His Little Angel: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance

by April Lust

  “Idiot,” she breathed to herself as she finished masturbating, cutting herself off before she could reach orgasm. “Fucking idiot.”

  # # #

  Gary

  “Bad news, boss,” Joshua, one of the newer junior members of the MC said as he walked into Gary’s office late that night.

  “Oh, joy,” Gary said, rolling his eyes as he grabbed himself another beer from the mini-fridge next to his desk. “Well, spit it out. I don’t have all day.”

  “There’s somebody there with her,” Joshua said as he took a seat across from Gary. “I don’t know the extent of it, but something is definitely happening.”

  “Who is he?” Gary asked, clenching his fist hard around the cold beer in his hands. Fucking Jessica. Fucking slut. Who the hell did she think she was, apparently making a connection with a guy just a few weeks after they’d broken up?

  “I think his name is Pax,” Joshua said, screwing up his face in concentration as he recalled the name. “That’s what I kept hearing from the staff members at the Gorge. Anyway, I tried to put the moves on your girl, you know, test the waters, and he threw me out in like two seconds.”

  “You put the moves on her?” Gary asked between clenched teeth, raising his eyebrows at Joshua.

  “Just as a test!” Joshua said defensively, putting his hands up in the air as a nonverbal surrender. “I didn’t get anywhere, don’t worry. Her boy made sure of that much.”

  “Yeah, okay, get out,” Gary said, pointing at the door.

  “Sir, I was just trying to help—”

  “Get the fuck out!” Gary bellowed, sending his beer flying across the room until it hit Joshua in the stomach, spraying him with the dark brown liquid. That was all the poor fucker needed to do as he was told, apparently, since he fled the room in about two seconds flat, going back out into the main bar at Sully’s.

  Gary stared down at his messy desk for several long moments, weighing his options in his mind. He could keep sending random members of the MC, new guys that Jessica was less likely to recognize, over to the Gorge to keep tabs on her, but the new recruits were all so fucking dumb, so inexperienced at anything other than jacking themselves off. He needed someone subtler, someone smarter with lots of common sense to handle this particular hurdle. And, of course, whoever he chose to keep tabs on this Pax guy had to be incredibly loyal, through and through. Really, there was only one man that he knew that fit that particular description.

  He reached down into his pocket to grab his phone, sending off a quick text to Arnold, even though his top lieutenant was probably just in the other room. Sure enough, Arnold stepped into his office a few moments later, having apparently gotten his text while he was sitting at the bar. “What’s up, Gav’?” Arnold asked, stepping around the large puddle of beer on the floor in front of Gary’s desk.

  “I need you to keep track of somebody for me. His name’s Pax. He’s new in town. A bouncer at the Gorge place that just opened up.”

  “Pax?” Arnold repeated, his brows furrowing together as he considered his assignment. “I think I might know who you’re talking about. Ex-Army guy?”

  Gary shrugged. None of the younger recruits he’d sent to the Gorge had been astute enough to pick up on that fact, if it were in fact the truth.

  Arnold bit down on his bottom lip, considering the situation. “I think he lives in my building, if he’s the guy I think you’re talking about. Big, bulking dude? He just moved in like a month ago. Always pays his rent late.”

  “Perfect. That’s fucking perfect. Put a video camera in his apartment when he’s out,” Gary said, a smile spreading across his face. God was looking out for him, apparently, making things easier. But it made sense, after all. He and Jessica were meant to be. They were destiny. Fated. Nothing was going to come between them. Nothing.

  # # #

  Arnold

  Arnold was fucked. For the longest time, he tried to keep a neat separation between his two jobs. There was Arnold the Nightwalker, and then there was Arnold the landlord, and luckily so far there hadn’t been much overlap between the two. But now he had to spy on one of his tenants, invading his privacy in a totally immoral – not to mention illegal – way. But what could he do? He couldn’t exactly turn Gary down. It was the number one rule of the MC. Gary was the king, and you just didn’t disrespect him, even if he was being a little irrational about the whole Jessica thing.

  Personally, Arnold liked Jessica. She was a sweet girl, and she was his girlfriend Macie’s best friend, after all. But he didn’t quite understand Gary’s obsession with her. The leader of the MC had bedded so many women over the years, but this one girl seemed to stick more than anybody else, consuming his thoughts. Of course, Gary claimed that half of the reason he was tailing Pax was to eventually take over the Gorge. But Arnold knew that was just a flimsy excuse to leverage the MC’s resources to get his girl back. Of course, Arnold didn’t say any of that to Gary, even if there was a substantial part of him that wondered if his friend might benefit from his insight and advice.

  Sitting at home on the couch next to Macie later that night, he wondered if maybe there was an alternate route to literally bugging Pax’s apartment. Maybe he could figure out enough information to debunk Gary’s theory about Jessica and Pax without crossing any lines. “Hey, Macie,” he said, but she didn’t look up from her legal studies textbook. She was going to community college nearby, studying up to prepare herself for law school. It was weird that someone so closely affiliated with a biker gang would be attracted to the law, but Arnold wasn’t about to tell her to stop following her dreams.

