Who's My Triplet's Alpha Daddy? Novel

Chapter 162 Jan 15, 2026 POV: Thalia I follow Kieran through a Wednesday that exists in my original timeline as a blank space-hours I never witnessed because I was too busy building a life with him to imagine what choosing wrong would look like. Five AM. His alarm goes off in the penthouse that's all glass and steel and absolutely no warmth. He's already awake because sleep is a luxury for people who aren't slowly dying from the inside out. Lies there for thirty seconds staring at the ceiling before forcing himself vertical. The gym becomes his personal torture chamber.

Weights heavy enough that his muscles scream. Treadmill set to speeds that make his lungs burn. He's trying to exhaust himself into not feeling. It doesn't work but he does it anyway because the alternative is sitting still with his thoughts. Shower after runs cold enough to hurt. Not refreshing-punishing. Ice water sluicing over skin while he stands there with one hand braced against tile, head bowed, looking like a man at his own execution. Seven AM finds him at the office before anyone else arrives.

His desk is pristine-everything organized with military precision because controlling his environment is the only control he has left. He buries himself in work that used to set his blood on fire with the thrill of strategy. Now it just fills empty hours. Corporate acquisitions are just noise to drown out the sound of his life imploding. Nine AM. Lysander arrives with the other me. They're laughing about something, her hand on his arm, comfortable in that way that comes from sleeping next to someone every night.

They pass Kieran's office and Lysander's hand drops to her lower back-possessive, mine. Kieran's face stays blank. Ice-king mask locked tight. But I see his hand clench around his pen hard enough that the plastic cracks. Ten-thirty brings a conference call about the Hartwell merger. Kieran runs it with brutal efficiency while Lysander and that version of me sit across the table, shoulders brushing. Every micro-movement between them is another cut.

She takes notes, asks intelligent questions, completely oblivious to the fact that Kieran's watching her with the kind of intensity usually reserved for people memorizing faces before executions. Lunch arrives via Lia, who's made appearing at his office with food a regular thing. She sweeps in wearing designer everything, all sympathy and thinly veiled offers. "You look tired," she says, setting down expensive takeout. "Are you sleeping?" "I'm fine." The lie is automatic. "You're not fine. You're clearly suffering." She perches on his desk, crosses legs that cost a fortune to maintain.

"I could help with that. Help you move on." The offer hangs there-sex, companionship, someone warm in his bed who isn't the woman raising his children with his brother. It would be easy to use her, to fill the void with someone willing and completely wrong. "Thank you for lunch," Kieran says instead. His voice could freeze nitrogen. "I have a two o'clock." Dismissal. Clear and absolute. Lia's face flickers with hurt before she smooths it over and leaves.

I watch him stare at the lunch he won't eat and understand something that makes my chest ache-he won't use someone else because it would be cruel. He's dying by inches but he won't drag anyone else down. The worst part is Wednesday afternoons. Three PM. Magnus instituted mandatory "family time" six weeks ago-his version of compromise that's really torture. Kieran is required to spend two hours every Wednesday at the apartment with his children who call him Uncle Kieran while his brother gets called Lysander with easy affection. I watch him pull up at 2:55.

Sits in his car for those five minutes, hands gripping the steering wheel, visibly steeling himself. The door opens and Phoenix launches herself at him. "Uncle Kieran! I made a volcano for science class! Want to see it explode?" Uncle Kieran. The title is a knife between his ribs. "Show me," he says, voice almost steady. Inside, the apartment smells like Lysander-pine and rain everywhere, his clothes mixed with hers in the closet Kieran pretends not to notice. His presence soaked into every surface, claiming territory that should be Kieran's.

Orion materializes with a science project about quantum mechanics that's definitely above third-grade level. "Can you help me understand wave-particle duality? Mom tried but she doesn't really get physics." Kieran sits at the kitchen table and explains concepts that come naturally to him, watching his son's face light up with understanding. Orion has Kieran's brain, his analytical precision. But there's a wall between them that biology can't cross. Orion calls him Uncle. Asks his questions politely. Doesn't climb into his lap or show any of the casual affection he gives Lysander.

Luna watches from the couch with those too-knowing eyes. She's the empath, feeling everyone's emotions like they're her own. Sometimes she gets up and touches Kieran's hand like she's trying to comfort pain she can sense but doesn't understand. "You're sad," she tells him once, voice quiet. "Why are you always sad when you visit?" "I'm not sad," he lies. "Just thinking about work." She doesn't believe him but she's too young to articulate what she feels, so she just holds his hand tighter. Phoenix is completely unaware of the tragedy playing out.

She climbs on Kieran like he's a jungle gym, shows him every drawing, demands his attention with casual entitlement. "When can we see your house?" Phoenix asks, hanging upside down off his arm. "Lysander said you have a really tall building with a pool on the roof!" "Anytime you want," Kieran says. "This weekend! All of us! You, me, Orion, Luna, Mom, and Lysander can all go swimming!" The casual grouping-him included as an afterthought in a family that should be his but isn't-makes something in his expression crack before he forces it smooth.

"We'll see," he says, which is adult code for no but I can't say that to a child. Two hours. One hundred twenty minutes of being in the same space as his children while they call someone else dad in everything but name. One hundred twenty minutes of Lysander playing father with natural ease while Kieran sits on the periphery like a distant relative. After exactly two hours, he extracts himself with polite excuses about work emergencies. The other me walks him to the door with that careful kindness that's somehow worse than hostility. "Thank you for coming," she says.

"It means a lot to them." Does it? I want to scream. Does it really? Because you're making him watch someone else raise his children and calling it generosity. "They're great kids," Kieran says, voice carefully neutral. "You're doing a good job." The drive back takes twenty minutes through traffic. He parks and sits there for another ten, watching other people come home to their lives while his feels like a waiting room for something that will never arrive. Inside, he pours three fingers of whiskey that costs more than most people's monthly rent.

Stands at the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Seattle's skyline. Doesn't drink it. Just holds the glass and stares at the city lights like they contain answers they don't have. I watch this routine-this careful death by a thousand cuts-and something in me shatters. This is what my choice did in that other timeline. This is what choosing comfort over destiny looks like. Kieran, who searched for eight years. Who fathered three impossible children in one night and didn't even know they existed. Kieran, who's being systematically eroded by being forced to be uncle to his own children.

You can't make someone be an uncle to their own children and expect them to survive it whole. You can't force biology into the wrong boxes without consequences that compound like debt you can never repay. His phone buzzes. Text from Magnus: Council meeting Friday. Your presence required. Another obligation. Another performance of the ice-king heir who definitely isn't slowly dying inside. He doesn't respond. Tosses his phone on the couch and finally drinks the whiskey in one burning swallow that doesn't help.

I want to reach through this vision and shake that version of me until she understands what she's doing. Until she sees that choosing wrong doesn't just hurt her-it destroys everyone in the blast radius. But I'm just a ghost in someone else's nightmare, forced to watch consequences I caused by loving the wrong brother first. Kieran pours another drink he won't drink and stands at that window until midnight, waiting for sleep that won't come and healing that doesn't exist and relief from a pain that only gets sharper with time.

This is what monstrous looks like wrapped in the language of choice and modern values and fighting destiny. And that other version of me is still pretending it's fine. admin