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Best way to get over a guy was to get under a new one, right?
🤣🤣
I was a successful, twenty-three-year-old businesswoman and the head of a crime syndicate. I was a cold-blooded killer and a merciless bitch to anyone who crossed me. To everyone who'd met me or heard of me in the years since my family's near massacre, I was all of those things rolled into one intimidating, fear-inducing name. Hades. The leader of the Tri-State Timberwolves.
Years ago, I’d discovered how easily intimidated people could be by silence and an unblinking stare. I didn’t need to threaten, insult, or curse. My silence did all the work for me in unnerving people.
“This was a bad idea,” he spat, but the way he met my eyes implied he meant more than just applying for the job. Ouch. If I still had my soul, that one might hurt.
“I suppose I should be grateful, then? Is that how you audition all your new employees?” Zed let out a small sound, like he was almost impressed by this guy’s balls. No one spoke to me in that tone, then lived to tell the tale.
Apparently executing a brutal, bloodthirsty massacre and personally slitting my father’s throat hadn't done shit to change the teasing dynamic between my best friend and me.
"I never picked you for a sub, Hades. You legitimately ooze big dick energy worse than any gangster I've met. I can't imagine you giving up control in any situation." I sighed. "Sometimes, Zed, I get tired. Sometimes I need a break from being me." I paused then added. "Doesn't make me a sub, though. Only makes me want Cass to throw me around his bedroom."
Typical Zed, he never missed an opportunity to play white knight. Some things never changed, and I would never want them to.
He'd even taken my shoes off for me but left my clothes intact. Smart man. He might be the closest thing I had to a best friend, but I wouldn't hesitate to kill him if I ever felt threatened.
needed a shower, clean clothes, and a lobotomy.
Hayden Darling Timber was my birth name, and for all my legal businesses I was Daria Wolff, CEO of Copper Wolf Enterprises.
I groaned. Now I really did need to get dressed and sort out some makeup. I needed my whole game face on to deal with Cassiel fucking Saint so fucking soon after being coldly rejected by the sexy bastard.
If it were any other friend, I’d send a protective detail with her. But Madison Kate Wittenberg was one of the only people I trusted to actually keep my little sister safe. It helped that she was surrounded by three of the most dangerous bastards in the western states… aside from me and mine, that was.
I flipped her off, sassy brat, and she blew a kiss back at me. That in itself summed up our dynamic. She was all sweetness, innocence, and light, and I… well, I was a borderline sociopath with more blood on my hands than most convicted serial killers.
My favorite gun, a Desert Eagle, was not even vaguely concealed in an underarm holster, but just for good measure, I took my blazer off. Underneath I wore just a thin, red silk camisole, black lace bra, and a gun. Sexy dangerous was my whole vibe... especially when I knew I'd be seeing Cass.
"And a Desert Eagle, that's one great big old pistol. I mean, fifty caliber made by badass Hebrews"
No, it wasn’t the worst drug on the market but my personal history with PCP made me issue a blanket ban on the sale of it within my territory.
Damn, he had nice hands, inked-up and strong with prominent veins. Why was that so damn sexy on guys?
Ughh seriously
"None of your business, Cass. You made it pretty clear that we're business associates and nothing more, so I'm certainly not going to chitchat about the incredible dick I got last night."
God I love her
The sexy fucker towered over me, even in my stiletto heels, but we both knew who was the bigger threat in the room. Spoiler alert: It wasn't him.
7th
The 7th circle of hell, also called the Hell of the Violent and Bestial, is described in cantos twelve through seventeen of Dante Alighieri's "Inferno." It includes three rounds of sins of violence: the violence against neighbors, the violence against themselves, and the violence against God, Nature, and Art.
Also damn near stopping my heart. How the fuck was he affecting me so hard? This wasn't a sappy vampire romance novel.
Hahaha
I liked to keep my fingers in every pie possible, with the exception of those I'd traded to Archer D'Ath for his help five years ago.
