Chapter 14 Wilson
Wilson
Pine-scented cleaner mingles with bourbon's lingering sweetness in the office air. Financial documents spread across Lorenzo's desk reveal the same grim numbers I've been staring at for forty minutes while promising myself I'll finally walk out onto the main floor.
The club is quiet, Lorenzo having taken Oliver to meet with a contractor about those emergency lights Voss flagged in his bogus code violation. Now only two people remain in the building—me, hiding in here, and Nicholas waiting at the bar.
He arrived twenty minutes ago, right on schedule.
We were closing in on a time limit and desperately needed Nicholas’ investment.
Stupidly, I volunteered myself. Some misplaced bravado or a way to pretend I wasn’t falling apart every time I was in Nicholas’ presence, that him being here didn’t affect me.
Either way, I’m now inches away from my ex’s brother, gathering up the courage to speak to him about money.
The folder in front of me contains everything needed, lease terms, Voss correspondence, operating costs, and survival projections for both immediate quarter and long-term defense.
Lorenzo assembled it, double checking each number and making sure each argument was bulletproof.
My only job is carrying it to the bar to present to a man whose amber scent makes my hands tremble and whose deep voice reopens fault lines I've spent years trying to seal shut.
My phone lights up on the desk with his message: I'm here. No rush.
I hear two words that shouldn’t make my throat close: “No rush.” As if he hasn’t been waiting five years. As if patience is something he has in infinite supply and he’s perfectly happy to sit alone at a bar in an empty club while I’m still afraid of what his presence does to my emotions.
I stand, and the chair scrapes against the floor. I tuck the folder under my arm and count the twelve steps to the main floor, anything to give my panicking brain something else to do.
I see Nicholas at the bar, a glass of water before him and his jacket draped over the stool beside him. His white shirt sleeves are rolled to his elbows; the tattoos on his left forearm dark against his skin.
He turns the moment my footsteps hit the main floor. His eyes soften, his mouth curves before he can stop it, and his whole body leans just a bit toward me. After five years, he still reorients to me the second I enter a room. “Hey, Will.”
“Nicholas.” I set the folder on the bar between us and pull out the stool two seats away. The distance is a deliberate way to keep me from falling apart but I’m already fraying at the edges.
“How are you?”
I brush that off, knowing full well Lorenzo gave Nicholas a brief understanding of why this meeting was called. “I’m fine. Can we talk about the investment?”
His mouth twitches. A full smile never forms, but its ghost sits at the corners of his lips. He lifts his water and takes a sip, giving me the silence I need. I open the folder and spread the documents across the bar’s surface.
“Vice & Virtue is facing a hostile lease restructure from Marcus Voss, the boardwalk owner,” I say, the words rehearsed in the bathroom mirror this morning.
Still, every word I push out feels like ash in my mouth.
I’m using him. “He’s demanding a thirty-two percent increase in base rent, plus extra fees designed to make our operating margin unsustainable.
He’s even fabricated code violations to apply supplementary pressure. ”
Nicholas moves his eyes across the documents.
His expression shifts from the soft warmth he wore when he walked in to something sharper.
He picks up the lease terms and reads through them at a speed that tells me he's handled papers like these before.
“Voss,” Nicholas mutters before looking up. “I know Marcus.”
“I figured with both of you in the same type of business.” Some part of me wants to clarify that Nicholas isn’t an Alpha who would try to steal things from under a Beta/Omega pair but I don’t get that far.
“How much do you need?” he asks.
“To survive the quarter, seventy-five thousand. To fight long-term with legal coverage and enough operating cushion, closer to two hundred.” All rehearsed, every last word and I’m still fighting the urge to fall to my knees and ask for forgiveness by tarnishing whatever connection we restarted.
Nicholas sets the paper down. “Done.”
The word hangs between us, and my hands go still on the folder. “You haven’t even looked at the projections,” I say.
“I don’t need to.”
“Nicholas, this is a significant investment. You can’t just—”
“I can and I am.” He expression shifts into territory I recognize, the same focus he brought to the barbecue cooler five years ago when he was determined to make me laugh and didn’t stop until I choked on my beer. “The club matters. Oliver and Lorenzo built something worth protecting.”
“That’s not a business rationale,” I object.
“I’m not making a business decision.” He turns on his stool to face me fully.
The two seats between us feel like a canyon and a centimeter at once.
“Wilson, I’ve been doing security here for months.
I’ve watched Lorenzo run this place with nothing but a clipboard and sheer force of will.
I’ve watched Oliver charm every person who walks through the door while hiding how terrified he is of losing everything.
And I’ve watched you step in and hold the whole operation together like you were born to do it. ”
I whisper, “Don’t. Don’t make this about me.”
He meets my eyes. “It is about you.”
I exhale. “It’s about the club.”
I scrape my stool backward as Nicholas’s voice breaks the silence. “The club is yours, too, Will. Maybe you haven’t said it out loud yet, but Oliver and Lorenzo are yours. They’re yours and you’re theirs, and that makes this club something I care about protecting.”
“They’re not mine. I work here. That’s it,” I say, dropping my gaze, hating the way his words give me hope.
He doesn’t flinch at the distance I’ve put between us. “You don’t believe that.”
“What I believe doesn’t matter.”
“It’s the only thing that matters.”
My heart hammers. I can feel it in my temples, my wrists, and the base of my throat.
