by V Vee
“Yes, Boss?” I rolled my eyes. My younger brother was such a pain in my ass, but he was loyal to a fault. All of my siblings were. Which was why I hadn’t worried when one of my brothers joined the police department, another became a lawyer, one went into the military, and yet another had become an FBI agent.
Like I said, connections in every area.
“I’m at my woman’s home. And it’s nice,” I began, frowning when I noticed a number of Kyra’s neighbor’s pulling back their curtains to peer at me, or simply walking out onto their front porches to stare at me. I looked around surreptitiously and chuckled low when I realized that I stuck out. Not only because I was a ginger-haired, white boy, but also because I was dressed in a three-piece suit, had stepped out of an expensive town car, and looked as if I hadn’t ever experienced a day of manual labor.
If only they knew.
Killing someone with your bare hands is about as manual as a person can get.
I waved at a slightly hunched over black woman who was scowling at me as I continued speaking with my brother.
“The neighborhood is complete shit, of course,” I said with a scowl, shaking my head. I couldn’t wait to move Kyra out of this area and into my home on the other side of town. “But you know, it’s quiet and seems safe.”
“Okay, you’re obviously leading up to something,” my younger brother, Shannon, said with amusement in his voice.
I rolled my eyes. Shannon wasn’t the baby of our family, that was our sister, Niamh, “Nia” for short, but he was the third youngest. Between Shannon and Nia there was Bailey, who unlike Shannon, was just a little too…
Deadly.
I know, I know. It’s weird to hear me, the head of the Irish mob say that someone else was too deadly, but trust me, Bailey was scary. I rarely sent him out to collect “dues” from those who were in debt to us. More than once he’d had to call for a cleanup crew because he’d gotten a little too “overzealous” in his negotiation tactics. There was also the fact that Bailey was serious about what it meant to be family. If you belonged to him, you belonged to him. Family, friend, mob “family”, it didn’t matter, if you were his you were his, and he would kill whomever had to kill in order to keep you safe.
Even if it was another family member.
I had seen Bailey watching me with calculating eyes. If I ever questioned his loyalty, I would have had someone—most likely Ludwig, one of my most trusted Enforcers—put a bullet in between his eyes. Bailey would have no problem killing me if it meant saving someone else. Like Nia.
Or whatever woman he was trying to keep secret from the rest of the family.
“Yes, I am,” I retorted, coming back to my conversation with Shannon. “I need four guards on her. Two on her friend Michele, and another four on their house. And I want someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing to come and give my woman some goddamn roses. Whoever planted the ones she has now is complete trash and should be fired. Literally.” I twisted my lips in disgust. I did not tolerate incompetence. Not in those who worked for me in the legal businesses I owned, nor when it came down to “family” business. And I especially wouldn’t accept it when it came to my woman.
I’d killed men for less.
“Anything else?” Shannon asked, sounding much more alert than he had at the beginning of our conversation.
I looked around Kyra’s neighborhood and felt a strange twist in my gut. I didn’t know exactly what it was. If I was a normal man—a good man—I would think I was feeling guilt, a bit of shame, and a need to do something.
But I was not a good man.
I was an arrogant bastard. Selfish. Self-centered. Anyone who knew me would say the same. I snapped my fingers. I knew what it was. I felt uncomfortable. Another feeling which I refused to give a chance to take root in my life. I was comfortable wherever I went. If I showed up to a restaurant and didn’t like the chairs, I would have my own delivered.
Then I would buy the restaurant and change the entire décor.
And that was only if I liked the food.
I’d had a restaurant in San Diego burned down because I hated the menu and the chef had been an arrogant bastard when I told him that his Irish stew, Colcannon, and Soda Bread were not made correctly. To be frank, they tasted as if he’d decreased all the seasonings needed and removed all the taste. When he marched over to my table to shout profanities in my face and tell me he studied at Le Cordon Bleu and knew more than I—an actual Irishman, mind you, who was born in Kilconnell—I’d calmly placed my napkin down on the table after wiping my mouth, grabbed the knife which had been sitting next to my plate, stood up…
And sliced his throat.
And don’t worry, it was only my men and I, a small waitstaff, the chef, sous chef, and the owner in the restaurant. I’m not an idiot.
Everyone had been adequately compensated for their “blindness” at the time of the “incident” and I’d stepped over the man’s body, walked into the kitchen, and set everything up to cause a fire.
The owner was compensated for the loss of his restaurant and his chef.
The waitstaff were all rehired at other eateries around town—most of which I owned, to ensure they kept their mouths shut. And the sous chef?
Well, she was my official cook at home.
Nice girl.
So, I wasn’t a good guy. I was no one’s hero. And yet…
“Get a good crew over here. Construction, plumbing, electrical, all of it. I want everyone in these homes to be temporarily rehoused, and I want their homes updated. Many of them will have to be rebuilt. A fresh coat of paint just isn’t going to do it. Some of them look as if they need to be doused in holy water before we even attempt to do anything. Just… fix this fucking neighborhood. I can’t have my woman living here.”
Shannon was quiet for a moment before he cleared his throat. “Are you not bringing her back with you, Drew?”
