Layla Wolfe's Blog, page 4

Read Chapter One of THE EMERALD TRIANGLE--Free!

The phone call came while I was in the duck blind waiting for the sun to rise.I suppose that made sense. Brian Ride had died sometime last night, and everyone in Cinnabar knew I turned in early. They would know, as a newly born “wild man of the woods,” I’d be getting up before the eastern glow in the sky was bright enough to see your hand by.They were right. I’d shouldered my shotgun and set out from my cabin with Orson, my brown Newfoundland, a sunny, grinning dog with not a care in the world, unlike me. Orson padded soundlessly through the unseen underbrush, a marauding bear on the prowl, while I followed not so quietly, although I’d gone the extra mile toward becoming a mountain man and had buckskin pants on under my waders.I knew approximately where the lake was and Orson guided me the rest of the way. It had snowed once or twice since I’d been there, and in November it stuck to the ground when I emerged from the alpine cover. Now my feet crunched in that baking soda way, but Orson danced quietly ahead. I could see his fur rippling, his tongue peeking from his giant mouth, his eyes merry as if to say “hurry! All the ducks will be gone if you keep lollygagging.”So I did hurry, because I wanted to eat some duck, and have some to give my friends who owned the cabin. Last month I’d harvested a buck, enough red meat to satisfy me through the winter months I planned on being in the cabin, praying and meditating on my painful situation. I was grappling with a huge moral dilemma, and there seemed to be no way out of it other than to run away. Which I’d proceeded to do with such finesse and alacrity you’d think I’d been born to it.I sighed deeply as I crawled into the sanctity of the duck blind I’d built earlier that month. Orson entered at the same time, shouldering me aside with not a care in the world, taking the best spot. I didn’t have the heart to move him, so I got on all fours and raised my glasses. The decoys bobbed like kid’s toys, rippled by a slight predawn wind, carrying the faint aroma of a passing skunk—or someone’s marijuana crop. That was common up there in Trinity County, California, but I knew my friends kept their grows away from their cabins, anxious for the final legalization laws to be passed.I settled down and waited for the mallards to start flying. I put my gloved hands in the pockets of my camo jacket, my breath icy. A group of moths passed overhead, looking like pale morning glories. The sheltering forest fringing the lake was still. All I heard was Orson’s soft panting. I’d easily hear the mallards flying in.Orson seemed to be telling me that existence was good—our life was ours for the taking, if we wanted to relish it. Only unenlightened people repeated the story that man had taken wild dogs and made them his fallen slave. They utterly failed to see how important dog is to man. I gave worship to Orson in many of my spare moments. Sometimes I thought he was the only thing preventing me from falling into a much darker place than I already was. He had let me into his life, not the other way around.Alone, with the faint whooshing of water and Orson’s satisfied panting, I had no choice but to reflect on my fall from grace.I still couldn’t come to terms with the loose woman my wife Jessica had become during our marriage. I’d never be able to move on unless I somehow came to accept that. Was it me and my boring, pious life that had driven her to it? I couldn’t wrap my head around the betrayal. No matter which way I looked at it—from a duck blind, in the cabin drinking whiskey, on my Harley canyon-carving the back roads of the Trinity Alps—there remained a red-hot ball of rage in the pit of my stomach.She had cuckolded me, plain and simple, carrying on with a local pot farmer, no less. How long that had been going on behind my back while the citizens of Cinnabar laughing at me was anyone’s guess. I was naive and in love, and wrapped up in my work. I just didn’t think Jessica capable of anything like that. I’d been so blindsided when a snarky gas station owner had said to me, “And you know…your wife and that pot farmer are making a spectacle of themselves.”“What?” I’d stupidly said.His face had turned all ferret-like, his skull shaped like a nut. “You mean you don’t know about her and Paul Staples? Everyone in Cinnabar knows, Truman.”Paul Staples, Paul Staples…Pot farmers rarely came to town because it was always this season, that season. There was always some excuse not to attend church services, but the same excuses didn’t hold when it came time for a party. So I vaguely knew Paul Staples, and I could picture him around Jessica. At the supermarket. The farmer’s market. The annual Humane Society charity dinner. Yes. Paul Staples always seemed to be there.My heart thudded, then stopped. The gas station owner was clearly taking pleasure in seeing my distress. “Hits close to home, don’t it?” he leered. “Maybe you need to practice what you preach. Or maybe your wife does.”I seriously wanted to punch him, and of course I couldn’t.Mallards flew in then, interrupting my enraged reverie. Dozens of beating wings were like a whispering waterfall, or a distant train’s babbling wheels. I popped up from the blind, my pump action shotgun at the ready. I squeezed the trigger, but couldn’t be sure in the dim light if I hit anything. Orson seemed to know, though, and bounded off like a giant, floppy jackrabbit.I smiled when he hit the water. From an uncouth, lumbering Bigfoot, he became a sleek eel when he swam. I knew his wide, webbed feet were working underwater as he steered right for the dead duck. Without breaking stride, he hit it with his open mouth, careful not to break the skin. My eyes were adjusting now to the oncoming light, and I moved out of the blind, encouraging Orson.