by Madeline Fay
“I don’t talk to reporters. If you want an interview then set one up through the Chief’s secretary. Would you look at the time, I have to go home and study for a history exam.” I hear her huff out behind me the moment I stride away, rolling my eyes at Tey as he leans against the passenger door of my car, repeatedly grabbing the handle to try and open it.
Doesn’t matter if I’m eighteen even though she’s been coming around for two years, she asks questions about my family business all the while grinding against me like a cat in heat. At school, hell, even if I’m fucking around somewhere, she sniffs me out and begs me nonstop even though my answer is always the same. Blood in or nothing at all. I really don’t talk to any reporters that come around, family means everything to me.
“Yessss!” Tey moans dramatically when I unlock my car and hop in with a relieved breath.
He immediately looks at his phone when it starts buzzing with a lot of incoming texts, the blue light highlighting his face, his icy blue eyes wide with a look I know all too well. Lorenzo. King of putting together illegal street races. It switches from place to place and invites only.
“When and where?” The yearning is clear in my voice. I try to hide it but when you grow up around someone your whole life they tend to know when you're faking it.
We haven’t heard from Lorenzo in weeks and my hands clench the wheel as a need overcomes me, like a hunger that can’t be satisfied until I’m feeling the rush. My hands were meant to steer, take control, and push past limits that break the law. Nicky and I haven’t been in a street race in months, something we both need like the air in our lungs. Tey always collects bets and gets the crowd going with Dalton standing over him like a shadow in case shit goes down. Lorenzo puts the street races together, knowing fuckers that will pay to see rubber burn. The man knows how to get just the right people that will place bets, handing over their money like it’s nothing and in these parts, it’s really not a big deal.
“Two weeks from now, starting right fucking downtown to Chinatown!” His voice shakes me out of my thoughts in the quiet exterior of the car and we’re already pulling into the community lined with mansions on both sides of the street in no time at all.
“Tell him we’ll be there and to make sure he has his money ready.” A smile spreads across my face as I scratch my five o’clock shadow to hide my smirk but Tey chuckles like he knows what I’m thinking.
Flicking off the headlights, I wave Tey ahead to go inside to raid the fridge like he always does while I switch the bags to my father’s car and mentally prepare to deal with the lashing I'll get for allowing this to happen in the first place under my watch. I didn’t know the fucking runner aka Lenny would be sampling the goods, getting high as fuck, and letting the meth house get raided.
Slamming the trunk of the Aston Martin my father drives around, as if a chief could afford this, I wonder if life would have taken a different turn if Mom was still alive. If my father wouldn’t have become the fucking mafia. It’s still in the back of my mind that one day I’ll wake up and see Mom and Dad eating breakfast in our little home just on the outskirts of L.A. Don’t get me wrong, I like who the hell I am now, it’s all I know, and the power that comes with it is like oxygen.
Addicting and yearning.
I walk through the garage door quietly, already prepared for my dad to ask for an update, instead I stop in my tracks to see Tey towering over a girl in the doorway of the kitchen. Her back is turned towards me, giving me a view of an ass that’s round and fucking biteable, encased in a tight pair of shorts that should be illegal because her legs look like they go on for miles. They’d look better around my waist.
Her hair hangs down in wet, dark ropes with a hint of purple down to the curve of her ass but what really holds my attention is the flash of metal I see in her hand. She's gripping that knife handle pretty tight as Tey bends down to retrieve his baby from his boot. It’s almost cute, is she trying to threaten him with that tiny weapon? It’s a kitchen blade for fucks sake.
Who is this delectable creature and why is she in my fucking house? Did my dad hire a stripper? She has the body for it, all the right curves, and my hands itch to touch her skin where her pulse is pounding, to feel the beat under my palm as I wrap my hand around her neck and demand control over her. It’s almost laughable and I doubt my dad would bring a stripper home, pretty sure I’d hear the stepmom screeching like a banshee if that happened.
