SWNOVELS Devious Vow: Chapter 18
I’ve always thought that one of the reasons Club Venom is so popular—aside from the obvious—is that it stands on its own without the gratuitous T&A and public sex.
For instance, right now it’s two in the afternoon, and I’m sitting in the stunning and exquisitely designed main lounge. During regular hours, this room is teeming with members in black and gold masks and various stages of undress, either watching or participating in some orgiastic entanglement.
But right now, hours before the guests arrive, you’d think you were in the private VIP lounge of the most exclusive hotel in New York.
Unmasked, given that the club’s not open, I sit at a circular table near the middle of the room with Dante Sartorre and Drazen Krylov. Dante, my relatively new brother-in-law, is the founder, primary partner, and de facto king of Club Venom. And he looks the part, too—today he’s in a dark three-piece suit that I’d bet is straight from Saville Row in London, and shoes I’d wager even more are custom made. His penchant for high fashion makes sense. He comes from a family of tailors.
To his left at the table, Drazen cuts a slightly more fearsome figure. The man is fucking huge—almost as big as Kratos—with broad shoulders, a firm chest, arms that strain the sleeves of his suit jacket, and a towering height.
Once a bit of a warlord and gun-for-hire, the Serbian is now king of the newly re-formed Krylov Bratva. He’s unfathomably wealthy, insanely powerful, possesses a seat at the Bratva High Council, and is near unhinged in his lethalness.
In other words: rich, dangerous, and more than a little nuts. So obviously he’s a client of Crown and Black.
He’s also a new major investor in Club Venom. And again, being how private this place is, it makes sense to have business meetings here.
Plus, Dante’s selection of fine whiskies is perfection.
“The man you’re going to have issues with is Ed Lee,” I say, sitting back in my chair and sipping the Hibiki thirty-five year blended Japanese whisky in my glass, which is approaching orgasmic in how fucking good it is.
“Can he be bought?” Dante mutters, steepling his hands in front of his chiseled face.
“Well—”
“Or, if he doesn’t care for carrots,” Drazen growls, “would he respond well to the stick?”
I deal with a fair number of men you could classify as psychopaths, or sociopaths…violent nut jobs with a lust for power.
Drazen Krylov, although he dresses like a billionaire playboy these days, is another level altogether. I have zero idea which of his mythical origin stories is true, but none of them seems very happy. That he was a conscript in the Russian army. That he was a child soldier in the Yugoslav Wars. That his nickname was once “the headsman”.
…Well, you get the idea.
I’m trying to find the most tactful way to remind Drazen of the legal ramifications of killing a city employee when Dante turns to his co-investor and fixes him with a look.
“Easy.”
Drazen grins and lifts his shoulders eloquently. “What? I’m merely looking at all our options.”
“Killing a New York City alderman is not an ‘option’,” Dante grunts.
“I’m not suggesting a public execution,” Drazen sighs deeply. “But accidents happen…”
“Speaking as your attorney…” I growl, tapping my glass with a finger.
And as a sane person. Jesus.
“I’d suggest the carrot. If you want to expand Venom into the building next door that’s for sale next door, that will involve blurring the lines on about a dozen different building codes. Ed Lee fancies himself a hero of the people. He’ll make a big stink about the construction and the permits. But at the end of the day, he wants his taste same as everyone else. He just doesn’t want to have to come out and ask for it. And when he does get that taste, he wants to get it in private.”
Drazen rolls his eyes. “I’m just saying: brakes fail on cars all the time. Elevator cables snap.” He shrugs. “Bullets fall through the backs of skulls. All purely acts of God.”
I arch a brow at him as Dante shakes his head. Drazen grins at me and pats the table. “I’m joking, counselor. Relax.” He swirls his drink. “So, he wants a bribe, he just doesn’t want anyone involved to call it a bribe, is that it?”
“Pretty much,” I nod. “He’s on the board of a bunch of charities in this district. You contribute a sizable amount to two or three of those, and also see that he miraculously finds a new Porsche in his driveway, and I’ll bet any expansion issues go away.”
I want to give myself a pat on the back. Not for suggesting the obvious to arrive at a solution to a client’s problem. But for making it through that entire conversation without my mind wandering to Eloise.
Well, at least not so much that I forget what the fuck we were talking about. Because that’s been happening of late.
A lot.
After fucking Eloise in my office the other night, I half expected her to freeze me out again. No matter how fake, forced, hateful, and more importantly unconsummated her “marriage” is to Massimo, part of me wondered if she’d view what we did as cheating. Dirty. Something “bad” she needed to atone for and abstain from in future.
I would have lost that bet, badly.
Literally the morning after, Eloise walked into my office with an armful of files I hadn’t asked for, shut the door, locked it, and proceeded to climb into my lap. I think the time between “door opening” and “my dick sliding into her dripping wet pussy” was maybe twenty-five seconds.
In the three days since then, I’ve fucked her no less than four times in the sub-basement stacks and once more in my office, fingered her in the legal library upstairs, and devoured her pussy in Conference Room B.
I’m not complaining.