“Good boy! Get duck!”It was a good-sized drake, its iridescent emerald green head glowing as if lit from within. I decided to move to the next blind I’d set up last week, the ducks already being skittish at this one, having winged away to the next inlet, churning up the lake. We had to walk fast to capture the ducks’ sunrise innocence, before they could see, smell, and become skeptical of man and beast.I inhaled swampy earth and decomposing reeds, skirting the thorny blackberry bushes. Crunching crispy miner’s lettuce and lemony hedge nettle under my soles, I ducked beneath pine branches, swinging the recently demised drake by his warm neck. Jessica’s character had reflected on me, and ultimately the gossip and shame of living in Cinnabar got to be too much for me. The things I had loved about working in a small town had come back to bite me in the ass. So I ran.My friends, the Anker-Santos brothers, had generously offered me their cabin. They spent most of their time at their plantations anyway, and the one bedroom log affair was perfectly fine for me, a man accustomed to sparse lodgings. It gave me time to reflect on what my next step would be, and I still hadn’t come to any sort of conclusion. I figured solitude was a traditional spiritual discipline. Moses, Elijah, and Jacob met with God when alone. “Be still, and know that I am God.”I was struggling with that.When I tried to meditate, images of Jessica’s insipid grinning face haunted my visions. She’d had no explanation for her straying. She claimed to still love me. But she couldn’t cut it off with the weed farmer. So she loved him, too? My lifestyle was too restrictive for her, she said. In the end, my agony started affecting my work. How could a priest whose faith was being tested lead his flock with honor? I had to leave.A sturdy wind whipped up satiny waves on the lake. Orson frisked beside me across a sandy beach, and then we were at the blind. I placed the drake on the straw and reloaded my shotgun. “Orson. Hold.” He eased onto his stomach, folded his paws, and uttered a purr of discontent. He didn’t like holding.When I peeked over the edge of the blind, my phone rang. Or, rather, lit up with a call from Woodrow Muir, the priest-in-charge at St. John’s in Cinnabar. He was the only one who’d call me this early in the morning, and I’d promised him I’d be available for questions after I dumped the entire load of my position on him.“Truman.” He sounded out of breath. Would he be jogging this early in the morning? Must have. “Hate to bother you so early—”“That’s okay. I’m up hunting.”“—but Brian Ride killed himself.”“Shit.”“Yes, his wife Vickie was out with friends last night and came home around one and found him. It was foul, Truman. My heart goes out to Vickie.”“Yes, of course.” I wondered what he wanted me to do about it. “You want to know if suicide is a mortal sin. Well, first of all, he was obviously in a very dark place to have contemplated that at all.”“No, that’s really not my question, although we should discuss it at a later date because I could find no literature on it. No, Vickie doesn’t think it was a suicide. A gun was in his hand, but, ah, she doesn’t think—”Suddenly Vickie grabbed the phone from Woody. I wasn’t prepared for her. Her voice was raspy and strangled, beyond the one pack plus of cigarettes she must’ve smoked every day. “We need you, Father Burgess. Come back, please. You know Brian would never have killed himself. I suspect foul play.”I didn’t know anyone actually said “foul play.” In all my years in Cinnabar, I’d never dealt with a murder. “Well, Vickie, what makes you say he couldn’t have killed himself? Sometimes depression is kept well hidden even from family members—”Vickie drew in a ragged breath and let it out all at once. “I know he wouldn’t have killed himself because he was having an affair.”“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. Oh. Of course, a general confession was part of my liturgy, and if someone didn’t feel that was enough, they could come to me in private for absolution. Brian had never done anything of the sort, and to be frank, he didn’t have that guilty, sneaky look I’d grown accustomed to in adulterers. But I couldn’t blow off Vickie’s feelings. “Would you like absolution? Because I can give it from here—”“No. We need you to come back, Father Burgess. Now. You need to see Brian for yourself before they move him.” Indeed, I heard commotion in the background, a quiet sort of contemplative hubbub. The sort cops make.“Are you at home, Vickie?”“Yes, and we need you, father. It’s not just Brian. Susan Rechy’s son was just diagnosed with muscular dystrophy and talk about suicide, she’s at the end of her rope. No one’s ashamed of you for divorcing that slut Jessica.” In her grief, she had become unfettered, unfiltered. “In fact, Trisha St. Elmo specifically requested a sermon on divorce. Maybe she’s heading for it, I don’t know. But we’re all falling apart around here without you. No offense, Truman. We don’t want some outlander busting in and taking charge.”I really didn’t want to leave the sanctity of my Walden Pond. But of course, I had to think of what was best for Vickie, the congregation. “I’m two hours away, up by Weaverville. I’ll have to drop Orson off with Father Muir. Do you think you can stop them from moving Brian until then?”“Yes, oh yes, father!” The relief in her voice was palpable. Sometimes I wondered at my motivation for having taken vows. Was it all about ego, the pride one gets when one is relied upon to a large extent? My work should have been without gratification—work for work’s sake. Maybe I just loved to be needed. “Yes, come as fast as you can! You remember where I live.”Indeed I did. I remembered where everyone lived. Everyone I’d visited in time of need, sickness, emotional distress. That was my job, my work, and I’d cut it short because pride had made me slink away from Cinnabar in shame. “Yes, Vickie. I’ll be there as soon as I drop off Orson.”I blew a sigh of relief after hanging up. I used to thrive on that sort of drama, and now I just dreaded it. As I slung my shotgun over my shoulder and once again grabbed the drake, I realized how cozy I’d become in my little cabin, even thinking of it as “mine.” Solitude was cleansing, and I was in a place where Jessica could never reach me with her infidelities, her taunting, her rubbing my face in her sins. I was separate now, truly a divorced man, pure.Orson’s fur flowed elegantly, already dry, as we started back up the hill. Were we master and slave, as some people claimed? Sometimes I thought I was Orson’s slave. Allegedly, dog gave up his wild birthright when he surrendered to man’s domestication. Man, who originally tamed the wild cur to prove his own superior ego, keeps owning them to groom his own vanity.Orson’s kind, gentle eyes told me otherwise. He was just here because he happened to like me, happened to like duck hunting, happened to like the food I gave him. He’d be out of there in a hot minute if he stopped liking me—if a sexy, fertile woman came along.He was as fickle and as temporary as any wife.I had no time for dressing the duck, so I hung it in the pantry to age. But I did make time to stuff my pipe with some long-flowering indica and take a few flavorful puffs.I would miss this solitary cabin, even if I was only gone a few days. I’d been re-reading my favorite book Pan.“I love three things,” I then say. “I love a dream of love I once had, I love you, and I love this patch of earth.”“And which do you love best?”“The dream.”It was hard to disagree with him.

