First Night Home

**Sofia's POV:**

Seven seconds. That's how long the flatline lasted. Seven seconds of a single, unbroken tone that carved itself into my DNA. Seven seconds of watching nurses swarm Jaxon's incubator through glass that might as well have been a thousand miles thick. Seven seconds of knowing my son was dead.

*Beeeeeeeeeeeep.*

The sound didn't stop. It went on and on and—

*Beep.*

Weak. Stuttering. But there.

*Beep... beep... beep.*

"Rhythm's back!" A nurse's voice cut through the chaos. "Pulse is thready but present. Keep bagging him—"

My legs dissolved. Just—gone. Ace caught me before I hit the linoleum, his arms banding around my ribs so tight I couldn't breathe. Or maybe I'd already stopped breathing. Maybe I'd stopped when Jaxon's heart did and I just hadn't noticed yet.

"Sofia—" His voice cracked down the middle. "Sofia, he's—"

"I know." The words scraped out of my throat. "I know."

But I didn't know. Didn't know anything except the feel of Ace shaking against me—or maybe I was the one shaking—and the sound of individual beeps replacing that awful flatline and the taste of copper in my mouth from biting my tongue.

Through the window, I watched them work. Dr. Raines's hands flying over Jaxon's tiny body. A nurse adjusting the ventilator. Another checking the chest tube they'd just inserted, blood-tinged fluid draining into a collection chamber.

Someone was crying. It took me a moment to realize it was me.

---

**Ace's POV:**

I'd killed men without flinching. Tortured information out of people who'd betrayed me. Watched lives end and felt nothing except cold satisfaction that justice had been served.

But watching my son die for seven seconds—

That broke something in me I didn't know could break.

Sofia was still crying. Silent, shaking sobs that I felt through every point of contact between us. I held her tighter, burying my face in her hair because I couldn't look at that window anymore. Couldn't watch them work on Jaxon's body that was too small, too fragile, too impossibly breakable.

"Mr. and Mrs. Hernandez?"

Dr. Raines's voice. We both jerked our heads up. She'd emerged from the NICU, surgical mask pulled down around her neck. Sweat dampened her hairline. Her hands—the ones that had just restarted my son's heart—trembled slightly as she pulled off her gloves.

"He's stable," she said. Fast. Direct. The way you deliver good news when you know people are drowning. "His heart restarted on its own once we decompressed the pneumothorax. The chest tube is in place and draining properly."

"On its own?" I heard myself ask. My voice sounded wrong. Distant. "What does that mean?"

"It means his body wanted to fight. We gave it the opportunity, and—" She gestured toward the NICU. "He took it. But I need you to understand, the next twelve to twenty-four hours are critical. We're monitoring for organ damage from the arrest, watching his brain activity closely. He's heavily sedated right now to minimize stress on his system."

Sofia's hand found mine. Squeezed so hard her nails bit into my palm.

"Can we see him?" she whispered.

"Yes. In fact, I encourage it. Touch him. Talk to him. Your presence matters more than you know."

---

**Sofia's POV:**

The NICU smelled like antiseptic and recycled air and something underneath that might have been fear. Or maybe that was just me. Maybe I'd brought the fear in with me, seeping from my pores like sweat.

Jaxon's incubator sat in the corner, surrounded by machines that beeped and hissed and hummed. So many machines. Each one doing something his tiny body couldn't do on its own. Breathe. Regulate temperature. Monitor oxygen. Drain fluid from a lung that had collapsed under the weight of air it wasn't ready to process.

"Hi, baby." My voice cracked on the second word. I slid my hand through the porthole, my finger finding his palm. "It's Mommy. I'm here."

His fingers curled around mine. Just a reflex. I knew that. Knew it was just his nervous system responding to stimulus, not conscious recognition of his mother's touch. But God, it felt like everything.

"You scared us," I whispered. "You scared us so much. But you're okay. You're going to be okay. You have to be okay because—"

Because I'd already imagined his whole life. His first word. His first steps. Teaching him to read. Watching him graduate. Walking him down the aisle someday or handing him car keys or—

All of it. I'd imagined all of it in the months I'd carried him. And for seven seconds, I'd watched every imagined moment die.

"We're not going anywhere," Ace said from beside me. His hand joined mine inside the incubator, his pinky finger resting against Jaxon's forehead. "You hear that, kid? We're right here. We're not leaving you."

A nurse—Patricia, her name tag read—brought two chairs. "Here. You'll be more comfortable."

