Whistle's War E-Book

Monique Moreau

• Herausgeber: Moreau Imprint
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

A Mafia princess on the run. A Bratva prince turned biker. Will their love start a war? 

Tasa 

On the run from an arranged marriage, Tasa thought she’d found the perfect hide-out. 

After all, her eldest brother and head of her mafia family would never think to search for her in a club full of rough bikers. With her newfound freedom, the first thing on Tasa’s bucket list is to lose her virginity. The perfect specimen comes in the shape of a sexy biker with coal black hair and stunning turquoise eyes.

It was just her rotten luck to have chosen a man with a possessive streak a mile wide.
 
Whistle 

After escaping from his Russian Bratva family, Whistle became the resident fuck-up of the Demon Squad MC. For years, he’s tested his brothers’ loyalty with his drunken antics and brawls. Finally ready to grow up, he’ll prove he’s turned a new leaf by taking over the Squad Bar.

What he doesn’t expect is for the stutter in his heart when he lays eyes on their newest waitress. While Tasa may have the kind of sexiness a man would lay his life down for, nothing prepares him for the innocence he discovers right beneath the surface.

As a former denizen of the shadowy mafia underworld, he knows that virgins like her came with rules.

Rule number one: If you break her, you keep her.

Whistle is more than ready to do right by Tasa, if only she played by the rules and did what she was told. Instead, the little wild cat battles him tooth and nail for her hard-fought independence. But as her brother zeroes in on her, what starts out as a fight for her love turns into a war to protect her.

Will Tasa stop and stand by the man she loves or will she keep on running?

Leseprobe

Whistle’s War

A Bad Boy Biker Romance

Monique Moreau

Contents

Copyright

Meet Monique!

Author’s Note

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

More by Monique Moreau

Acknowledgments

Copyright © 2021 by Monique Moreau

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used factiously. Any resemblance to actual events or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Photo (c) Lindee Robinson Photography

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Author’s Note

You may be wondering what kind of book you just picked up. What’s all this talk of the Bratva and mafia in the blurb? Didn’t I pick up a bad boy biker romance novel? Well, yes, you did! This book has all the biker yumminess you’re used to reading from me, but it’s also a segue into a new Romanian mafia series I’m launching. For those who don’t read in the Mafia Romance genre, there are a few things I thought might be helpful to fill in the gaps.

First, there’s the Bratva, which is also known as the Russian or Red Mafia. It technically means “Brotherhood,” but in a different way than what “brotherhood” means to bikers. It’s the brotherhood of thieves, and their oath is centered on helping each other in the pursuit of criminal activities.

Second, the heroine, Tasa Lupu, is a princess of the Romanian mafia, or mafie, of which there isn’t a plethora of information. I’ve done a bit of research, and not finding enough details, I’ve let my imagination run wild and taken liberties by inventing rules and societal norms that I have not found any proof of in the real world. I’ve also given certain Romanian words special meaning within this unique world. I’ve introduced the Lupu clan, the main Romanian mafie family, whose center of power is in Sunnyside, Queens, in New York City. The surname Lupu does in fact mean “wolf” in Romanian, but I created the Lupu tat, a wolf baring its teeth, that is required of all members of the Lupu mafie clan.

One more thing, I wrote the novella, Her Bicycle Valentine, at the same time as I was writing Whistle’s War, so there’s an overlap of their stories. They can, of course, be read as stand-alones, but I just thought to warn you.

And with that, I’ll leave you to read on. I hope you enjoy Whistle and Tasa’s story as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.

Monique

One

Tasa checked the cell phone in her clenched hand for the hundredth time. Her excruciating audience with Alex in his upstairs office was over. Finally. Once again, her eldest brother had overreacted. Simply because he was the head of the family, he assumed he could rule over every single aspect of her life. The nerve of him, giving me an order like I’m a child.

Tasa fidgeted as she once again glanced out of the bay window of the Dacia Café, the center of her family’s world. She couldn’t wait for Nikki to pull up to the curb so she could get out of there before she stomped back up the stairs and wrung Alex’s neck. Leaning forward, she spotted the ubiquitous black Mercedes pulling up on the quiet 43rd Street. Quiet in comparison to Queens Boulevard, the bustling commercial center of Sunnyside, Queens.