Live on the 'zon and Goodreads!

IT TAKES A THIEF has arrived!  It's Live on Goodreads and Live on Amazon!  You already know the cover so here are a few teasers:

New BARE BONES MC Book!

And a Cover Reveal Alert!

Great outlaws lost their lives to Ford.
Ford Illuminati, Prez of the famed Bare Bones MC, is in the crosshairs of Noodlum, a whacked thug recently joined with the Cutlasses.  When Ford’s company steals some highway workers of theirs, Noodlum lashes out with subterfuge, placing fake news stories about the club and stealing their identities to charge Cialis and penis weights.But the clincher is when Noodlum targets Ford's old lady, Madison.  His twisted obsession with Madison puts Ford on the alert, and Santiago Slayer on his trail.  But things haven't been going well between Ford and Maddy lately.  His two jobs—Prez of the MC and his construction company—have got him working more than double time.  Neglected and feeling unloved, Maddy has a meltdown when a patient of hers dies.  She needs to do something different--something fulfilling.
When she works at a clinic on the Indian Rez, a heartthrob doctor catches her eye.  But he's not the real menace.  Noodlum has come unhinged, targeting the light of his life—Madison Illuminati.  Ford is forced to play along with the whacko's games, step by step.  It will take the combined forces of his club and his company to emerge triumphant...to save his one true love and reclaim their marriage.
Great ladies lost their hearts.

Teasermania!

I just thought I'd share some new teasers with you for The Emerald Triangle, my new standalone sexy priest book coming November 26.

COVER REVEAL! The Emerald Triangle Book #1

Once again Natasha Snow has come through with an intriguing, sexy, and artsy cover for Book One in my priest saga!