My feet move across the kitchen on deadly quiet intent and she freezes when she feels me pressing up along her body from behind, taking her knife quickly from her grip and flinging it across the kitchen where it embeds into a cabinet. The smell of rain, sweet vanilla, and I swear sunshine reaches me when I bend down to skim my nose along the curve of her neck. The shiver that runs through her body makes me smile and I glance at Tey whose own eyes fill with lust as he runs the blade down her cheek at the same time.
We are sick, twisted bastards that find pleasure in the dark that bleeds the night against smooth honeyed skin just as soft as hers. She hasn’t looked away from Tey or screamed, it says a lot about her if she can deal with this level of psycho. I actually don’t like it because she’s distracting me when I should be pulling out my gun and finding out why she’s in my house. Maybe she’s been sent by another gang to get the drop on us and that sobers me somewhat.
“I think you're in the wrong house, baby girl. Unless you're here to give us a little show. Tey, you hired a stripper? I’m flattered. It’s not even my birthday.” She gasps in outrage as Tey chuckles darkly and quickly spins around in my arms to confront me, her hands gripping my biceps as she looks up at me with anger and shock written on her face.
My gaze is drawn to lips that are a pale pink, plump, and shaped as the perfect O right now as her mouth hangs open.
“Logan! It’s like destiny, man!” Tey’s eyes are turning a dark blue and I know he wants her too. “You want to play with us…” He trails off from behind her, waiting for her name but she’s a stuttering mess between us.
“How did you know- No! I’m not here to entertain you with stripping you fucking perve. Back the hell away!” She digs her nails into my skin, and instead of pushing me away she only holds on tighter.
She closes her eyes for a second as if to pray for patience but it only gives me time to study her without actually having her see how she’s putting me off my game. Long, dark lashes frame her high cheekbones, her skin looks soft as fuck, and her dark eyebrows scrunch together in confusion, forming a tiny wrinkle that I, for some reason, find adorable. She snaps her eyes open when Tey presses up against her from behind tightly, caging her in between our bodies. The anger that flares in her dark chocolate eyes has my cock straining against my dress pants and she realizes a moment later when my hardening length grazes along her stomach. Her head just barely reaches my bicep. Tey and I are both looking down at her small frame, standing over six feet. God, she’s absolutely perfect and it pisses me off. My eyes flicker quickly to Tey above her head with a silent message to figure out what she’s doing here. He nods and slides her hair over her other shoulder to expose her swan-like neck. He groans out in ecstasy when he skims the flat of the blade down her neck and towards her shoulder. I watch as she holds her breath looking up at me but yet she’s not running or screaming like a normal person would. Has a blade touched baby girl before? I can’t wait to find out.
I stare down at her with my head tilted as I try to figure her out, gazing into her dark eyes that shine under the dim lights but under that, I see a ghost. It’s a past that haunts you, stays with you, and fucks you up in the head so that it’s hard to tell what’s right or wrong.
“Why aren’t you taking off your clothes already? It's what you're hired to do right? Make it slow, baby girl, give us a show.” My gaze flicks up and down her exquisite body, pretending to find her lacking when in reality she burns me alive like a flick of a match.
Her breathing picks up, her breasts heaving up and down against my abs and
she reaches back without taking her eyes off me. She grasps the blade from over her shoulder faster than I was expecting, taking the flat of the blade between her thumb and index finger, sliding it from Tey’s grip before he knows what happened. I’m not the least bit surprised when she holds it under my jugular with fury blazing across her face, her gorgeous lips curving up in a snarl that turns me the fuck on.
Have I ever been this turned on to the point of it being painful? Like my cock needs to sink into her warm pussy and stay there, buried deep until the floodgates are open and she’s praising my name.
Nope.
I bet Tey is thinking the same thing because when she switches hands to hold the handle of the knife in a tight grip, he grabs her bleeding hand that was cut from the sharp edge of the blade she made in her grab. She watches out of the corner of her eye and bites her bottom lip down hard as Tey placed his lips against the small nick and runs his tongue along the dripping trail of blood with a devious grin on his face.
