Chapter 9 Wilson
Wilson
A name pops up on my screen on the following Tuesday.
Lorenzo’s laptop sits open in front of me at the bar as I’m cross-referencing investor profiles with boardwalk property holdings, tedious work nobody asked me to do, but better than going home to an apartment that smells like nothing and sleeping on a mattress that’s too quiet.
The guest bedroom upstairs has been my temporary home, though, eventually, I’ll have to face the music and return to my own place.
Refocusing, I scroll down on the screen.
Most entries belong to Alpha-run firms with intertwined boards.
A few smaller outfits show potential, none with the kind of capital to challenge a landlord who owns half the waterfront.
My thumb halts mid-scroll on a business article about local real estate developers.
A consultant quoted on mixed-use projects: Sebastian Cavallero.
My fingers freeze on the keyboard at the mention of my ex’s name. The scar at the base of my neck throbs beneath my collar, a phantom signal from a bond long since dead.
I inhale through my nose, exhale through my mouth. My left hand trembles on the laptop’s edge, so I press it flat against the bar, hoping that will help ease the edges of a panic attack threatening to ruin me.
He can’t control you anymore, I tell myself, breathing through the tunneled edges of my vision.
He’s gone. His bite was removed, albeit rather dangerously in a black market operation that I still wonder what would have happened had I not come out the other side.
He can’t hurt me, though. Sebastian has no claim to me.
I repeat those statements several times before I can focus again. Three names down from Sebastian, buried in a sidebar about independent investors, is another face I know.
Nicholas Cavallero.
His profile photo stares back at me, all curly hair, glasses, and that grin that wrinkles the corners of his eyes.
I read further to see that he’s the founder of a boutique real estate investment firm specializing in independent commercial properties.
His portfolio is undeniably impressive, filled with small businesses, mixed-use developments, and a handful of nightlife venues.
A kitchen light flicks on overhead and I hear Oliver’s voice drifting down the stairs. “Wilson, are you still here? It’s almost three in the—” He freezes at the foot of the staircase, eyes flicking between my face and the open laptop. “What are you looking at?”
“Investor profiles,” I say, angling the screen away. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Join the club. Lorenzo stole all the blankets in my nest.” Oliver pads behind the bar in Lorenzo’s oversized shirt, grabs a water bottle from the fridge, then leans in close enough that his scent drifts around my shoulders. He peeks at the screen. “Find anyone good?”
“A few possibilities. Nothing definitive.”
Lorenzo appears in the doorway fully dressed, his expression carrying the pinched look of a man who woke up to an empty bed. His gaze finds Oliver first, then me, then the laptop.
“You’re both supposed to be asleep,” he says.
“Wilson found investors,” Oliver says.
“Wilson found a list.” I correct before turning the laptop toward Lorenzo as he crosses to the bar. “Most of these are Voss-adjacent. Alpha firms, interconnected boards. Anyone with capital in this area runs in his circle.”
Lorenzo scans the screen, his eyes cataloguing and dismissing in rapid sequence. “Independent firms? Private capital outside the traditional networks?”
“Thin.” I scroll down to the sidebar, hating myself for what I’m about to do but Lorenzo and Oliver have grown on me. I’d hate for them to lose everything when I could have helped. “One name keeps coming up that has the money and the independence from Voss’s orbit.”
My finger hovers over Nicholas’s profile as the cursor blinks beside the photo.
“Nicholas Cavallero,” Lorenzo reads. His brow furrows. “That name is familiar.”
“He does security for us sometimes,” Oliver says, leaning closer. “Tall guy. Glasses. Nice arms.” He glances at me. “He’s been in our bed, Zo—like a year ago.”
“I remember. He was one of the… better Alphas.” Lorenzo pauses. “I didn’t know he had this kind of money.”
“He keeps it quiet.” The words slip out before I decide to say them. Both of them look at me.
“You know him?” Lorenzo asks.
I swallow nervously, knowing I have to give them something.
No one has mentioned anything since I was in their bed over a week ago, though I’m sure Oliver has figured it out.
