Page 25 of Sinner’s Torment

“It’s similar,” Storm insisted, leaning forward with an earnest expression on his face.

“It’s not,” Montana snapped, his patience clearly wearing thin. “Your situation was a clusterfuck of epic proportions that involved lies, manipulation, and a kid who didn’t know her own father for half her life. This is just a regular clusterfuck. There’s a difference.”

“I was just trying to help—” Storm protested weakly.

“Well, don’t,” Montana said, his voice dropping to a dangerous low. “Shut the fuck up and let us handle this our own way.”

Storm leaned back in his chair, his jaw tight and his arms folded across his chest in a posture of barely restrained frustration. “Fine”

“Not just Storm,” Pippen added.

Montana turned his icy glare on the kid. He might have only been a few years younger than me, but he was still barely patched in.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Pippen shrunk back a little. He was still gaining his footing as a fully patched brother. With all the shit he’d been through in the past year, he hadn’t had much of an opportunity to spread his wings yet.

“I think at this point, Rage and Payne, and probably Shame, are the only brothers who haven’t gotten a woman pregnant without knowing. Though Vicious was technically married first, but even that was out of necessity.”

“Bane was married to Diana before the twins were born—we just didn’t know it,” Fury argued.

“But he wasn’t married to my mother.” Pippen shrugged. “Granted she drugged him, so not sure that counts. But you didn’t know about York until after he was born, Montana. Hell, even I found out I had a kid and I’m gay.”

The room fell silent again at Pippen’s words, the air thick with unspoken words and simmering emotions.

And through it all, I just sat there like a damn statue.

My mind was whirling, spinning, racing a mile a minute. Thoughts crashed into each other, fragmenting and reforming before I could grab hold of any single one. My hands gripped the edge of the table hard enough that my knuckles went white.

Brandy.

I could see her in my mind. Every detail, sharp as broken glass. The way she looked that last night in Diamond Creek, leaning against the bar with that knowing smile on her lips. The way she moved—all confidence and curves, like she owned every inch of space around her. The way she sounded when she came, that breathy gasp that drove me out of my goddamn mind. The way her eyes had softened when I’d told her to take care of herself, just for a second, before she’d put that wall back up and walked away.

She was a great fuck. No question about that. No apologies, no pretense. She knew what she wanted, knew how to take it, knew how to give as good as she got. She was a club whore, and she played the role perfectly. Never asked for more than what was on offer. Never made it complicated.

But pregnant?

How the fuck did that happen? We’d been careful. Hadn’t we? My brain scrambled back through the haze of whiskey and sweat and tangled sheets, trying to remember.

I tried to remember every encounter. Every time we’d been together. Every moment, every night, every stolen afternoon. I replayed each memory in my mind like footage on a loop, scrutinizing every detail. Every time I’d touched her, fucked her, made her scream my name until her voice went hoarse.

And every single time, I’d used protection.

Every. Single. Time.

I was meticulous about it. Obsessive, even. Borderline paranoid, if I were being honest. I never took risks. Never let my guard down. Never let passion or heat of the moment cloud my judgment. Never fucked without a condom, no matter how much she begged, no matter how good it felt, no matter how badly I wanted to feel her without that thin barrier between us.

It was a rule I’d lived by for years. A rule that had kept me safe, kept me in control, kept me from ending up in situations like this. A rule that had become second nature, as automatic as breathing.

So how the fuck was she pregnant?

Protection failed sometimes. I knew that. I’d read the statistics, heard the stories, seen it happen to other people. Statistically, condoms were about 98% effective with perfect use. With typical use, that number dropped to around 85%. But I’d always been in that 98%. Always. I followed the rules. I checked expiration dates. I stored them properly. I was meticulous about it.

Until now.

Maybe.

I ran through the timeline in my head for the hundredth time, trying to make the math work differently. The last time I’d seen her was the night before she left Diamond Creek. Almost two months ago. Late August. If she was pregnant now, the timing lined up perfectly. Too perfectly. The dates matched up in a way that made my stomach twist into knots.