CHAPTER 5: SHARED BY THE THREE PRESIDENTS

CASPIAN’S POV The main lounge of the Venom Pit was synonymous with sin. I sat in my leather armchair, a crystal glass of bourbon in my hand, watching the absolute degenerate chaos of my brothers. The rest of the club was cleared out. I had ordered our two hundred patched members and prospects to the lower levels to lock down the perimeter while we prepared for the Willowcrest Coronation. It left the massive, dimly lit inner sanctum to the three of us. Three Presidents. Equals in every sense of the word. We bowed to no Alpha, we answered to no pack council, and we shared everything. The club. The blood money. The women. On the street, they knew us by our road names: I was Cap, the tactician; Gideon was Venom, the strike; Kaiven was Bane, the brute. Inside these walls, our loyalty was the only religion we practised. We were men in our forties. Kaiven was forty-six, I was forty-five, and Gideon was forty-three. Seasoned. Lethal. Completely devoid of morals. Which made the fact that we were currently waiting in our own lounge for a stray pack princess to put on a dress highly f*****g unusual. Across the room, Gideon was sprawled lazily on the Chesterfield sofa, a nameless blonde sweetbutt wedged between his thick thighs, bobbing her head enthusiastically on his c**k, gagging herself wetly while spit dripped down his shaft. Gideon wasn’t even looking at her. He was scrolling through quarterly projections on his phone, looking bored out of his f*****g mind. He had been a flirty bastard his entire life, an unrepentant playboy with a legendary reputation for breaking women in half and tossing them out the next morning. Gideon never kept his interest longer than a week, making him dangerously, intoxicatingly unattainable. Women threw themselves at his feet trying to be the one who finally tamed him, and he devoured them all with that wicked, unpromising grin. Beside the sofa, Roxie, the only exception to his one-week rule, a compound regular who had lasted a month and mistakenly thought that gave her rights, was pacing in a sheer red robe. Her arms were crossed, glaring at the ceiling with venomous jealousy. “I still don’t understand why you’re taking that thing to the Rivera dinner,” Roxie bitched, her voice shrill enough to give me a migraine. “She looks like trash dragged in from the gutter. Half her face is black and blue. Are you really taking a bruised-up little mutt instead of me? She’s probably a dirty little—” Gideon’s hand snapped out, grabbing a harsh fistful of the blonde’s hair to yank her off his c**k with a wet pop. He looked up at Roxie, dark eyes flashing with feral annoyance. “Roxie,” Gideon interrupted, his voice a crude gravel. “Do you know why she’s upstairs putting on a five-thousand-dollar dress while you’re standing down here in a cheap robe?” Roxie blinked, arms tightening. “Why?” “Because she didn’t flinch when three Presidents told her we were going to take her apart,” Gideon snarled, the playboy mask slipping to reveal the monster under. “You’re a wet hole for a Tuesday, Roxie. Don’t flatter yourself. Now shut the f**k up before I throw you out into the rain and let the prospects run a train on what’s left of you.” Roxie turned ghost-pale and scurried into the shadows. From the adjacent open training area, the deafening CRACK of bone hitting leather carried through the lounge. Kaiven was completely shirtless, massive back rippling with black tattoos as he savagely attacked the hanging punching bag. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. Kaiven was the brute of the triad. Muscle, zero politeness, and the most likely to throw a punch before asking a question. But under the hostility, he was fiercely, violently loyal to Gideon and me. “You’re both thinking with your d***s,” Kaiven grunted, throwing a brutal right hook that nearly ripped the heavy bag off its chain. “Pack she-wolves are bred to lie. They cry, they act helpless, and the second we turn our backs, they f**k us over. I am not burying two more of our men just because Gideon wants to get his rocks off.” I took a slow sip of bourbon, letting the burn coat my throat. “We are not in the business of trusting women, Kaiven,” I said, my voice cold and composed. “We are in the business of using them. And tonight, we need an alibi that looks incredibly expensive.” Kaiven stopped punching, chest heaving, sweat gleaming over his scars. “And you think that makes her safe?” he snapped. “You really believe those bruises are real? Something is completely fishy about her. Have you already forgotten what happened the last time we let our guard down for a sweet-faced pack woman? They played us, and you know exactly what they did to us. I hate how you’re both acting like this is f*****g nothing!” A heated silence dropped over the room. The only sound was the metallic rattle of the chains swinging from the rafters. Gideon tucked himself away and zipped his pants, completely ignoring the blonde gasping for air by his boots. When he looked up, his voice had dropped its usual filthy playfulness, replaced by something utterly murderous. “Some Alpha bastard hit her, K,” Gideon growled. “I know that much from the deep-tissue bruising and the sheer force it took to leave a mark like that. I know too well what that does to a woman. We made a vow as Black Vipers. We do not turn a broken woman away. We don’t look the other way when an Alpha hits her. And we sure as hell don’t act like f*****g assholes to her just because of our own old wounds.” Gideon took a slow step forward, his jaw tight. “When I find out who put those bruises on her skin, I’m going to skin his f*****g knuckles with a cheese grater and feed them to him.” I watched the standoff over the rim of my crystal glass. I understood Gideon’s deep-rooted hatred for violence against women better than anyone. It was a raw, rotting wound that hit far too close to his damaged heart, a traumatic history we never explicitly talked about, but fiercely protected. The three of us weren’t brothers by blood, but a certain, inescapable darkness had bound us together for life. If Gideon had decided to wage a war over the little wolf’s bruises, Kaiven and I would be the ones handing him the weapons. “Keep the knuckles, Gideon,” I stated, my voice dropping into a dark, terrifying register. “I