From behind, she heard a scuffling sound. Her mother moved forward, giving her a quick last hug from behind. Twisting around in her seat, Tasa returned her embrace and lifted her left cheek for a quick peck. “See you later, Mama.”

A stern frown descended on her face as she gently chided her mother, “I’m not happy that you didn’t stick up for me once with Alex. He’s such a brute.”

Her mother caressed her hair. “Darling, you have to settle down. You’re too energetic, and you’ll be graduating in the spring. It’d be one thing if you wanted to pursue a career in opera, but we know that’s not your desire. What better way to move on to the next phase of your life but with a husband? Because with a husband, soon comes children.”

That last part was the crux of her mother’s never-ending argument.

Tasa rolled her eyes. “Always with the children.”

“Children give meaning to a woman’s life,” her mother crooned.

“Not every woman,” she grumbled under her breath, but the Mercedes was pulling up to the curb, and really, she had zero energy to continue this endless discussion. It’s not as if her mother ever budged an inch from her notions of femininity and womanhood, all of which circled around being a wife and mother. Rather, she cudgeled her only daughter with them. Sure, that had worked out fine for her mother. She’d married the love of her life. Growing up in a small village in the valley of the Carpathian Mountains, she’d been utterly fulfilled by her role, but that wasn’t Tasa. Not that anyone in her family seemed to care. She could’ve escaped those expectations with the opera. While she was a decent alto, she wasn’t any more interested in pursuing an intensive career in the opera than she was in shackling herself to a man at the age of twenty.

Hitching her Dolce & Gabbana handbag over her shoulder, Tasa slipped out of the café, leaving behind the clinking of porcelain coffee cups on small saucers, and took in a deep breath of brisk, cold winter air.

Yanking the Mercedes passenger door open, she slid onto the leather seat with a sigh of relief.

“Tasa, are you trying to get me in trouble?” griped Nikki, giving her a side-glance with a small scowl.

“Oh, hush, and just drive if you don’t want him catching you,” she replied. Her control freak of a brother believed a princess like her shouldn’t be seen in the front seat, beside her chauffeur-slash-bodyguard. There was a certain level of decorum to maintain. For Nikki’s sake, she usually took the back seat when she came home to visit, but she was holding on to her temper by the thinnest of threads as it was.

“Dragă mea—”

Oh, sweetheart. Nikki always resorted to his mother tongue when he was upset.

“Don’t dragă mea,” she snapped as she dragged the seat belt over her chest and clipped it in. She didn’t need his pity, the primary sentiment coming off his endearment. “Hit the accelerator already so we can get out of this godforsaken neighborhood. Then he won’t see you.”

He squeezed her knee briefly. His hand didn’t linger, but Tasa was well aware of Nikki’s feelings. It was only natural he should crush on her. After all, they spent so much time together, and she’d finally grown into her figure.

But he’d never cross the line. He might be family, but she was a princess. A princess was supposed to marry a prince. Gag. The thought of Cristo made her stomach turn. He was a good enough guy, if you were into the clean-cut bro type. Well, as close a version to that as a mafie prince could get. She’d known him since they were in diapers. Being only a few years older than her, they hung out in the same scene. The idea of kissing him was about as appealing as kissing her twin brother, Nicu. And Cristo was half in love with his little side piece, a cute girl named Una. There was no way she was marrying a guy who was already in love with another woman. She didn’t expect him to give up on Una, and Tasa wasn’t the sharing type. Of course, she couldn’t divulge any of this to Alex. If he found out, Cristo would be in trouble with his old man. More importantly, she was afraid of her own reaction if her brother responded the way she predicted. What, Tasa? You think men are loyal. You think Tata never cheated on Mama?

Grrr.

Seriously, the less she knew about the way mafie men lived their lives, the better. A second family was probably out there somewhere, with kids who sported the same deep-brown eyes as she and her beloved father. She shook her head. Again, not something she wanted to know. With three overbearing brothers, she didn’t need additional stepsiblings creeping out of the woodwork. She could barely breathe as it was, with the ones surrounding her.

