Page 205 of Rage

He grinned, stepping closer and pulling me upright by the hand. “You’ll see.” He briefly closed his mouth, his ravenous eyesraking over my naked body in appreciation. “As badly as I want you to stay naked forever, get dressed. You don’t want to miss this.”

“Key, it’s barely morning,” I protested, though the curiosity in my voice betrayed my annoyance.

He leaned down in front of me, his gaze locking onto mine. “You’ll thank us, Firefly. Trust me.” His tone softened, but it carried an edge and weight to it that I couldn’t quite place.

Ten minutes later, I was dressed in a pair of Cash’s jogging pants and one of Seb’s old shirts, my long faux locs hastily tied back as I followed Key through the house and down the staircase that led to the basement.

What could they possibly have for me down here?Growing up, the Solomon basement had always been off limits, so I was rarely down here. Yet, the further we went, the more the air seemed to shift, growing heavy and tense.

“Key,” I muttered, more hesitant now than I had been in the bedroom. “What’s going on?”

He glanced back at me, his mischievous smirk softening into something unreadable. “You’ll see. Just don’t freak out, alright? This is all for you.”

My stomach twisted as we reached a closed steel basement door. He pushed it open and dramatically bowed before I could even see inside the room.

“For you, Madame.”

I shook my head at his antics as he cracked the door open even more, revealing a dimly lit room that smelled faintly of damp concrete, iron, and old piss.

My breath caught at the sight before me, my hands flying to my mouth in shock.

The other three Solomon brothers stood in the center of the room—Darth, Cash, and Seb—each radiating the same dangerous energy I had come to expect from them. But myattention snapped to the figure slumped in the chair between them, bound with ropes and badly beat up.

Blood streaked the prisoner’s face, his hair matted and his clothes torn. It took me a moment to recognize him, but when I did, my stomach churned.

“Uncle Mo?” My voice was barely above a whisper, disbelief crashing over me like a tidal wave. If the Solomon brothers had him locked up down here, it was for a valid reason.

Cash stepped forward, his expression dark. “He’s no uncle. Not anymore.”

“What—what is this?” I stammered, looking between them. Key placed a hand on my shoulder, steadying me as my knees threatened to give way.

Darth spoke next, his tone clipped. “As difficult as it is to admit, the four of us haven’t been the best at communicating over the years. Spending these past few days with you had us opening up to each other and sharing stories we usually kept to ourselves. When putting together all the pieces, something still wasn’t adding up.”

“So we had Hollis do some digging,” Seb added. “And what he found was the piece we had missed three years ago.”

At the mention of my Uncle Hollis—one of the best hackers in the world—I stood straighter as my eyes focused on the prisoner.

“Mo was working with Tim and our father Donny,” Cash revealed. “Tim never had the strategic wit to pull something like that off himself, and my father was still conscious of his image and protecting his connections back then. Mo had the sex trafficking connect. It was his third cousin that owned the Rockford home you were locked up in. He’s the reason you were taken so easily. He sold you out.”

My blood ran cold. “That can’t be true,” I said, shaking my head. “He took care of me when Sharena and Tim would be sodrunk, they couldn’t see straight. He protected me when they wouldn’t.”

“And then he betrayed you,” Darth said bluntly. “He handed you over to his sex dealer like you were nothing.”

Mo groaned, lifting his battered face to look at me. “It’s not what you think Little Ny Ny,” he rasped, but his eyes darted nervously around the room.

“Don’t call me that,” I spat, hating the nickname now.

“I didn’t have a choice,” Mo whined. “Tim was at the meeting with my connect and he mentioned you to him after he learned you were a Crowne. They threatened to kill me if I didn’t deliver.”

“So you gave her up instead?” Seb questioned.

“Because we have no doubt that a Crowne probably sold more than you’d ever made selling women in the past,” Darth implied. “This was about money. Isn’t that right you piece of shit?”

Cash punched Mo in the face again, causing him to splutter out a bunch of blood to go along with his sorry excuses.

Key’s supportive grip tightened on my shoulder. “And you never thought to just tell the Crownes about the deal? How many women have you sold out of this city?”

Mo’s silence stretched, heavy and damning as every last good memory I had of a parental figure growing up was shattered to smithereens now. Finally, Mo muttered, “I owed him. I owed him for keeping my business alive. This was my debt. Little Ny Ny was my payment.”

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