Comfortable. As if comfort was possible when your son was breathing through a tube and his heart had stopped beating and the only thing between him and death was a chest drain and machines and sheer stubborn will.

But I sat. Because standing meant I might fall, and falling meant someone would make me leave, and leaving was impossible.

So I sat. And touched my son. And counted each beep of the monitor like a prayer.

---

**Six hours later.**

Sofia had talked herself hoarse. She'd told Jaxon about the nursery—the walls painted soft blue, the crib with the mobile of planets and stars, the rocking chair where she'd planned to nurse him at 3 AM while the world slept. She'd described the backyard, the swing set I'd had installed two months ago in optimistic anticipation of a future that had seemed so certain then.

She'd promised him a dog. A golden retriever named something ridiculous like Pancake or Waffle because that's what tired parents did at 2 AM when their son needed distraction from the fact that he was fighting for his life.

Now she'd gone quiet. Her hand still touched Jaxon through the porthole, but her eyes had glazed over with exhaustion that went deeper than lack of sleep.

"You should rest," I said quietly.

"I'm fine."

"Sofia—"

"If I close my eyes, I'll see it again." Her voice was flat. Empty. "The flatline. The way his chest went still. The—" She broke off, swallowing hard. "I can't. Not yet."

I understood. Because every time I blinked, I saw it too. Seven seconds of death.

Dr. Raines returned around midnight, a tablet tucked under her arm. She studied Jaxon's monitors in silence for a long moment before turning to us.

"His vitals have been stable for the last six hours," she said. "Oxygen saturation at ninety-two percent. Heart rate consistent. The chest tube is draining less, which means the pneumothorax is resolving."

"What about his brain?" Sofia asked. The question we'd both been afraid to voice.

"We've been running a continuous EEG. So far—" Dr. Raines pulled up an image on her tablet. "We're seeing normal brain wave patterns for a thirty-two-week infant. No seizure activity. Good response to stimuli."

The breath I'd been holding for six hours released in a rush.

"But," Dr. Raines continued, because there was always a but, "we won't know the full extent of potential damage for days. Possibly weeks. Some effects don't show up immediately. We're watching for developmental delays, motor function issues, cognitive—"

"He's going to be fine." Sofia's voice cut through the medical litany like a blade. "He fought his way back. That means he's strong enough to be fine."

Dr. Raines didn't argue. Just nodded slowly. "He's definitely a fighter. But I want you both prepared for a long road ahead. Even in the best-case scenario, he'll be in the NICU for at least another month. Maybe longer."

After she left, Sofia turned to me. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face pale, her hair tangled from running her hands through it a thousand times. She'd never looked more beautiful.

"A month," she said. "We can do a month."

"We can do however long it takes," I corrected.

She leaned into me, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, both of us watching our son breathe. Watching the numbers on his monitor hold steady. Watching him live.

---

**Sofia's POV:**

Dawn came slowly, gray light creeping through the NICU windows. The night shift nurses completed their final rounds with quiet efficiency born of routine. But this wasn't routine for us. Nothing about this was routine.

"Mrs. Hernandez?" Patricia approached with a gentle smile. "Dr. Raines approved reducing the ventilator settings. We're going to see if Jaxon can start doing some of the breathing work himself."

My stomach clenched. "What if he can't?"

"Then we increase the support again. But we need to start weaning him eventually. This is progress." She adjusted something on the ventilator. "Small steps. That's how we get through this."

I watched the monitor like a hawk as she made the adjustment. Jaxon's oxygen saturation dipped—89%, 87%—and my heart rate spiked. Then it climbed. 88%. 90%. 91%.

"Good," Patricia murmured. "His lungs are compensating. He's trying."

"He's trying," I echoed.

As if trying was enough. As if trying could overcome biology and prematurity and the fact that his body wasn't ready for any of this.

But maybe it was enough. Maybe trying was all any of us had.

---

**Ace's POV:**

Ice showed up at 7 AM looking like he hadn't slept. He probably hadn't. None of us had. The whole organization had been on high alert since Jaxon's birth, and last night's crisis had sent everyone into overdrive.

"Boss." He stopped at the incubator, staring at Jaxon with an expression I'd never seen on him. Raw. Vulnerable. Almost gentle. "Shit. He's so small."

"He's strong though." I didn't know if I was trying to convince Ice or myself.

"Yeah. I can see that." Ice reached into his jacket, pulled out a small teddy bear. "Brought this for him. I know he can't have it in there yet, but—" He looked almost embarrassed. "Thought maybe you could put it where he can see it. So he knows his Uncle Ice has his back."

