Claimed by My Ex's Half-Brother-Chapter 16 Are you okay?

Victoria’s POV

I yanked the sheets around myself, fighting the jackhammer in my skull as I tried to scrape together what was left of my dignity. "I’m not making this into some big drama. I’m out of here!"

Rolling out of bed, I lunged for my dress, desperate to bolt from this mortifying situation. When I lifted the fabric, my stomach dropped. The delicate straps hung in shreds, the whole thing basically destroyed.

I whipped around to glare at Damian. Had he really gone that savage last night? My memories were annoyingly patchy.

"My dress!" I yelped, clutching the ruined mess.

Damian sprawled lazily against the headboard, wearing that maddeningly calm expression. "I already had new clothes sent up," he said with that arrogant smirk that made Nora snarl in my chest. "I’ll cover whatever I trashed."

I caught that satisfied gleam in his eyes— destroying my dress had been totally intentional. This possessive bullshit made me hate him even more. That was my favorite dress, and what gave him the right to rip it apart?

Even in the heat of the moment, he had zero permission to pull that crap.

New clothes showed up fast, along with breakfast. The second Damian vanished into the bathroom, I made my move. I threw on the new outfit and slapped my credit card on the nightstand— I wouldn’t owe this bastard a damn thing— before sneaking out to avoid another round of his mind games.

Racing down the hallway, it suddenly hit me— Grace! In my drunken haze, I’d completely ditched my friend. Guilt twisted in my gut as I frantically dialed her number.

She picked up after a few rings. "Victoria! You okay?" Her voice carried real worry.

"Grace, did you make it home in one piece?" I asked.

Her tone flipped to pure excitement. "I just realized you hooked up with Damian Sterling himself! He’s even hotter in person than in those magazine shots!"

She laughed. "Then shit got real when Ethan crashed the party and got tossed like garbage..." She paused dramatically. "Well, you obviously didn’t need backup anymore, so I bailed!"

"By the way, I noticed yesterday that even when you were wasted, he kept you locked in his arms. So alpha. He even covered you with that blanket..."

My breath hitched. She hadn’t caught the intimate contact between me and that devil? Damian had managed to hide it perfectly?

Thinking about this, I felt slightly less mortified about last night’s complete meltdown.

"Just glad you’re safe," I deflected, not wanting to dive into the details of Damian’s hands all over me. As long as she hadn’t gotten caught in the crossfire from last night’s chaos, I could breathe easier.

"Me? I’m golden," she assured me. "But Victoria, watch your back. The look on Ethan’s face when he saw you with Damian... I think he’s gonna keep stirring up shit. He’s not handling this breakup well, especially now that his brother’s in the picture."

"I know," I sighed, already dreading the inevitable pack politics this would unleash.

Ethan’s POV:

Fucking Damian.

I couldn’t scrub that image from my brain— Damian’s mouth claiming Victoria’s, her body melting against his, her letting another man hold her like she belonged to him.

White-hot agony ripped through my chest.

Scarlett stood in the living room, her face twisted with pure rage. She wore some ridiculous lingerie that did absolutely nothing for me. It only reminded me of how Victoria looked in similar outfits— a comparison that left Scarlett looking like a cheap knockoff.

"Ethan, I thought you said you were pulling an all-nighter at the office," she snapped, fury blazing in her eyes.

I barely spared her a glance. "Move," I snarled, shoving past her.

Scarlett was even angrier.

She was beta blood from Northstream Pack—the type who walked around like her pedigree made her better than everyone else.

“You roll in here reeking like a distillery and talk to me like that?" she hissed. "You bolt after some mystery call— did you go crawling to that bitch? Your precious Victoria?"

Her saying Victoria’s name made my wolf explode. Scarlett had always been jealous of Victoria.

I stared at her with ice-cold contempt. "I married you. What the hell else do you want?"

"What do I want? Listen up, Ethan— I’m your legal wife now. If you dare go sniffing around that woman, you’re cheating. That makes her nothing but a homewrecker!" Her voice climbed higher with each word, hands balled into fists.

I could see it in her eyes— the crushing realization that a marriage certificate hadn’t bought her what she really wanted: my heart. That still belonged to Victoria, and we both knew it. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"She’s not the other woman," I roared, my wolf surfacing, eyes flashing gold. "You are."

Scarlett went statue-still, shock written across her face. "What did you just say? I’m the other woman? You ungrateful piece of shit! You worthless waste of space!"

She started hammering my chest with her fists. I shoved her away and walked out, unable to stomach another second in her presence.

Over the next few days, I threw myself into work. I kept trying to reach Victoria, desperate to explain, to make her understand. But she’d completely blocked my number. Her wolf wouldn’t accept any more contact from a mate who’d betrayed the bond.

My integration into Northstream Pack business wasn’t going smoothly either. I was desperately trying to prove I deserved the Sterling name, chasing deals that crashed and burned for different reasons.

During meetings, I couldn’t focus. My thoughts kept drifting to Victoria— how she’d looked at the club, fierce and gorgeous, how quickly she’d bounced back while I was drowning.

After one particularly shit meeting, Dad asked me to hang back for a private chat.

"Dad," I greeted him with the proper respect due to a pack Alpha.

Lawrence’s expression was granite-hard. "You’re a Sterling now, not some street mutt. Get your personal drama under control. Your wife getting publicly humiliated and tossed from that department store brought shame to our entire pack. We can’t afford this kind of embarrassment."

I nodded like a good little soldier. "I get it, Dad."

"What do you know about the overseas Lancaster family?" he continued, watching me like a hawk.

"The family whose kids died in that tragedy when they were young? I think it’s just the old Alpha and his granddaughter left."

Everyone in pack society knew the Lancaster story. Tragic and fascinating— their pack stayed strong despite the losses, but plenty of wolves circled like vultures, hoping to absorb Lancaster enterprises. Half the eligible bachelors had already set their sights on marrying that granddaughter to get their claws into the Lancaster empire.

"I sent you to that reception to network," he said with clear disappointment. "Instead, you got your ass thrown out. Lucky for you, I heard the old Lancaster Alpha and his granddaughter weren’t even there. The Lancaster family’s looking to expand domestically. Make time to visit Lancaster Enterprises and build connections. Getting close to the Lancaster heiress would benefit you big time."

"Of course, Dad," I agreed, though my brain was still stuck on Victoria instead of some random overseas heiress.