I laughed. I would never tell anyone that I was an expert on all things “Kyra” but even I knew enough to know that roses and showing up unannounced were not going to get her to move back to Clan McCarthy with me.
“Eventually. She’s not the type to be easily swayed,” I told my brother as I walked up the steps to knock on the front door of Kyra’s home. I’d stalled long enough and given her neighbors more than ample fodder for gossip. It was time to let my woman know her time was coming to an end.
She would be at Clan McCarthy, in my bed, beneath me, her pussy wrapped around my cock, screaming my name as her nails scoured my skin before the end of the month.
“Well, you have fun with that,” Shannon said, sounding disgusted. “I will never be that gone over a woman.”
I shook my head and laughed again. My brother didn’t know it, but he’d just issued a challenge to the universe. I would bet he’d fall… and soon.
Choosing not to respond I simply hung up the phone then pressed the doorbell. I smiled at Kyra the very moment she opened the door and gasped.
“Hey honey. I’m home.” I smirked, then shoved her to the ground, my body covering hers as the sound of gunfire filled the air.
Chapter Three
Kyra- K-Love
I’d known the very moment Andrew had shown up in front of my house. As a matter of fact, my skin had begun tingling, and my nipples had gotten hard the very second he’d no doubt turned onto my street. I was more than disgusted with the way my body consistently betrayed me when it came to the ginger-haired man. I mean, I’d been attracted to other men before—hell, some women too. Even had a relationship with a couple—but never had I experienced the same sort of visceral, soul-deep, Earth-shaking, brain scrambling, world-rocking, orgasmic connection with anyone other than Andrew. I simply had to think about him and my pussy—that thirsty ass bitch—would start leaking juices, as if she were crying with longing for him, and clenching around air in a vain attempt to feel him.
So when he knocked on my door, after standing in my front yard for a long time, I wasn’t surprised.
What did shock me was the way my body reacted upon seeing him again. I had never been so wet.
Looks like my pussy wasn’t the only thirsty bitch around here.
All of that—the lust, the connection, Andrew—all of it fled my mind the instant I heard gunfire and he tackled me to the ground.
What.
The.
Ever.
Loving.
Fuck?
Who the fuck had the goddamn balls to shoot up my house? Didn’t they know who I was?
There was a reason my house was the nicest on the block and it wasn’t simply because of the money I’d inherited. It was because of who my family was. Our connections.
It was because I was the fucking Bitch of Baltimore.
Someone was going to die. It was going to be soon, and I was going to make sure it was slow as hell.
My mouth was practically salivating at the idea.
But first, I needed to get Andrew’s big, muscled body off me and get to my guns.
“Move!” I growled.
“No!” He yelled at me as the sound of gunfire and screams increased. “Just stay down and let me handle this.”
Before I could argue, both of my 9MM guns that I’d named Beyoncé and RBG because they were both kickass, slid across the floor to me. I glanced up and caught Michele crouching at the edge of the living room, checking her own weapons. I heard Andrew spit a profanity atop me, but I ignored him as I grabbed for Bey and RBG. I wiggled until he finally rolled off me, then I fired through the open window, still on my back, at the car idling outside, with at least five men standing with their guns trained on us, firing bullet after bullet.
I hit one tire, then winged one of the men. I cursed. I needed to get up and I needed to get closer.
“Don’t even fucking think about it,” Andrew’s voice was low and commanding next to me. At any other time it would have sent a host of shivers down my spine, but at that moment it simply irritated me. First of all, these fuckers were shooting up my grandmother’s house. Second, I was not some helpless wilting flower who needed to be protected by a big strong man. Third, if I wanted to, I could take out all five of the men without batting an eyelash.
That’s why I was the B.O.B.
“Kiss my black ass, Andrew,” I snarled, then stood, heading for the open door. I heard him behind me, barking orders at someone, but I ignored him, more focused on the men who were now aiming for me.
They were all bad shots, or else I would have been killed a long time ago.
Too bad for them I was a crack shot.
I fired at one, then another, my bullet ripping through flesh and bone, puncturing each man I aimed for right between the eyes. I felt nothing as I squeezed the trigger on my guns. I felt Andrew’s back press against mine and as one we shot at the three men who were still outside of the car, as well as the four men—two on my side and two on his—that were trying to sneak up to the porch by the sides.
When it was over, I was calm, my hand steady, my breath even. Andrew was the same, though I could feel his body vibrating with rage. He jerked me around until I faced him, then he shook me none too gently.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Kyra?” he yelled. “You could have been hurt!”
I simply shrugged. “Yeah but I wasn’t. Besides, you could have been hurt just as much as me,” I pointed out. “I couldn’t tell who they were aiming for, but I’ve lived here for years with no problems at all—” Liar, my brain refuted my statement. This type of shootout occurred at least once every few years. Usually it was by some punk ass bitch who thought they could take me out and then run my neighborhood, become a dictator over my people. Not on my fucking watch. “Not until you got here.”
Andrew narrowed his eyes. “What the hell are you trying to say?”