  “Macie,” he said again, a little more insistently this time so that she sighed and looked up from her book.

  “What,” she said flatly and woodenly, clearly unamused at having her study session interrupted by her boyfriend.

  “I just wanted to ask you some things, if you can take a break for a minute,” Arnold said, trying to sound as casual as possible, like he was just a good boyfriend genuinely interested in his girlfriend’s life.

  Macie looked at her watch and considered the huge block of highlighted text in her book for a second before sighing and nodding. “Okay, I can give you, like, five minutes. Shoot. Go.”

  “I was just wondering how Jessica was,” Arnold said.

  Macie’s eyes immediately narrowed, not even trying to hide the suspicion from her face. “Why….?” Macie asked, drawing out the single word for several seconds.

  “Just curious,” Arnold said a little too quickly. “I know she’s your best friend and I haven’t seen her around in a couple weeks. I hope she’s okay, without the club and everything.”

  “What is this about?” Macie asked, sliding her textbook off her lap and placing it down on the coffee table in front of the couch. “Why do you care?”

  “I told you!” Arnold said defensively, his voice coming out a little higher and more intense than he would have liked. “I’m just worried about her, that’s all.”

  Macie was silent for a minute, staring at her boyfriend through narrowed, knowing eyes. “I think you mean Gary is worried about her. Am I right?”

  Arnold sighed and shook his head. “Look, I was just trying to take an interest. That’s all.”

  Macie scoffed and straightened up in her seat, which was always a bad sign that she was getting ready for a fight. “You know, I know you’ve got some weird loyalty thing with Gary, but the least you could do is not lie to me. Gary wants to know what’s going on with Jessica, right? So what is he tasking you with now? What are you supposed to find out?”

  Arnold considered for a moment, looking up at his girlfriend and wondering if she would really be willing to help him. “Do you know a guy named Pax?” he finally asked.

  Macie’s face was unreadable as she stared at him coldly, her eyes betraying nothing until she finally shrugged. “Should I know a guy named Pax?”

  “Macie, come on,” Arnold said. “You can’t berate me about not being honest and the
n turn around and do the exact same thing.”

  Macie rolled her eyes and picked her textbook back off the table, refocusing her attention on the highlighted text about torts. “She’s mentioned him once or twice if that’s what you’re wondering. But if I were Gary, I’d back the fuck off. If he doesn’t be careful he’s going to lose any chance of ever getting back with Jessica. She needs time. And space. And, like, her own life. He needs to step away from her for a bit, at the very least.”

  “Why don’t you tell him that?” Arnold said. In his ideal world, Macie would be his liaison with Gary, helping him lead the MC’s boss onto the right path.

  But Macie just scoffed again and shook her head. “Like anybody listens to me.”

  “I listen to you,” Arnold protested.

  “Then prove it now, okay?” Macie said, reaching over to take Arnold’s hand into her own. “Back off. Leave Jessica alone. Out of everybody on the planet, she deserves some space, okay? Don’t fuck things up for her.”

  Arnold didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to tell Macie that he would follow her advice. He didn’t want to lie to her. But what choice did he have?

  Chapter Eight

  Jessica

  Jessica came home from an errand one day to find three members of the Nightwalkers waiting on her front step, each of them holding several plastic bags from a local grocery store. “Uh… What are you doing here?” she said, feeling apprehensive enough to clutch her keys between her two fingers, ready to gouge out eyes if any of them got aggressive with her. It wouldn’t be the first time she had to get creative in a fight with a man, and somehow, she figured it wouldn’t be her last, either.

  “Just wanted to do you a favor,” Edgar, one of the more intelligent junior members of the MC said. “Got all your favorite foods. Lucky Charms, some cinnamon rolls, some pasta…”

  “How did you know all that?” Jessica said, feeling her anxiety spike as she looked into one of the bags to see a brightly colored birthday cake with her name written across the top. Her birthday had been the month before. Since she’d just broken up with Gary at the time, she only celebrated with Macie, whereas before it’d be a huge party with the entire MC. She’d be lying to herself if she said that she didn’t miss it a little bit, being surrounded by that much welcoming energy. The MC really could be like a family at times, even if most of the time it was a dysfunctional, rotten family. But seeing the cake now, she felt a little chill go up her spine. What was this all about?

  “We did our research,” one of the other members of the MC said to her, a guy whose name she couldn’t really remember even though he had a distinctive pock-marked face. “We also trimmed the bushes out front and brought some stuff you could use to plant your garden if you want.”