There's Father Truman Burgess, coming all undone when he reunites with his high school flame, Simone Wharton, a murder suspect in the Emerald Triangle town of Cinnabar:
There is a magic about the forbiddenthat makes it utterly desirable.
Father Truman Burgess:  I broke my rules for her.Brought together again after ten years when a suspicious death has gossiping tongues wagging all across town, I don't want to believe what they're saying about Simone Wharton.  She was mine ten years ago and I crave her again now.  My adulterous desire would topple me again from my throne.  I've barely survived one scandal.  Can the citizens of Cinnabar forgive another one?Simone:  Truman has matured into a fine, mysterious, devoted man.  Unfortunately, he is eminently fuckable.  The white collar he wears is a continuous reminder how out of my reach he is.  I want to scream from the rooftops that he's my man!  But does he only belong to God?  He broke his rules for me.  It's the most delicious, sensual thing to ever happen to me.

Cover Reveal!!

Phew!  Jewel Graphics came through again with a stunning cover for A WILD WICKED WEEKEND, Bent Zealots #4.


It's stupendous!  Attentive readers will note it's the same model I used on BARE BONES #1 and STAY VERTICAL #2.  I absolutely adore Bruno.  In A WILD WICKED WEEKEND he's playing Ogden Taliwood, Navajo half-breed, hot on the heels of a murderer.  It gets extremely BDSM-y in this book, so look out! 
When they do right, no one remembers.When they do wrong, no one forgets.
HAVEN:  At forty-five, I was a washed-up racecar driver, a Daddy Dom who had searched the world over for his power bottom, his submissive.  Fuck, I was still a Prospect for the Bent Zealots MC.  That’s how I came to be in the clubhouse while most of them were raising hell at a Vegas rally.  Word came there was a stiff down on the Rez, and the Zealots were getting blamed for it.  My mission included a clownish reject from a rival club name of Mike Drop, and a mysterious half-breed who would change my life forever. 
OGDEN:  I met Haven there in the desert, standing over the disemboweled corpse of a tourist.  After I made a sleazy deal that would help solve the mystery and clear the Zealots’ name, that muscle daddy gave me a tongue-lashing of a lifetime.  Have more self-respect, Haven said.  As the bastard half-Navajo basketballer who had frittered away a scholarship, I was a bad penny.  Haven, with his powerful mastery at training and molding me, gave shape to my form. 
HAVEN:  Ogden is my forever toy, a morsel for me to savor.  He says you can’t see the future with tears in your eyes.  If we make it through this hell together, we’ll see clearly.  The club will know I’ve made my bones when I bring them the killer’s head on a platter.
Publisher’s Note:  This book is not for the faint of heart.  It contains scenes of graphic gay sex, May/December romance, illegal doings, consensual bondage and discipline, sadomasochism, and violence in general.  It’s a full-length novel of 60,000 words rated 18+ due to possible triggers.  There is no cheating or cliffhangers, and HEAs all around for all.

Read Chapter One of SHELTER FROM THE STORM--free!