Nicu was her other half in many ways, but he was far from perfect. And he got to live a normal life because he was a male and he was Alex’s good little soldier boy. Luca, her middle brother, might be the black sheep, but he had all the liberties he could possibly want. Pressing her lips together, she focused her gaze outside the window at the passing brick townhouses. Her eyes began to burn. Luca. She sighed, as she often did when she thought of him. Such a tortured soul, with everything so bottled up inside.

That one, she was going to miss.

“What’s wrong, babe?” Nikki asked. “What happened in there?”

She let out a weary sigh.

“What do you think happened?”

She’d gotten her marching orders.

“Be a good little girl and fall in line like everyone else. The Lupu family are a bunch of empty-headed dunces, all walking to the tune of their pied piper, Alexandru Lupu,” she grumbled.

The Lupul, or the Wolf, as people called him, was the puppet master, pulling the strings of the mafia family from America to Paris, Milan, Bucharest, and beyond.

Blood was blood.

Duty was duty.

Orders were orders.

Blah, blah, blah. She felt like gagging after the number of times she’d heard that litany throughout her life.

“Sorry, babe. When he gets an idea into his head, he won’t let it go.”

“You can say that again,” she conceded as she swiped at a rogue tear. “I’m impressed you even went that far.” It was unusual for Nikki to say anything against Alex. Suggesting stubbornness, while completely accurate, was borderline betrayal in a secret society where loyalty was the be-all and end-all. Another reason Nikki had never so much as tried to kiss her. It wasn’t even the idea that he might be murdered for such an infraction. He’d simply never cross that line. Lupu allegiance was implacable.

He may not have been born a Lupu, but she knew there was some sort of ancient, secret blood ceremony that made him as good as blood. Fucking her would be the equivalent of incest, regardless of what the tenting in his pants told her. Considering she wasn’t in love with Nikki any more than she was with Cristo, she didn’t push it.

That, and she didn’t want to get Nikki killed.

“He catches me at one club and comes down like a dictator,” she grumbled.

“Babe … it was the kind of club. And the fact that you escaped from me. You could’ve gotten killed … or worse. What were you thinking?”

Nikki was talking about the sex club she’s gone to with her best friend, Nina. So sue them; they were curious little virgins. Unfortunately, Alex had found the selfie Nina posted, sitting at the iconic bar. A selfie that included part of Tasa’s shoulder, which bared her Lupu tat of a wolf. In the darkness and the strobe lights, Nina hadn’t noticed and posted the pic. A pic Alex happened to view on her Instagram feed.

Oh, boy, did all hell break loose that night. And so began the lockdown. Other than attending her classes at Juilliard, she could go to the apartment she shared with Nina and home in Sunnyside. That was it. Now, she couldn’t even shake Nikki off her tale.

But if everything went according to plan, things would be irrevocably changed in a few short days. She wasn’t a Lupu for nothing, and as her tata had always said, “You have to fight for what you want in this life.”

Damn straight.

He wasn’t the only relentless person in her family. For instance, it took her for-ev-er to get any action between the sheets, but she’d managed in the end. It had taken seducing one of her vocal instructors to finally learn her way around the male body.

At the end of the day,she’d kept her virginity intact, something she was coming to regret. Her verdict, after her little adventure, was that sex was way overrated.

Which is why she’d ended up in Tribeca at the infamous sex club NSFW with Nina. Her curiosity had been piqued by the idea of something beyond vanilla. She’d already done every vanilla thing on her non-intercourse sex bucket listduring her brief affair and had walked away with little enthusiasm. A few hours at the sex club, on the other hand, and she’d seen things that made her toes curl.

Nikki dropped her off at the lobby of the high-rise on 68th Street overlooking the Hudson and went to park the car in the underground parking. Entering the apartment she shared with Nina, she dropped her keys in the little crystal-cut bowl on the small Louis XVI wooden table in the vestibule. Part of the deal of getting the apartment near Juilliard, instead of commuting from Queens every day, was to have Nina come live with her and to have her mother decorate their apartment. Of course, she’d decorated it like a Prussian aristocrat from the mid-nineteenth century. Hence the old-people’s furniture scattered around their apartment like at an auction house instead of posters of Degas dancers or Callas like in the Juilliard student dorms.

