As soon as I hit the porch, I reached in my pocket and pulled out the Zippo lighter Onyx had given me. The metal box felt heavier this morning than usual.

So much of my past circled in my mind having Laurel with me.

Lighting my cigarette, I let the burn fill my lungs. I had a lot of shit to get done today and not long to get it accomplished.

First, I drove to my office in Philly where I caught up on the legitimate side of business. I had additional accountants who worked for me at my firm, so mostly I signed off on things that needed my attention and they handled the day to day.

Then, I tackled the business I had with my brothers. Onyx, Dane, and Garrett were my brothers or the closest thing I would ever have to them. Within an hour, I had all of the money filtered and payroll checks cut for our staff as well as our surrogates.

Leaving the office, I lit up again.

The cigarette didn’t give me the same satisfaction I usually found in smoking. In fact, my lips practically protested the taste, wanting to be on Laurel’s pussy instead. She was a more dangerous addiction than any drug.

I pulled up to the restaurant where I quickly got out and made my way inside. Onyx was already there, seated and drinking water.

“Hey, ya bastard,” I greeted him as I approached the table.

“Good afternoon to you too, filthy fucker,” he replied, standing to give me a half hug backslap.

We took our seats. I handed him the envelope.

Onyx was dressed in his casual black t-shirt, jeans, and backward baseball hat. I was in a suit because I had gone to my office. Unbuttoning the top button to my shirt, I loosened it.

I went into accounting because numbers made sense at a time nothing else could. The downfall to this business was people expected me to be professional. This meant wearing suits and ties. I never wore a tie from home even though I had them in the closet. I kept them at work. Once I got to my office, I put one on and I usually took it off before I left. Having Laurel around had me off my game, though. Whoever invented the neck tie had issues. Really, who thought it was a good idea to put something around your neck and tighten it? While that shit may make for an awesome orgasm in the bedroom, to be out in public cutting off my air supply… not so much.

“Hard day at work, honey?” Onyx joked.

I laughed. The waitress approached, and we both ordered sandwiches.

“How long have you had a tail on Laurel?” Onyx asked, getting right to his point.

“Never put a tail on her.” I took a drink of water as he studied me.

“The broad pulled a gun on your ass. She obviously knew you and knew where to find you. Yet, we don’t know her. Care to break something down for me?”

“I don’t get in your shit, you don’t need to be in mine. Laurel went to school with us.”

“It took a bit, but I remembered her after we left the day she showed up.”

“I’ve always kept my eye on her. Now, I had the means and opportunity to make a move. So I made one. That’s all.”

Onyx didn’t buy it. I could read it in his face. “You need help with it?”

I smirked. “Nah, I got shit under control.”

“You don’t have to face the world alone, Pax,” he told me what I already knew.

I nodded. “Think you get me when I say I got something with Laurel. It’s my shit and mine alone. So while I know you, Dane, and Garrett have my back, this is something I gotta do on my own.”

His eyes met mine. “I get you.”

“How’s the fam?” I asked, needing to change the subject.

He laughed. “Guess my ass should be out buying a ring so I can make that shit real.”

I sat back in my seat as the waitress placed our plates in front of us. “Torryn’s gonna make a great wife.” I rubbed my chest, wishing I could go smoke a cigarette. “Gonna have a real family, huh?”

Onyx ate a French fry from his plate. “Yeah, shockin’ huh?”

I nodded and began to eat my meal. It was surprising. Onyx was born a bastard child and raised from infancy in a shithole orphanage. Dane and him were already settled into their lives on the farm when I arrived. My grandmother surrendered me to the state which landed me at the Amish orphanage when I was twelve. My mother left me at the hospital. She gave birth and then left without being discharged. My grandmother took me home and did the best she could until the Alzheimer’s started to take her mind. When she forgot to pick me up from school, she decided it was time to go into a home. So she went to a place that specialized in care for old folks while I went to the farm. She died from a stroke a year later.

I had no one.

Except the three boys I shared a room with, Ellen Sue, and Laurel.

My lifelines.

Onyx and I casually finished lunch with him taking the payroll checks to distribute with the cash we paid people for services rendered. Our business was lucrative but dangerous in that it was illegal as fuck.

We didn’t care.

If I had to go to prison, so fucking be it. I had nothing to lose.

We provided a service.