CHAPTER ONEFOX
Nogales, Arizona
“Run! Hijo de puta, run!”I had to blink and look twice.  Not just because a shower of cocaine was raining down on me from above.  My quarry, El Baño, had shot out a bunch of ceramic chollos stacked over my head.  This turned out to be where they were hiding their coke, as I found out when I painfully tried to rub it out of my eyes.“I mean it!” said the guy crouched down with me behind the crates of Mexican flowerpots.  “If you run out that door, I’ll distract him.”“Oh, wouldn’t you like that?” I sneered.  I was in no position to sneer, really, but I had no idea who this guy was.  I knew I’d come woefully unprepared for this shootout with members of the Presención cartel.  Thinking I’d just be taking out El Baño, alone in a darkened warehouse at one in the morning, it had suddenly turned into the grand opening of a new Disneyland exhibit, complete with fireworks and exciting, heart-pounding rides.I’d only brought my Springfield .45 semiautomatic with me.  I could have easily strapped on my assault rifle, but I’d left it behind in my Harley’s custom saddlebags.  I thought I’d go in, pick off El Baño from sixty, maybe eighty yards.  Instead, I must’ve walked into the middle of a major deal.  Guys were popping up right and left.  Like a whack-a-mole game, whenever I hit one guy, two more would spring up in his place.                Already I was shot in the arm.  Bullets cracked overhead, zinging by me, thumping when they hit a column behind me, or embedding in the eighteen-wheeler parked there.   I’d tried to use a dead beaner as a breastwork, but that guy was soon so riddled with holes it was like hiding behind a sieve.  That’s how I wound up behind these pottery crates with this other guy who also seemed to be aiming at El Baño, so named because he’d once left eight guys for dead stacked up like firewood inside a porta-potty.                I wasn’t about to give my quarry up to this Johnny-come-lately, especially not a guy who looked like he’d stepped out of Saturday Night Fever.  I’m not kidding.  This guy had a polyester shirt emblazoned with an eagle, and the airplane collar was so big he could’ve landed it at JFK.  But he wasn’t flying under the radar with his shiny white belt.  He looked more like a soap opera actor than a sicario, and I’d been in the business long enough to know all the players.  “You want to take the credit for burying El Baño.”                He shrugged.  He had a very thick but proper Mexican accent.  He didn’t seem at all stressed that ceramic pigs stuffed with cocaine were exploding above our heads.  “I am only thinking of your health.  You only have that Springfield that is almost out of ammo, whereas I’ve got a spare AK under my blazer.”  Indeed, under his white linen Miami Vice style blazer, I could see the outline of an assault rifle.  If he knew I was almost out of ammo, so did the beaners.  “Plus, you are hiding behind a crate filled with terra cotta gangsters.  I, however, have chosen this new shipment of a sturdy lavabo to hide behind.”                How did this stylish hitman know that I knew Spanish?  And why was he so maddeningly correct in his assessment of my predicament?                 “Hey pendejo!” bellowed one of El Baño’s enforcers.  “Me cago en tu puta madre!”  I shit on your whore mother!  He punctuated his enthusiasm with a burst of semiauto fire.I had to crawl even closer to my new protector when another chollo shattered overhead, raining down white and black pottery shards on my head.                The slick sicario finally showed a twinge of irritation.  “There is no room behind this sink for both of us!”  He popped up to let loose a shower of .45 rounds on the cartel members, then just as quickly crouched down with me.                He said, “Look, you are hit.  You have just enough rounds to get you through that door, if they are not distracted by me.”                My skeptical legal-minded brain was working overtime.  “You just want to get the credit for the hit.”                His eyes widened with surprise.  “I just want to get credit for staying alive!  Now go!  Vaya con Dios!”I persisted.  “How will I find you?”His smile was a dazzling display of capped teeth.  “How can you miss the likes of Santiago Slayer?”Maybe Slayer gave me the confidence to make a run for it across the empty expanse between the sink and the door.  Maybe it was the fresh downpour of bullets that zinged our way.  I knew the worst bullets were the ones you didn’t hear, and as I hauled ass out the open warehouse doors like a true yellow coward, I didn’t hear a thing.  Just a loud but dull roar in my head, like a tape loop of synthesized meditation music at a spa.                Fuck!  Fuck!  Fuck!                What a fucking clusterfuck!                I literally dodged a few bullets as I made a beeline for my Harley.  I think I surprised a beaner kid who was being just as yellow as me, hiding away from the main action inside the warehouse.  Luckily his rounds went wild, and I plugged him with one of my last two Springfield rounds.  He went down holding his stomach like a guy uttering a Wilhelm Scream.  All dramatic, but, ultimately, dead.                I was off almost before I pushed the engine button, my boots searching for the foot pegs.  I’d kept my leather chaps on before sneaking inside the warehouse, but now I didn’t have time to slap on my lid or goggles.  I just thrashed it out of there.                It was kind of embarrassing that killing the baby gangster was my main claim to fame in that botched hit.   I should’ve eyeballed the scenario a lot better than I did beforehand.   I only saw El Baños’ red Mustang out front.  If I had bothered going around the corner of the warehouse, I would’ve seen more vehicles.                  It was a basic mistake that had almost cost me my life.   Ortelio Jones, my boss, was going to be unbelievably tweaked, especially if it came out that that nancy-boy Santiago Slayer had done the deed.  And why had I never heard of Slayer?  Because he’d been acting in a Mexican telenovela the whole time?  And I’d only managed to put down that kid and probably a couple more enforcers inside the warehouse.  I hadn’t even seen El Baño.                  Regardless, word of my failure was probably already winging its way to Ortelio Jones, just as surely as Santiago Slayer’s bullets were winging their way toward El Baño’s head.  It was only a matter of time before Jones ordered me back inside the borders of New Mexico, my danger zone.  Jones knew I couldn’t go back inside those borders.  He’d been hinting that he was holding it over my head, too.  Just little things, you know the unfunny jokes cartel kingpins make.                Things like, “Ha ha, abogado.  Maybe you’d enjoy vacationing in the Land of Enchantment.”  “Very good one, abogado.  Too bad you’ll never be able to see the Carlsbad Caverns again.”  And “next time you screw up, you’re getting a one-way ticket to the Billy the Kid Museum.”                Regardless of my desire never to set foot in the Billy the Kid Museum in the first fucking place, I knew that Jones was good for his word.  He’d just followed a diligent reporter who posted updates on him, tracked her like a hound.  She knew Jones was getting close to her hideout, and kept tweeting her reports just the same.  He shot her in the face, then used her phone to tweet the photos as a warning to her followers.                Maybe I wasn’t the best sicario in the world!  After all, it wasn’t what I’d trained for, what I had degrees in.  It wasn’t my dream job when I was a kid.  I was a white guy—very white, according to the SPF level of my sunscreen, the bright ginger shade of my hair—operating in the dark underbelly of the Sinaloa cartel’s world.  I thought I did pretty well for Jones.  I’d racked up eleven high-profile kills since coming to work for him over a year ago.  Not bad for someone whose hair blared out like a searchlight from a mile away, one reason I usually wore a slouch beanie in public.                I had a rental house off North Royal in Nogales, but I didn’t feel like going home.  Someone was probably already waiting there for me.  Jones wouldn’t see the finer points of how I’d buried the kid and those other brutes.  He’d only see the fact that El Baño had gotten away—or, perhaps, been put down by a guy who looked like he should be singing “Tie A Yellow Ribbon” in South Lake Tahoe.  I didn’t know which option was more humiliating.                I found myself hanging a north on the frontage road toward Tucson.  Maybe I was going to my favorite watering hole, I don’t know.  It wasn’t until I was almost to the bar that I realized I didn’t want to go in there, either.  In case word had already spread—and it spread fast in these circles—I’d be the laughingstock of my favorite comfort place.                I kept going, eventually pulling over in the parking lot of Margie’s Corner Café, dark like a church at two in the morning.  I wanted to look at my arm wound.  I had no mirror, but I did have a flashlight.  I took off my leather jacket and went under Margie’s security light to look at it.  It was my first stroke of luck that the bullet had grazed the arm, cut a channel through the leather and flesh before continuing on its way.                But it was bleeding like a sonofabitch.  It was a sign of my occupation that I kept a box of adhesive pads in my saddlebags.  Tearing what remained of my T-shirt’s arm off, I stanched the flow of blood.  I could barely keep up with it before I could slap the bandage down, ineffectively.  Clusterfuck.  I had to go home sooner or later and face the music.  I just wished I could have a good snooze first.                This was really the first time I’d fucked up.  All of the rest had been good, clean hits.  The only other time I’d even remotely screwed up was when Ortelio Jones wanted the mark alive.  That motherfucker had punched and kicked like he was being raped as I tried to cram him into the trunk of my Cadillac.  I finally remembered they’d given me a stun gun, and I’d stunned the shit out of the guy before he went limp.                You have to understand, this wasn’t a job I willingly chose.  It wasn’t like an eager-eyed, idealistic younger me ran around studying to be a sicario.  I wasn’t in awe of the glamor, the fringe benefits, the sex on the side.  In fact, quite the opposite.  I’d been bound to defy my father, an Irishman who traded illegal arms for profit, and uphold the letter of the law.  But if everyone waged war according to his own beliefs, there would be no war.  So I was destined to wind up with Jones.                A Fiat was pulling into Margie’s parking lot.  Santiago Slayer got out, buttoning his blazer and smoothing it down.  As though he didn’t still have terra cotta dust on his shoulders.  I was surprised he hadn’t brushed that away with a lint roller.                He nodded primly at me.  “Señor.”                I nodded back.  “Santiago Slayer,” I acknowledged.  Then I realized I was being kind of an asshole, so I shook his hand.  “Fox Isherwood.”                He warmly grasped my hand like we were just meeting at a cocktail party. This guy was a smooth operator, I had to hand him that.  “I know.  Your fame has traveled far and wide.”                “Then why have I never crossed paths with you?”                Slayer became serious.  “I know how to stay off the grid.  I am only called in for jobs that require the most stealthy, the most sneaky, the most crafty and catlike of skills.  Oh, excuse me.”  His features became mild and friendly again when he checked his phone.  He chuckled at what he saw on the screen. “Oh, yes, yes,” he said to himself, as if recalling fond memories.  He turned the phone to me briefly.  “This girl that I met at a party last night has tagged me in this most awesome party photo.”                The Instagram photo showed Slayer liberally draped with scantily clad women barely in their twenties.  Since Slayer was probably coming up on forty, that was slightly creepy.  But the real creepy part was that he’d allowed photos to be taken of him at all.                “Instagram?” I queried, and went for my phone, too.  But I didn’t have that app installed, of course, so all I could do was google “Santiago Slayer.”  Aside from some gaming hits that were hopefully not him, this stealthy, crafty sicario was all over the fucking map.  In addition to a thousand Instagram hits in which he’d allowed himself to be tagged using his real—or rather I should say his made-up, hitman name—he was similarly tagged in Facebook, and I could open those.                “You sure like to party.”  I snorted cynically, swiping through photo after photo of the Ken doll handsome guy posing with drinks and chicks.  “Your jefe doesn’t get up in your shit about this?”                Slayer frowned.  “A kingpin, getting angry about partying?”                I realized that sounded stupid, so I clarified.  “I mean about you being tagged all over the place.  You’re not afraid your cover will be blown?”                Slayer wiped my existence away with his hand.  “Pfft.  This is partying.  A completely separate reality from our jobs.   As I always say, ‘work and fun do not mix.’”                That was an odd way to justify it.  There was always bleed-through from one reality to the other.  I lived my entire life like a sicario.   It might’ve been easier for me to keep them separate because women and socializing weren’t part of my reality.  “Yeah, but anyone trying to find you can just easily log onto Facebook or Instagram and figure out which party you’re at.  