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We’re all silent as we watch her tirade. She might be drunk, she might be adamant she has no desire to talk, but apparently, she has a shitload to say.

She turns and starts to stomp away, but spins on her heel, almost losing her balance. I lunge for her, ready to catch her if she tumbles, but she swats my hands away and rights herself.

“You know what? If you would have just talked to me about it, I probably would have said yes.”

I frown down at her. Madd and Kato are silent.

Maddox is the one who finally speaks up because none of us are exactly sure what she’s referring to at this point.

“Yes to what?”

“Having a baby. We didn’t care if we were married when we were teenagers. Why would I care now? But you did like every single other cock sucking piece of shit man in our fucked up world of crime and made the decision for me.”

She’s back to that again. Doesn’t matter how many times we try to explain to her it was before we knew the truth. It alsodoesn’t help that none of us bothered mentioning it to her until this morning.

While, yeah, Madd probably could have gone about it differently or waited until we could sit down and have a civil conversation with her. Either way, though, I’m sure she would have reacted the same way.

Whether we told her sooner or not, we’d made the decision for her, taken her choice in the matter away, forced our will on her.

And okay, look. I really want to pin all this on Kato but in reality, I wanted to knock her up as badly as he did, I wanted the child we thought she’d stolen from us.

We’d wait, though. If she isn’t pregnant now, we’ll wait untilshedecides, until she’s ready.

Shit. If she is pregnant, that’s two days in a row she’s been loaded. She’d be super early in the pregnancy, but it could still be harmful.

Wonder how pissed she’ll be if I put a stop to any form of drinking until she either takes a test or starts her period.

Wait.

She just said she would have agreed to starting a family with us if we’d simply talked to her about it. I’m not one to usually dwell on the past, being as there is literally zero way to change shit. But damn…we could already be on our way. Had I known she actually wanted to try for a kid already, I would have kept her stuffed with my cum day and night.

Pretty sure Kato and Maddox would have done the same, almost like a race to see whose swimmers would make it to her egg first.

Everest raises a hand and pushes some wayward hair from her face. “Fuck, I’m tired,” she mutters.

It’s not that late, but she apparently drank enough to have to be driven home and carried into the house. I wonder if she’llremember admitting she would have agreed to start trying for a family in the morning.

Although that sentiment might be moot now.

“I’m sorry, E. I don’t know what else to say. You’re right – we should have told you earlier. To be honest, I forgot about it. I was so wrapped up in having you back, in planning our wedding, learning the truth about what your father did…” Kato says as he pushes to his feet.

When he closes the space between them and reaches for her, cupping her face in his hands, she doesn’t back away.

But her bottom lip quivers, and it feels like someone punched a hole in my chest as I watch tears well in her eyes.

We fucking hurt her. Again. It was unintentional, but we’d still cut her deeply enough that we’ll have to spend every moment we can making it up to her, convincing her she can trust us.

Again.

Fuck. Two steps forward, ten fucking steps back.

“You can be pissed at me. It was my decision. I wanted to punish you, to make you hurt as badly as you’d hurt us. I didn’t know. I hope you know by now I would never do anything – fuck, E. I’m just…I’m fucking sorry. If you want to stay mad I understand, and I’ll make an appointment for someone to get you any kind of birth control you want. We’ll wear rubbers until you say otherwise. I’ll do whatever it takes until you trust me again. Butme. This is onme. I’m their Don – Maddox and Brixton were merely following my orders.”

Eh. It’s not a complete lie but not the full truth, either.

Thing is, though, if she’s only focusing her rage on him, that still gives Madd and me an edge with her, it gives her someone she’ll feel she can trust.

I have a feeling she’ll latch onto Madd more than me, though. After all, he was the one who took it upon himself to spill.