Book Nest-1

My husband threw the divorce papers directly into my bleeding face, wrapping his coat around his pregnant mistress while I collapsed in the mud. "A barren scrap like you doesn't deserve a penny," he spat, erasing ten years of my torturous fertility treatments in a single second. Silas stood above me. He stayed completely dry under a massive black umbrella held by his driver. He draped his custom wool coat over Mia's shoulders. The twenty-year-old secretary pressed herself into his side. She rubbed her slightly rounded belly, putting on a perfect show of vulnerability. "I'm sorry, Elara," Mia whispered, her voice carrying zero guilt. "Silas just wants a real family, a real woman who can give him an heir." I stared at the mud soaking into the papers. Ten years of marriage. I cooked his meals, managed his social calendar, and endured endless humiliating fertility treatments. All of it ended in this flooded driveway. "You thought I'd cry and beg, didn't you?" I asked. Rain ran into my mouth, tasting like dirt. "Don't waste your breath on her, Mia," Silas scoffed. "Her womb is as dead as her career, just a thirty-eight-year-old empty shell." He kicked a pen toward my hand. It rolled into a puddle. "Sign the damn papers, Elara. You're leaving with nothing." He stepped closer. "Be grateful I'm not suing you for wasting a decade of my life." My jaw locked tight. The vein in my neck throbbed. My fingers were numb from the freezing rain, but I picked up the pen. I flipped past the asset division clauses where he took the house, the cars, and the company shares. The ink bled slightly as I signed my name. I shoved the soggy stack back against his leg. Silas snatched it. He didn't even look down as he turned toward the front door. "Close the gates behind her," he told the guards. I stood up. My dress dripped with brown sludge, heavy and freezing against my skin. I walked out into the storm. My shoes squelched in the mud, but I kept my spine completely straight. Three days later, the silence in Clara's guest room was suffocating. My best friend had sent her private driver to pick me up the night I left Silas. Her massive estate sat deep in the woods, surrounded by high walls and iron gates. "Stay as long as you need," Clara had told me over a brief phone call before boarding a luxury cruise. "The house is yours, no one will bother you." I spent seventy-two hours curled in a dark room. I refused to open the curtains. I couldn't eat. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Silas wrapping his coat around Mia's pregnant stomach. The word 'barren' echoed in my ears. My chest ached with a dull, constant pressure. By two in the morning on the fourth night, the thirst finally forced me out of bed. My throat felt like sandpaper. I slipped out of the room. The hallway was completely dark, save for the moonlight filtering through the tall windows. The estate was usually empty, staffed only by a few quiet maids during the day. But tonight, the air felt different. Heavy and dense. It pressed down on my lungs. I walked down the grand staircase. My bare feet made no sound on the cold marble steps. I reached the bottom landing. A shadow moved near the front entrance. I stopped moving. The main doors were double-locked from the inside. Outside the glass panels, I saw the silhouettes of four massive SUVs parked in the driveway. Large men in black tactical gear stood by the tires, holding rifles across their chests. Security? Clara never employed armed guards. My breathing quickened. I took a step back toward the stairs. "Going somewhere, Auntie?" A deep, rough voice echoed from the living room. The hairs on my arms stood straight up. A distinct smell hit me—expensive scotch, mint, and an overwhelming wave of male heat. I turned my head. In the pitch-black living room, three massive figures sat on the custom leather sofas. They weren't intruders. But the panic rising in my throat told me they were far more dangerous. Clara's sons. They were supposed to be in Europe, managing the family's Wall Street empire. I remembered them as teenagers. Now, they were fully grown men, all pushing past six-foot-three. They radiated an intense, suffocating pressure that filled the entire room. The sensor lights overhead suddenly clicked on. The sudden brightness made me squint. When my vision cleared, Kael sat in the center armchair. He wore a dark tailored suit, his long fingers casually loosening his silk tie. His cold, calculating eyes tracked my every movement. He pinned me in place like prey. To his right stood Vance. He pushed gold-rimmed glasses up his nose. His gaze ran down my thin nightgown, cold and precise, like a surgeon inspecting a specimen on an operating table. But it was Orion who had spoken. The youngest brother stepped out of the shadows. He wore a tight black athletic shirt, his broad chest rising and falling slowly. He crossed the room in three long strides. He was too fast, too large. I tried to step back, but my spine hit the wall. Orion slammed his heavy hands flat against the plaster on either side of my head, trapping me completely. The heat rolling off his body was scalding. He loomed over me, staring down with eyes darker than the storm I had walked through three nights ago. "Orion," I managed to say. My voice cracked. "You're... you're home early." He didn't back away. He leaned in closer, his broad chest almost brushing against me. His rough thumb reached up. He slowly wiped a drop of cold sweat from the corner of my