Chapter 32 Two Brothers, One Sister
Chapter thirty-two
Two Brothers, One Sister
Lena
My black dress from the party is crumpled in the corner where I threw it three hours ago when I stumbled home alone, desperate to wash off the night.
The bathroom tiles are cold against my bare legs, and I'm wearing one of Zane's t-shirts—one he left here last week, now a constant reminder of choices that can't be undone.
The fabric still smells like him: leather, gun oil, and something darker that makes my chest tight with want and regret in equal measure.
The knock on my door is soft, tentative—not Miguel's style at all. When I don't answer, it comes again, followed by: "Lena. It's me."
Zane. Because apparently boundaries are just suggestions when you're carrying someone's child.
"Use your key," I call out, then remember I never gave him one. "Fuck. Hold on."
I'm dragging myself up, catching my reflection—destroyed makeup, tangled hair, general aura of someone whose life is actively imploding. Perfect.
By the time I make it to the door, he's knocked twice more. I open it to find him looking like he hasn't slept either, still in last night's clothes with fresh blood on his collar—not from the party, this is newer, darker.
"You look like death," he says.
"Flattery will get you nowhere." I step aside to let him in. "Also, is that blood?"
"Rico tried to follow me here. Changed his mind." His voice is flat, matter-of-fact. "Brought supplies."
He holds up a plastic bag—ginger tea, saltines, those pregnancy pops I mentioned once in passing Thursday night. Of course, he remembers everything.
"Bathroom," I manage, then immediately regret it as another wave of nausea hits.
He appears in the doorway, all dangerous concern and misplaced tenderness, still in last night's clothes too. We match in our dishevelment—disaster twins, except one of us is growing a third disaster inside them.
"Morning sickness?" he asks, already kneeling beside me, hand finding the back of my neck.
"Morning everything," I correct. "Sickness, regret, existential crisis. The full breakfast special."
He huffs something that might be a laugh, fingers working at the tension in my neck. "You need water."
"I need a time machine."
"Fresh out. Water will have to do."
He disappears, returns with a glass and a cool washcloth. The tenderness in his movements makes my chest tight—this killer playing nursemaid, this enemy bringing me comfort. The irony would be delicious if I could keep anything down.
"Miguel's going to find out," I say into the washcloth.
"I know."
"He's going to kill you."
"He'll try."
"This isn't a joke, Zane." I lift my head to look at him, really look at him. "You don't know him like I do. He found out about a boy who grabbed me in high school—just grabbed my ass at a party—and that kid ended up in the ICU with no memory of how he got there."
"And I'm not some high school kid," Zane says, voice steady. "I knew what I was risking when I touched you. Worth it."
"Worth dying for?"
"Worth everything for."
The sincerity in his voice breaks something in me, and I'm crying before I can stop it—hormones and exhaustion and the sheer overwhelming reality of what we've done.
"Hey," he murmurs, pulling me against him. "We'll figure it out."
"There's no figuring this out," I sob into his chest. "I'm pregnant with an Iron Talon's baby. My brother's sworn enemy. This isn't Romeo and Juliet, it's—"
The front door slams open with enough force to shake the apartment.
We both freeze. Zane's hand goes to his gun. My heart stops, starts, stops again.
"LENA!"
Miguel. Of course it's Miguel. Because this morning wasn't complete without a full family confrontation.
"Stay here," Zane says, already standing.
"Are you insane? He'll kill you."
"Better me than you."
But I'm already pushing past him, because if my brother's going to commit murder in my apartment, I'm at least going to make him look me in the eye while he does it.
The pounding on my door starts before I reach it—violent, demanding, the kind of knocking that says someone's world is ending.
"LENA! Open this door! Now!"
Miguel. His voice carries twenty-eight years of shared history, all of it currently being incinerated by rage. He's not using profanity—Miguel saves that for enemies, not family—which somehow makes this worse.
I reach for the deadbolt, but Zane's hand covers mine.
"Don't," he says quietly.
"It's my brother."
"Who wants to kill me."
"Which is why you should be gone when I open it."
The pounding intensifies. "I know you're in there! I know HE'S in there!"
Zane steps back, hand moving to his gun. "I'm not leaving you alone with him like this."