They have geotags on these things, you know.”                Again, Slayer scoffed at me.  “Pfft.  Big deal if they see me at a party?  Why would that make them instantly think I was coming to get them?  Oh, excuse me.”  Slayer chuckled at his screen.  “Look.  This girl sent me a sexy Snapchat.  See how pouty her lips are.”                I waved away his phone.  That sort of shit held no interest for me.  I was all business, to the core.  “Did you even get El Baño?”                Slayer’s face was blank, he was so entranced with the onscreen girl’s boobs.  “What?  Oh, El Baño?  Let us just say he is happily diving with the dolphins.”                I frowned, trying to understand his slang.  “You mean sleeping with the fishes?”  If El Baño was dead, maybe I could convince Slayer not to report his success to his boss.  That would keep me out of hot water.                Slayer finally blacked out his phone’s screen and put it in its holster.  He was professional again.  “Let us just say, El Baño will not live to flush another day.”                Sidling up to him, I became Slayer’s biggest confidante.  “Hey.  I wonder if I could talk you into taking joint credit for the hit.  You know?  Who is it you work for now?”                Slayer drew himself up proudly.  “The Bare Bones motorcycle club, but that is no secret.  Ford Illuminati would never tell me to curtail my social refreshments.  I do not miss out on assignments.  I am very punctual, and always report back promptly.”                “Yeah, speaking of that, have you reported in to Mr. Illuminati tonight?”                “Not yet.  It is three in the morning.  I would never be so rude.”                “Exactly.  You strike me as a very polite, well-mannered man.  According to the internet, your reputation that has soared far and wide rings in the streets.”                Slayer looked pleased and modest at the same time.  “Well.  I cannot deny it.  I have been sometimes labeled with the moniker ‘The Kindly Sicario.’  I have a gentlemanly way of not strewing the body parts all over the place as some messy people do.  Once I even pulled up some flowers nearby—“                “Wait.  Hang on.”                Fuck me dry.  It was Ortelio Jones, already harassing me about the evening’s activities.  I couldn’t very well pretend I was asleep and avoid the call, so I put my finger to my lips to tell Slayer to shut the fuck up, and answered.                “Isherwood here.”                “Fox,” said Jones grandly.  Contrary to his name, Ortelio Jones was Mexican, with roots deeply intertwined with the Sinaloan drug trade.  His compound was in Los Mochis.  I could tell by his tone that it was too late to take credit for Slayer’s kill.  “I have heard you had a little help tonight.”                “Well, yes.  Ah, that is true.”                His tone didn’t stay grand for long.  It only took a few seconds for it to rise to an irate level.  “Just the idea you’d need the help of that clown, Santiago Slayer, is a stain on the Jones name!”                “Well, ah, just so you know, I didn’t exactly ask for his help.  I didn’t even know he was in the area.”                It was as though Jones didn’t even hear me.  “Joder!  Now everyone knows it was that cabrón who buried El Baño, not us!  You are going to have to get El Pozolero, his right-hand man.”                “The Soup Maker.”  El Pozolero was so named due to his penchant for dissolving the bodies of his rivals in big soup pots.  “Just tell me when and where.”                Jones’ pause chilled me to the bone.  “You will have to cross into New Mexico.”                I didn’t want to tell him no.  Lord knows, I didn’t want to say no.  I had just been called on the carpet for messing up.  This was not something I was accustomed to.  But New Mexico?  Jones knew to set foot there spelled my doom.  “Ah, you must have other guys who can go there.  What about Armando Grillo, or El Ostión?”  He was called “The Oyster” because he rarely talked.                Jones let up on me.  “There is one way you can avoid New Mexico, my friend.”                My heart jumped.  Anything, anything.  Being a sicario was my entire world, my whole identity.  It was the only possible occupation for me after being forced to flee Taos.  Sure, I could’ve become a FedEx driver, a plumber, a waiter.  Anything was possible in this world.  But being a sicario was the only occupation that gave me the same salary and finesse as my old one.                “This will involve rubbing out a woman.”                “Fine, fine.”  I shouldn’t have been surprised I could kill a woman with no compunction.  Women had gotten me into this predicament to begin with.  “Who, where?”                “Her name is Flavia Brooks.  We’ve had word she’s living somewhere near Flagstaff working in a tuxedo rental store.”                That was oddly specific information for someone who had no known address.  “Nothing more on her location, then?”                “Nothing.  I will text you a photo shortly.  I want you to go up there and look around tuxedo rental places.”                “Sure thing, jefe.”                  I had a reprieve.  After hanging up, I opened the photo of Flavia Brooks (where did this photo come from?).   Dear Lord, she was savage beautiful.  Even a cold-hearted guy like myself had to admit that her caramel skin and bright electric blue eyes ringed in soot were straight out of a magazine’s pages.  Instantly I had second thoughts about burying this girl.  What the fuck could she have done?  Yet Jones didn’t make a name for himself randomly running around hitting people.  Briefly, I wondered if she was a reporter.  Then why was she working in a tux rental store?  Like me, maybe she was under deep cover.Then something occurred to me.  “Hey.  The Bare Bones MC—they’re up near Flagstaff, aren’t they?”Slayer nodded.  “Their mother charter is in Pure and Easy to the south, to be exact.  But they have a Flagstaff chapter.  They recently moved out of the Tucson area after their clubhouse blew up, so they no longer have a real presence down here.”I thought fast.  “Jones just told me to take a vacation.  To get my mojo back.  There are nice spots up there, aren’t there?”His eyes shined with zeal.  “Oh, the red rocks are simply amazing!  These sandstone rocks that have been beaten down for centuries…”Slayer’s voice sort of faded out as he continued raving about the geological strata of eons. A great horned owl had just glided soundlessly over our heads so close I could’ve swore I felt the beat of its wings, maybe twenty feet up.  I dove for my bike’s saddlebags, pissed that my birding binoculars were stuffed way down at the bottom.  I hadn’t used them in weeks, and by the time I fumbled with them and put them to my eyes, of course the owl was long gone.

