Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
JACE
Now
TWO
Where TF are you?
I glance at my phone, reading Nash’s text before I reply with my annoyed thumb.
We never use names; we use numbers in the order of our thrones. I’m FIVE, and fittingly, Nash is number two because he’s bugging the shit out of me.
Walking Vivian home
TWO
Told you we have a kings meeting at 6
NOW
Asshole
Life sucks
Get a straw
Asshole
I’ll be there when I get there
My brothers will be fine. Besides, The Queen, our mom, won’t let them start without me, and they all know I have my priorities straight.
I always walk Vivian home at night unless it’s an initiation.
Pocketing my phone, I resume licking my bay leaf cheesecake ice cream cone while Vivian licks her usual Earl Grey br?lée scoop.
With my mouth full, I jabber, “You still not gonna tell me what it is? This bullshit bribe that I can help you with?”
She strides beside me, popping her creamy lips. “Nope.”
“Oh, come on, Viv,” I grumble, trying to coax it out of her. “I bought you your favorite ice cream.”
“Jaaacceee.” She whines my name in a warning, making it sound too cute. “Drop it, please.”
“My ice cream or the secret that I’ll never judge you for?”
“Both,” she mumbles, amused.
Anything for her.
I halt and open my hand, letting my cone crack over the cobblestones, ivory cream splattering my black tactical boots.
Her eyes widen in shock, a smile jolting her lips. “I can’t believe you just did that!”
“Why?” I shrug. “The ants will love it, and I love you, Viv. As your friend for an entire year, and we’ve never judged each other. You didn’t laugh at me when I tested bottles of flavored lube for Vale, and I didn’t judge you when you took an eggplant vibrator home, and—”
“That was a joke for a friend.”
Now I mumble, amused. “That’s what they all say.”
“Jace.” She stomps her sandal. She isn’t mad; she’s cute. “It was a gag gift for my friend, Harlow, I swear.”
“Uh-huh. And if gagging on a man’s eggplant is your kink, I’d never judge.”
She blushes, rolling her eyes.
“Viv.” I step closer because that’s how I feel—allowed to be closer to her now that I know she’s legally divorced. “We can joke as we always do, or we can get serious because that’s how I feel. Seriously fucking worried about you being alone with your ex.”
I lean into her space, explaining, “This past year makes so much sense now. That he’s been bribing you, trapping you. But you won’t tell me how, and that makes me two seconds away from breaking his scrawny neck.”
She sags. “I’m fine.”
“Tell that to your pretty blue eyes. They haven’t kept your lie for a year.”
“I’m not lying.” She rubs her button nose. It’s her tell. “I’m fine. I got this. We have an agreement, and it’s working.”
“An agreement?” I fight to keep the rage out of my voice.
I hate it when Viv has to see this side of me, when I have to beat down some dumbass, but oh well.
Shitheads happen. “An agreement where he’s holding you hostage with something, and you’re fucking miserable, and I’m guaranteed to kill his punk-ass for it? That kind of agreement?”
“Don’t kill him,” she mutters. “As much as I hate him, I love you, too, and… Ahem.” She blinks. “As a friend. And I don’t want you to get in trouble for me.”
Love.
We say it a lot to each other, but always in the context of our platonic friendship, which has grown so deep in a year that there are only two things I don’t know about Vivian.
Every moaning touch, taste, and thrust I want to give her; I’m obsessed with the thought.
And the damning secret her ex-husband is exploiting that’s keeping our friendship from becoming the hottest fuck of our lives, for the rest of our lives.
This woman makes me salivate.
She makes me sweat.
She reminds me I’m a civilized beast.
I’ve shown her all the patience in the world, but I’m losing it to love.
I’m so fucking in love with her.
“Well, here’s a secret for you, Viv. One I trust you with.” I lower my brows and voice. “I was born into trouble. It’s in my criminal DNA. I didn’t learn how to kill; I had to unlearn how to murder a motherfucker. So I won’t get into trouble over your abusive ex. I’ll introduce him to it.”
Belief finds her eyes. Soft breaths huff from her lungs. Wisps of her golden hair flutter in the evening breeze as tourists on a trolley tour babble by, and a pink petal from the Chinese magnolia above us gently drifts down and lands on her melting ice cream.
“So that’s what those meetings are?” She breathes, processing. “You and all those inked men on the third floor?” But she doesn’t step away. She’s not afraid. “You’re in a secret society of evil criminals? They’re your family?”