The fact that Lorenzo hasn’t pressed about it, tells me Oliver never mentioned it to him.
I catch myself reaching for my collar and pulling it up before meeting Lorenzo’s eyes. Fuck.
“He’s my ex’s brother.”
The admission sits heavy between us as they both stare at me.
I can’t even tell if they’re angry with me for not saying something sooner or if they’re in shock.
Oliver’s scent doesn’t even fluctuate. He just tilts his head to the side, mulling over my words.
“Your ex,” Oliver says, his eyes flicking to my collar. “The one who—”
Shame floods my expression as my cheeks heat and I tug my collar up. That’s still not a story I’m ready to tell. “Yeah.”
“We’ve had this guy in our bed and we had no idea he was connected to you?”
“There’s no reason you would have. Cavallero is common enough, and Nicholas doesn’t advertise his family.
” My voice comes out flat, a mask pulled tight over everything underneath.
“But he has the resources. He has the independence from Voss’ network.
And he has a reason to say yes if the right person asks. ”
Lorenzo's gaze is steady on my face. "That person should be you."
The words hit the center of my chest and something buckles.
My hand shoots up to my collar, pressing the fabric flat, the scar burning hot beneath my fingers.
"No. I can't—it's not—" My throat closes around the sentence.
"We had history but that doesn't make me the right person for this.
Nicholas and I haven't spoken in two years and the last time we were in the same room his brother was—" The air runs out of my lungs as the bar top blurs and the taste of copper floods the back of my mouth.
Lorenzo is around the bar before I register him moving.
His hands close around my face, palms warm against my jaw, his thumbs pressing into the hinges where the tension has locked everything tight.
"Breathe, gorgeous." His voice is low as his eyes hold mine and I can smell rain and honey and the clean fabric of his shirt. "Wilson, breathe. I'm right here."
Air finds its way in. Shallow at first, then deeper, Lorenzo's thumbs tracing slow arcs along my jaw while my lungs remember how to expand.
"I didn't mean to bring anything up." His forehead tips forward until it's almost touching mine. "I can make the call. I'll reach out to Nicholas myself. But not tonight."
Oliver has come around the bar too, his hand resting on my lower back, his scent layered over Lorenzo's wrapping around me from both sides.
"In the morning," Lorenzo says. "After a full night of sleep. Whatever is left on that laptop can wait until tomorrow." His thumbs still against my jaw. "Come up to bed with us. Just sleeping."
The word just sits in the air between us. Oliver's fingers trace a slow circle against my spine.
"I have one more thing to—"
"It can wait." Lorenzo's voice leaves no room for argument. His hands drop from my face to my shoulders, turning me gently toward the stairs. "Tomorrow."
Oliver disappears up into the apartment and the bedroom ahead of us, the lamp clicking on, the rustle of blankets being pulled back hitting my ears as we approach. Lorenzo walks behind me with his hand on the small of my back, his touch light enough that I could step away from it if I wanted to.
I don't want to.
The bedroom smells like both of them, just like it did last time, sweetness and rain layered into the sheets and the pillows and the nest in the corner.
Oliver is already stripped down to his briefs, sitting cross-legged on the bed, watching me with those blue eyes of his.
Lorenzo's fingers find the hem of my shirt and pause.
"Can I?"
My throat is too tight for words so I nod.
He lifts the shirt over my head. The air hits the scar on my neck and I flinch but Lorenzo's hand is already there, warm against my shoulder, resting near the scar.
Oliver's gaze flicks to it, something moving through his expression but he doesn't say a word.
He reaches for my belt instead, stripping my pants down my legs while Lorenzo eases me onto the mattress between them.
Oliver curls into my left side, his head on my chest, his fingers already tracing idle patterns across my stomach. Lorenzo settles on my right, propped on one elbow, his palm resting flat over my chest where my heartbeat is still running too fast.
No one has seen my scar before tonight aside from a few Omegas at the center. I made sure that no one would see the pain I went through and the connections I lost to get to this point.