My father had sent me to a training camp for killers before I even hit puberty, then I foolishly ended up engaged to my first boyfriend before I was even fifteen.
Pain barely even registered on my radar these days, and even if it did, this kind of pain would still be welcomed.
“You’re different from other guys around here, Lucas. Why is that?” I didn’t mean it as an accusation, more a compliment, but I was genuinely curious about this angelic man who’d fallen into my lap when I needed him the most.
“Dinosaur, Colorado. Not even joking, that’s what it’s called.
It's true! Love my home state
“but I feel like I’m sixty-three. Criminal life is stressful, Lucas. Don’t get mixed up in that shit if you can avoid it.”
But the most likely culprit, the one who might want to send a message to me... he was dead. I'd shot him myself. So who the fuck was playing the part of his ghost?
"You gonna kill him, boss?" Zed asked, with curiosity. Was I? My natural instinct was to eliminate the potential threat, and if Lucas turned out to have any ties to Chase Lockhart, then he was already a dead man walking. Yet somehow, it just wasn't sitting right in my gut.
Either Joseph was a cop or he was a spy. Or both. Either way, Skate had brought a snake into my lair. "Joseph," I repeated. The dude just shrugged, exuding way too much confidence. "Never got around to picking a cool gang name." Bull. Shit.
Aim for the stars and land on the moon, my mother used to say.
While not technically a gang leader, Archer D'Ath held enough power in Shadow Grove to be granted a place in this room of criminal kingpins.
Where death and violence didn’t always motive obedience, threatening their bottom line usually worked.
"Who says I was teasing, Hades? Maybe I just regret my choice the other night." Get fucked. He did not just say that.
I looked like Seph. Until you looked into my eyes, that was, and saw how truly dead inside I had become.
"You'll thank me one day, Seph. Guys should treat you like the queen you are, not get you drunk and fuck you in the back of their dad’s Porsche after some rich douchebag’s party."
possibly could, even with me as her sister. "He's kinda new," Seph told me after another long pause, "and so freaking hot; he has the whole cheer squad falling all over him."
$100 says it is Lucas
Chase goddamn Lockhart, my first love and Zed’s best friend.
"Hey, thank you so much; you—" His polite thanks cut off abruptly as our eyes met in the rearview mirror. My lips parted in shock, and he froze. Just froze.
I fucking knew it!!!!
Zed and I quietly joked that she was the Mary Poppins of the crime world. She was always so prim and proper, despite managing money from sex workers and drug deals.
I knew Sonny-boy hadn't been a coincidence. Still, did it all have to happen at once? Didn't mysterious bad guys ever take a break for normal life?
Why the hell should it be so different if Lucas was the younger one? So long as he was, in fact, legal. If I found out he was actually seventeen, I might have to put myself into witness protection from myself.
now I was regretting that choice. Especially when “Pony” by Genuwine came on and the crowd went mental. "Oh, come on," I groaned, then promptly turned my CCTV monitors on. Yes, I was that level of masochistic. No, I didn't care when there was no one around to witness me self-destruct.
He didn't look even the slightest bit worried that he might not walk out of the office alive, and I still wasn't sure if that was total ignorance or the biggest balls in the goddamn world.
"Yeah, like I said, can you blame me? That was easily the best night of my whole damn life, only to be topped by the next day at your place."
He was totally a virgin
It was such a bad idea. But Jo’d had a point earlier... so long as he was legal, age was just a number. And I wasn't exactly a cougar, either. So was it really such a bad idea?
It's five years. Same as my husband and I. Nbd.
Mentally, I wrote a quick eulogy for my panties because they'd officially drowned.
"If you hadn't already shot Chase in the head, I'd want to kill that bastard myself,"
I shouldn't have been surprised; he wouldn't be the first guy to be intimidated by a powerful woman. Aunt Demi liked to joke that was half the reason she had ended up marrying a woman.