“It’s not that simple. We’re not evil. We right wrongs.” I step almost nose-to-nose with her. “Do I hide a secret life? You have no idea. And that’s what I mean; I’m not going to judge you. I can help you if you let me.”
“It wouldn’t matter.” She heaves, seeming exhausted by the burden. “What he has on me can’t be killed. And it’d be just my luck that if he winds up dead somewhere, he’s told someone to release it.”
The logic lands like a bomb.
“A video.” I reason aloud, and she jolts, realizing her slip. “He has a video of you, doesn’t he? A graphic one you’re embarrassed about?”
Her baby blue eyes suddenly fill with tears, looking like a terrified doe in a truck’s headlights. Like a sweet creature two seconds from being hit. Like the world and all its bullshit judgment of women’s sexuality is barreling down on her, ready to end her life.
And it has.
It’s held Vivian hostage for a year.
Everything seems so obvious now.
Why she supposedly reconciled with him. Why she’s been so miserable. Why she has happy days at work with me and horrible nights at home with him. Why she’s kept her distance. Why we’ve never crossed a line. She’s been afraid. And shit, probably feeling so damn alone.
Fuck it.
I pull her into a hug, wrapping my arms around her, embracing her soft shoulders. Damn, she’s so small. Then again, everyone is next to me.
I want to cradle her dainty head against my pounding chest and wrap my body around her, shielding her, but this is close enough.
Closer than we’ve ever been.
I lean down, whispering into her silky sprout of a ponytail. “Whatever’s in that video, Viv, it’s not that bad. I promise.”
She sniffs against my shirt. “Yes, it is.”
Dropping her cone on the cobblestones beside mine, she wraps her arms around my waist. Fuck, her hot body’s pressed to mine. I have to focus on my hammering heart, not my thickening dick.
“Not in this world,” I say, burying my nose in her hair, smelling like lemons and love. “Hell, some women with sex tapes get the last laugh. They become millionaires.”
“Not in Charleston.” She pulls away, lifting her crying eyes.
“Not women like me.” She steps back, nodding to her house down the block.
The one on the historic registries and tours.
“Not when August Tate was your father, and you want to protect his name. If that video gets released, I’ll ruin his legacy, his philanthropy. Do you know who my dad was?”
Vivian’s not boasting; she’s burdened, struggling not to besmirch her father’s name.
Everyone knows who August Tate is… or was.
He saved our famous ancient oak tree after a hurricane.
He funded our local aquarium to save sea turtles on the brink of extinction.
He bought old plantations and refused to romanticize them; he turned them into memorials to enslaved people.
His foundation helps the unhoused, the uninsured, and those devastated by natural disasters.
August Tate’s name is on the plaques of everything progressive and positive in this city. And his lone, surviving daughter wants to make him proud.
“I do. And it seems like your father really loved you, and trust me, no man who really loves a woman would ever judge her.”
She twists her lips. “It’s bad, Jace.”
“It was sex with your husband at the time, right? Why should you be ashamed of it?”
Though, honestly, the thought of that scumbag’s hands on her makes me want to be his judge, jury, and executioner.
“As sweet as you are, you can’t understand. You’re a man.” Her brows knit, her words rushing like they’ve been killing her from the inside out. “For men, it’s something to brag about. You get status and praise, while women get destroyed. We get crucified, even if your husband was there, and—”
She gasps, realizing she let it slip again. She needed to confess, but the image is clear.
“You were with someone else while he was filming you?”
Quickly, she looks away, her lips trembling. “I didn’t know he was filming me. He didn’t have my consent, and…” She gulps back a sob, her body shaking. “And god, I want to die. I don’t know any way out of this, and now you’ll judge me and think less of me, and—”
“Hey.” Gently, I cup her chin. Her tears pool in my palm as I lift her gaze back to mine.
Fuck, when she cries, I want to murder people.
“It’s okay. I could never think less of you.
” I want to make her smile. “Honestly, I think you’re so goddamn perfect and amazing it’s kinda nice knowing you’re human. ”
“Human?” Her brows drop like her voice. “Jace, I had group—”
She cuts herself off again.
“Group sex? You had group sex?”
Shame silences her, and it breaks my fucking heart.
There’s so much I could tell her, reveal to her, but I can’t. Not now. Vivian’s already at risk because of this video, and if I tell her about my forbidden world, she’d only be in more danger.