lips. "Auntie," Orion whispered, his voice a low, hungry rasp. "Your decision to leave that old trash came way too late." Chapter 2 I pushed my palms flat against Orion's chest. It was like pushing against solid granite. He didn't budge an inch. Instead, he leaned in, pressing his rough thigh between my knees through the thin fabric of my nightgown. "Back up," I said. My voice came out as a raspy whisper. "I am your mother's best friend. I'm your Auntie." Footsteps clicked against the marble floor. Kael walked into the dim light, with Vance right behind him. They formed a tight triangle around me. The air in the hallway completely vanished. Kael looked down at Orion's leg trapped between mine. His jaw tightened. "Auntie," Kael repeated. The word rolled off his tongue like a dirty joke. He stepped forward and slapped Orion's shoulder. Orion reluctantly backed up a single step, leaving a burning trail of heat against my skin. Before I could take a breath, Kael's large hands gripped my waist. He lifted me completely off the ground in one swift motion. My bare feet dangled in the air. I grabbed his broad shoulders to keep from falling backwards. "Put me down!" "Clara isn't coming back," Kael said. He carried me toward the stairs, his grip bruising my hips. "This estate belongs to us now. And so do you." Three months passed. The word 'houseguest' vanished, replaced by a gilded cage. The iron gates remained chained shut. Armed guards patrolled the perimeter twenty-four hours a day. I had no phone, no internet, and no contact with the outside world. But the isolation wasn't the worst part. It was them. The three brothers operated like a synchronized hunting pack. They suffocated me with a twisted, obsessive care. I tried to walk out the front doors during the second week. Orion caught me before I even reached the driveway steps. He didn't yell. He just scooped me up, carried me back to the master suite, and locked the door from the outside for three days. They controlled every second of my existence. If I drank a glass of water, Orion tracked the ounces. When Vance replaced all my vitamins with unmarked pills, I refused to swallow them. Kael pinned my wrists to the dining table, crushed the pills between his teeth, and fed them to me from his own mouth. The sexual tension in the house became a physical weight. I couldn't take a shower without one of them standing guard outside the frosted glass. If I wore a dress that exposed my collarbones, Orion's dark eyes would track the pulse in my neck until my skin burned under his stare. Slowly, my body began to betray me. A bizarre lethargy took over my limbs. I slept twelve hours a day, waking up in a haze. Worse, an unnatural heat pooled in my lower stomach whenever they entered the room, craving the smell of Kael's cedar cologne and Orion's sweat. Then, the physical changes started. My lower abdomen swelled, rounding out in a way that had nothing to do with the heavy meals they forced down my throat. On a Tuesday morning, I collapsed in the dining room. My vision went completely black. When I woke up, the smell of sterile alcohol filled my nose. I lay on a medical examination table. The bright overhead lights blinded me for a second before my eyes adjusted. Vance stood next to me in the estate's underground private clinic. He wore a crisp white dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He squeezed a tube of clear gel onto my bare stomach. The cold jelly made me gasp. "Relax," Vance murmured. His long, cool fingers brushed against my skin, sending a jolt straight up my spine. He picked up an ultrasound wand and pressed it firmly against my swollen belly. Orion and Kael stood at the foot of the bed. Neither of them blinked. Their massive frames blocked the only exit door. Vance turned the monitor toward me. He tapped a few keys on the keyboard. A loud, rhythmic whooshing sound filled the quiet room. *Thump. Thump. Thump.* It wasn't one heartbeat. The sound overlapped, fast and strong, echoing off the white walls. I stared at the screen. Three distinct dark circles sat perfectly in the center. My throat closed up. "That's impossible," I choked out. I tried to sit up, but Kael placed a heavy hand on my shoulder, pinning me flat. "Three," Orion breathed heavily. He gripped the metal rail of the bed so hard his knuckles turned white. I shook my head frantically, trying to kick my legs back. "No. Silas showed me the hospital records! The doctors said I am completely barren, I have the diagnosis paper right upstairs in my bag!" Vance picked up a folded piece of paper from the metal medical tray. I recognized the blue hospital letterhead immediately. My medical file. He slowly took off his gold-rimmed glasses and set them down on the counter. With slow, deliberate movements, Vance tore the diagnosis paper straight down the middle. He dropped the pieces onto the floor. His eyes locked onto mine. There was no warmth in them, only a dark, terrifying obsession. "That piece of paper was fake," Vance said softly. "Ten years ago, to stop you from having a bastard with that old trash, I tampered with your report." My chest stopped moving for three full seconds. Vance leaned over me, his breath brushing against my cheek. "I also added my own exclusive fertility drug to your herbal medicine every single day for a decade. You were never barren, Auntie. Your body has been ready to accept our genes for a very long time." Chapter 3 My chest stopped moving. Ten years of brutal fertility treatments, the humiliating