  Jessica was tempted to repeat herself, asking what the fuck was going on, but she got the sense that she wasn’t going to get a straight answer out of these guys. So instead she just grabbed a bunch of the grocery bags out of their hands and stuck her key in the door, telling them to stay out of her apartment while she put the groceries away. They waited on the steps the whole time, peering into her window while she put the perishable goods in her freezer and fridge.

  She stepped back outside a few minutes later, holding a knife in one of her pockets just in case one of the guys got rough. She wasn’t going to be attacked on her own fucking property. She’d waited too long to have her own place, and she worked too damn hard to have it just ripped away from her because the MC decided that she was their property.

  “What is this all about?” she asked, keeping one hand in the pocket of her pants, wrapped around the handle of the knife. She tried to keep her breathing as steady and calm as possible, unwilling to betray her fear to these random fuckers she barely knew who were intruding on her personal space.

  “Just trying to do something nice for you, Jess,” Edgar said with a shrug. “We know you work hard. You deserve a break now and again. Hey, if you let us, we’ll do a couple loads of laundry for you today. Ain’t got nothing else to do right now.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Jessica said more firmly, glaring at them with as much malice as she could muster. “What do you want from me?”

  The MC members looked at each other, wordlessly asking each other if they should be honest or not. Finally, Edgar turned back to her and spoke up. “Gary would like to have dinner with you.”

  “Dinner?” Jessica repeated, flabbergasted. What the hell was Gary up to now? Throughout all their break-ups, he’d never behaved like this, even once. Hell, he’d never even asked her out on a date before. Why was he doing this now?

  “Yes. A nice dinner, just the two of you,” Edgar said. “He says he understands if you’re too busy, but he’d really like to see you. Just as friends.”

  Jessica was silent for a long moment, stewing over the information that Edgar had just shared with her, letting it sink in and trying to find the hidden meaning lurking within. There had to be a catch, right? Other than the obvious one that Gary was trying to get back into her life any way that he could.

  If there was a gun to her head, and she had to give her honest answer, the real thing that she wanted to do, she would have rejected them out of hand and marched back into her house to enjoy her groceries. She didn’t owe Gary anything, not after so many years of mistreatment, not after she’d given him so many chances to turn his life around and stop acting like a dick. But…the Nightwalkers knew where she lived. They probably knew how to break in, if she was being realistic about her situation. With a snap of his fingers, Gary could make them do other things, other not-so-nice things to make her feel unsafe. And it wasn’t like there was anything that Jessica could do about it, either. The cops in this town were terrified of Gary. He was the closest thing this community had to a judge, jury, and executioner. What could she do?

  “Fine,” she finally said, practically spitting the word out of her mouth as if it was poison. “Tomorrow night. But we meet at the restaurant, okay? None of this showing up at my apartment unannounced bullshit. Tell him to text me.”

  She turned on her heel and stormed into her apartment, locking the door behind her and drawing the blinds down so that the Nightwalkers couldn’t see inside. She leaned back against her wall, away from the windows in case they could peek around the blinds. Jessica wished she could call Macie and tell her to come over, just so she’d feel less scared. But she didn’t want to be weak. She didn’t want to be soft. She had to be strong. That’s how she’d survived this long, and it’s how she’d survive tomorrow night as well. She’d be tough. She had to be.

  # # #

  Jessica

  Jessica dressed as conservatively as possible for her “date” the next night, wearing a thick black sweater over her dress so that she didn’t show any cleavage, as well as putting ill-fitting leggings on her legs so that she didn’t run any risk of turning Gary on inadvertently. She was waiting outside the restaurant for about five minutes when Gary showed up, dressed in a sharp dress-shirt and tight black slacks. Clearly, he’d put in a lot of effort to look nice, dressing very differently than his usual uniform of a leather jacket and some torn-up jeans.

  “Good evening,” Gary as he approached, leaning in to place a friendly kiss on her cheek. Jessica flinched back from his touch automatically, but if Gary noticed, it didn’t show on his face. “Shall we go in? I’ve reserved us a table near the back. I know you like to be close to the bathrooms in restaurants.”

  “Uh, thanks,” Jessica said, her body stiff as she walked beside Gary into the restaurant, following him back to the reserved table.

  Before she could sit down, Gary pulled out her chair for her, smiling at her calmly until she took her seat. He sat down across from her and immediately ordered a bottle of the most expensive wine possible for the table, politely thanking the waitress before she walked away. This was not Gary, at all. Usually he was rude and crude, ordering people around like he owned them. Where the hell was this polite act coming from?

>   “You look lovely tonight,” Gary said, taking a breadstick from the center of the table and breaking it in half before handing part of it to Jessica. “Dip it in the olive oil. It tastes great that way.”

  Jessica put the piece of bread down on her appetizer plate, staring down at it for a long moment rather than eating it. She had this awful, painfully paranoid thought that maybe the food was poisoned or something, as if Gary went to such great lengths just to roofie her. Honestly, this whole “date” was so disorienting, so completely different than all of her other experiences with Gary that she had no idea how to react.