"And I'm not letting you two kill each other in my living room." I meet his eyes. "His bike's already parked outside. He saw it—he knows you're here. Please. Let me handle my brother."
Something in my face must convince him, because he nods, moving toward my bedroom but positioning himself where he can see the door through the crack. "I'm staying close."
I wait until he's out of sight, then open the door.
Miguel stands there vibrating with the kind of rage that precedes catastrophic violence.
Rico and Tommy wait in the hallway behind him, carefully positioned where they can move fast if needed.
Miguel's holding his phone, screen facing out, showing the photo someone took at last night's party—a stolen moment when we thought we were alone in his room, Zane's hands protective over my stomach, both of us lost in the revelation of this pregnancy.
We didn't know Candy had followed us, bitter enough to document what she saw.
"Tell me it's not true," Miguel says, and his voice is worse than shouting—it's hollow, already grieving.
Zane emerges from the hallway behind me, and the temperature in the room drops ten degrees.
"Get out," Miguel says to him, not even looking. "This is family business."
"She's carrying my child," Zane says quietly. "That makes it my business."
Miguel's head snaps toward him, and the look on his face makes me step between them instinctively.
"Miguel, please—"
"You're pregnant." Not a question. A diagnosis delivered with the finality of a flatline.
My hand goes to my stomach automatically, and that's all the confirmation he needs.
"How long have you been fucking him?"
The vulgarity hits like ice water. "Miguel—"
"HOW LONG?"
"Three weeks," I whisper. "Since the night I stitched Tommy's arm in my van. The night you said I was off-limits but looked at me like I was already his."
The irony of it lands like a punch. Miguel laughs—a sound like breaking glass.
"Three weeks. You threw away twenty-eight years of family for three weeks."
"I didn't throw anything away—"
"You're carrying his child! You're pregnant with Iron Talon spawn!"
The word 'spawn' breaks something in me. Before I can think, before I can stop myself, my palm connects with his cheek hard enough to snap his head sideways.
The silence that follows feels alive, breathing with the weight of what I've just done.
Rico moves forward, but Miguel raises a hand. He touches his face where my handprint blooms red.
"You hit me."
"You called my baby spawn." My voice doesn't shake. "This baby who has our mother's blood. Our father's DNA. Your nephew or niece."
"That thing is not my family."
"Then neither am I?"
The question hangs between us like a blade.
"No," he says finally. "You're not. My sister died the moment she chose him over blood."
Zane steps forward, but I catch his arm. This is my fight, my family, my loss.
"Get out," I tell Miguel. "All of you. Get out of my home."
"This isn't over—"
"Yes, it is." I'm not crying now. Something worse than tears has taken hold—a cold clarity that feels like death. "You want to disown me? Fine. You want to call my child spawn? Fine. But you don't get to stand in my home and make threats. Get. Out."
Miguel backs toward the door, each step another year of our relationship crumbling. Rico and Tommy follow him out, their silence heavy with witnessed devastation.
"You have twenty-four hours," he says from the doorway. "Choose him or choose family. And when the war comes—" his eyes shift to Zane "—I won't be able to protect you."
The door closes with a finality that echoes in my bones.
I stand there, Zane's hand on my shoulder, my brother's absence filling the room like smoke.
"We need to leave," Zane says. "Pack what matters. We go to my place until—"
"Until what?" I turn to face him. "Until Miguel calms down? Until the clubs call truce? Until this baby is born into a war zone?"
"Until I figure out how to keep you both safe."
"You can't fix this."
"Watch me."
His phone buzzes. Then mine. Then both again, insistent.
The first text is from an unknown number:
Traitor whore. We know where you work.
The second:
Iron Talon's puta. Better run.
The third is from Miguel:
24 hours. Choose wisely. Mom would be ashamed.
That last one breaks me all over again. I sink onto my couch while Zane makes calls, arranges safe houses, prepares for war.
The baby doesn't care about any of it, just keeps growing, dividing, becoming.
A perfect disaster, just like its parents.
Just then, my phone rings
“Hello? I... yes. We'll be right there."
I look at Zane, eyes wide with a different kind of panic. "That was St. Mary's. Nathan's there, drunk, making a scene about... about me. About us."
Of course. Because one war wasn't enough.