All Chapters of Just One Night to Own Me, Daddies: Chapter 71 - Chapter 76

JANICEThe morning light filtered through the thin curtains of my bedroom, soft yet so unforgiving. I woke up with a heavy chest and a quick look in the mirror showed me how swollen my eyes were, bringing back the events of the previous day crashing back like a wave I couldn’t outrun.The cafe. The video. The woman’s head snapping back as the bullet hit her. The message threatening my life if I didn’t leave Lucian, Calder—all of them.I went back to lay on the bed and stayed there for a long time, just staring at the ceiling. Bandit curled warmly against my side. His soft purring plus Nancy’s humming which was probably coming from the kitchen were the only sounds in the otherwise quiet apartment. For a second, I considered pulling the covers over my head and just disappearing from the world.But I couldn’t afford that.Not anymore.I reached for my phone on the nightstand. The screen lit up with notifications. Most of them were from Aisha, checking on me. But there were also messages

JANICEFOUR YEARS AGOI was hot.Today was a fucking hot day.The afternoon sun filtered softly through the dorm window, casting this warm glow over the tangled sheets. I was sprawled on my stomach across the table, my laptop open in front of me, typing furiously on my part of the group project the lecturer had graciously given to us just yesterday. My hair was a mess, and I was wearing one of Noel’s old hoodies that still smelled like him.Like sandalwood and mint.Mila was lying beside me on her back, scrolling through her phone, occasionally kicking her legs lazily in the air. We’d been like this for hours—this comfortable silence mixed with random bursts of conversation. This was our favorite kind of day. One in which all we needed to do was lay in bed and just be us. No pressure.“You’re totally going to fail that class if you keep working at it like some robot,” Mila teased without up from her screen.“Shut up,” I laughed, nudging her with my foot. “This is due in a week, and yo

CALDER“Oh, the steakhouse will be the best place ever to meet. Thank you, Uncle Calder,” Mila had said during the call, after I invited her. A little lit of fooling around, just like we used to, when she was younger and her father had all these rules for her.No staying up beyond eight pm.No eating of red meat.No ice cream.Lucian and Aiden used to be so mad when she came back from school, eating happily at the ice cream I got for her. We were her parents, acting as both mother and father, because she did not have a mother and her father had two friends. Simple, enough, right?It was anything but.Mila was always a child no one could please. She wanted everything and anything, and I was the only one who always wanted to give it to her. Aiden stopped inviting me to his house at one point.But one must do all he could to ensure he remained the favorite uncle, right?The steakhouse was one of those old-school places with dark wood paneling, soft amber lighting, and waiters who moved l