Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Nyx
S hit. 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 organized crime 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.
When they weren’t working for Saint, they were helping Darth and Seb who worked for my father as owners of Lumière Noire House, an art history museum, gallery, and theater that was a front for laundering drug money to make illicit funds appear legitimate through performances of the arts.
A lot had changed in my life since Mia moved overseas for her job and I last hung out with all the Solomon brothers. Including taking the Crowne last name and ridding myself of the burden of people believing I was related to that asshole my mom married.
“I remember when we went skydiving together,” Key stated, interrupting my thoughts. “You asked me to take you and Mia on your eighteenth birthday.”
“One of the best birthday gifts I’ve ever gotten.”
He grinned. “Being in the air on the brink of freefalling is the best kind of high there is.”
No, your infectious personality is better.
“Do you remember when we won that dance competition in high school?” Seb asked, causing my head to tilt his way.
“Of course I do.”
“It was a great time,” he said, smirking in a boyish way that made him look like the teen I crushed on back then. “I may be quiet most of the time, but dancing lets me express myself in ways that words escape me.”
I smiled, recalling how everyone was shocked when a junior agreed to team up with a freshman.
“Me too. Especially when life gets difficult. You need an outlet for your frustration and an escape from reality. That’s why I also love impromptu road trips so much.”
“Freedom,” Darth muttered, his deep voice warming my entire body. “Unplanned road trips break up the monotony of everyday life, while also giving you a chance to clear your mind on the open roads.”
“You’re a large part of the reason why I did a solo road trip around the States after I graduated college.”
Darth’s stoic facial expression didn’t change, but it was the slight glint in his eyes that let me know he appreciated me divulging that information.
“You were in LA,” Cash stated, contemplative eyes holding mine when he stepped into my line of vision. “It was during a pit stop on your road trip when we met up to attend a comedy show together since I was in town.”
I grinned. “And we laughed all damn night at how terrible some of the comedians were. It was the perfect release for the stress I felt after my car breaking down and pushing back my journey to Arizona. But that’s the beauty in finding time to laugh even when the jokes aren’t funny. It gives you a beautiful release.”
Sighing, I took a seat in the chair next to the one Seb had vacated. “I guess what I’m saying is that even though you’re Mia’s brothers, the four of you have always been good friends of mine as well. At first, I needed some time to wrap my head around everything. I was nervous that I wasn’t ready to be a mother and was still healing from past trauma. But now I know it’s going to be okay. Healing is a constant process. And I’m as prepared as I’ll ever be. I’m excited to be a mom and give my child all the love that I never got growing up. I promise each of you that if you do me this favor, I can handle it from there.”
I refused to cry and go down an emotional rabbit hole about my circumstances. Therapy was helping me make large strides, but I still tended to smile through my pain and feign a bubbly persona to make others feel more comfortable and at ease.
Darth’s voice was low and steady when he said, “If you think for one second that we’re letting you face this shit alone, you’re wrong.”
“And if you think this ends with just one of us,” Cash added, his tone sharp as glass, “you’re even more wrong.”
Seb’s voice was softer, but no less intense. “We’ll give you everything you want, everything you need. But we can’t just give you our sperm.”
Key’s devilish smile turned feral as he stepped closer, his heated gaze devouring me. “In so many ways, you’ve always been ours, Firefly.” He leaned down as I remained rooted in my seat. “If you want one of us to knock you up, we’ll do it the old-fashioned way.”
My lips parted in aroused surprise. “You want to have sex with me?”
“I’ve wanted to fuck you since we were teenagers,” Key admitted, glancing around the room at his brothers. “We all have, some of us just got to you first.”
My breath caught in my throat, my heart pounding like a war drum as I faced the storm I’d unleashed on the Solomon brothers. In that moment, I knew there was no going back. But for the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to tread lightly.
They all want to fuck me. And on everything unholy, I wanted them to destroy my body until I couldn’t walk for days. Still, it all sounded a bit messy and right now, I didn’t really want more chaos in my life.
“Stop overthinking Nyxani,” Seb directed, reading my mind yet again. “Key’s right. We all care about you and we don’t want you going through this alone.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, standing from my seat and failing at not checking out how sexy Key’s muscles contracted beneath his long-sleeved shirt as he helped me up. “Maybe you all need to talk about it without me being around just to be sure.”
“We’re sure,” Cash stated, leaving his spot from the wall and stopping when he reached me. I didn’t expect him to grip my chin to tilt up my face, nor did I expect his thumb to brush against my lips.
On instinct, I dipped out my tongue, licking the skin of his finger and earning me a grunt of approval from him. Don’t think. Just feel.