The room feels smaller than it did a minute ago, the exits further away.
Front door at twelve o’clock. Back hallway to my left.
Office stairs behind me. Three ways out.
I count them because my body’s gearing up to run, and my brain is the only thing holding my feet to the floor.
Tears come before I can stop them, spilling down my cheeks. “How the fuck are you still waiting for me?” My fists clench at my sides. “I ran off with your goddamn brother, chose him over you, and then never came back. How could you possibly still—”
Nicholas is off his stool before I finish.
One massive hand slides around my waist and pulls me against his chest. I push, but his body is a wall and the amber scent flooding my lungs makes my knees buckle.
His free hand finds my chin, tilting my face up until I have nowhere to look except his eyes.
No judgment. No anger. Just a steadiness that makes me want to scream.
“Love is funny like that, Will.” His thumb traces along my jaw. “And besides, you didn’t leave with him. He took you from me.”
I open my mouth to argue, but Nicholas shakes his head.
“Wilson, listen for a minute, okay? I know my brother and I know you. You wanted to be loved. You wanted a pack. I was ready to give you all of that, but Sebastian only saw you as something to control. It was so easy for him to say the right things.” His voice remains level, his eyes locked on mine.
“That’s how I lost you. You didn’t leave me. You would never leave me.”
He tilts his head and presses his mouth to mine.
My fingers unclench and dig into the front of his shirt, yanking him closer instead of pushing him away.
His mouth is warm, his lips parting against mine, and the kiss tastes like water and amber and five years of longing for something I told myself I couldn’t have.
A low groan rises in my throat as my spine arches and my body melts against the solid heat of his chest.
Then panic surges, Sebastian’s voice whispering in the back of my head. He is not your Alpha. My vision narrows and my chest tightens as I shove at Nicholas’s chest. He lets me go instantly, hands rising in surrender, body stepping back to give me space.
I press a hand to my chest, fighting the panic attack threatening to overtake me. “I didn’t come here for this.” My voice shakes. “I came for the money. For the club. For Oliver and Lorenzo.”
Nicholas stands with his hands at his sides, his expression almost disappointed.
“I know.” He runs a hand through his hair.
“I was surprised to get your call but I assume the urgency of it had to be something like money. When I found you here, I put two and two together but I was surprised that Lorenzo said it would be you coming tonight and not him.”
I furrow my brows. “Wait—what?”
Nicholas snorts, folding his arms over his chest. “Wilson, I’m not blind.
I handle security at the club too. Money talks are everywhere, and I’ve got plenty of cash.
I’m in on most of those discussions.” His expression softens.
“So tell me, how much do you really need to save your club? Not the projections or the estimates. Like a real, honest-to-god number.”
“No, it’s not my club. I already told you that. I just—” I hold up my hands, palms outward. “I thought you could help, and I didn’t—shit.”
He bites his lower lip, then reaches out to pull me back against his chest. “You were always so pretty when you blushed.” His thumb drifts across my heated cheekbone. “It’s just a matter of time before Lorenzo and Oliver claim you. I’m surprised Oliver hasn’t. Give me a number, Will.”
“Nico, Alpha, wait—we can’t—”
A throat clears at the office doorway, and I spin to see Oliver leaning against the frame, his grin so wide it looks like it might split his face.
His sweet scent washes over me, and his pupils are blown wide.
“You absolutely can. This is like Christmas.” He pushes off the frame and strides toward us.
“Me and Lorenzo both want you two, but I wasn’t sure it would work. Now, I’m convinced.”
I stumble backward, torn between Oliver’s tousled hair and crooked grin and Nicholas’ cheesy smile and hopeful eyes. Lorenzo follows behind Oliver, that calm satisfaction of a man whose plan just clicked into place.
“You planned this.” My voice goes flat. “The contractor meeting—leaving me alone with him.”
Lorenzo steps forward, shoulders squared. “I knew you would be adamant about taking the meeting. I merely offered an opportunity. What you chose to do with it was up to you.”
“I pushed him away.”
“And then he kissed you back,” Oliver says, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Which is the part that really matters.”
My face is burning. “The investment.” I force the words out. “Can we please just talk about the investment?”
Nicholas moves to the bar and picks up the documents. His expression shifts back to the focused businessman, though the flush across his neck and the slight swelling of his lower lip tell a different story. “Two hundred thousand covers the legal fight and operating cushion?”
“Yes,” Lorenzo says.
“Let’s make it 225 for anything that Voss decides to throw in the meantime.
I’ll have it transferred by the end of the week.
I want to review the lease terms with my attorney first, but the money isn’t contingent on that.
Consider it committed.” Nicholas’s gaze finds mine over the top of the papers.
“No strings. No conditions. No expectations.”
“Why?” I barely whisper.
“I already told you, Will. Do you not believe me?” He sets the papers down. “I’m not letting what they built go to waste and every single moment it brings me closer to you? All of that is priceless.”
Oliver grabs my hand as Lorenzo’s palm settles on the back of my neck.
My chest hurts. Everything hurts. The tears are building again, and I’m so fucking tired of crying in front of people, but the pressure behind my eyes won’t listen to my pride.
“They’re not mine.” My voice cracks on that last word.
“I keep telling everyone that and nobody listens.”
“Yeah, Will.” His voice is soft. “Nobody’s listening to that one.”