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“What thefuckare you doing?”

I spin to find Pace sprinting down the pathway between garden beds. His eyes are wide and wild, and when he reaches around me to slam the cage door shut, snapping the latch into place, Effie squawks, “Gentle… gentle…”

His gaze burns murderously as he towers over me, the vein in his temple popping out. “I made it perfectly clear how I felt about you bringing her down here!”

I shrink back instinctively, heart in my throat, but I take one glance at Effie, so happy and delighted, and gather my courage. “You know I wouldn’t hurt her or let her get hurt,” I say,gently. “She needs sunlight. She needs to spread her wings.”

“Sunlight,”Effie trills, stretching her neck.

“She needs to be where I leave her!” he snaps, pulling a treat out of his pocket and giving it to her. “I checked the live feed on her cage. Do you have any fucking idea how it feels to expect to see a bedroom, but instead, it’s… this?!” He gestures to the glass, the sunlight, the plants. My stomach drops, realizing he thought she’d been taken. But before I can apologize, he keeps hurling his rant at me.

“You know the solarium isn’t monitored, so I can’t see you when you’re in here. I gave you a direct order, and you disobeyed it!”

“I’m sorry I scared you,” I say, squaring my shoulders, “but you left her in my room. You want me to watch her, but only on your terms. There’s no reason I can’t bring her down here other than the fact you’re scared!”

He snarls, “I’m not scared.”

“Oh, god, please, no!”There’s that weird voice again.

Turning to her, Pace pulls in a steadying breath. “It’s okay, baby. You’re okay.” He speaks calmly, but I feel the rage vibrating off him. “Everything’s okay, we’ll get you back upstairs, and everything will be fine.”

“Is this how you plan on raising your kid?” I blurt.

His hand clamps around the top of the cage, but he looks at me, eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“It has everything to do with it,” I insist, mind whirring. It’s the first time it’s really hit me that these three men might be responsible for the life growing inside of me. Not just responsible for creating it, but raising it, too. It makes anger flare in my chest. “Are you going to hide our child away like you hide Effie? Are you going to watch them twenty-four hours a day from your little security cave, more focused on screens than reality? Are you going to be too scared to let them experience life?”

“You know what I’m going to do?” He sets the cage back on the ledge and strides over to me. “I’m going to do everything I can to keep what’s mine safe, even if that means putting in measures other people think are insane.” His finger pushes at my belly. “Just by existing, this baby already has a target on its head, and if you think I won’t do everything in my power to protect you both, you don’t understand me.”

“Protection doesn’t always mean locking something up in a cage.” Angry tears burn in my eyes. “You can at least give Effie the illusion of freedom, can’t you?”

He explodes, “You don’t get it, Rosi!” and I flinch back. He bears down on me. “This isallan illusion. We’re all in cages. Some are bigger than others. Some, like ours, are gilded and comfortable. But that’s how being a Royal works. We’re trapped behind territory lines. We’re in our brownstone, or tower, or crypt. We may be sitting on bombs waiting to go off at any fucking moment. We fight for our brothers, blood or other. We fight for our Kings,” he curls his fingers against my belly, “for our heirs. Effie doesn’t need to get her hopes up that there’s something more out there, because it doesn’t fucking matter. This is it for us, Rosi. All of us.”

At some point, I realize we’ve stopped discussing Effie altogether, and my heart sinks. It’s Pace’s turn to flinch when I reach up to cup his cheek, willing him to see the conviction in my eyes. “I refuse to let that be this baby’s future.”

He jerks away, jaw set. “There you go again, thinking you have a choice.”

It’s not the threat he probably means for it to be.

It’s probably not directed at me at all.

When he grabs the cage, hauling it up the steps to the house, I know I’ll be haunted by the fear in his eyes. It’s a fear that’s only now forming in my own gut, this gnawing suspicion that I’m growing something in my body that I won’t have the right to.

And maybe its father won’t, either.

* * *

Later that night,the rain beats a staccato against the parlor window, as distracting as it is mesmerizing. Outside, through the dark and the mist, I see Thad, Ashby’s head of security, standing watch in the gardens.

“Read ‘em and weep!” Stella says, fanning her cards out on the table. “A straight flush!”

I blink at the cards, glancing at Ballsack, who looks just as flummoxed.

“I think we’re being hustled,” he tells me, throwing down his hand. A pair of aces. Better than mine: a pair of fives. “To the victor,” he sighs.

Clapping her hands, Stella rakes in the pot, which consists mostly of pennies, gum, and since this is Five Card West—a special Duke variation of poker that DKS likes to play—also light ammunition. “This one is so shiny!” she gushes, no doubt clueless as to what the shell goes to.

“It’s a nine millimeter Luger,” he says, shuffling.