Sofia's eyes filled with tears. Again. She'd cried more in the last twenty-four hours than I'd seen in the entire time I'd known her.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Ice set the bear on the shelf beside the incubator. A ridiculous little brown bear with a red bow tie that looked absurd next to all the medical equipment. But somehow, it made the space feel less clinical. More human.

"He's going to be okay," Ice said. Not a question. A statement of fact. "Hernandez men don't quit. And this kid?" He gestured to Jaxon. "He's already proved he's a Hernandez."

After Ice left, I stared at that stupid teddy bear and felt something crack in my chest. My son. My family. My responsibility to keep them safe.

And I'd almost lost him.

---

**Twenty-four hours post-arrest.**

The chest tube came out. Dr. Raines performed the procedure while Sofia gripped my hand hard enough to leave bruises. Jaxon didn't even react—too sedated to feel it—but watching that tube slide from his side made my stomach turn.

"X-ray shows the pneumothorax has fully resolved," Dr. Raines said, disposing of the tube. "One less machine. That's progress."

"When can we hold him?" Sofia asked. She'd asked the same question a dozen times.

"Soon. Maybe in three to four days if he continues improving. We can try kangaroo care—skin-to-skin contact. It helps with bonding and regulation."

Three to four days. An eternity compressed into a promise.

That evening, Dr. Raines called us into a consultation room. The moment she said those words, my blood ran cold. Nothing good came from private meetings with doctors.

"Jaxon's twenty-four-hour EEG came back," she said, pulling up images on her tablet.

Sofia's fingernails bit into my palm.

"I'm pleased to say we're not seeing signs of significant brain damage from the cardiac arrest."

The world tilted. Righted itself. Tilted again.

"His brain is okay?" Sofia's voice was barely audible.

"All indicators are positive right now. Normal brain waves. No seizures. Appropriate reflexes." Dr. Raines met our eyes. "I can't promise there won't be long-term effects—some things don't show up for months or years. But right now? He's beaten the worst odds."

After she left, Sofia turned to me. For the first time in thirty-six hours, I saw something other than terror in her eyes.

Hope. Fragile, cautious, hard-won hope.

"He's going to be okay," she said. Not a wish. A certainty.

"He's going to be okay," I echoed.

We returned to Jaxon's bedside. He looked peaceful, his color better, his breathing more synchronized with the ventilator. I touched my finger to his palm, felt him curl around it with slightly more strength than before.

"Welcome back, kid," I whispered. "You gave us hell. But you came through."

Sofia leaned against me, her hand joining mine. "He's ours," she said softly. "He's really ours. And he's going to grow up and be amazing."

"He already is," I replied.

Because any kid who could fight death at two days old? That kid was already a fucking miracle.

---

**Seventy-two hours later.**

Patricia woke us gently from where we'd dozed in our chairs, still holding Jaxon.

"Look," she said, pointing to the ventilator settings.

Jaxon was doing sixty percent of his breathing work himself. Sixty percent.

"Dr. Raines thinks we can extubate him tomorrow," Patricia explained. "Get that tube out. Let him try breathing completely on his own."

Tomorrow. One day away from seeing his face without tape and tubes obscuring half of it.

"That's amazing," Sofia breathed. "Three days ago his heart stopped. Now he's—"

"Now he's fighting," I finished. "Like we knew he would."

Patricia smiled. "He's a miracle. I've been doing this for thirty years, and I can always tell which babies are going to make it. Your son?" She touched the incubator gently. "He's going to make it."

After she left, Sofia looked at me with tears streaming down her face. But she was smiling. Actually, genuinely smiling.

"He's going to come home," she whispered.

"He's going to come home," I agreed.

And for the first time since this nightmare began, I let myself believe it. Our son was going to live. He was going to breathe on his own. He was going to grow up.

And we were going to give him everything—safety, love, a life worth fighting for.

Because that's what family did. They fought. And they won. Together.

---

**Sofia's POV:**

The mansion felt different. We'd only been gone three weeks, but coming home with Jaxon in my arms—actually in my arms, not trapped behind plastic and wires—made everything look new. Threatening. Full of sharp corners and hard surfaces and a thousand ways I could fail to keep him safe.

"Easy on the steps," Ace murmured behind me, one hand hovering at the small of my back even though I wasn't the one who needed support anymore.

Jaxon weighed four pounds, seven ounces. The nurse had written it on his discharge papers in neat, precise handwriting, as if those numbers were supposed to mean something. As if they could capture the miracle of this tiny, impossibly fragile life we'd almost lost.

"I've got him," I said. But my voice shook.

