Chapter 41
NOVA
“Put her the fuck down!” Wes yelled in the distance.
I struggled, but the hands clutching my thighs only gripped me tighter.
“Roman,” I hissed.
“Are you wearing a collar?” Roman asked, his voice low and cold.
“Yes! And a red bracelet! So put me down!”
He ignored me, carrying me inside the house and into a nearby private dining room. Two attendants quickly departed at the snap of Roman’s fingers.
I was finally returned to solid ground. I swayed, my vision erupting in black splotches. The sound of a door slamming broke through the quiet, expansive house.
“Don’t fucking touch her!” Wes bellowed.
Roman had reached out a hand to steady me. At Wes’s command, he dropped it, and a wave of vertigo sent me to the floor in the next blink.
I watched from the hardwood as Wes glared at Roman before quickly crouching before me. I sat up on my stinging ass, balancing on a hand as I panted for air. Wes offered me his hand, but I shook my head. The room spun. It was best I stayed where I was for now.
Roman crossed his arms. “I thought it time we had a long overdue family meeting.”
Wes froze. Our eyes locked. A wave of nausea slammed into me, making it hard to break through the confusion and make sense of what was happening.
“What?” I asked.
Roman’s smile was vicious. “Don’t tell me he hasn’t told you.”
Wes didn’t move, his eyes panicked. “Let me help you into a chair, Nova,” he said, his usually controlled, dominant tone strained by simmering rage.
“I struggle to imagine how this never came up,” Roman continued. “Did you think buzzing your hair and covering yourself in tattoos like a degenerate criminal would be enough to erase who you are?” he asked Wes.
“Oh my God,” I groaned. “Just spit it out. What. Are. You. Talking. About.”
Roman’s lips turned down at my tone, eyes still glaring at the collar around my throat. “Do you want to be the one to tell her, brother?”
Brother.
Wes reached for me, and I flinched, backing away from him. Something in his eyes broke in response, and he nodded, slowly straightening back up. “This was what I was trying—”
“You’re… you and Roman are…” I closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them again, I pushed myself up into the closest dining room chair myself. I swallowed hard, looking between the two men—Roman’s sadistic glee and Wes’s horror.
“You two have met?” Wes asked slowly.
The lump in my throat wouldn’t budge. My head high crashed into raw, turbulent emotions, like I’d been sucker punched.
Sucker punched by the man I’d just given all of my most sacred trust.
“Why would you…” I started, unable to finish a single damn sentence. I waited for the room to stop spinning, staring down at the dining room table.
“Please get her water,” Wes said to someone.
I caught the briefest glimpse of Jayne as she retreated from the doorway.
“Are you a part of all of this?” I managed to ask.
“No,” Wes said firmly. “This was the only thing I kept from you.”
“Only,” I muttered angrily, as if Wes being Max Graves’s son was just a minor omittance.
I quickly put the truth together in my head.
Wes’s mom was Max’s first wife, the woman who supported him before he became a fixture of our technological and economic landscape.
Roman must’ve been his younger half-brother, the product of Max’s second marriage to the nineteen-year-old model, which meant Wes had just skipped over Roman’s existence altogether.
But why?
“How did you know?” Wes suddenly blurted, glowering at Roman. “How did you fucking know about the church and our plans for a club? Why would you do all of this? Why can’t you just drop it and leave me the fuck alone?”
Roman’s face revealed nothing, a slight smirk plastered in place. “Addicts are so self-centered, truly. You think the whole world revolves around you. You’re starting to sound delusional, brother.”
Wes laughed bitterly as his fists clenched at his sides, as if on the brink of pummeling Roman’s face in. “You built all of this to lure me here. Well, here I am. What the hell do you want, Roman?”
Tears burned my eyes. “None of this was about me, was it?”
Wes took a step toward me.
“Don’t,” I spat. “Don’t come near me.”
His face fell, but he remained standing between me and Roman.
Jayne returned with water, gingerly sliding the glass across the table to me. Archer entered the room next, glancing around as if ensuring everyone was behaving.
I stood, clutching the table for support. “Everything that has happened inside The Circle has been about whatever weird, incestuous rivalry you two are involved in.”
Roman lifted his brows, his smile unchanging.
“I didn’t ascend because I broke through my fear. I ascended because of you.” I glared at Wes and then at Archer and Jayne. “I’ve been treated differently because of Wes. Because you wanted Wes. For what? For money?” I waved a hand at Roman. “Or revenge for whatever went down with your father?”
“Whatever went down? You mean Wes’s ten-year covert operation to destroy our family?” Roman hissed. “As pitiful and ineffective as his ploys turned out to be…”
“That’s done,” Wes said. “It’s been done for years. Consider me scorched from the family tree.”