Seb hadn’t said those exact words to me, but I heard his voice in my head, encouraging me to do what felt right without worrying about the consequences.
Gripping his wrist to keep his hand in place, I sucked his entire thumb into my mouth, twirling my tongue around it in circles as if I was sucking his dick instead.
“Shit,” Key huffed, moving closer to us on my right, his silver-gray eyes darkening as they stayed glued to my mouth.
Needing to do more, I took Cash’s index finger and sucked that into my mouth next, just as Seb came to stand to my left, kissing my neck in a way that had me gasping out loud in pleasure.
They were barely touching me, but already, I was more aroused than I had been in my entire life.
I felt the gravity of their need and possessiveness coming off their bodies in waves, the tangled web of desire and devotion that bound them together as brothers, and to me too. Hadn’t it always been like this though? Me torn between my crush on Seb and my infatuation with Key. My bratty desire to always push Darth’s buttons, or the fact that arguing with Cash was my favorite pastime.
The Solomon brothers were an immoral pact of charm, ruthlessness, and barely leashed obsession … all the ingredients I craved in a partner. They were the reason my type was so well-defined in my head. But could I really accept their contingency of the deal I laid out for them?
I once caused two brothers to have a falling out that led to bloodshed, regardless of if it wasn’t completely my fault. Not only did it break my heart to be the cause of such turmoil in the family, but to see my best friend distraught with worry that they would never make amends elevated my guilt to another level entirely.
Mia wasn’t one of those kinds of women who banned her friends from talking to her brothers and I hadn’t been an exception. However, although she never blamed me out right, I’d heard the accusation in her voice when she vented to me about the toll Darth and Cash’s broken relationship took on the family. That conversation was the moment she realized how much of a hold the Solomon brothers had on me … and I them.
“Do you love my brother?” she’d asked.
“No,” I lied, unsure which brother she meant. Mia was intuitive though and picked up on my hesitation quickly.
“Do you like Darth and Cash?” she rephrased.
Once again, I had lied to her and told her they were both a pain in my ass for always picking unnecessary fights with me. She hadn’t looked convinced, but she didn’t push me on it. Shortly after that conversation is when Mia and I were on vacation and I met Brian. She hated him instantly and questioned what I saw in him. I lost count of how many times she asked me if I was sure about Brian and my relationship, and while my bestie has always been a free spirit with an open mind, I could never find a way to put into words the deep infatuation I had with her brothers.
One was my first delicious kiss.
Another took my virginity.
One of them killed the man I thought was my father.
Another let me watch him kill theirs.
Four men who each impacted my life in beautifully destructive and gut-wrenching ways. Brothers who I vowed to never get close to again despite my relationship with their sister because they altered the core of who I was as a person, and for a woman who never had stability in her life, I craved normalcy with every fiber of my being.
Loving one of them would be risky. But loving all four? That was suicidal. So I didn’t know how Mia would react if I told her years ago, I didn’t just fall for two of her brothers …. I fell for all of them. Something that was the literal definition of complicated.
“You’ll need to live here until we knock you up,” Darth informed, coming to stand behind me, encasing my body in the middle of all four of them. “If you agree, we need access to you 24/7. We’ll be mindful that you’re fucking all of us, but your pussy has always belonged to a Solomon. We talked about this just in case.”
“About what?” I asked breathlessly sucking another one of Cash’s fingers, while Seb crotched to his knees and lifted the hem of my shirt, his kisses venturing all across my stomach now, just as Key started kissing the right side of my neck.
“You,” Cash grunted, his eyes like an inferno I wanted to burn in. “We’re not the kind of brothers who like to share, but we all agreed we’d make an exception for one woman and one woman only.”
“Me?” I asked, already knowing the answer as I popped Cash’s fingers out of my mouth.
“Yes, you,” Darth muttered, his raspy voice in my left ear causing me to shiver as I swayed a bit, to overcome by my desire for these men to fuck me.
What if someone questions why I’m living here? Working for my family meant that associates of the Crownes were sometimes in and out of the Solomon house. I’d seen it my entire life when I had sleepovers with Mia before I found out I was officially a Crowne.
Can I really tell them no? Furthermore, did I even want to deny them and myself the pleasure of giving into temptation?
The only thing deadlier than my father’s wrath when it came to those he loved was the way all four of his most trusted men looked at me like I was already theirs. Like despite the fact that they had promised my father their loyalty, I was the prize they’d been waiting for.
A prize they were finally going to collect.
