Sweet Venom: A Why Choose Romance

‘Tate, you need to calm down. You’re letting her fuck with your head. We came here to do a job. Get in and get out. She was always going to be a pawn,’ Sayward preaches from her perch atop the formica countertop of the cheap apartment we are currently living in. San Jose has few places where people can live cheaply. Hell, that could be said for the entire state of California, but we have no plans to stay here. This place is a means to an end, a necessary sacrifice, but that doesn’t bring me peace. Sayward deserves better than this, but more than that, she needs it to heal. I give her zero words as I pace the length of the couch in the cramped living room that doubles as my bedroom.

‘Besides, I thought you were into older women?’ she taunts, making me stop dead in my tracks, earning my full attention. I’ve done things I’m not proud of, but they were to help us. To keep her safe. Our last foster home was good for her, or at least better than the others, I should say.

Sayward is a beautiful girl, and I don’t care how many background checks they put people through before they allow minors to stay with them; most are good fucking liars. Older kids in the system are one of two things: a paycheck or an outlet. We’ve experienced both. Some families provided the bare necessities, clothes, three meals a day, and a roof over our heads, while others barely gave us that. I think we could have survived in the ones that at least gave us food, but Say’s health problems usually got us kicked out, proving to be more hassle than most wanted to deal with, especially when it cut into the checks that we never saw anyway.

Many times homes offered to keep me, but there was no way I was leaving her to fend for herself. She had already been through enough. I was all she had left, and just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. We’ve never talked about the last house we stayed in, but I was careful. I thought I shielded her from my sins. Her dark brown eyes are usually sad and empty, full of nothing but pain, but right now, they have the slightest spark of fire, and even if it is at my expense, I’ll gladly take it if it means she gives me something, anything. But when I take a step toward her, whatever honest moment we may have had is gone.

Hopping off the counter, she says, ‘Vivian Fiori is not a meek woman. Bruises or not, she’s more than capable of handling herself.’ She opens the fridge and grabs a coke before adding, ‘Let me know if the job has changed. I’m required to attend the club’s Anniversary Party this Saturday. You said one more job. I’m ready to be done.’

She closes the refrigerator door with more force than necessary, and I can’t blame her. Sayward refuses to talk to me about certain subjects—the pain from her injury, or our parents—and since we’ve come here, all topics regarding the club have been off-limits as well. The only thing I’m sure of is that Sebastian Lykos is strong-arming her.

Sayward is beautiful. Her legs go on for days, and yes, I know I’m her brother, but as such, I’ve had to do my fair share of keeping the assholes away. I know my sister is attractive. She doesn’t need to wear heels, but Lykos is making her. I realize they are part of the uniform at the club, but after the day she wore flats to work, I could tell she was in pain. It was written all over her face. She’d had her heels in her bag and planned on changing them before the start of her shift, and he’d pulled her aside to let her know that if she couldn’t adhere to the uniform requirements, she would be let go.

Say never came out and told me how the conversation went down. I just know the night I picked her up from work, she came out hardly able to walk, and when I asked her why she hadn’t taken her heels off, she said, ‘Heels or no job.’ I wanted to walk into that club and pound his pretty boy face in so hard. Technically, we don’t need to do another job, but this last job is meant to hurt. These fuckers think they’re untouchable, and I’m done allowing that to be the case. Before she can reach her room, I call out, ‘Wear flats.’ When her head whips toward me, I add, ‘I’m coming as your plus one. It’s not up for discussion.’

‘But what about—’

I hold up my hand, cutting her off, and say, ‘Let me worry about it, Say. Go rest.’

When she does as I ask without question, I throw myself down onto the couch and release a growl of frustration, staring up at the ceiling. This wasn’t supposed to get messy; I was here to get Sayward what was owed to her. Those assholes took everything from her. I should take her and run. The better plan would be to get far away from this city, but after I saw the bruises on Vi’s neck, I knew that wouldn’t happen.

This last job is bigger than Say, Vi, or me. I’m done allowing rich people to flex and hurt people who have less, just because they can. Not to mention my obsession with a stubborn brunette who doesn’t know what’s good for her. I don’t understand Vi’s draw to Ellis Lykos. Sure, he is attractive and rich as sin, but so is she. Whatever the reason might be, I now know she’s officially into me regardless of what lies she’s trying to tell herself, and that’s all the green light I need to move forward with my plan.

The night Vivian left me in her office holding my dick, I wanted to go after her so damn bad, but I couldn’t. In hindsight, I should have. I had no idea the mayhem she was about to rain down at the club. It nearly fucked up our entire hit until someone pulled the fire alarm. The alarm ended up proving to be a welcomed distraction. We don’t make our moves until the end of the night when money is being moved from drawers to safes, and because the girls were asked to leave early and the club hadn’t closed, we almost had to scrap the hit until the alarm was pulled and suddenly everyone was mass exiting.

We ended up with more than expected that night because counts weren’t done. Sayward is a math genius. It only took her two weeks to watch the exchanges and determine how she could take a cut off the top and go undetected. The only hiccup would be getting her hands on the money. She does not have access to the safes, or registers for that matter. Her job is to serve. I have to hand it to Ellis. He thought of just about everything when opening Covet. There are a total of six people at all times with access to drawers and safes, and that’s by design. You’d think in today’s world, hard cash wasn’t being exchanged, but at Covet, it’s about a fifty-fifty split. You have customers with no need to hide and those with every reason to hide, who only deal in bills to ensure nothing can come back on them.

I have never stepped foot inside Covet. I don’t care to pay the cover charge to get into the first-floor bar, and there’s no way in hell I could afford the membership. Plus, I didn’t want to be on the Lykos’s radar. Given the line of work Sayward is doing at the club, being a single woman bodes better for her than being one in a relationship. If she got caught doing something, her chances of flirting her way out of said situation were better. I also went out of my way to separate our names and identities. Keeping a low profile was necessary, but after seeing the bruises on Vi, I’m done.

The club’s anniversary celebration is this Saturday. That means I have four days to make Vivian Fiori mine.