Roman’s eyes flashed. Palpable rage simmered beneath his controlled mask and contemptuous half-smile.
“Is it?” he asked. “Can someone like you ever truly be done with anything? You’re a nihilistic black hole, Wesley. You consume and destroy hedonistically, recklessly. You are not equipped to take care of anyone or anything.” He stared at my neck again. “Remember what happened with the last one?”
I sucked in a breath, appalled. Wes’s control snapped. He lunged at Roman, fist raised, and Archer leaped between them both.
“Shut the fuck up, Roman,” I yelled. It didn’t matter how I felt about Wes in this moment; Roman’s jab was incomprehensible.
“If you hit him, security will escort you out,” Archer said as he wrestled with Wes. “I don’t think you want that.”
Wes and I locked eyes, and Wes stopped immediately. He stepped away from Archer and back toward me. Roman glowered at me, his jaw ticking, as if he wanted to punish me for how I’d spoken to him.
“Where is Lorelei?” I asked them all, searching each pair of eyes until I landed on Jayne’s.
She appeared more confused than I’d ever seen her. Unsteadiness was a rare emotion to grace her compelling, gorgeous features; it didn’t look like she was enjoying it either, as accustomed as she was to having the upper hand.
“Please just tell me where she is so we can leave,” I said, tears stinging my eyes before I could stop them.
Jayne slowly shook her head. Her mouth opened and closed. She looked to Archer, whose face was hardened, his dark hair slightly tousled as he smoothed his burgundy shirt and crossed his arms. He avoided Jayne’s eyes.
Just like I avoided Wes’s.
“Nova, what you said isn’t true,” Jayne said gently. “I care about you. When I pushed you and encouraged you to come to events, I had nothing but pure intentions. I wanted to help you. I still want to help you. Your progress has been—”
A tear spilled over the edge, and I quickly wiped it away. “I’m not a pet,” I said, cutting her off. “I’m not a charity project.”
I lifted a hand to my collar, which now felt far too tight and restraining. I reached for the back, struggling with the buckle as Wes watched me helplessly. His stormy eyes had the nerve to appear wounded. He was the one who had shattered us, not me.
I managed to get it off, blinking back more tears as I tossed it away from me and onto the table.
“What was it I overheard you say all those years ago?” Roman asked Wes. “Every sub falls in love with their first Dom?”
My stomach sank. My bottom lip felt shaky, my cheeks warm.
Roman’s eyes softened when they looked at me, as if mimicking the emotion of sadness. “Poor girl.”
A humiliating second tear fell. I couldn’t meet Wes’s eyes even as they scorched my face.
I’d had enough. I walked around the other side of the table to avoid walking past Wes on the way to the doorway. My legs were wobbly, my balance still off-kilter.
“Sit. Down. Nova,” Roman commanded.
Wes’s voice trembled with rage. “Don’t you fucking tell her what to do.”
“Why shouldn’t I, when I’ve seen firsthand how wet it makes her?” Roman asked.
Everyone halted, including me. I’d made it to the other side of the table, where Jayne and Roman stood between me and the exit.
“What is he talking about, Nova?” Wes asked.
I stammered. “That’s not—”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t inform dear Wes about our exciting meeting with your dream publisher? Or the fun we had when I dressed you as my perfect angel?”
Wes watched me from across the room, eyes widened slightly, stunned.
“You kidnapped me!” I yelled.
“Okay, I’m going to need everyone to—”
“Shut up, Archer,” Wes and Roman said at the same time.
When Wes stepped forward, so did Roman, and I took my opportunity to slip past Jayne and through the door.
Outside the tall, paneled windows, I saw a woman getting gangbanged by men in the backyard. She smiled, jerking off two men, riding another, as a fourth entered her mouth.
At least someone was having a good time.
To avoid the crushing feeling of grief ripping my vulnerable heart to shreds, I headed for the stairs to find the room from Lorelei’s PicWave post.
An attendant approached me, a woman in a black shirt and slacks. Her words were slow, nervous. “Can I help you, ma’am?”
“Hi, yes, can you please direct me to whatever room has a big window overlooking the back of the estate with a vanity painted a nude pink with floral details?”
“That’s our room,” Jayne said carefully from behind me.
“Oh, great. Take me there,” I said, swallowing down a sob. My voice was developing a kind of manic edge that sounded foreign, even to my own ears.
Wes and Roman stood on either side of Archer, the three men looking equally reluctant to be following me around together.
I ignored them all. Jayne slowly led me up the grand staircase in the foyer.
“Yes, fuck yes,” a man groaned from behind a door.
Unfortunately, this was the door Jayne pushed inside.