Page 10 of Jace
Years ago, when I was exploring my sexuality with my husband, I was willing to try things. I was curious and felt safe with him. We were each other’s first, or so I had thought. I’ve since found out horrific things about David.
So I let him throw a party. I let him invite friends over. We talked about what we wanted to try. But Ineverconsented to being filmed. I never thought one private, intimate night of sex would be used as a public weapon to destroy the rest of my life.
The image he stole of me appears every hour in my mind. Like a mocking jailer, clanking his keys over the bars, trapping me. Like a social death sentence that I don’t deserve.
“Jace, I…”
I blink back more tears. They won’t stop falling. I swear I cry so much my jaw hurts, my eyeballs ache, exhaustion weighs on my bones.
I can’t look at this beautiful person. My sweet friend. The one man I can trust. And tell him how I hide a scarlet letter.
Jace deserves a woman without a past. Without a curse. Without ammunition aimed at her mind, life, career, and her family’s name—everything will be destroyed if David releases that video.
Charleston is like so many ironically holy cities. The powerful here live to persecute. They have no compassion, only cruelconviction. Their damnation destroys while they “bless your heart.”
“I just need your friendship, okay?” I try to smile. “Even if I don’t tell you what it is, please don’t take it away. You mean so much to me.” I swallow. “You’re all I have.”
“Viv…”
He tilts his head, brushing his thumb over the tear trailing down my cheek, making my breath hitch when it shouldn’t. I shouldn’t harbor these feelings I can’t afford to have for him.
“I meant it last year, and I mean it now,” he vows. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve been your friend since the day of the sex swing. Remember?”
CHAPTER THREE
JACE
A year ago
“Who rippedthe sex swing from the ceiling?” Ford, one of Stacey’s three husbands, shouts at the heap of ceiling plaster and black straps on the white faux fur rug.
Like the swing will confess.
But Stacey, our boss and the owner of Delta’s, isn’t mad. She’s rubbing her pregnant belly and scanning her staff for a pair of guilty eyes.
I try hiding mine.
No, I wasn’t the one on the swing, or the one fucking so hard that I caused it to fall. But I was at the scene of the kinky crime and know the guilty parties.
Vale, our store manager.
And Nash, my secret brother.
Oh, and four of my six other brothers who were there. Two even brought their wives.
Together, we tested Vale last night. Teasing and touching her while Nash took her hard. Vale swore she wanted to join our secret society, but we had to be sure.
Welp, we are now.
Judging by the scene, clearly, Vale loved it. She’s one of us now.
We’re not only the escaped sons of the Pakhan, the ruthless head of the Russian Bratva. We’re also vigilantes, called to right our father’s wrongs.
Hiding in plain sight in America for decades, we’re a tight group. Criminal princes who’ve grown into secret kings, seeking our queens.
After last night, Vale proved she’s destined to be Nash’s queen.
She’s his grown daughter’s best friend, and so forbidden to him, they’re perfect together. Their passionate sex was a bomb exploding, ripping the swing from the ceiling during our secret after-hours ritual.
