Doomed

Chapter 24: Picture Perfect

Bringing your child home it's undoubtedly one of the most peaceful moments any parent can have. When looking at the couple with their little boy you couldn't quite figure out who was more attached to the kid. Regardless, with Cameron's birth everyone got to see a soft side of Ivan, they could see the young parent walking around the quarters holding his kid, talking to him so gently and sweetly. The mother was more protective at out of the two, she always managed to keep an eye on him.

Truth being  told, people around them had low expectations, as people who were trained to be merciless being affectionate with their son was definitely not something anybody thought they would be capable of doing, Eve went back to regular training, ignoring Ivan's attempts to talk her out of it since-and to his very personal opinion-for him, it was best to take things slow.

Although it was true that with time, Ivan started drifting a little as his hours of training increased, he argued that the cause of this was Cameron's safety, and Genevieve didn't find a way to argue on that, specially when Rebeca was still out there, hurt and searching for vengeance. Ivan refused to admit it to the mother of his child, knowing he would rely more pressure upon her than she really needed and things were calm, it would be selfish of him to ruin that peace; but Rebeca's words when he last saw her still tormented him.

"One day I'll be out of here Ivan... and I'll go for your precious baby"  that threat moved something inside his guts, the urge to protect his son the way he could not do with his sister forced him to keep training. 

Emilio also spend time with his nephew, in some ways it was also a good excuse to keep seeing Eve on daily basis so his foolish heart could stay at ease, Cameron somehow knew the difference between Emilio and Ivan, whenever Emilio was around he would be more quiet and look at him intently as if he tried to figure something out that was hidden in his uncle's pupils. This was something that made Genevieve laugh inevitably as sometimes she thought that her son was far more smart and perceptive than he appeared to be.

She loved to admire the change of attitude Cameron had when Ivan finally came home, today wasn't the exception as Emilio was playing with him on the floor, really just making sure the little one wouldn't try to stuff the teddy bear's ear in his mouth. Soon enough, the door was heard revealing the young father who's clothes were dry but his face was tinted with a pink shade across his cheekbones. At the sight of him, Cameron beamed loudly and a second later the innocent baby looked over at Emilio, quietly asking for permission to go say hi to his dad.

His uncle could only smile and make a small gesture with his head to give his approval to the boy, who immediately crawled as fast as he possibly could, giggling on the way as Ivan encouraged him to keep going, until at last the European boy picked up his son in one swift motion.

A loud kiss was planted on the baby's cheek and he laugh mumbling incoherent words in approval, the little one found it hard to speak since he was exposed to both English and Spanish in his household which made him mix sounds, resulting in an endless blabbering of his own making that sometimes only his parents understood.

Awkwardly, and again feeling quite out of place Emilio left the little family alone in their room, he had been trying so hard to keep his feelings aside, but it was hard when day by day he became closer with Genevieve. Every day he spent by her side, he found a new reason to love her, another thing that was mesmerizing in his eyes, the situation was impossible because maybe he was imagining things, maybe he wasn't getting close to her at all, but his foolish heart insisted otherwise. Perhaps he did have a chance but what kind of brother would he be if he stole the only girl that made Ivan feel human again?

Losing Genevieve would be devastating for him... God knows if he would ever be able to forgive him, he had to forget her, Emilio reminded himself how wrong his feelings were but no matter how stubborn he would try to be, a man can never control his heart.