divorce, my desperate escape to this estate—none of it was an accident. It was a massive, airtight cage they had built specifically for me. I grabbed a heavy stainless steel tray off the counter. I hurled it straight at the glass medical cabinet. Glass shattered across the sterile floor, raining down like ice. I lunged past Vance, my bare feet crunching on the shards, and sprinted toward the clinic doors. My breath tore out of my throat in ragged gasps. The sudden weight in my lower abdomen threw off my balance, but I kept running. "I want a real doctor!" I screamed, backing into the dimly lit hallway as Orion stepped toward me. "Take me to a public hospital right now, or I swear I'll scream until the police arrive." I expected Orion to tackle me to the marble floor. I expected Vance to sedate me with whatever chemical cocktail he had prepared. Instead, Kael stepped out of the clinic room. He slowly buttoned his dark suit jacket, his face completely blank. "Fine," Kael said. He kept his voice perfectly even. "Get the car." Forty minutes later, Kael's driver pulled up to the VIP wing of the city's most expensive private hospital. Orion and Vance flanked me the entire walk through the automatic sliding doors. Their massive bodies boxed me in, creating a moving wall of solid muscle. The heat radiating off them made it hard to catch my breath in the air-conditioned lobby. We barely made it to the reception desk before a barrage of camera flashes blinded me. "Look who it is!" a familiar, grating voice echoed down the hall. Silas pushed through a small crowd of gossip reporters. Mia clung to his arm, holding up her phone with a massive, arrogant smile. "The barren old scrap is seeing a gynecologist," Silas laughed loudly, turning to the cameras. "Are you trying to buy a fake baby on the black market? Or did you finally get a tumor in that useless womb?" The reporters shoved their microphones toward my face. I stumbled backward, my shoulders hitting Orion's solid chest. Orion immediately wrapped a heavy arm around my waist. He anchored my back against his hard torso. Kael ignored the cameras. He simply raised two fingers in the air. A dozen armed bodyguards flooded the hallway from the side fire exits. They violently shoved the reporters against the walls, snatching heavy cameras and smashing them onto the floor. "Clear the floor," Kael ordered. Silas puffed up his chest. He took a step toward Kael, completely blind to the danger in the room. "Who the hell do you think you are—" Silas started. A sickening crack silenced the entire hallway. Orion had moved faster than my eyes could track. His heavy fist smashed directly into Silas's jaw, splintering bone with a loud crunch. Blood sprayed across the pristine white tiles. Silas collapsed like a broken toy, his head bouncing hard off the floor. Mia screamed and dropped her phone. She scrambled backward on her hands and knees, ruining her designer dress in Silas's blood. Kael stepped over Silas's twitching body. He pulled out his phone, his thumb tapping the screen once to make a call. "Silas Vance's company. Buy it and liquidate all assets immediately," Kael spoke into the receiver. "Freeze his personal accounts. You have three minutes. Throw him and his mistress out on the street." Silas choked on his own blood. His eyes rolled wildly in absolute terror as he tried to speak through his shattered, hanging jaw. Vance crouched down next to the bleeding man. He pulled my fresh ultrasound scan from his inner coat pocket. With a slow, chilling smile, Vance slapped the glossy photo hard against Silas's bloody cheek. "Take a good look at what you threw away," Vance whispered, loud enough for the quiet hallway to hear. "She's carrying the three future heirs of Wall Street. You couldn't give her a child in ten years. We did it in one night." A dark, wet stain spread across the front of Silas's trousers. He passed out completely in a puddle of his own urine and blood. The heavy hospital doors slammed shut. Kael's men locked the main entrance from the inside, plunging the hallway into a tense lockdown. Before I could process the extreme violence, Kael scooped me off my feet. He carried me straight out a side fire exit and threw me into the back of a waiting bulletproof Rolls-Royce. The heavy car doors slammed shut. The privacy partition rolled up with a mechanical hum, sealing us in a dark, soundproof box. I scrambled backward against the leather seats. Orion's massive frame immediately blocked my exit. He grabbed my ankles and dragged me back toward the center of the seat. His rough hands burned against my skin. Kael pulled a heavy velvet box from the side door compartment. He snapped the lid open. Inside sat a thick, pure gold anklet. A small red GPS light blinked steadily on its smooth metal surface. He clamped his hand around my calf. His grip was a vice, holding my leg completely still against the leather upholstery. The metal lock clicked shut around my bare ankle. It sat heavy and cold against my skin. Orion crowded into my space. His large hands gripped the hem of my silk dress and ripped the fabric straight up to my thigh. His hot breath hit my exposed skin. "You wanted to run, Auntie?" Kael grabbed my chin. His long fingers pressed hard into my jawbone, forcing my face up. His dark eyes locked onto mine, leaving me absolutely no room to breathe. "Choose one," Kael commanded, his voice dropping to a dark, guttural low. "Or tonight, all three of us will teach you exactly who you belong to."