The apartment’s best feature was the wall of windows overlooking an unimpeded view of the Hudson and the Jersey coast beyond. Throwing her coat over another atrociously overwrought sofa, Tasa kicked off her high heels and threw herself down beside Nina.

“How was it?” asked Nina without bothering with a greeting. A little furrow dug between her dark, fine winged brows.

“Jellie, are you?”

“Over Alex? Hardly,” she scoffed. “I’d never be jealous of you.”

“Mm-hmm,” replied Tasa noncommittally, tossing waves of her long brown hair over her shoulder. Nina was head-over-heels in love with Alex, although she felt the need to deny it in deference to their friendship. They’d been best friends since the day Nina tottered across the broken sidewalk from her house to Tasa as a toddler. While Tasa had the ability to get Nina out of her shell and Nina was her number-one partner in crime, her friend was really a gentle soul inside.

“He’s like a brother to me,” muttered Nina.

Double lie.

“Just because we joke that we must’ve been switched at birth in no way means there’s a shred of sibling-like feelings between the two of you,” Tasa fired back.

God knows both of them would’ve had easier childhoods if they’d been brought up by the other’s household. Nina’s mother was a badass who prodded Nina to take life by the balls, while Tasa’s mother continually bemoaned her daughter’s lack of ladylike manners. At least Tasa had Bunica, her grandmother, to serve as a buffer between her and her mother and Alex.

“It was disastrous. I swear the man thinks he’s my father, and he acts worse than a tyrant. Besides the boring lecture about my reputation, which I truly think he actually believed, he gave me an ultimatum. Either the opera or marriage … to Cristo.”

While this was no huge surprise, Nina’s eyes squeezed together in commiseration.

“No,” she breathed out. Nina’s loyalty was solidly behind Tasa, but she always believed the best in Alex, no matter how irrational he acted. Which was why Tasa had to keep every detail of her upcoming jailbreak from Nina. It hurt to lie, but realistically, the woman would crumble in under five minutes in Alex’s presence.

The theoretical scene played out in her mind. Alex would wrap his arm around Nina’s shoulder, bringing her in tight to his side to woo her into feeling safe with him. Nina, a softie to her core, would instantly melt against him. She’d look up at him, batting those absurdly long lashes of hers. He’d grace her with one of his beatific angel-slash-devilish smiles, and she’d turn into a puddle of goo. Game over. She’d gush like a bad oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Tasa clenched her fists. Pathetic. Her oldest brother got everything he wanted, anytime he wanted.

But not this time.

If she had any hope of escaping her predicament, she had to play it smart. And Tasa could pride herself on that much at least. She may not be respectful or obedient, but she was nothing if not conniving. She’d been fantasizing about this for years and plotting its execution for months.

“You always expect him to act decently,” she reprimanded Nina, laying her arm over the intricately carved, gilded wood curling up from the top of the couch. Her eyes drifted toward the windows, sunlight splashing through the panes and highlighting the jewel-like colors of the Persian rug across the floor. That was another thing about Romanians. Rugs everywhere. Almost every inch of their apartment was covered in intricate silk rugs.

“He’s a decent guy inside. Granted, you have to dig deep sometimes, but he disappoints me when he acts like this. I expect better from him.”

Tasa let out a little snort. “Good luck with that. He’s such a hypocrite. The bedroom in his apartment is a revolving door of women, but he expects me to remain chaste and turn my virginity and life over to my husband at his command. As if.”

“Well, there’s the other option.”

“Yes, be part of the bastion of high culture. What about giving me a chance to figure out what I want to do? I’m only twenty years old. You’d think I’d be given a few years to live. To travel the world and explore. Who knows, maybe I want to be a fashion designer.”

Nina tipped her head to the side, her lips pressed together to suppress a laugh. Nina wouldn’t dare laugh in her face. She was too polite and kind for that. “Do you?”

“No.” Tasa huffed. “What about an organic-apple farmer in Upstate New York? Does it matter? The point is that because he has the imagination of a flea, he’s only come up with two options, and I’m forced to follow one of those. It’s arbitrary and absurd and … and … insane! Like him!”

Another thing she’d never told Nina. That she’d changed her major to experimental dance. Her family would have conniptions if she turned away from a refined career singing opera to experimental performance art, or what they’d mockingly describe as twisting and flopping around like a dying fish on the floor.

