Chapter 8 Lorenzo
Lorenzo
I consider letting it go to voicemail, but ignoring Marcus never makes him disappear. I pick up.
“Lorenzo.” His voice fills the line like it fills every room he enters, taking up more space than it’s earned. “I trust you received the updated lease terms.”
“I did.”
“Good. Then you understand those adjustments kick in at the start of next quarter. The board reviewed boardwalk property valuations, and Vice & Virtue’s current rate doesn’t match market growth.”
Our rate was already fifteen percent above market when we signed three years ago. Voss knows because he set those terms.
“The increase is thirty-two percent, Marcus.”
“The board’s assessment reflects—”
“The board is you. Let’s not pretend there’s a committee.”
He goes silent, one of his signature pauses, the kind that reminds you who owns the ground you’re standing on. I lean back in my chair and press my palm against my left eye, where a headache’s been building since I opened the envelope this morning.
“The terms are non-negotiable,” he says. “You have until month’s end to sign, or the lease defaults to month-to-month at the adjusted rate. That leaves your tenancy in a far more precarious position.”
“I understand the implication.”
“I’d hate to see you lose the place, Lorenzo. Charming little operation.” He pauses for just a beat too long. “For what it is.”
The line goes dead.
I set the phone face-down and stare at the wall for ten seconds, letting my mind wander as I pick out a water stain near the ceiling’s that’s been there since before we moved in.
I’ve studied it during every difficult moment in this office, and it’s never offered anything useful. It doesn’t start now.
The lease terms lie on top of the pile. I pull them closer and reread figures I already know by heart: a thirty-two percent hike on base rent, new common-area maintenance fees, and a “boardwalk improvement assessment” that’s basically a surcharge for operating on property Voss owns and has never improved.
The total increase would devour our margin and push us into the red within six months.
Beneath that is last week’s code-violation notice, insufficient emergency lighting in the east corridor, despite passing inspection four months ago.
Below that, a letter from the boardwalk merchants’ association complaining that Vice & Virtue’s late-night noise creates an “inhospitable environment” for neighboring businesses, the tattoo parlor that closes at midnight and the Alpha-owned sports bar with a live band until 2 AM.
The pattern has been clear for months. The problem is that I can’t fucking do anything about it and a lot of it has to do with hierarchal Alpha bullshit while I’m just a Beta.
Quick footsteps by the door pull my attention, each one landing with the particular weight of someone who’s about to burst into a room whether the door is open or not. I reach for the lease terms to put them back in the folder but I’m a second too slow.
“Who was on the phone?”
Oliver stands in the doorway with a box of cocktail napkins balanced on his hip, his hair still wet from the shower. His eyes lock on me, tracking from my face to the papers on the desk to the phone lying face-down beside them.
“Supplier,” I say.
“Your jaw does a thing when you’re lying to me. It’s doing the thing.”
I close the folder. “It’s handled.”
He sets the napkin box on the floor and steps into the office. He’s still in the oversized shirt he throws on before he dresses for the floor, the hem hitting mid-thigh, bare feet on the hardwood. I’ve tried for years to get him to actually get dressed before the club opens but it’s useless.
With a speed that catches me off guard, he yanks the folder from under my hand and flips it open.
“Oliver—”
“Thirty-two percent?” His voice rises at the last syllable. “Lorenzo, this is… What the fuck is this?”
“It’s the new lease terms from Voss.”
“New. Since when? When did this come in?” He flips through the pages, eyes scanning faster than his brain can process. His free hand pushes wet hair out of his face. “The code violation too? And this bullshit from the merchants’ association? Lorenzo, how long have you been sitting on this?”
“The lease terms came this morning. The code violation was last week. The merchant complaint—”
“Last week?” He slaps the folder down on the desk. “You’ve known about this for a week and you didn’t tell me?”
“I was working on a response.”
“You were working on a response. Alone. While I was out there restocking the bar and kissing Wilson over the counter and thinking everything was fine because you let me think everything was fine.” His voice cracks on the last word, and I feel it hit me in the ribs.
“I didn’t want to worry you until I had a plan.”
“A plan.” He laughs, and it’s the worst sound I’ve heard this week and I’ve spent the last several minutes on the phone with Marcus Voss.
“What plan? What possible plan covers a thirty-two percent rent hike and fabricated code violations and a complaint from businesses that make twice the noise we do? Lorenzo, they’re trying to push us out. ”
“I know.”
Tears glaze over his eyes, the pain in his eyes gutting me to the core.
“Zo, this is our club. This is everything we built. We started this place with nothing. We had no money, no backing, no Alphas to cosign the loan. We begged the bank for six months and scraped together every cent and you worked three jobs while I bartended for tips and we built this from the goddamn ground up.” The tears spill over his cheeks, tracking through the glitter he must have applied before coming down here. “They can’t just take it.”
