Chapter Three-Nico
CHAPTER THREE-NICO
T he first time Sam Keller walked into my bar I knew the punk was nothing but trouble.
Young. Cocky. Arrogant. Practically fucking oozing bad luck.
The Vipers are involved in a little of this and a little of that. Most of our money got made through real estate. But that isn’t all we did.
Technically, very little of our business is legal. But that’s just the particulars.
Laws change all the time. What’s illegal today might be legal tomorrow. Seriously, it’s lawmakers who are some of the shadiest fuckers around.
Especially on the East Coast. Politicians are just so slimy. I hated doing business with them.
But they’re a necessary evil. Like me.
I keep my territory the way I like it. Sure, everyone has vices, and we run some of them.
Gambling, drugs, sex.
That’s small change stuff. But that is what brings Sam Keller to my door.
He likes to gamble. On anything from horses to sports to fights. He’s got bad luck though, and it makes me itch.
The first time I see him, I want to rub the malocchio tattoo on my right arm, but I don’t. I keep still. I show no emotion.
I can’t.
“This one’s trouble, Boss,” Angel says, and I nod. He is.
But I let him in. I took his marker.
Weeks passed since Sam Keller made his first bet. And now, I fucking own him.
We’re not the only game in town, but we’re the ones with the worst rep. I don’t know why he picked us.
This close to New York City, there’s always something brewing. I let other guys have their say on that side of the Hudson, but here I’m the king.
Anyone who’s anyone knows it and they don’t cross me .
Not unless they want to end up dead. Not boasting, just stating facts.
I’m not an arrogant fuck. I know there are other organizations led by other men.
But we operate in complete symbiosis. We have to. There is no other option.
Our rep keeps us safe and the fact that I’ll do any fucking thing I have to in order to keep whatever I deem mine safe.
You fuck with a Viper, you get bit. That’s something no one survives.
Period.
I earned my crown through blood, sweat, and cunning. I live in a world shrouded in darkness, built on shady promises and lies.
In that kind of world, you learn not to trust. Not to want things you can’t have.
But I’m the king. I can have anything I want, I just need the balls to take it.
And what I want is Sam Keller’s sister.
I might not have a Harvard degree, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I don’t take unnecessary risks.
The day he made his first wager, I had Sam Keller checked out. I know he is technically part owner in the old school bread bakery his sister is practically killing herself to keep afloat .
Anna Keller is a fucking angel. She’s beautiful. Soft, sweet, but she has a backbone, too.
You have to in order to run a business like that. Especially when she has no help.
Sam doesn’t carry his weight, and Anna works too hard.
He’s a little douchebag is what he is.
A selfish leech.
A fucking tick.
But she, well, Anna Keller is something else. She’s tough.
Beautiful.
A flower among the thorns of the hard city we live in. Something about her draws me in and I’m curious.
I’m not the kind of man who walks up to a woman and just asks her out. That’s just not me.
I can’t let anyone in. I have to be strong for my men. I have to be ruthless in order to keep my crown.
Anna is soft.
Precious.
I shouldn’t be thinking about her, but I can’t stop. She works too hard, and I’m not about to make her life harder by pretending I could somehow fit into it.
I can’t .
I won’t even try.
But I’m not a good man, either.
I’m a viper.
So, in my den I wait for the opportunity to strike, to take what I want.
I’m the puppet-master pulling all the strings. I let Sam have just enough rope to get himself caught, but I won’t hang him. Not as long as he plays ball.
And he does. The asshole gives up his sister with hardly a protest when I call in his debt.
It makes me furious. He doesn’t deserve a sister like that.
It also makes me hard.
For her.
Tonight is the night. She’s here.
That sweet little thing is walking right into my trap.
I should feel guilty, but I don’t.
My dick gets hard as I watch her on the security monitor enter my office in the basement of the Vipers’ Den.
Office is a loose term. Yeah, there’s a desk. But there’s also a bedroom.
Not because it’s my fuck room, but because sometimes I need to crash and going home to my empty condo gets more and more difficult .
I hate being needy. This woman makes me needy.
She makes me wonder what it would be like to have someone soft and precious waiting for me in that big condo.
I watch her through the monitor as she slowly progresses, getting closer to me with every step, and I’m not even breathing regularly anymore.
Her big brown eyes flick up to the ceiling, and I swear she knows I’m watching. It’s like she can see the camera, even though I know she can’t.
It’s been expertly hidden in the rafters. Not even trained professionals manage to spot this one.
Goddamn. Her eyes are so beautiful.
She’s so close I can see their whisky brown color and the flecks of gold glittering inside them, making her look like something from a dream or fantasy.
I hear Angel give her my orders. Telling her to strip, and my dick is jumping behind my jeans.
Jaw clenched, I watch as the beauty walks into the bedroom.
Her shoulders lift as she takes a deep inhale and I switch to the camera inside the bedroom.
It’s a private feed. I’m the only one with the code.
Good thing too, because the moment she takes off her coat and starts to remove her clothes, I’m drowning in a dozen different emotions .
The least of which is not jealousy.
I know she’s thirty-two. Her parents are both gone, and she’s been trying her best to raise her piece-of-shit brother and keep the bakery from falling down around their heads.
She works a lot. She doesn’t date.
Probably has some fucked up idea in her head that she isn’t gorgeous because she’s so thick.
But she is.
And it pisses me off to even imagine she might not agree.
Anna looks exactly how a woman should. I’m glad she’s single, but it wouldn’t matter.
I take what I want.
She’s taking off her shirt, and her hands go to her pants. She has a pair of tights, and when she pulls them off, she takes her panties with them.
Soft, pale skin is revealed, inch by inch, and I wish I was the one unwrapping her.
When she stands up again, I take her in. I can’t wait to touch her.
To taste her.
I want to run my tongue across every inch, every dip and curve of her body.
Fuck .
Blood rushes to my cock, and I hear it roaring as it races through my veins.
Anna is perfect.
And for tonight, she’s mine.