Ice appeared at the top of the stairs, his usual swagger muted. He'd been at the hospital every single day of Jaxon's NICU stay, bringing coffee and terrible jokes and an endless stream of stuffed animals that Jaxon was too small to appreciate.

"Welcome home, little man." Ice's voice was soft. Careful. Like he was afraid speaking too loud might shatter something. "Got the nursery all ready. Dante went nuts with the baby-proofing. Pretty sure he covered every outlet in the entire mansion."

"Every outlet?" Ace asked.

"Every. Single. One." Ice grinned, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Also installed seventeen new security cameras. Kid's gonna be the most watched baby in Miami."

Because that's what we'd become. A family living in a fortress, raising a child in a world where enemies circled like sharks smelling blood in the water.

Kai was dead. But his death had created a power vacuum that half of Miami's underworld was scrambling to fill. And we were vulnerable in ways we'd never been before.

---

**Ace's POV:**

Jaxon made a sound—not quite a cry, more like a whimper—and every muscle in my body locked.

"Is he okay?" The words came out harsh. Demanding. "Should we call Dr. Raines?"

"Ace." Sofia's voice was gentle but firm. "He's fine. Babies make sounds. It's normal."

Normal. Right. Because anything about this situation was normal. My son—my three-week-old, four-pound son who'd died in my arms for seven seconds—was normal.

I followed Sofia into the nursery. Dante had outdone himself. The crib was positioned away from windows, surrounded by monitors that tracked breathing, movement, heart rate. The changing table was stocked with supplies that looked more appropriate for a surgical suite than a baby's room.

"Paranoid much?" Ice muttered from the doorway.

"Prepared," I corrected. "There's a difference."

Sofia laid Jaxon in the crib with movements so careful she might have been handling explosives. Which, in a way, she was. One wrong move. One moment of inattention. And we could lose him all over again.

He looked even smaller in the crib. A scrap of humanity drowning in white sheets and soft blankets.

"He's supposed to eat every three hours," Sofia said, consulting the feeding chart the NICU nurses had given us. "Dr. Raines said we need to wake him if he sleeps longer than that. His stomach is too small to go without food."

Wake him. Force-feed him. Monitor every breath. This was parenthood. This constant, gnawing terror dressed up as love.

"You should rest," I told Sofia. She looked exhausted. Beautiful but exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes and a fragility in her movements that made my chest ache. "I'll watch him."

"I'm not tired."

"You're dead on your feet, baby."

"So are you." She turned to face me, her eyes fierce despite the exhaustion. "We do this together. Remember? That's what we promised."

Together. Yeah. Because I'd done such a great job protecting them so far. I'd almost gotten my son killed because I couldn't wait one more day to murder my father. I'd chosen revenge over Sofia's safety, and Jaxon had paid the price with his premature birth.

Some father I was turning out to be.

---

**Sofia's POV:**

Two AM came too fast. Jaxon's cry cut through the silence like a blade—thin, reedy, desperate. I was out of bed before I was fully awake, my body moving on pure maternal instinct.

Ace was already at the crib, staring down at Jaxon with an expression that broke my heart. Lost. Terrified. Like he was facing an enemy he didn't know how to fight.

"I've got him," I said, gently moving Ace aside.

Jaxon's face was scrunched up, red with indignation at whatever had woken him. Hunger, probably. Always hunger with preemies.

I lifted him carefully—supporting his head the way the nurses had shown me, keeping one hand under his bottom—and settled into the rocking chair.

Feeding took forty-five minutes. Jaxon struggled to latch, his mouth too small, his suck too weak. Half the formula dribbled down his chin. I had to stop every few minutes to burp him, terrified he'd aspirate and end up back in the hospital.

Ace watched from the doorway. Silent. Vigilant. A guard on duty.

"You can help, you know," I said softly.

"I don't know how."

"Neither do I. We'll figure it out together."

He crossed to me then, kneeling beside the chair, his hand resting on Jaxon's tiny back. "What if I hurt him?"

"You won't."

"You don't know that. I'm not—" He broke off, jaw clenching. "I've killed people, Sofia. My hands have ended lives. What if they're not meant to protect one?"

I covered his hand with mine, pressing both our palms against Jaxon's fragile ribcage. "These hands saved his life. You carried him to the car when I couldn't move. You held him while they worked on him in the NICU. You're already protecting him."

"It's not enough."

"It has to be. Because he's ours, and we're all he's got."

---

**Ace's POV:**

Ice found me in my office at 3 AM, after Sofia had finally fallen asleep with Jaxon in his bassinet beside our bed.