“They’re not taking it, baby. They’re making it too expensive to keep.”
“That’s the same damn thing.”
It is. I know it is. When it was just numbers on paper the distinction felt important. Now it sounds exactly the way Oliver’s calling it.
His shoulders fold inward as the sobs hit him, the kind only Oliver produces when something reaches past every layer of brightness and warmth and strikes the raw center underneath. I push out of my chair and around the desk as his knees wobble, my arms wrapping around my Omega.
His face presses into my chest, tears soaking through my shirt, fingers twisting in the fabric at my sides.
His scent curdles with distress, making my stomach clench.
I press my mouth to the top of his head and hold him while the sobs work through his body, each one shaking both of us.
“We’ll figure it out,” I whisper into Oliver’s hair. “We always do.”
“This is different. You know this is different.”
A knock at the open door pulls me back. I look up to see Wilson standing in the frame, two mugs of coffee in hand, his expression carefully neutral. He glances from Oliver’s tear-streaked face to my arms around him, then to the open folder on my desk.
He doesn’t ask if we’re okay or what happened. He simply steps into the office, sets both mugs on the desk, and pulls a chair around from the other side so he can sit facing us.
“How bad is it?”
Oliver lifts his face from my chest, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand, smearing glitter across his cheekbone.
He opens his mouth to deflect, but Wilson’s steady gaze stops him.
There’s a stillness behind Wilson’s eyes I’ve never seen before, less detachment and more sharp assessment, as if rent increases and code violations are a language he speaks fluently.
I take a breath before explaining. “The landlord’s using the lease to squeeze us out with a thirty-two percent hike on base rent, plus new fees and a manufactured code violation to pile on pressure.
He’s backed by the Alpha-owned businesses on the boardwalk who can’t stand a Beta-Omega operation outperforming them. ”
Wilson reaches over to the desk and grabs the lease terms, eyes scanning the pages so fast it’s almost a blur. “How long has this been escalating?”
I shrug. “This round started three months ago but the pressure’s been on and off since we opened.”
“And before the thirty-two percent jump, where were you relative to market?”
“Fifteen percent above.”
He sets the papers down. “So it was already punitive. This isn’t a market correction. It’s a slow suffocation strategy. Price you out just enough that it looks like you failed instead of being driven out.” It’s terrifying how fast Wilson catches on and understands what we’re dealing with.
Oliver watches Wilson, tears still wet on his cheeks but posture suddenly straight, as though he’s recognizing an old tactic. “You’ve seen this kind of thing,” Oliver says, half question, half realization.
Wilson’s voice comes out flat. “I spent two years inside a system built on manipulation and paperwork engineered to look legit. Whether it’s an Omega center or a nightclub, they use the same mechanics.
Document everything, make the pressure seem procedural, and count on you being overwhelmed or too proud to ask for help. ”
The office goes quiet except for the hum of the club’s sound system warming up below. Wilson lifts one of the mugs to his lips, eyes still on the lease. “How much do you need to survive the quarter?”
Something about this conversation strangely feels like business mixed with someone we want to share our pleasure, as if this moment could tip the scale in either direction.
It’s clear Wilson’s guard is back up after the other night when he melted between us but I’m hoping this version of him isn’t instead of the version we see after everyone’s left.
Wilson doesn’t even flinch when I mention the number.
“And to fight it? Legally, long-term, with enough cushion to keep operating while the battle plays out?”
I tell him that number too, which is significantly larger. Oliver’s hand finds mine and squeezes so hard I feel it through my bones. Wilson sets down the mug. “Then maybe it’s time to start looking for an investor?”
I open my mouth to protest, ready to form the same speech I always do about refusing to let an Alpha take over. Oliver is on the same wavelength, Wilson letting out a small smile as he shakes his head.
“Not a controlling party. An investor who will come with a contract and what his say is. He’ll probably get a cut of the profits but he won’t be on the decision board or whatever you have here. Besides, it’s just a step. If you don’t find something you like, you don’t have to take it.”
I hate this. I hate that we have to make these kinds of decisions but even more so, I hate the way Wilson is talking to us, like a business advisor and not someone we’ve shared a bed with.
My shoulders fall as my gaze moves to the second mug Wilson brought it. His eyes mirror my movement and he just shrugs. “Felt Oliver distressing and I don’t know. I just made one.” He shrugs again, not even realizing what he just said.
Felt.
He felt my Omega’s distress, something that only happens when bonds start to form between mates. His guard might be up, but his walls are starting to crumble.
“Okay, yeah. I think I have a list of names we can look through.”