“It’s because he was so young when he was thrust into his position as head of your family and of that business empire,” defended Nina. “It doesn’t help that your brothers immediately knew they wanted to follow in his footsteps.”

“It’s not like we don’t live in the twenty-first century,” she threw out.

“You know he doesn’t think that way. Your parents instilled in him the same idea every immigrant has. Come here and make something of yourself. You can’t just have a random job. No, you have to be a doctor, a lawyer, or something crazy impressive like alto for the Metropolitan Opera.”

Fiddling with the two tassels dangling from her silk blouse, Tasa muttered, “Whatever.”

Nina peered into her face, watching her with a concerned expression. “So, what are you going to do?”

“I have no idea. I have one more semester at Juilliard. That gives me a little more time of freedom.”

Liar.

Tasa knew exactly what she was going to do. She’d checked with the bursar’s office, and after three weeks of school, she could get fifty percent of her $30,000 tuition refunded to her bank account if she withdrew. And that was exactly what she was going to do. Then she’d disappear and make her way to the source of cutting-edge experimental dance, Madame Pierrette’s dance company in Montreal, Canada. Everyone who knew anything knew of the notoriously exclusive workshop she hosted every spring. A workshop Tasa got accepted into. It was close to a miracle and she wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity of a lifetime. Alex be damned.

Two

Whistle heard the clang of the last set of the metal doors of Duchess County Jail rattle behind him. Squinting against the glare of the bright morning sun, he lifted his hand to shield his eyes and scanned the parking lot. His gaze halted on Hoodie at the far end of the lot. Leaning against his Harley, legs crossed at the ankles, he was smoking a spliff. It wasn’t even ten in the morning.

Letting out a soft chuckle, Whistle shook his head. That brother was as dismissive of authority as he was. In a government parking lot right outside the jailhouse, and he was exhaling an extra-large puff of smoke to add to the cloud of sweet-smelling ganga already hanging over him. Beside him was Whistle’s bike. Now that they’d been patched in for a couple of years, it was their turn to order prospects around. Knowing Hoodie, he got a prospect to ride Whistle’s bike over, then handed him a couple of dollars and politely instructed him to fuck off and take the bus back to the clubhouse.

Glancing over his shoulder toward the jail, Whistle frowned. He didn’t like leaving Puck in the slammer alone, but the Squad’s sergeant at arms had given him his orders and told him to get out once his bail was paid.

“You did what you could for him,” Hoodie answered Whistle’s unspoken concern as he clasped his hand and moved in for a man hug.

Swinging a leg over his Roadster, Whistle opened his hand and wiggled his fingers for Hoodie to throw him his keys. A second later, the engine of his bike was purring beneath him. Damn, he’d missed that sound. “Doesn’t make it any easier to leave him there. ’Course he told me to get the hell out of there and go the fuck on home. Called me a liability to his ass in jail.”

“You are a pretty boy,” drawled Hoodie as if it was obvious as fuck why he’d be a danger in jail.

“Fuck you, asshole. Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“Never yours, motherfucker,” he grunted. A lie, of course. But that’s how it was between them, and Whistle wouldn’t have it any other way. If Cutter and Puck were like fathers to him, then Hoodie was the brother he wished he’d always had. Hoodie might be rough around the edges, but he had the soul of an artist, whereas Whistle’s blood brothers imitated all things civilized but were animals to their depraved core.

Yeah, he was used to being called a pretty boy. Hell, he couldn’t help the way he looked. The unusual turquoise tint of his eyes had women and men stumbling in their steps. God knows he’d wanted to ruin his looks and tat up his face like Post Malone, but Hoodie had stopped him every time. Said it wasn’t his place to fuck up the face God had given him. Whistle looked at him askance whenever he said that; it wasn’t like the fucker believed in any type of god. Hoodie always went on to add that if the club was ever hard up for cash, they could send him out on the streets to make a living with his dick. Hardy-har-har. Fucking hilarious. Asshole.

Seriously, though, Hoodie was his other half. They couldn’t have been brought up in more different circumstances. Hoodie had been tortured by his parents, as almost every inch of the skin on his chest and back could attest to. Whistle, on the other hand, had been coddled by a smothering mother, a near prisoner in a mansion in Brighton Beach, the Brooklyn neighborhood bastion of Russian immigrants and, more importantly, the Bratva.

