Chapter 13 #3
"You don't have to thank me." Bane's voice is soft. He turns to look at me—fully, openly, not caring who sees—and I can read what's in his eyes. The cell. The mattress. My back under his hands. His mouth on my neck. All of it living in a single look that lasts one second too long.
Richard and Margot don't notice. They've moved on to itinerary—whether to book a charter boat, the seafood restaurant Richard read about, a hiking trail Margot found that winds along the cliffs. Normal vacation planning. Normal couple things.
The brothers notice everything.
"I'm going to make coffee," Margot says, pushing back from the table. "Richard, come help me find the good beans. I hid them from Atlas."
"You hid coffee from your own stepson?"
"He drinks it too fast. He doesn't savor." She takes Richard's arm. They disappear into the kitchen together, voices overlapping—domestic, easy, the practiced choreography of a long marriage.
The four of us are alone.
The air changes instantly. The performance drops away like a skin being shed. Atlas leans back in his chair. Bane's foot unhooks from my ankle. Zero sets down his wine glass with a click that sounds deliberate.
For a second, nobody speaks. The dining room holds its breath.
Zero moves first.
He pushes back from the table. Rounds it.
Walks behind my chair and stops. Close. Close enough that I feel the heat of his body against the back of my neck.
Close enough that his scent wraps around me and I have to fight against my instinct to breathe him in deeper.
My body braces for his hand. For the grip on my nape.
For the contact I've been simultaneously dreading and craving since he said you belong to me in a dark hotel room.
It doesn't come.
He stands behind me. Not touching. His breath warm on the back of my neck, stirring the fine hairs there. Three seconds. Four. The absence of his hand louder than any touch.
"You smell good tonight," he says.
Blood pools low in my belly, my cock twitching. Zero grips the back of my chair.
Bane stands. His hand finds my shoulder—warm, deliberate, a counter-claim staked in full view.
"Back off, Zero." Bane's voice is quiet. Measured. The boardroom voice, but with teeth underneath. "You're crowding him."
"I'm not touching him." Zero's breath is still on my neck. His grip tightens on the chair. "Funny how you don't seem to have a problem with that yourself."
"Because he doesn't flinch when I touch him."
The air between them crackles. I'm sitting in the middle of it—Bane's hand on my left shoulder, Zero's white-knuckled grip on my chair, their voices passing over my head like weather.
"That's enough." Atlas. Still across from us. He hasn't moved, hasn't raised his voice, but the authority in it cuts through both of them. "Both of you."
"Stay out of this, Atlas." Zero's voice drops. Dangerous. "You don't get to referee when you've got your own hands in the game."
"I'm not in any game."
"No?" Zero leans forward. I feel his chest almost graze the back of my head. "You’re the only one who has had him in your bedroom, in your bed." A pause. The words landing like dropped knives. "How greedy of you to act like you haven't been thinking about him in your bed every night since."
Atlas's jaw locks. The composure holds but I can see the fractures—his fingers pressing harder against the table, his eyes going flat for a half-second before recalibrating.
"That's different."
"How?" Bane now. His hand still on my shoulder, his voice still low, but there's an edge I haven't heard since the facility. "How is what you did different from what either of us is doing right now?"
"Because I'm not marking territory at a dinner table like a dog."
"No. You do it behind people's backs. Which is worse."
Silence. The kind that vibrates. I can feel all three of them—Bane's hand tightening on my shoulder, Zero's grip creaking on the chair, Atlas's stillness across the table. Three alphas in a room with one omega and the thin veneer of brotherhood stretched to breaking.
"Can you all stop talking about me like I'm not sitting right here?" My voice comes out sharper than I intend. They go quiet. All three. "I'm not a territory. I'm not a game piece. I'm a person sitting in a chair while three grown men argue over me in whispers like I'm the last slice of pizza."
Nobody speaks for a beat.
"There's actually pizza left," Zero says from behind me. Deadpan. His grip loosening on the chair by a fraction.
I don't laugh. Almost. But I don't.
"He's right." Atlas's voice has softened. His eyes find mine. "This isn't the time or the place."
"When is?" Bane asks. Not combative. Genuine. As if he’s been ready to lay all this out since the beginning. "Because we can't keep doing this. The three of us circling him at dinner tables, sneaking touches, pretending we don't—" He stops. His hand flexes on my shoulder. "This isn't sustainable."
"I know." Atlas barely above a whisper. His eyes move from Bane to Zero to me. "I know it isn't."
Zero exhales behind me. Long. Controlled. His hands release the chair. He steps to the side—still close, still present, but no longer looming. Arms crossed over his chest.
"Then figure it out," Zero says. To Atlas. "Before we break something that can't be fixed."
Atlas opens his mouth.
Footsteps. Margot's voice from the kitchen: "Who wants coffee?"
We scatter. Bane's hand lifts from my shoulder.
Zero turns toward the window, arms crossed, face blank.
Atlas picks up his wine glass and takes a sip like he's been drinking this whole time.
I sink down in my chair and grab a napkin and start wiping the table because I need something to do with my hands.
"I'd love some," Atlas calls back. Not a crack. Not a tremor.
How does he do that? How does he switch personalities and smooth over moments so easily?
Margot appears in the doorway. Reads the room—four people who are very clearly not doing anything suspicious. Decides to believe it.
"Decaf okay? Richard bought the wrong beans again."
"Perfect," Bane says. The charming smile. Seamless.
She disappears back into the kitchen.
I stand. My heart is hammering. Zero's breath still lingering on my neck. Bane's handprint burning on my shoulder. Atlas's eyes still on me from across the table, saying later. Saying we're not done.
But the thing that follows me up the stairs isn't any of that. It's the argument. The low, furious whispers of three men who can't agree on anything except that they want me, and can't figure out how to want me without destroying each other.
Bane said this isn't sustainable.
He's right.
I close my bedroom door. Press my back against it. Breathe.
They all want me. And it’s clear that they all want all of me.
No sharing. No half claims.
Each alpha wants to claim what’s his.
And that’s… me.
But–
What do I want?
I scrub my hands down my face, trying to focus on anything but my dick hard as a rock in my pants and all three of their scents swirling around in my lungs.
God fucking help me.
I want all three of them.
I don’t care if they don’t want to share.