And yet, as exposed as I feel, the terror that usually comes with letting my guard slip is nowhere to be found. Strangely enough, I feel safe.
Oliver's fingers drift lower. His touch skims the crease of my hip, light enough to be accidental as my cock twitches against my thigh.
He does it again, slower, his fingertips dragging along the sensitive skin where my hip meets my pelvis, and a breath punches out of me that makes Oliver's mouth curve against my chest.
"This okay?" he murmurs against my skin.
My hips lift into his hand before my brain forms an answer. Oliver takes it as the yes it is, his fingers wrapping around my cock with a loose grip that tightens when I groan. He begins stroking me with a lazy rhythm that isn't trying to make me come. It's trying to pull me out of my head.
It works. The tension in my shoulders starts to dissolve, my spine softening into the mattress. Oliver mouths at my chest, his lips finding the spot over my heartbeat as my hand tangles into his hair.
Lorenzo shifts beside me, his hand leaving my chest as his voice drops against my ear. "Roll over, gorgeous."
My body responds before my brain catches up, turning onto my side, Oliver adjusting beside me so his face is inches from mine. Lorenzo's weight settles behind me, his knees pushing my thighs apart, and the click of a bottle cap makes my spine arch before he's even touched me.
"Kiss my Omega," Lorenzo says.
Oliver grins up at me, pulling my mouth down to his, his tongue sliding against mine while Lorenzo's slick finger presses against my entrance and pushes inside.
My groan breaks against Oliver's lips and he swallows it, his hands cupping my face, keeping me in the kiss while Lorenzo works me open with the same precise, careful thoroughness he brings to everything.
One finger becomes two. Lorenzo curls them and finds the spot that makes my vision blur, my hips rocking back against his hand. Oliver is breathing my air, our mouths sharing the same space, his thumbs stroking along my cheekbones while my arms tremble on either side of his head.
"More," I manage against Oliver's mouth.
"Greedy," Oliver whispers back, grinning.
Lorenzo adds a third finger and I drop my forehead against Oliver's collarbone, panting, my cock trapped between my stomach and Oliver's body. Lorenzo's free hand runs up my spine, a firm stroke from the base to the nape of my neck, and every vertebra he touches loosens beneath his palm.
He withdraws his fingers, the blunt press of Lorenzo's cock replacing them, pushing in slow, giving me every inch one at a time.
My back arches and a sound tears out of me that I can't control, raw and open and desperate in a way I haven't let myself be since the last time someone was inside me and that someone was—
Lorenzo's hand presses flat between my shoulder blades, keeping me grounded to the present. His hips flush against me, fully seated, and he stills. "Stay with me," he says.
"I'm here."
He starts to thrust in and out of me with long, deliberate strokes that drag against every nerve ending, his hand steady on my back.
Oliver's fingers card through my hair, his mouth pressing soft kisses against my temple, my forehead, and the bridge of my nose.
The two of them hold me between their bodies and take me apart so gently that the tears prick my eyes before I can stop them.
Lorenzo fucks me like he's trying to prove something without words.
Every thrust pushes deeper and the sound I'm making against Oliver's throat has devolved into something beyond language.
Oliver's scent fills my lungs on every inhale.
Lorenzo's hips find an angle that makes my whole body clench and my orgasm builds low in my belly, gathering slowly, inevitable.
"Let go," Lorenzo says against my spine.
I come with my face buried in Oliver's neck, my body shuddering between them, Lorenzo following with a low groan and his hand tight on my hip.
The warmth of him spilling inside me pulls a sound from my throat that I'll be embarrassed about tomorrow as Oliver presses his mouth to the top of my head and holds it there.
My shoulders sag as I melt against the Omega, Lorenzo pulling out carefully and disappearing for a moment before a warm cloth passes over my skin.
Oliver hasn't moved, his arms locked around me, his heartbeat steady beneath my ear.
When Lorenzo returns a second time, he slots himself against my back, his arm draping over both of us, his mouth resting against the curve of my shoulder.
It feels perfect here. It feels like something I could build a life inside.
Even if I know it can't be forever.