NOVEL NEXT Chapter 307: Calling My Queens
The penthouse felt like a gilded cage after surviving a fucking warzone. Hours ago, we'd dragged Soo-Jin from trafficking survivor to trust-fund chameleon; in between, I'd endured brutal cross-examination about my strawberry milk dependency.
Apparently, grown men aren't supposed to chug it straight from the carton. Who knew?
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass, Miami's skyline pulsed like a neon nervous system—a circuit board wired for vice and vertigo. My own kingdom back home buzzed at the edge of my mind. Time to check the gates.
Soo-Jin had vanished into a guest suite, probably mainlining the silence after her extreme makeover. Who could blame her? Surviving requires processing. That meant ghosts. And solitude.
Madison and Amanda claimed the living area like they'd conquered it. Technically, Amanda had—squatting rent-free while her life detonated in slow motion. Madison just radiated ownership by default. War brides sharing the spoils.
"Gotta call my queens," I declared, collapsing into a chair. "See if my women are sharpening pitchforks without their benevolent dictator."
Madison snorted from the couch. "Your 'kingdom' is three heartbeats from burning your effigy."
"Nah," I grinned, firing up the group vid-call. "My harem's too addicted to stage a proper coup."
The screen bloomed like a tactical display. Faces popped in one by one—my personal strike team of chaos, beauty, intense sex and charm.
Isabella materialized first, draped in silk that clung like a promise. Her dark hair tumbled in damp, post-shower waves. Teacher-meets-siren. She leaned in, cleavage swallowing half the frame like a tactical distraction. "There's my favorite delinquent," she purred. "Was just reviewing our last… private tutorial."
"Dom/Sub lessons, you mean," I corrected. "And yeah, noticed. You've been 'studying' hard." My eyes flicked to her strategic nipple-bulge beneath the silk.
Subtlety. Isabella never heard of it.
"Every. Night." That teacher voice—the one that bypassed logic and went straight southbound.
"Peter!" Isabella's voice exploded like confetti. She filled her cam, eyes wide, leaning so close, she became a grand canyon of cleavage. "Luna and I made a deal! When you get back… THREEWAY!"
Luna's face joined the fray, adorably flustered in an oversized sweater that somehow made her look both like a lost lamb and a centerfold in waiting. Che flushed.
My, Innocence Incarnate. "Peter," she whispered, that shy smile unraveling me. "Missed you."
"Miss me enough to sign Isabella's treaty?" I grinned, feeling the predator wake up.
Luna's face went supernova-red. She stared at a wall. "…Isabella told you?"
"Isabella tells me everything." My voice dropped, low and velvet-wrapped steel. "Question is… are you confirming her intelligence briefing? Look at me and say it."
Slowly, like facing a firing squad, those big brown eyes locked onto the camera. Vulnerable. Defiant. Mine. "I-Isabella and I… we agreed. To…" A breathless pause. "Share you. Together."
"HOLY FUCKING SWEET JESUS!" Janet's face slammed onto the grid. She was clearly holed up in some office bathroom, hair wild, lipstick smeared—like she'd just mauled someone. "Did our little lamb just volunteer for the slaughter?"
"I'm not that innocent!" Luna protested, though her blistering face screamed liar.
Victoria glided onto the call like she'd stepped off a magazine cover—ignoring the suits drooling over her shoulder in some hotel bar.
She raised a sculpted brow, elegance cutting through the pandemonium. "Luna, darling," she purred, amusement like chilled champagne. "Last call, you asked Peter if holding hands caused pregnancy."
"THAT WAS A JOKE!" Luna shrieked, hands flying to her burning cheeks.
"Sure, it was," Anya chuckled, her accent thick as honey, popping in from the wellness center break room. "Like your question; 'does oral count as real sex' was academic curiosity."
Ortega materialized beside Anya, both grinning like sharks. "Or when you needed a medical consult because Peter's touch made you 'feel funny down there'?"