“Any of the men try anything, you being so pretty and all?” Hoodie smirked.

“Ya know, the usual. Ended up in the hole for a week for fighting. It’s good to be out, brother. That was the least enjoyable stint in the pen I’ve had to date, and fuck knows, I’ve been in there too many times to count.”

Nodding, Hoodie clapped him on the shoulder. “Some of the bitches are waitin’ at the clubhouse to celebrate your release.”

“I gotta stop and get Loki’s roll-up futon first. My orders are to move into the Squad Bar. Puck wants me there day and night to watch the place. Keep it above water until he gets out. Could be a while.”

Unlike his father and two older brothers, who were members of the Bratva and saw him as yet another disposable human weapon, the Squad brothers treated him like family. And he was going to start reciprocating. Having grown up in a tight-knit, enclosed community, before he became a violin prodigy and was forced to be homeschooled, he appreciated the Squad for giving him back what he’d had for a few blissful years as a kid.

Hoodie’s eyebrows lifted. “You seriously gonna sleep there?”

“Yup. There’s an office in the back. Seems like there’s a thief to catch.”

“And Puck thinks your dumb ass is the one who’s gonna catch him?” Hoodie sputtered before busting out a loud guffaw.

“You got any better ideas? You gonna go instead of me?”

“Hard pass, brother,” replied Hoodie. “I slept enough nights on the hard pavement. Get ugly flashbacks if I sleep on anything other than a bed nowadays.”

“Spoiled brat,” Whistle teased. Hoodie had been found by Kingdom and a few brothers one night, living rough on the streets. Dressed only in a hoodie. Hence his road name. It was around the same time Whistle had showed up at the clubhouse. Both underage, both running from their own version of hell. They’d hung around, doing whatever the brothers asked of them, until Prez allowed them to officially prospect. Whistle had kinks to work out, which he did with drinkin’ and fightin’. Hoodie reacted in the opposite manner. Kept to himself. When they’d first brought him in, he refused to leave the clubhouse property for months on end.

Now that Whistle had turned twenty-two years old, it was time to put the fucking around behind him. Puck’s one-and-only lecture, while they were in the pen together, hit him square in the solar plexus. It was time to grow the fuck up and take on responsibilities. After a decade of grueling violin practice routines and touring, once he joined the Demon Squad MC, he’d had a lot of living to make up for. Now, Puck was in a difficult situation, and after years of messing around, it was time to man up.

Hoodie extinguished the blunt between his fingers and tucked it into the front pocket of his leather biker jacket. “Sage’s a good egg. Got you out on your birthday. The big double two. Whatcha wanna do tonight?”

“What the fuck do you think?”

It was a rhetorical question. Hoodie knew. Drink and fuck. What else?

“Anyone in particular?” Hoodie asked.

“Yup, the first one. I’m that particular,” Whistle joked. He always took the first woman to hit him up when he walked through the clubhouse door. That was his rule: first one on him had him for the night. Kept things simple and nipped any potential catfights in the bud. He didn’t have problems getting laid, but he liked the club biker bitches the best. There was an understanding; no talking necessary. He liked to give them a little extra attention by letting them sleep in his bed for the night. When he first came around the clubhouse, he’d done it to get them used to him since he was such a goddamn mess. Years later, he was among their favorites.

After their errands, he and Hoodie parked along the row of bikes, sauntered past the fence, and entered the clubhouse property. The club owned the building situated on a residential street corner, with empty lots on either side. The empty lots had been the main selling point for the property, and so far, no one had built on them. Not that the neighborhood was known for new constructions. Eventually, the plan was to buy the two lots and expand. But for that to happen, their current businesses had to be in the black. The Box, their boxing and MMA gym, was doing well. Their online merchandising business was pumping. The Squad Bar, however, was sinking like a pile of concrete thrown over the Walkway in the Hudson River.

“Yo, Whistle. Good to see you, brother,” sounded Brick, the prospect on duty, with an enthusiastic whoop. Unlike the other brothers, who routinely gave the prospects shit, Whistle too easily remembered his prospecting days to give them too hard a time. After sharing a bro hug, he followed Hoodie into the clubhouse.

