Trager's had wanted to make him feel as welcome as I was, to make him feel a part of the family.

"We're a pretty crazy bunch, but we would love it if you would consider yourself a part of the family," Nicole added.

"I…I would…love that…" He smiled in gratitude and I could see tears pooling in his eyes. "Thank you!"

Nicole just pulled him into one of her motherly hugs and just like that he was one of the family.