“Hmm, I’m going to make you scream until your voice is hoarse. I just bet you're flexible, I can’t wait to find out how much,” Tey mutters quietly, his pupils dilated and she starts trembling between us, her wide eyes reflecting with the same hunger I feel in my own gut.
“Keep dreaming, pretty boy. You won’t be getting any of this and you don’t scare me. I’ve already met the devil and you have nothing on him.” She lifts her chin, teeth grinding, and her voice comes out sweet yet raspy with anger.
We can’t have that, now can we. The look of displeasure and indifference directed at us has my palm twitching. I’d like nothing more than to drag her over my knee and spank her ass red until she’s begging for more.
“Logan, Tey, get the fuck away from her. That’s not any way to treat our guest.” My head snaps up at my father’s voice as he comes around the corner from the hallway that leads to his office, taking in the scene with a calculating gaze in his eyes.
Baby girl slips out from between us faster than I’d like, taking her delicious warmth with her that I didn’t know I was craving. Tey actually pouts, snatching his knife back from her grip with ease and looking at it with a light in his eyes that makes me worried for his sanity. He slips it back into his boot with a sigh while she backs away towards the front entrance, keeping her eyes on us as if she’s planning on running. Bad move, never run from the bad guy, we love the chase. A challenge really. And I do love a good challenge, but her timing is off. A drug bust just happened the other night, a leak in the system, and yet here is this girl who appears innocent as fuck on the outside with her heart shaped face and big, chocolate eyes that suck you in, but something dark is hidden underneath, just full of secrets waiting to be told.
“Tillie, please excuse my son’s behavior. I swear he wasn’t raised by a pack of wolves. Why don’t you take the guest room on the other side of the house, you must be exhausted and we can talk in the morning when my wife is feeling better?” My father may sound like he’s giving her a choice but his narrowed eyes say it’s not up for discussion.
“Yes. Don’t go running off in the night, where it’s dark with monsters out there that would love to take a bite out of you.” I smirk at her, chomping my teeth once, and watch her chin rising with confidence but her throat bobs as she looks between us all.
“Please run, please,” Tey whispers in anticipation under his breath and she hears him, eyeing him before she glares as if she’s thinking of ways to murder us.
Why do I like that thought?
“I wouldn’t want to overstay my welcome and I hope your wife is feeling better in the morning. There's so much I need to know. I won’t be in your hair much longer after I get answers,” baby girl says quietly, refusing to look away from my father's gaze as he slowly nods.
I’ve seen that look before, she’s not going anywhere because he doesn’t trust her. Keep your enemies close.
What the hell is going on?
“Whatever you want, I’m sure your- Diana would want you to stay. I’ll show you to the guest room.” He walks over to her, grabbing her black duffle that I didn’t notice a few feet away, and starts to stride out of the room without a backward glance to see if she’s following.
She stands frozen, her face drained of color and she looks almost scared to follow him alone in the dark. I don’t like that, she had a fire in her eyes minutes before as she stared up at me.
“Don’t want to keep him waiting. Unless you’d rather come over here and put that mouth to better work.” My meaning is clear as I take a step forward.
She glares and stomps past me to follow my father down the dark hallway, her ass swinging side to side, an ass that I’d like to take a bite of. In due time, and then I’ll toss her aside like I always do to every woman that tries to get close to me.
“Nighty night, pet.” Tey chuckles amused but his head is tilted to the side with his gaze glued to her ass too, staying there until she turns a corner towards the other side of the house.
Why is it easier to breathe once she’s gone from the room?
“I’m going to keep her,” Tey says with a gleam in his eyes that’s all too familiar.
“And then destroy her,” I reply back knowingly because that’s just what we do when pretty things step into our lives, they don’t stay innocent once we have a taste… there isn’t any going back. You’ve been marked, tainted by evil, and coming back to sin again and again because you can’t help yourself to have one more taste.
This one won’t be any different.