Immediately upon entering, there was a loud ruckus of shouts as the brothers and bitches spotted him. Cassie and Jazz jumped off their stools and ran for him, wrapping their arms on either side of him. He noted that Jazz got to him first, which meant she’d won him for the night. He extricated himself from being smothered by the bitches. Planting his lips on Cassie’s mouth, he released her and made it clear that Jazz was his partner by hooking an arm around her neck and pulling her close.

“I got to you first, Whistle,” Cassie whined.

“Good try, but you so didn’t, bitch,” Jazz shot back.

“Hey,” Whistle chided with a soft chuckle. As attractive as he was, the women rarely argued over the men. Must be the inmate thing that got them riled up. “Next time, babe. You know I don’t like fighting, and I’m an hour out of jail.”

Cassie dropped a last kiss on his mouth. “Aww, Whistle, we heard how you got arrested to keep Puck company.” She batted her eyelashes. “Sure you don’t wanna share?”

Dark eyes narrowed, Jazz cut in, “I don’t want to share, so back off.”

“Fine,” Cassie conceded and, pivoting on her heel, stomped back to the bar.

Jazz and he were old friends. Old fuck buddies, too, since the day she showed up, young and new. Taking a stool, he patted his knee for her to sit on it and asked Whiskey, who was bartending, for a beer. Flicking her dreads over her shoulder, she settled on his lap. One thing was for sure, that the woman had the finest ass in the clubhouse. She was a shapely little thing with mocha skin and bright brown eyes.

“How was it in there, brah?” asked Cutter, his vice-president.

“It is what it was. We both ended up in the hole for fighting. ’Course, the fucker blamed it on me, but there was gonna be a throw down, what with it being his first time.”

Cutter shifted his old lady, Greta, to his other knee and clapped Whistle on the shoulder. “Fucking finally, I can say with pride that you’re an asset to the club.”

Whistle grunted. Cutter hadn’t always felt that way. Before he’d gotten a lockdown on Greta, Whistle used to flirt with her when he’d stop by the law office where she worked with Sage, the president’s old lady. He had no idea Cutter was into her, and when she rebuffed Cutter’s advances, he took his frustration out on Whistle. It was around the time Whistle had patched in, and he’d expected to be treated like an equal, not like a little bitch. Cutter eventually calmed his shit down once Greta became his old lady, but Whistle had moved his allegiance to Puck.

That’s why he’d purposely got into a bar fight after Puck got arrested for beating up the ex-husband of one of the club bitches. There was a simple and easy way to see Puck safe in the county jail. Unfortunately, it wasn’t by normal means. Only took a few hours to get processed and shoved into a police van transporting him to the Duchess County Jail, where he could be by Puck’s side.

Grabbing the neck of the bottle that landed in front of him, Whistle took a sip and nuzzled his face into Jazz’s neck. Although he was glad to see his brothers, there’d be time enough to catch up later.

Prodding Jazz to stand, he ordered, “Come on.”

They ascended to his room on the second floor. He shoved the door open and swept her inside. Her back slammed against the wall, and he followed her body, not breaking the suction of their mouths. Jazz was one of the few women he actually kissed. Good friends allowed for that without any misunderstandings.

He tossed her on his unmade bed. Landing on her back, she propped herself up on her elbows and tossed her head back with a throaty laugh.

Unbuckling his belt, he commanded her, “Play with your tits.”

Yanking down her tube top, she let her perky breasts pop out. Her top shimmied down her torso, and she jiggled them at him. Whistle palmed his hardening cock beneath his jeans. “You want this? Let me see it.”

She jerked her stretchy mini skirt out of the way, brought her knees up, and dropped them open. Not only was she not wearing panties, but she was showing off her newly shaved pussy, slit wet and dripping for him. Jazz was quick to get fired up, and he liked that about her.

He tsked. “Such a naughty, naughty girl.” He unbuttoned his Levi’s, and his cock sprang out, raring to go. After weeks of no fucking, he was hard as a rock. Dropping to the bed, he played with her pussy as he pumped his cock.

“Whistle, stop teasing me,” she moaned.