just want to watch the light leave his eyes when I break him.” Kaiven wiped sweat from his brow, rolling his eyes. “Save the f*****g white-knight poetry. One tear and a wet dress, and you’re ready to burn the city down for a stray. It’s pathetic.” “Shut the f**k up, Bane,” Gideon shot back with a laugh. “You’ve been punching that bag like it personally f****d your mother since she got here. I can tell your wolf is practically drooling.” “f**k off, Venom,” Kaiven growled, but there was no real heat in it. Just the familiar push-and-pull that had kept the three of us alive for years. I stared down into my bourbon, letting the chaotic hum of my brothers wash over me. We wouldn’t even have been attending this circus tonight if it weren’t strictly necessary. The Black Vipers’ reputation preceded us; most packs feared us, and we preferred it that way. But tonight was not just an elite dinner. Tonight was my bastard son’s coronation. It was the day I officially handed over the Willowcrest Pack to him. Decades ago, I had been the Alpha King. I had ruled the territories before I walked away from the pack life, choosing the blood and freedom of the MC. Officially, Willowcrest was still mine on paper. But tonight, my fumbling, foolish son got all of it. If I didn’t make it a point to stay strictly out of pack drama, I would almost have found it unfortunate for those pack members to be ruled by such utter incompetence. I had planned to simply walk in, cause a little trouble, sign the handover, and get the f**k out. But now, the scent of the woman upstairs had my wolf prowling, thirsty for more than just blood. An hour passed. We were fully dressed for the summit, entirely disregarding the formal black-tie dress code. We kept our heavy leather cuts on, the silver skulls and vipers proud in the dim light, perfectly content to look exactly like the unhinged monsters they whispered about. Footsteps from the top of the stairs stole our attention. We all turned. And the oxygen was violently sucked out of the room. She descended the staircase. The crimson dress we’d provided clung to every single curve of her young body, dipping low in the front to highlight the soft swell of her breasts, and the slit rode scandalously high on her thigh with every step she took in those five-inch stilettos. Her hair was pinned up, exposing the delicate, completely biteable line of her neck and the ugly bruise still darkening her cheek. Kaiven went completely, deathly silent. Gideon let out a filthy whistle, biting his bottom lip, already looking at her like something he wanted to unwrap with his teeth. My chest tightened. An irrational, primal, possessive roar filled my skull. Mine, Ghost, my wolf, purred, viciously arrogant. Look at her. Perfect. Spread her over the bar. Devour her. Taste her. For once, I agreed with my loud-mouthed, asshole of a wolf. I wanted to ruin her red lipstick. With my mouth. I wanted to show her exactly what three experienced men could do to a pretty little pack princess who thought she could play with villains. I did not give her a chance to process the hungry stares of my brothers. I crossed the room in three long strides, stepping directly into her space. She gasped as I wrapped one large hand firmly around her bare waist, hauling her flush against the hard, unforgiving lines of my chest. Her hands flattened automatically against my chest. She was trembling. “What are you doing?” she whispered, her pulse hammering wildly against my palm. “You said arm candy. N-No touching.” I leaned down, burying my nose in the crook of her neck, inhaling that intoxicating scent. “I said no touching in private,” I corrected her, my voice a dark rumble meant only for her. “Tonight, you are walking into a den of vipers. When my hand is on your waist, you lean into it. When Gideon speaks, you smile. We need to sell this, Bree.” She frowned, looking up at me with wide eyes. “It’s just arm candy. Why do you have to sell it?” Kaiven stepped up directly behind her, his massive chest brushing her bare back, one huge inked hand settling possessively on her hip, fingers digging in just enough to make her gasp. “Because sharks circle blood, princess,” Kaiven murmured, his voice a dangerous, gravelly rasp against her ear. “If they smell fear, or think you don’t completely belong to us, they will tear you apart.” Gideon slid in beside us, his fingers brushing the high slit of her dress, sliding slowly up her thigh until the heat of his palm was burning against bare skin. “Exactly,” he purred, voice pure sin. “So be a good girl and let Daddy Caspian keep that pretty little hand on your thigh all night. When I squeeze your ass in front of the pack, you arch into it like you can’t wait for us to ruin you later. Understand?” Her breath stuttered at the word. Her cheeks flushed that pretty pink I already wanted to see everywhere else. Gideon’s grin turned wicked as he watched her squirm between us. “Look at her, Cap. She’s already soaked just from us touching her. Our little pack princess is going to be the death of me tonight.” Kaiven’s hand tightened on her hip, voice brutal. “I’ll put aside my better judgment for the rest of this evening. And I must tell you, sweet face, I don’t play fair. If anyone even looks at you wrong, I’ll break their f*****g neck. You’re ours tonight. Act like it.” I tilted her chin up with two fingers, forcing her eyes to mine. “You belong to the Black Vipers tonight, Bree. Sell it like your life depends on it. Because it does.” Her pulse was hammering so hard I could feel it against my thumb. She nodded jerkily, overwhelmed, but there was a spark in her eyes that made Ghost howl with approval. We ordered one of the prospects to drive the blacked-out club SUV. With the privacy partition rolled up, the back was supposed to seat three comfortably. It did not comfortably seat three massive, fully-grown Alphas and one very tense, very tiny WOMAN. There simply wasn’t enough room. Which was exactly how Bree ended up shoved directly into the middle, sitting sideways across my lap. My thighs were parted under her, while Gideon and Kaiven’s massive frames boxed us in on either side, caging her completely in the dark, intimate space. It was going to be a very long, very dangerous drive. And I was going to enjoy every single second of testing her limits.