Page 195 of Rage

The room was heavy with the weight of unspoken tension, as I stood in the center of the office, my back straight despite the trembling in my hands as my gaze locked onto the four men seated before me.

“I inherited a harmful BRCA 1 gene mutation,” I blurted, pulling off the imaginary Band-Aid as my words sliced through the air. “Which basically means, I have an increased risk for developing breast and ovarian cancer. The main reason I tested is because my mother and grandmother passed away from ovarian cancer, so it runs in the family. Therefore, I’ve decided to get preventative surgery soon to have my ovaries removed.” My voice slightly cracked, my anxious eyes deciphering the primal emotions in their gazes—a mix of fear, anger, andprotectiveness. Before any of them could speak, I pressed on. “Possibly other surgeries after I speak with another specialist. But before that surgery, I want to have a child … which is why I’m here today. I need your sperm to provide to my fertility specialist in hopes that I can be knocked up within the next few months.”

My rushed words seemed to detonate throughout the room like a bomb. Key’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the edge of the desk he was sitting on, his jaw clenched so tightly I thought it might shatter.

Seb stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the hardwood as his body vibrated with barely contained energy. Darth’s lips parted, but no words came, his quiet anguish mirrored in his brothers’ faces. Only Cash’s lips curled in a dark and dangerous sympathetic smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“If one of you are willing to help me out, you wouldn’t have to be in the child’s life if you don’t want to be,” I explained. “It’s up to you. But I’ve been looking through sperm bank profiles and I just really want the father of my child to be someone I know.”

The brothers remained silent. If anything, the tension was even more potent now.

“Let me get this straight,” Key drawled, breaking the silence. “You want to choose one of us to give you our sperm?” His tone was one of unmistakable disbelief.

“No,” I said firmly, clasping my hands together while looking each of them in the eye. “If you’re all willing to help, I wanteachof you to decide instead. I don’t want to choose, because I—" I swallowed hard, the words threatening to choke me. “Because I love you. All of you. You’ve been in my life since we were kids and despite everything, there’s not one of you that I trust more than the other. This might be selfish, but I need to do this my way. For me. For us.”

The air in the office turned molten, thick with sentiments I wasn’t sure I could untangle with words. Most of my life I’d watched them talk without needing to speak, but right now, observing their exchanged glances and the silent war raging between them kept me rooted in place. Yet, no matter how many silent side conversations they were having, their eyes always came back to me—burning, questioning. Wondering if I had lost my goddamn mind.

Chapter Two

Nyx

Shit. This is going terribly.

“I understand if this is all too much,” I stated, finally able to move my feet as I paced the confines of the office. “Brian thought it was too much as well. Which if I’m being honest, I don’t think we would have worked anyway. I used to think it’s because he was boring, but now I realize that we just don’t like the same things. I enjoy going rock-climbing and bungee jumping, while he hates heights and rather spend his day dates at a beach club. He even said he thought I was too heavy to rock climb, but it’s his scrawny ass that can’t keep up with me.”

I was rambling, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. Having them watch me in muted stillness —their stone expressions burning with emotions I couldn’t quite name yet—caused me to nervously chatter about shit I probably shouldn’t even be sharing with them right now when there was a more pressing matter at hand.

“I once planned a spontaneous road trip, and he complained the entire way. He decided on the trip that he was claustrophobic and hated small spaces, claiming he needed to take breaks because his legs hurt in the car. But he’s only five foot ten inches tall and I rented a huge SUV, so his legs had plenty of space.I love to dance too, but he’d rather remain seated all night just watching other people have fun. And I may not tell the best jokes, but I think I’m pretty damn funny when I want to be. Except looking back on it, I’m really thinking that dude despises laughter. He’s the one who sits in the audience and doesn’t crack a smile at comedy shows.”

“You’re not engaged anymore?”

Darth’s question caused me to slow my pacing and stop my ramble. “No, I’m not. Brian broke off our engagement less than a week after I got the news and told him I wanted to try to get pregnant. I told Mia not to say anything about it to anyone until I was ready. Plus, since Brian had already moved back to his Atlanta neighborhood before we got engaged, no one here in Chicago has been asking me too many questions yet, but I know they’re coming. I’ve been helping plan the women’s empowerment event at Laced, so no one expected me to move until next month anyway.”

Laced was a women’s empowerment and self-dense organization that the women in my Crowne family managed.

“Is Pharaoh aware that you aren’t moving to Atlanta?” Darth asked.

I shook my head at the mention of my father. “No, he thinks I’m still here for the Laced event, especially since Uncle Jedidiah’s wife, Korie, is teaching me all her tricks of the trade for planning.”

Cash and Key shared a look of concern, no doubt both of them thinking about how one of their bosses would take everything I was saying. In all honesty, they knew Pharaoh Crowne and the entire Crowne family better than I did.Maybe more than I ever would, but I hope I can change that.

Seb eyed me suspiciously. “You don’t want to tell the Crownes what happened because you already feel like you’ve been a burden to them, don’t you?”

I flinched at his precise words, memories that were never far from my mind floating back to the surface and slapping me across the face.

“It’s not every day you get locked in a basement by the man you thought was your father, only to get rescued by the man you learn is actually your birth father, with a mother who isn’t alive to explain herself.”

While I was enjoying getting to know my new family and wished every day that Pharaoh Crowne had been the father in my life instead of the asshole my mom thought was a better fit, the truth was, being the daughter of Pharaoh Crowne was overwhelming. Meeting my other siblings had been great since I was my mom’s only child and had always wanted brothers and sisters. But to go from never feeling parental love, to being his daughter was a lot to take in.

Pharaoh had admitted that he’d been intimate with my mom before and in her own words when she was alive, back then she was fucking any man who gave her attention. The DNA test had also proved I was his daughter. I hadn’t expected such a quick acceptance from him when I told him about the letter I found in my mother’s belongings hinting that he could be my father, but a warm welcome is precisely what I got.

All of my life, I’d heard whispers about the prestigious crime family that owned a large property on the outskirts of Chicago. A family that was comprised of kids raised to be like soldiers after being adopted by my grandparents, Stan and Duchess Crowne.

They were also leaders of Dark Trinity, an organized crime division headquartered in the Chicago underground. Dark Trinity’s monarch consisted of the two founding families—the Crownes and the Maddens—and the three division leaders—the Mavericks, Wolves, and Kings.

No one crossed the leading families without facing dire consequences, and anyone involved in the mafia and organizedcrime scene couldn’t step foot into Chicago without making their presence known to the Crownes to gain passage into the city.

Cash and Key worked for Saint Crowne—my uncle—as part of The Drifters clean-up crew who floated from place to place undetected to dispose of dead bodies, erase evidence, and ensure that crimes left no trace.

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