Tillie
“You thought you could escape me? You’ll never get away, I’ll always find you because I own you,” Cruz whispers into my ear but I can’t see him. It’s so dark. An abyss but his voice seems to be everywhere at once. He’s right, I can’t escape from something I can’t even see.
“I’m coming.” He’s suddenly in front of me with chains in his bloody hands and the sound of them snapping around my wrists with an echo has my lungs desperately working to get air in. “I’m here.”
A loud gasp wakes me up, making me realize I was the one to make the noise and throwing me out of my nightmare. My head smacks against the bedroom door I slept against all night, I don’t trust anyone and wasn’t going to let my guard down to be vulnerable ever again. My eyes swing around the room and my shoulders sag when I realize I’m in a guest bedroom right across from Satan's room. I now understand the meaning where they say he fell from heaven, his beauty indescribable but angelic. Honey eyes that look past the outer layer of skin and see the inside to only take you apart piece by piece with his gaze. I bet he’s a man who cuts you open just to see if he was right and doesn’t bother to sew you back up.
Logan.
Tall, drop dead gorgeous, and dangerous. I read all that in seconds when our eyes connected as he towered over me, looking down as if I'd caused him physical harm but also he wanted to drag me away and lock the door as he watches me suffer before giving me what I need.
I’m not sure what exactly my body needs but when the guy dressed from head to toe in black with the smile of madness, dragged a blade down my neck, I didn’t feel like my life was in danger. I felt like he was playing a game but wouldn’t hurt me, only bring me so high that I would never want to come back down. I had to escape before they sucked all the air out of the room, tearing off my wet panties with their teeth without even trying. Logan’s father is just as intense as his son, both men who can set the world on fire and not care as everyone perishes in the flames. He looked at me with calculating eyes, not trusting me which makes him a smart man. A stranger comes into his home, in the middle of the night, soaking wet from the downpour, and begging to find a safe place even if it’s only for a little while. Hell, I’m still covered in dirt, a cut on my leg visible and my clothes stiffly sticking to my body. He must be nuts since he walked said stranger, that’s me, to their guestroom, opening the door to a room that made my jaw drop and said good freaking night.
Okay, he didn’t say that, more like, “Thi
s is where you will be sleeping, Tillie, hope you're comfortable and have a goodnight’s sleep. I’ll make sure the doors are locked up tight.”
Franco smiled tightly and raised a brow at me as if to say don’t think about leaving. I’ll be watching.
Message loud and clear buddy.
So I scoped out the room the minute the door was shut and this is how I came to be. A crick in my neck, a sore ass that fell asleep on the dark wood floor even though the king sized bed looked inviting… no way was I sleeping with my back turned towards the door where anyone could come in. My body blocked all access especially from the two men that spelled trouble. I heard footsteps coming down the hall last night as I was dozing off, stopping right on the other side, and a light tapping against the wood.
“Night, sugar, dream of me. Naked would be best if you're having a nightmare, at least it’s something hot to look at.”
Tey chuckled darkly as Logan’s honeyed voice told him to leave the stray alone. He’s not completely wrong, I am a stray. No place to call home, a desperate girl just trying to live.
Stretching my hands over my head, I grimace as the cut on my leg burns from the motorcycle accident. Looking down, it’s not bleeding but it looks a tad angry on my calf. I’ll be so pissed if I’ve come this far to die from an infection. Glancing around with clearer eyes, the sun peaks through the billowing white curtains that draw me closer to look on the other side. French doors lead to an Italian brick balcony right outside my room on the second floor, and down below is a pool glistening under the California sunshine that is almost as big as the mansion. This is completely opposite of what I’m used to and it kind of freaks me out, turning away from the window, I take a look around the guest bedroom I’m calling mine for now. Dark wood floors with a light grey rug that the bed sits on, a white bed frame with sheer drapes that wrap around the banisters and gives the illusion of privacy. My small, duffle bag looks pathetic in the walk-in closet with only two outfits I have to my name. I really don’t fit in with this rich lifestyle but at least I can clean up my appearance before hitting the road again and finding somewhere I can disappear for good.