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Take A LEAP IN THE DARK March 7!

A LEAP IN THE DARK, Book Two of THE ASSASSINS OF YOUTH MC series, will hit the shelves March 7th!


Kiss slowly.  Play hard.
Oaklyn:  That arrogant, loathsome bastard, leader of the Lost Boys, had the nerve to move to Avalanche.  Levon left behind his empire of sleaze to invade the tiny, sleepy town I’d decided to call home.  I wanted to get away from smut and abuse and into a fresh, innocent place where nobody knew my name, only to be followed right into my very house by the King of Corruption himself.I could handle it if he was physically gruesome.  But he struts around with his muscles bulging and his cornflower blue eyes sparkling.  I’m a nurse, a practical, sensible gal.  But when Levon needs my help, I put away my pride and come running.  And he’s going to need a lot of help to go up against the dirtbag Avalanche mayor, blackmailing Levon with his shameful past.
Levon:  She’s proud, conceited, and holier-than-thou—everything I hate in a woman.  But maybe it’s been too long since I had one, because when she steps up to the plate to help me, I’m doomed.  I had to knock her down a few pegs once she knew I wanted her.  Joining the Assassins of Youth motorcycle club and giving Oaklyn a few sessions over my knee just seemed to increase her yearning, though.She’s a sizzling hot tornado of a woman.  I need her to fight back against the fucking corrupt politicians in this town we’re trying to transform.  I might have come from a sordid, disgraceful background with my group of Lost Boys.  But I’m determined to move into the light and the purity that will make this town great.





Publisher’s Note:  This is a full-length, standalone novel with a HEA and no cliffhanger.  Possible triggers include male prostitution, mild consensual BDSM, sexual abuse, and crooked municipal blackmail.