Page 2 of Venom (St. Sebastian’s at Cravenmoor Academy #1)

Venetia

I slip out the back of the club to find my driver idling in the wide alleyway of this strip club owned by Viper Stone, head of the South Side gang in Manchester.

A fucking hardcore arsehole, but luckily for him, he doesn’t deal in sex trafficking, or I’d have his head.

I got a tip, so I went in undercover as a stripper, but all the girls had nothing but great things to say.

Not about him necessarily, he has a reputation for being a dick, but about the business.

I trust them. None of them gave off scared or coerced vibes at all.

Opening the back door, I slip inside. My driver, Pete, averts his eyes, but is skidding away before I’ve even shut the damn door.

“What the hell was that?” he growls as I cover up with a black top and kick off the ridiculous stripper shoes to wiggle into a pair of loose black pants.

“Someone just tried to blow my head off,” I comment.

“What?” he snarls.

“It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Your dad is going to go fucking ballistic,” he mutters, but doesn’t press for details. He knows I’m going to have to give all the sordid details to my dad anyway.

And I’m not looking forward to it. My father, the formidable Anton Corbyn-Hale, doesn’t handle attempts on my life with anything resembling calm. He’ll see this as a failure on my part, a reckless misstep in an operation that was supposed to be simple reconnaissance.

I lean my head back against the cool leather of the seat and let out a long breath, the adrenaline finally beginning to ebb, leaving a familiar frustration in its wake.

The city lights blur into streaks of neon as we speed through the Manchester night towards my family’s Cheshire estate.

A white-hot flash of fury rips through me.

Someone had dared to try to take me out.

There is no denying that this was a hit on me, not on Viper.

Viper.

Viper fucking Stone.

His rock-hard, tattooed body covering mine was a shock I quickly got over as my instincts kicked in.

He’d moved with a primal instinct to protect me.

For that brief, insane moment, he’d protected me.

But why? A shiver traces a path down my spine.

I was there to assess his business, not get pinned under his body with his cock digging in me while bullets flew.

Yet, I can’t deny the raw, visceral pull I felt when his dark blue gaze locked on mine.

He might be a dick, but he’s a powerful one, and that…

that is a dangerous kind of interesting.

I shake my head, pushing the thought of him away.

Viper Stone is a problem for another day.

And he will be a problem. Someone tried to off me in his club.

He will find that my fault somehow, I just know it.

But the immediate threat is the sniper who failed in his mission.

Someone wants me dead, and they were bold enough to try it on while I was grinding down on Viper’s cock.

My father is going to lose his goddamn mind.

Pete steers the Bentley onto the motorway, the car a silent, black bullet cutting through the night.

He doesn’t speak, and I’m grateful for it.

The silence gives me a moment to brace myself.

My father won’t see this as an attack I skilfully survived.

He’ll see it as a vulnerability, a chink in the armour of our family.

He’ll see me not as his heir, but as his little girl who almost got her head blown off.

The inevitable consequence of that will be a cage. A gilded one, no doubt, but a cage all the same. He’ll restrict my movements, pull me from my work, and smother me with security until I can’t breathe.

The car turns onto the long, private drive leading to our estate.

The familiar sight of the sprawling manor house, dark against the moonless sky, does nothing to soothe the knot of dread in my stomach.

I’d rather face another sniper than the overbearing, furious concern of my dad.

At least the sniper is honest about wanting to end me.

My father will just want to end my life as I know it.

Pete pulls the Bentley to a smooth stop before the grand oak doors of the house. He cuts the engine, and the ensuing silence is heavier than any noise. “You’ve got this.”

The encouragement is sweet and much needed.

“Thanks, Pete,” I murmur, pushing the car door open and stepping out into the crisp night air. I don’t bother to smooth my clothes. Let him see the disarray. Let him see that I handle my own shit.

I stalk through the double front doors, my bare feet silent on the polished marble of the grand foyer. The house is tomb-quiet, the air thick with unspoken fury. He already knows.

I head straight for his study, pushing the door open without knocking.

Dad is sitting behind his desk, a crystal tumbler of amber liquid in his hand. He’s dressed impeccably in a dark suit, even at this late hour.

His green eyes are chips of ice. They rake over me, from the top I threw on to the black pants and my bare feet. His jaw is tight.

“Someone tried to kill you?” he asks.

“It appears that way, but as you can see, I’m fine.”

“Fine,” he grits out. “Don’t give me that bullshit, Ven. This was a bad move.”

“What was? Making sure that the girls in that place are safe and not being used like property?”

“This is a vendetta for you, Venetia, and I have tolerated your obsession with fighting this fight. But no more. I absolutely forbid you to walk into these territories alone. You can hiss and spit and extend your claws all you fucking like,” he says before I can tell him to shove his ‘forbid’ up his arse.