But the downside to this sudden and full-scale addiction to Eloise is that the rest of my life seems to be having a hard time capturing even a fragment of my attention. I don’t mean putting on mismatched socks or forgetting to rinse the shampoo out of my hair. I mean fumbling my fucking words in court. Forgetting to sign legal documents that are about to be officially filed—a mistake Katerina caught, thank fuck. I think I owe her about a month of paid vacation time for that.
So, yeah, making it through an entire meeting with these two without letting my mind drift to thoughts of pumping Eloise’s pretty pussy full of my cum, or watching it drip down her ass, is impressive—
“Alistair? You with us?”
Mother. Fucker.
Okay, almost through an entire meeting.
I blink, refocusing on Dante. “Sure am. Just crunching some thoughts in my head. I’ll have my assistant make a list of Lee’s charities and forward them your way, along with my recommendations.”
“Great, thanks,” Dante nods. He looks past me, frowning slightly before a grin spreads over his mouth.
I sigh, rolling my eyes when I turn to see my sister Tempest strolling into the main lounge.
“Okay, one, I’m in a meeting, T,” I sigh. “And two, I thought I was clear that I never ever needed to run into my own fucking sister at Venom.”
She grins. “Relax, bro. The gangbang I signed up for doesn’t go down until ten tonight. You’ve got plenty of time to avert—”
She gasps as Dante’s hand possessively grabs her hip and yanks her down into his lap.
“As if that would ever be allowed to happen, wife.”
He’s smiling, but there’s no mistaking the jealous glint in his eye. Yeah, Dante is one possessive bastard when it comes to my sister, which is something she loves to rile him up in him by purposefully targeting.
It works for them. I don’t think I would have ever imagined someone would be willing to put up with Tempest’s, well, tempestuousness. Turns out Dante’s the man for the job.
“Whatcha doing here, T?” I ask.
She gives me a funny look. “You mean aside from the fact that my husband runs the joint?” She shrugs. “Not much. Just making sure my kneepads are in the glory-hole booth for later.”
I cock a brow as I shake my head at her. “You’re going to give Dante a fucking aneurysm with your shit, you know that?”
She grins, giggling as she turns to cup her husband’s face and kiss him deeply. “He knows I’m just—”
“Keep it up, wife,” Dante murmurs quietly, his eyes locked with hers, “and we’ll see what happens.”
She bites her lip. “Is that a promise?”
“Yeah, hi, brother sitting right the fuck here,” I groan in a nauseated voice. Drazen roars with laughter as Dante shrugs.
“Alistair, when two people love each other very much, and they want to express that love in a physical—”
“Finish that fucking sentence and I’m going to knock you on your ass,” I grunt. “Right after I vomit, that is.”
“And why are we throwing up, exactly?”
Tempest laughs at the sound of Gabriel’s voice behind me. “Well, the gang’s all here.”
“What is this, siblings’ afternoon out?” Dante smirks.
“Yes, because a sex club is the perfect venue for that,” Gabriel grunts, making a face. He turns serious as his gaze lands on me. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“You can talk to me for several minutes.”
He raises a brow. “Alone?”
I turn back to Drazen and Dante. “Anything else we need to discuss with the expansion, gentlemen?”
“No, we’re good,” Dante nods. “Send over that list of Ed Lee’s charities, and we’ll get out our checkbooks.”
“And I’ll sharpen my stick collection, just in case,” Drazen murmurs with a dangerous grin.
After finishing my drink, I stand and follow Gabriel to the far corner of the main lounge, next to one of the bars. It’s not odd that he’s come here in person to talk to me. Even when it’s not open, Dante has a strict no cellphones policy throughout all of Club Venom once you’re past the front doors, for security purposes. That’s another reason it’s such a great place for business meetings.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m going to ask you something, and I’m going to be direct, because I have to be,” he murmurs.
“O…kay?”
“What the fuck are you doing with Eloise?”
It’s only my respect for my brother that stops me from outright lying to him. Instead, I just hold his gaze. Gabriel groans, looking away.
“For fuck’s sake,” he hisses darkly. “She’s Massimo fucking Carveli’s wife.”
“I’m aware of that,” I mutter back.
“Are you? Because this is beyond your usual devil-may-care bullshit, Alistair,” he snaps. “This is a death wish.”
“I know what I’m doing, Gabriel.”
Such a lie.
“I’m going to go in your place to Massimo’s thing tonight.”
“You weren’t invited,” I fire back with a snarky smile.
Ostensibly, I was invited because I’m a name partner at the firm, and the cocktail party at his penthouse is, I gather, a who’s-who of business associates of his.
Except neither Taylor nor my brother got an invitation. Just me.
“The invite is to the firm,” Gabriel insists. “He just wants one of us there to show off to his mafia buddies.”
“Funny,” I smile as I slip my hand into my jacket and pull out the little white card with gold foil lettering on it. “Because it’s specifically my name on the invitation.”
Gabriel’s jaw sets. “If there is any chance Massimo knows what you’re up to with Eloise—”
“There isn’t.”
He gives me a look. “Can I take that as confirmation that you’re currently involved with her?”
“That’s leading the witness.”
“Fuck you. Objection.”
“Sustained. The defense rests.”
Gabriel’s lips curl even as he looks away and rolls his eyes.
I step closer to my brother and pat him on the shoulder. “I’ll be fine, Gabriel.”
Probably.