While I’ll never judge her—Vivian’s not wrong—the hypocrites in this town will. I could kill a dozen, hell, a hundred men for her, but an online video can be immortal. It practically takes magic to destroy it.
Lucky for Vivian, I practice magic: Mafia magic.
Lucky for me, I think I’ve fallen even more in love with her and need to protect her.
“Would it help if I told you I’ve had group sex?” The way her teeth tenderly grab her trembling bottom lip, looking suddenly relieved, is the sexiest damn thing, so I keep confessing. “I think when it’s safe and consensual, it can be erotic, beautiful even.”
“Was it…” She leans closer as if she finally feels safe. “Was it with Vale and Nash?”
Holy fuck.
Now, I hide my gasp. Shocked that she’s clocked so much about me this past year.
But why am I surprised?
Like me, Vivian watches. She’s a photographer. She silently observes people, reading their emotions, and I guess the intimate bonds between the secret kings and queens around her are too powerful to deny. They’re palpable when we’re together.
“Vale and Nash are happily married.”
Finally, she laughs. “Yeah, and the pope is Catholic. But in our world at Delta’s, some marriages are open, and—”
“Their marriage isn’t open. It’s… It’s…”
It’s complicated. It’s a ritual that’s kept my family alive. It dates way back in our hidden culture, and it’s how we escaped our evil father.
But my brothers and I have changed the ritual; we adapted it into a consensual secret society built on love and loyalty.
Each brother, a king, marries his first queen; he loves his first queen. We live for them.
But he also makes a vow to another queen, promising to keep her and her children safe should her first king die.
It binds us and protects us. We all care for each other. We all kill for each other.
A year ago, weeks after the sex swing drama at Delta’s, Vale was initiated as one of our queens. Nash claimed her. He’s always loved her and became Vale’s first king, her love, and I became her second king, her loyal guard.
Was I ready for Nash to kill me during Vale’s initiation when we took her together? He didn’t want to share her, but in order to make her his queen, he had to. Yeah, he could’ve tried, but I’m too strong.
But were we ready for what actually happened?
I’m not Nash’s blood brother. He joined our family when he was a teenager. We’re not related, but we’re close. So close that we weren’t expecting the erotic connection, the powerful bonds we built that night.
It’s why the initiations work because we feel it; there’s nothing we won’t do, or anyone we won’t kill, for each other.
Ever since then, Nash and Vale have felt my pain. How I’ve been secretly in love with Vivian, waiting for her, keeping myself for her. The only sexual contact I’ve allowed is my duty to our queens, though they never push my boundaries. They know my heart has been breaking as I wait for Vivian.
You don’t have to fuck a couple to let them give you an intimacy that sustains you, a touch that keeps you going because you can’t be with the one you love.
That’s me with Vale and Nash.
How the hell do I make Vivian understand it without betraying all our secrets?
“It’s complicated.” I fail, but try. “I don’t fuck them. Yeah, we’re close, but I’ve been virtually celibate for over a year. And…”
Fuck, can she see it in my eyes? How I’ve been waiting for her? How I don’t know if it’s heaven or hell, how much I want her?
She doesn’t look jealous; she looks relieved. As if she’s been worried about who I’m with, and she needed my reassurance…
I only want you.
“And that’s what I mean,” I press. “I’d never judge your past sex life.”
Because, so help me God and my gun, it is in the past. Vivian’s sleazeball ex-husband isn’t laying a hand on her again.
Gently, I hook my finger under her chin, lifting it, wanting her to find her pride again. “Was it consensual, Viv? Did you want the sex?”
Depending on her answer, I’ve got to decide just how much I’m going to kill him.
“Yes.” She swallows. “He asked if I wanted to try it, and I did. I’d only ever been with him. But I didn’t consent to the video. I didn’t know about it. In hindsight, I think David planned it. Like it was a trap he set for me and my father’s money, and now I can’t get out.”
“I’ll get you out,” I vow, my heart drumming against my ribs. “Me and my men, I promise.”
“But how? I don’t want him dead. As much as I hate him, and—”
“Can you trust me? I know it’s a lot to ask. You’ve been betrayed, and—”
“Jace, you’re the only man I trust.” The sunset catches the golden flecks in her eyes.
It shines a light on this warm feeling we’ve never explored between us, but good god, it’s here.
“And if your men need payment,” she adds, “I can do it. I can unfreeze my father’s trust and pay you to help me, and—”
“I don’t want your money, Vivian.”
I want you to be my queen.