"We need to talk," he said, closing the door.

Nothing good ever started with those words. "Talk."

Ice pulled out his phone, swiped to a photo, and held it out. "This was delivered to the front gate two hours ago."

I took the phone. Looked at the image. A black envelope. No return address. Just a single symbol drawn in what looked like blood.

Raven.

My blood turned to ice. "When?"

"Guards found it during perimeter check. Already ran it for prints—nothing. But the symbol—"

"I know what it means." I'd seen it before. Months ago, when we'd raided one of their safe houses looking for Haze. The Raven organization. Secretive. Brutal. And apparently not done with us yet.

"There's more." Ice's face was grim. "Dante called. Three of our smaller operations got hit tonight. Coordinated strikes. Professional. They didn't take anything. Just sent a message."

"What message?"

"That they know we're vulnerable. That they know about—" Ice's eyes flicked toward the ceiling, toward the nursery where my son slept. "About Jaxon."

The words hit like a physical blow. They knew. Our enemies knew we had a weakness now. A tiny, four-pound weakness that couldn't defend himself.

"Increase security," I said, my voice flat. Emotionless. The voice I used when planning kills. "Triple the guards. No one in or out without clearance. And Ice—"

"Yeah?"

"Find out who leaked the information about Jaxon. And when you do—" I met his eyes. "Bring them to me alive."

---

**Sofia's POV:**

I woke to find Ace's side of the bed cold. Jaxon was still asleep in his bassinet, his chest rising and falling with reassuring regularity. But Ace was gone.

I found him in the nursery, sitting in the rocking chair, staring at nothing.

"Ace?"

He didn't react. Didn't acknowledge my presence. I crossed to him, kneeling at his feet, my hands on his knees.

"What's wrong?"

"Everything." His voice was hollow. "Everything is wrong."

"Tell me."

"I can't keep you safe. Either of you. I thought—" He laughed, but it was a broken sound. "I thought killing Kai would end it. Would make us safe. But all I did was paint a target on our backs."

"What happened?"

He told me. About the envelope. The symbol. The coordinated attacks. The fact that our enemies knew about Jaxon.

"So we fight," I said when he finished.

"Sofia—"

"No. Listen to me." I gripped his face, forcing him to look at me. "We fight. Together. Like we always have. You think I'm going to let some faceless organization take my son? Take my family? I've killed before, Ace. I'll do it again if I have to."

Something shifted in his eyes. Surprise. Pride. Fear.

"You're supposed to be the good one," he murmured.

"I'm a mother now. Good doesn't enter into it."

He pulled me into his lap, buried his face in my neck. "I love you. So fucking much it scares me."

"I know. I love you too." I held him tighter. "And we're going to protect him. Whatever it takes."

But even as I said it, I felt the weight of that promise settling over us like a shroud. Whatever it takes. Even if it destroyed us in the process.

---

**Five AM.**

Jaxon woke again. Hungry. Crying. I fed him while Ace watched. After, Ace insisted on trying to burp him. His hands—those dangerous, lethal hands—were impossibly gentle as he supported Jaxon against his shoulder, patting his back with a touch so light it barely made contact.

Jaxon burped. A tiny sound that made Ace's face light up like he'd won the lottery.

"Did you hear that?" He looked at me with boyish excitement. "He burped."

"He did." I smiled despite the exhaustion dragging at my bones. "You're a natural."

"Hardly." But he was smiling too. A real smile. Soft and unguarded and beautiful.

For just a moment, the threats faded. The danger. The fear. For just a moment, we were just a family. Two exhausted parents and their miracle baby.

Then my phone buzzed. Unknown number. I almost didn't answer. But something made me pick up.

"Hello?"

Silence. Then breathing.

"Who is this?" My voice sharpened.

"You should have stayed away from him, Sofia." A woman's voice. Familiar but distorted. "Now you'll lose everything."

The line went dead.

I stared at the phone, my heart hammering.

"Sofia?" Ace was watching me, Jaxon still cradled against his shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know." I showed him the number. "Someone just—they said I should have stayed away from you. That I'll lose everything."

Ace's expression went cold. Lethal. The softness evaporating like morning mist.

"Give me the phone."

He handed Jaxon to me, pulled out his own phone, and made a call. "Dante. I need you to trace a number. Now."

While he talked, I held Jaxon close, breathing in his baby smell—formula and powder and something sweet and indefinable. We'd fought so hard to keep him alive. And now we had to fight to keep him safe.

The war wasn't over. It was just beginning.