The screen erupted. Laughter, catcalls, Luna looking like she wished the floor would swallow her whole. Beautiful chaos. My chaos.
"Alright, you beautiful vultures," I cut in, though my own grin stretched wide. Tender menace. "Ease up on my little nurse." My eyes held Luna's through the screen. Shelter in the storm. "We all know Luna's innocence is her best weapon. Besides me."
"Speaking of charm," Victoria purred, her sculpted eyebrow arcing like a guillotine. "Does darling Mama know how thoroughly her hospital colleague's son is… mentoring her little girl?"
Ah, so these women have been talking to each other and got to know each other in my absence, otherwise there was no other way Victoria would know that. Good job girls.
Luna's breath hitched. Her eyes—wide, panicked, prey-animal startled—darted to mine. Victoria wasn't just fishing; she'd dynamited the dam. Mother was Luna's tripwire. "What—what do you mean?" Her voice trembled, fragile as spun glass.
"Only that dear Mama might frown…" Victoria's smile was poison wearing a party hat. "…on her precious daughter receiving private consultations from the son of mommy's work friend." She leaned into the camera, silks pooling around her like a lethal spill of mercury.
"We don't—that's not…" Luna stammered, color flooding her cheeks like a wildfire.
"Aww, Mommy's girl," Janet barked, laughter rough as gravel.
"Tell me," Victoria added, wickedness sharpening her vowels, "does Mama also pay the rent on that sweet little apartment?"
Luna's gaze snapped to mine through the screen—betrayal, pure and scalding. I was the sole vault keeper of that secret.
"How did you—" Luna's face drained crimson to corpse-white. "Peter? Did you tell her—"
"Aww, Mommy's girrrrl!" Janet crooned again, dragging out the humiliation.
I threw up my hands, mock surrender. "I said nothing! Vic's just shooting in the dark—"
"YOU JUST CONFIRMED IT!" Luna shrieked, voice cracking like shattered bone.
Poof. She fled—a blur of terrified innocence vanishing from her own living room. We stared at empty space: her abandoned phone showing a couch cushion, a half-empty coffee mug. Luna's ghost.
The call exploded. Isabella threw her head back, laughter rich and wicked. Janet howled, pounding a tabletop. Anya's chuckle was a low, sultry rumble from her spa chair.
"She'll slink back," Isabella purred, wiping her eyes. "Always does. Like a kicked kitten who craves the boot."
"Poor baby," Anya cooed, Russian vowels dripping honeyed venom. "Peter stains all the pure ones."
"Someone must," Victoria declared, bathed in the elegant glow of her hotel bar. "That level of sweetness demands corruption."
"Tragic!" Janet gasped between giggles. "But seriously, Pete, your mom and her mom work together? That's some next-level family drama waiting to happen."
Yeah. That's Jerry Springer gold waiting to happen.
"Ignorance is bliss, what they don't know won't hurt them," I shrugged. "Besides, Luna's a big girl to make her own choices. Also makes spectacularly bad choices." Like craving me.
"Speaking of choices…" Anya stretched, spa leather groaning, "when do you return and properly destroy us again?"
"The wellness center feels hollow," Ortega added, grinning like a shark. "Clients keep asking for our 'consultant' who's never consulted a damn thing."
"Our star consultant—zero days clocked, zero clients seen—and yet? Every soul walking through those doors whispers about you."
Of fucking course they do.
My lip curled, half irritated, half impressed. Those three—Victoria's suit-draped cunning, Anya's honeyed poison, Ortega's shark-toothed grin—had been marketing me like a new weapon system. Long before my boots hit the Wellness Center's polished floors again.
"Clients?" I echoed, letting the skepticism hang like a blade. Patricia's name flickered—Jack's mom. Hope she'd whispered it.
"Not just clients," Victoria purred from her hotel bar glow, swirling imaginary spirits. "The mercenaries of muscle repair. The junkies of serenity. They're salivating for the ghost who's never clocks in."
Legendary before arrival.