“You are my daughter. My only child. My legacy. And you could’ve died tonight. ”

“That has nothing to do with my vendetta ,” I say stiffly, taking offence at his disdain for my mission. “It could very well have been about anything. It could have been about you.”

His laugh is a cold, sharp bark that holds no humour.

“Don’t be so absurd, Venetia. If our enemies wanted to get to me, they wouldn’t send a lone sniper to take a potshot at my daughter while she’s half-naked on the lap of one of Manchester’s biggest players.

That makes an enemy of both of us. This was all you. ”

He rises from his chair, his imposing frame seeming to suck all the air from the room. He rounds the desk, his movements slow, deliberate. Threatening. “This was a direct attack on you. Which means you are a visible target. A liability.”

The words land exactly as he expects them to. Badly. “I can handle myself,” I spit, my nails digging into my palms.

“As you demonstrated so wonderfully tonight,” he says, his voice dripping with a corrosive sarcasm that makes my skin crawl. “This game of yours is over. You’re being pulled from the board.”

My heart hammers against my ribs. “What are you talking about?”

“Go upstairs, Venetia. It’s late. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

For the first time in my life, I see exhaustion in his eyes, and it gives me pause. I did that to him. I wore him down to the point where he is showing signs of weakness.

I feel nothing but guilt over that, but it doesn’t change the fact. Vulnerable women don’t have anyone else. They have me, and I’ll be damned if anyone tries to take that away from them.

Turning my back on him without a word or a kiss goodnight tells him I’m pissed.

I hear his sigh as I stride out of his study, but I don’t stop to make him feel better.

This is going to bite me in the arse tomorrow morning without a fucking doubt.

I just have to try to get ahead of it and make sure I have my counterarguments ready.

Upstairs in my bedroom, the luxurious furnishings feel like a prison. The plush carpets and silk sheets are a mockery of the world I just left, a world where women are sold and survival is a daily fight. I stalk into my en-suite bathroom, the marble cool beneath my bare feet.

I turn on the shower and strip off before stepping under the scalding spray, trying to wash the night away.

But the water can’t erase the phantom feeling of his hard body shielding mine, the low growl in his chest as the shot rang out.

He saved me. A man who profits from vice, a man who is everything my father despises, protected me without a second thought.

A man who runs half of Manchester’s underworld didn’t hesitate to throw his body over mine to save me.

The thought is both infuriating and inconveniently thrilling.

My pussy twitches as I remember his cock, thick and demanding against me.

I’m still wet from the feeling, still aroused by how powerfully seductive that man is. But he is not my type. Rough and ready, hardcore mafia is not the man I see myself with. A quick fling, a great fuck, maybe, but that’s where it would end.

I close my eyes and imagine what would’ve happened if I hadn’t had an attempt on my life. Would I have fucked him right there in the middle of his club? Probably. I have no inhibitions, and he wanted it.

I wanted it.

My breath catches as I tweak my nipples. He didn’t even look. As I was gyrating on his cock, his gaze didn’t drop from mine even though my tits were bouncing right in his face. I’ve got a great rack. I know it, everyone with eyes fucking knows it. But that level of respect is hard to ignore.

If that’s what it was. More likely, he was playing his own game with me. Trying to see if he could get me to break.

No fucking chance.

Venetia Corbyn-Hale doesn’t break. She breaks others.

My clit twitches as I increase the pressure, twisting my nipples until I feel the pleasure spike my blood.

Then I drop my fingers and rub them over my clit, my hips bucking against my hand as I chase the feeling.

My mind flashes with an image of his dark, intense eyes, the challenge in them, the way his jaw tightened when I ground down on him.

He wanted to break me. I wanted to break him right back.

I push two fingers inside my slick cunt, my groan lost in the spray of the water.

Viper. The name is a low hiss on my lips.

I imagine his skilled fingers replacing mine, his rough touch claiming me in the dark club.

The fantasy is potent, a dangerous cocktail of power and submission that has my pussy clenching.

He would be demanding. He would take and take until I had nothing left to give, and I would meet him every step of the way.

My orgasm rips through me, a raw, ragged cry tearing from my throat as my body shudders. I lean my forehead against the cool tiles, my breath coming in ragged pants as the last tremor of pleasure recedes.

The water washes it all away. The sweat, the scent of the club, the lingering traces of Viper Stone. But it can’t wash away the truth. Someone wants me dead, and my father is about to build me a cage so beautiful I might forget I’m a prisoner.

He thinks he can pull me from the board, but he’s wrong.

This isn’t a game. That bullet wasn’t a random act of violence; it was a message.

Someone knows what I’m doing, and they’re scared enough to try to put me down.

That means I’m close to something important.

I won’t be locked away in some gilded cage while there are still monsters to hunt.

Tomorrow morning, Dad will lay out my sentence.

And I’ll have to find a way to burn it all to the ground.