“Grab a rubber,” he ordered. She reached over to his nightstand, rattling the drawer in her impatience to get to his stash. Pulling out a string of condoms, she ripped the top one open with her teeth. Swaying it teasingly between her thumb and forefinger in front of him, she bent over and wrapped her lips around his cock.

Whistle groaned.

Fuck, that felt good.

Finally pulling her mouth off him, she rolled the condom down.

He took hold of the backs of her thighs, wrapped her legs around his waist, and thrust inside. Motherfucker, it’d been enough time. Occasionally, he went without sex for a couple of weeks, but it never felt as bad as it did when spent in the slammer. Caging her between his arms, he took the dark bead of her nipple into his mouth as he pounded into her. She grabbed at his hair as he went savage on her. They’d been together enough times that he knew what she needed to tip her over. His thumb pressed down on her clit while his other hand landed a few quick slaps on her ass.

Within minutes, she was screaming his name and her pussy was milking him. He squeezed her tits roughly to trigger aftershocks, and she bore down on him harder. His thrusts lost their steady pace, and the metal bed frame slammed against the wall as he came. Groaning, he rocked in and out haphazardly as he emptied himself into the condom.

A bead of sweat rolled down the midline of his chest, and Jazz leaned forward to lick it off. Sweet gesture on her part but Whistle never felt anything the instant his balls were drained.

As bad as he might want to roll over and crash like the dead, he tried respecting the girls by not tossing them out of bed right after he was done. That was a play out of his brothers’ or father’s playbook, and he swore never to be like them. Pulling out, he disposed of the condom and began to shuck off his clothes.

“You’re so damn beautiful, you know that?” Jazz commented. She hadn’t moved from her position, but her eyes gazed down his long frame.

“Yeah, Jazz,” he scoffed. “You say that every time.”

“Every time I see you naked, it takes my breath away. Seriously, it’s sick.”

“For fuck’s sake,” he grumbled. “You stayin’ or what?”

“Nah, it’s barely afternoon and you look wrecked. I’ll go back downstairs and let you rest.” Her eyes clouded over. “Was it that bad in there?”

“It’s never easy, that’s for fucking sure. There’s always noise, but not like here. When there’s noise here, you know people are drinking and having fun. There, you don’t know if someone’s plotting to stick their dick up your ass or a shank down your throat. You never sleep in peace.”

Swiping the back of his hand over his burning eyes, he prodded her over and crawled into bed. She stood up, rearranged her clothes, and gave him a peck on the lips. “I’ll let you sleep.”

“Thank Christ. Tomorrow I start staying overnights at the bar. I’d like to sleep in a fucking bed before I have to share with the rodents on the floor.”

“Eww,” she replied with a small shudder of her shoulders.

He plumped the pillow under his head and turned to face the wall. Sex took the edge off, but he wasn’t left satiated, and despite his fatigue, his thoughts bounced around like balls in a pinball machine. This casual shit wasn’t doing it for him anymore. What the hell that meant, he had no idea ‘cause he sure as hell had no intention of taking an old lady. That was a ball and chain he refused to touch with a ten-foot pole. But there was no denying that changes were a-brewing. First, the urge to step up in the club. Now, a good fuck session didn’t leave him any more relaxed than before.

Jazz pulled the curtains closed and clicked the light off, plunging him in semi-darkness. His eyes dropped closed as the door shut softly behind him, but it took more than the usual amount of time before his mind settled down and he finally nodded off to sleep.

Three

$11,840

That was not a lot of money. Much less than Tasa had anticipated, for sure. She let out a frustrated sigh as she considered the cash in her Hermes backpack. She should be grateful she had that much. It would set her up in Canada, preferably somewhere high up near the tundra where no one could find her. Looking out the window of the Greyhound bus, dressed in the only pair of jeans she owned, she let herself breathe freely for the first time. It would be at least five or six hours before anyone noticed she was missing.

A stunning feeling of elation vibrated in her chest. She’d done it. She’d gotten away.

Her eyes skidded over the Hudson River, glistening in the mid-morning sun. The crests sparkled white over the ripples of marine-blue and slate-gray below the bridge the bus was crossing. An expanse of blue sky, as far as the eye could see, called to her.

She was free to do anything she wanted. Anything. Imagine that.