I poked him in his chest, delighting in the brief touch of his broad chest beneath my finger. So that wasn’t a vest he was wearing to make his body look that hard. “I’m saying that you brought bullshit to my door, asshole.”
Before either of us could say anything else, Michele screamed as two guns went off inside.
“Shit, Michele!” I screamed and took off inside.
My girl was almost as badass as I was. But she’d been smoking which meant she was a slower shot than usual. If someone had killed her, they would wish their mother had aborted them rather than letting them live long enough to take a shot at my best friend. When Andrew and I slid into the living room, we found spent bullet casings from where Michele had been firing out the window, and four additional bodies in my yard.
Damn.
We also found Michele with a bullet wound to her shoulder, cursing up a blue streak as she kicked at the man who lay just feet away from her. His olive skin turning ashen, blood pooling beneath him as he took his last breaths. I stared at him, his thick black hair, his lips, his toned, slender frame, which looked as if he spent time on it and grit my teeth.
Fucking Italians.
I knew all about the feud between the Italians and the Irish, everyone in Baltimore did, we simply kept out of it. Most of us did anyway. I know I tried to keep my people out of it. Let the fucking Irish and Italians kill each other as they fought for dominance of Baltimore. Of the drugs that ran through the city. Of the protection and the prostitutes. Of the money laundering, the murder-for-hires. They thought they ran Baltimore, but my people and I knew different.
I ran this shit.
Baltimore was my home. It was my domain. My kingdom and I was its queen. I let the Irish and Italians play in my fields, but they would never enter my home. They would never know the true worth of the underground, black market, illegal dealings that B-More held within it. That was my shit. It had been since the minute my grandmother—the queen before me—sat me down at the age of fourteen to explain everything to me.
“These white boys think they own this city. Hell, they think they own this country, but they don’t. This right here?” She gestured around us where we stood outside of the Scarpetta House. A lot of people thought it was a place where forensic scientists studied staged crime scenes in order to learn how to do their jobs, but my grandmother had informed me that “her people” used the home to cover up actual murders and crimes, and she dozens of people who worked for the Medical Examiner’s office who were paid well to turn the other way. “This is all us.”
“Us?” I mimicked, staring up at my grandmother in awe. She was still a beautiful woman, even at her advanced age. She’d looked like she was in her late thirties until the week she died, and then it was as if she aged decades every single day. It was alarming to me and was the only way I’d known she was sick.
“Yes, baby,” she nodded. “We run Baltimore. Hell, black folks—black women, specifically—are the heartbeat of this country. We’re the music that keeps the nation moving along. We’re the magic that has kept it afloat. When we work with other women?” She shrugged and shook her head. “Well, we’re unstoppable. And we learned that here in B-More a long time ago. So, we work together. We’re the puppet masters and we pull the strings.” She turned to me fully then, tugging me closer to her.
“You need to learn how to be an unseen leader, Kyra, because if men ever found out the truth? I’m afraid of what these fools might do. But that’s what a queen does. She influences, she rules, she changes the world around her without many realizing just how deep her power runs.”
And at that she stopped talking, we’d been joined by a number of other women, different ages, ethnicities, social and political classes. They were all wearing different types of outfits and had I not been standing there with them, I would never have even known they knew each other. But they did. They supported each other. Ruled together.
Killed together.
And the five men who were dragged into the Scarpetta House that day, their bodies dissected while they screamed for help, found out the hard way that one did not aim for a queen and miss.
Which these fucking Italians would now have to le
arn.
Damnit. I was hoping to relax this week, I grumbled internally to myself. I knelt next to Michele and cradled her face.
“Chel? You alright?” I asked her.
She waved me off with the hand on her good arm. “Fuck yeah I’m fine. Just pissed that I let that limp dick motherfucker get the drop on me.” She rolled her eyes.
“I’ve got one of my people on their way to take care of her,” Andrew said as he placed his phone back in his jacket pocket.
I flicked my wrist at him, barely sparing him a glance.
“No need. My people should be here shortly.” And no sooner had the words left my mouth than my yard and my home was filled with ladies—old and young—as they set about the task of cleaning up all evidence and patching up my best friend.
I smirked at the look of surprise on Andrew’s face, then let out a yelp when he grabbed my arm and pulled me rather roughly from the floor. He dragged me into the kitchen and pressed me up against the wall.
“Who the fuck are you?” he growled.
I gave him a slight smile and shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean. You know who I am. I mean you’re the one sending flowers to me and everything.”
Andrew shook his head. “Don’t fucking play with me, Kyra.”
I bared my teeth at him in a mocking smile. “Or. What?”
Before I could breathe, Andrew had his hand wrapped around my throat, his gun and mine clattering to the floor at our feet. I’m glad we’d put the safety back on because neither of us was paying much attention to where they landed. Instead, like animals we snarled at each other, biting each other’s lips as we kissed furiously. I felt my bottoms being yanked down my legs, but not fully off my feet.
Andrew lowered his head and licked at the skin of my neck, before biting it hard enough to leave a mark. He released me just long enough to grip both of my breasts in both of his hands. He squeezed them roughly, causing me to gasp and moan as I tried to press myself closer to him. Make him tighten his grasp on my mounds.