Consider us the milkman of sorts. We arranged babies for families willing to pay for the surrogate. Time, consideration, and money went into every contract. We didn’t just find women on the street. We had everything in a system. Depending on the situation we even matched our surrogate and sperm to the physical features of the adoptive parents. Our process was just done in a way that adoption agencies didn’t get involved, and we catered to a higher end clientele.

Like Andrei Petrov and his wife, Darya, who I was checking up on while I was out. Andrei Petrov who currently ran the Petrov Bratva was not a man to test or cross. There was no way he wanted anyone in his business. Especially since his wife’s papers weren’t exactly legal.

Love was a powerful emotion. One that brought Petrov to his knees because Darya got whatever she wanted whenever she wanted it.

This included a baby without having to carry the child in her womb so that her beautiful body would remain unscarred.

It was our job to give her that baby.

We had a surrogate currently impregnated with the Bratva’s future leader. Her health was fine, the baby was growing, and in a matter of days Andrei and Darya would be proud parents holding their little bundle in their arms. We would get a clear million on the backend of the transaction after delivery along with the two million already paid to provide their surrogate with the most lavish of places.

Where we typically ran homes with two to four expectant mothers living together, their surrogate, Melanie, was put up in a townhome downtown. She kept her job and continued her studies in college per her request, and the Petrovs complied. Melanie got to live her life as a pregnant woman in the world preparing to give her baby up. That’s all anyone was supposed to know.

The whole situation had pissed me off from the beginning because none of it was to our protocol or standards. At every turn Darya changed the rules, including Melanie who worked at a shop in the mall. Darya met her once and liked her energy. Suddenly, we had a newbie in our world, and new blood never seemed to go well. Especially since she wasn’t vetted through our usual systems.

I made it to her home. With her due date so close, she had already started maternity leave. Using my key, I entered her space. She was on the couch with her feet up, and he sat beside her.

Immediately upon my entrance, he stood. I rushed him, pushing him to the wall where I moved to quickly clock him with a right hook to the jaw.

“You. Are. Not. Supposed. To. Be. Here.” I clipped each word, nailing him with hit after hit as I spoke.

Melanie screeched as she tried to get up from the couch. “Stop hurting him.”

“Get your bag,” I ordered her as Riley shook his head. Blood poured from his nose and lip. “You’re done here. Freedom’s over ‘til that baby is born.”

“You’re not getting my baby,” Riley roared, trying to swing and hit me only missing.

“Stand down, Conrad.”

He swung again, and this one connected with my stomach. I took the hit and laughed in his face.

“Where’s my sister?”

“Safe, no thanks to you!” I fired back.

“No one would touch her.” He tried to sound like he was in control, but I knew better and inside he did too.

Melanie returned to the room with slippers covering her swollen feet and a bag in her hand. I looked at her. “This shit right here is why we don’t make exceptions to our rules. The Petrovs requested you, brought you in, and, bitch, you aren’t worth the fuckin’ trouble.”

The fist connected with my face. I shook off the pain, spitting my blood on Riley.

“Don’t fuckin’ call her a bitch. That’s my baby momma.”

I laughed in his face. “No, that baby belongs to a man who’ll kill you for touchin’ Melanie, dumbass.”

“Petrov won’t do a damn fuckin’ thing. He’s givin’ Melanie everything she’s requested. They’re family,” Riley fired back.

“It’s not your baby, you dumb fuck. You’re gonna get yourself and Melanie killed over something this bitch has told you.”

He looked at her. She shook her head.

“It’s my baby. We fucked. You told me you were pregnant.”

“Yeah, with a baby she was paid to carry because a man with a fuck of a lot of power didn’t want his wife to get fat.”

Riley paused, taking in my words.

There was a noise behind me, and I turned to watch the front door open.

Sometimes in life we had these moments that happened so fast but it seemed so slow at the same time. This was one of those times.

I took in the barrel of the silencer of the gun as it was aimed at me. I rushed to Melanie, pushing her down into the hallway as I heard the whizzing noise of the gun going off. Riley hit the wall with a grunt, grabbing at his chest. Before I could move to him another shot went off. I took the first hit to my shoulder. The next shot fired burned through my thigh. I hit the ground with Melanie screaming behind me.

The pain was intense.

I fought to get upright and move to the shooter as something hard hit the back of my head.

The last thing I saw was Melanie’s ugly slippers move past me as the blackness covered my vision and consciousness was gone.