“Okay,” I stated, making sure my agreeance was clear and to the point. “Let’s do things your way. Give me a week to get packed up and sublease my apartment and then, we can get started on making a baby.”
“No,” Darth voiced, as Cash smirked in a way I felt all the way to my toes. “Now that you’re in our house and you’ve agreed to our terms, we aren’t letting you leave. We’ll buy you whatever you need and we’ll send movers to pack up your shit.” Darth licked the back of my ear. “So tell us, Firefly. Do you want to be fucked in this office? Or do you prefer the bedroom?”
“For foreplay, you want us to use our mouths?” Key asked. “Or fingers?”
“Please say both,” Seb pleaded in between the kisses he placed on my body. “Even better if we can play with toys too.”
I nodded, not even sure which part I was agreeing to while trying to gather my words, only able to muster a quick, “Yes,” followed by a strained, “I want you all to fuck me any way you want.”
Key groaned, one of his hands cupping my ass. “We can’t wait to fuck up your entire world.”
Cash’s hands flicked open the button of my jeans and unzipped them, his hand slipping into my panties and finding my clit before I registered that he was doing so.
“Damn, Bruh.” Cash briefly slipped his hand out and sucked his fingers. “She’s already wet as hell for us.”
“I knew you would be,” Darth whispered, biting my earlobe after his words. Within seconds, one of them was pulling off my shirt, while another was removing my boots and jeans.
Another one was already tugging down the straps of my bra, neither of the men giving me a chance to feel unconscious about my body.
“You’re beautiful,” Seb whispered, still kneeling beside me. “You’ve always taken our breath away and the hardest thing about seeing you around the city is not being able to touch you the way we want.”
It was only when Seb stood, his eyes dripping with appreciation as they wandered over me that I realized I was completely naked standing in Darth’s office.
Cash stepped back first to admire me … watch me … Then Key took a step back and so did Seb. I only noticed that Darth did too when I didn’t feel his warmth, turning around to see his darkened icy-gray eyes looking over every scar and each part of me that was different from the last time he’d seen me naked.
They were fully clothed, and I knew from experience that no one in organized crime was without cameras in their houses. A quick glance in the corner proved that I was right, but instead of it making me nervous, the camera pointed at me only boldened my stance.
“If we fuck in this office, will you watch it back whenever you want?” I asked Darth, as he visibly clenched his jaw at my words.
“Yes,” he answered.
I smirked, continuing to spin in slow circles while I spoke to make sure they got a good view of my new curves. Curves that they better damn well appreciate because I loved my body just the way it was. “Will I get to watch it with you?”
“Only if you’re on your best behavior,” Cash answered, stepping back into my orbit.
“What do you want me to do first?” I asked.
He glanced over my shoulder at Darth, the two of them sharing a look.
“I want you to get on top of the desk and spread your legs wide,” he commanded. “Then I need you to show him.”
“Show who what?” I asked, already making my way to the desk.
“Show Darth what he missed out on,” Cash explained, causing my breath to hitch. “Show him how addictive your pussy can be because this muthafucka has been in a foul mood ever since he turned you down when you stood before him naked and asked him to take your virginity.”
My head twisted to Darth. “Is that true?”
I expected him to grunt, growl, or just straight up ignore my question. Instead, he answered, “Yes, it is. I never should have been a gentleman. I wanted you so fuckin’ bad that day, but I got inside my head.”
My heart swelled at his words until Cash said, “Nah, it was a good thing you fucked up. Back then, you would have been tryin’ to take care of her and shit. But Nyx ain’t want it gentle. At least not the entire time. She wanted to be fucked like she was filthy, not cherished like a delicate doll.”
I shivered at the accuracy of his words because Cash had made losing my virginity an experience I hadn’t expected. It hurt like hell for his thick, long dick to be the first one I experienced, but once I got past the pain, he treated me like a cheap prostitute off of Madison Street on the west side of Chicago and it was everything .
“Any one of us would have given her what she wanted,” Seb stated.
Cash waved him off. “Nah, Bruh. She needed me. All three of you muthafucka’s know that she fucked the best brother first.”
My eyes widened in panic at the direction of the conversation. As badly as I wanted to see where this arrangement went, I refused to get in between the brothers again.
“Firefly, we’re fine,” Darth explained, lightly cupping my cheek. “Now wipe that worried look from your face, get on the goddamn desk, and show the rest of us that gorgeous pussy that Cash hasn’t been able to shut up about for years.”
Oh my damn. If pleasure could kill you, there was a chance I wouldn’t wake up tomorrow. But three things I knew were certain was that my pussy would be satisfied, my heart would be full, and I’d be smiling in my grave.