AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I rolled my eyes. “Fine, don’t tell me.” This guy was so damn frustrating. He shot me up with H, dumped me in the shower, humiliated me, washed me, but wouldn’t tell me his name. Whatever. I turned my back to him.
Big mistake.
Two large hands wrapped around my shoulders, and I was jerked back against his body once more. Both of us were currently clad only in towels, his slung low around his waist and mine tucked under my armpits. There wasn’t as much skin-on-skin contact as in the shower, but this felt much more intimate. Slowly, Boss spun me around to face him, and I had to muffle a frightened cry. His blue eyes were narrowed to slits, nostrils flaring. The transformation from playful to furious was immediate and absolutely terrifying. For the first time since I’d showed up on his lawn, I was truly, without a doubt, scared shitless.
This man, the one in front of me—so different from the man who laughed in the shower—is what I expected from the drug lord I heard rumors about. Horrible rumors of unspeakable acts of violence. A ruthless man to be respected and feared.
Boss pressed the length of his half-naked body against me, and growled, teeth glinting behind curled lips. “That’s the second time you turned your back on me after mouthing off. I’m only going to say this once more, Miri, so listen carefully.” He lowered his head and his breath ghosted across my neck. I shuddered and a whimper escaped my throat, the result of a horrifying combination of lust and fear. “You are my guest. You snuck onto my property and you’re goddamn lucky I didn’t let Milo shoot you on sight. No, I saved you, took your ass in, gave you your fucking heroin, and washed a couple weeks’ worth of filth and scum off of you using my very expensive body wash that, incidentally, I never share with anyone. I expect you to be grateful for my hospitality and treat me with some goddamn motherfucking respect, got it?” His hands tightened around my arms incrementally as he spoke. His message was quite clear as his touch became more and more painful. I knew his thick fingers would leave bruises on my pale, fragile skin.
Legs shaking, I nearly pissed myself when faced with the lethal side of this man.
“I want to hear you say you understand, Miri.” Boss let go and stepped back until his eyes bored holes into me from beneath heavy brows.
Filled with terror, my heart pounded and my breath caught in my lungs, rendering me speechless. His eyes narrowed, not happy with my silence. Somehow, I managed to choke out two words.
“I-I understand.”
Just like that, the sinister drug lord was gone. As if a switch had been flipped, my capitulation replaced the terrorizing boss with the smiling man who’d gently, and not so gently, bathed me a mere five minutes ago. Boss winked before adding in a thick, Texas drawl, “Glad to hear it, doll.”
Still wrapped in a towel, he pushed me down the hall and opened a door to expose a nicely appointed bedroom. Boss motioned me inside.
“This is your room. You will stay in here, you will not leave, and you will not pull any bullshit unless you want a bullet in your head, and believe me, nothing pisses me off more than having a mess made all over my floor.” I bit my lips to silence a gasp and he continued as if he didn’t just threaten to kill me. Again. “There are clothes on the bed and an attached bath. You will keep this room clean and neat. I’ll have someone retrieve you tomorrow.”
I opened my mouth to ask a question, but he was gone. I heard a lock click on the outside of the door. Oh my God, I was trapped in a bizarre, luxurious prison, completely at the mercy of Austin’s fiercest drug lord, and from what I knew, that title was earned deep in the trenches of brutality and death. I sat on the edge of the bed, the damp towel against my clammy skin, and shivered with fear.
Holy fuck. What have I gotten myself into?
3
Boss
I entered my study and caught the scent of the whiskey I’d abandoned on my desk two hours ago when Milo and I rushed outside to find a tiny, zombie-eyed junkie on my front lawn. The pull of the alcohol, combined with the inexplicable surge of lust from my encounter in the bathroom with Miri, had me downing the entire glass in one swift motion. I spotted the bottle Milo left uncapped and scowled, screwing it shut and putting it back in its designated spot, nudging a few other bottles and glasses until they stood in perfect rows.
What a goddamn clusterfuck of a night.
I collapsed into my chair and dragged my nails through the short hairs on my face while going back over the events of the past few hours. The more I thought, the more I scratched, the itchier the stubble became.
I should just shave this goddamn thing off. Fuck looking older.
In the dark room, the only light glowing from a single bulb over the bar, I sat at my desk and relived every single interaction I had with Miri, every word, every facial expression, every touch. The defiance in her fiery eyes when she stood up to me made me chuckle. This tiny little redhead, weak and without a doubt no match for my brute strength, shocked the hell out of me when she peeled off her soaking wet clothes and threw them down like a gauntlet at a duel. I was blown away by her steady gaze, practically daring me to say something.
Despite her issues, her addiction, her obvious lack of food and medical care, Miri was… alive. She looked like hell but had this presence about her, a spark, a strength inside that made me believe she still had a chance. A chance to escape this life when so many others before her failed and succumbed to the lure of the poisonous drugs and dark lifestyle.
Others like Rose. Fuck. I can’t go there right now.
I shoved that shit right out of my head and turned my thoughts to my former dealer, Mason Smith. That thieving son of a bitch had a girl at home, the girl currently locked in one of my guest rooms, strung out on heroin. How considerate of him to not give a single fuck as to what would happen to Miri if he were to disappear, and make no mistake, when Mason spotted Milo in that warehouse, he damn well knew he would never be going home again.
My hand clenched around the empty whiskey glass. I was furious with the man who stole from me, but more furious that he left Miri to die, forgotten, like a piece of trash to be discarded. I knew from experience what bastards like Mason Smith did to girls like Miri. Miri’s total lack of interest in Mason’s whereabouts once she got her hit spoke volumes. She didn’t care about Mason. They weren’t in love. Hell, they probably weren’t even a couple. I knew how situations like theirs worked in the seedy, dark shadows of the worst neighborhoods in the city.
Dealers like Mason would find desperate girls like Miri and get them hooked on drugs. The girls would become compliant, dependent on the dealer for everything. Next, they became unable to leave their captors because of their desperate need to fuel their addiction. Mason likely made Miri his prisoner by feeding her drugs in exchange for sex. Sometimes, those bastards even pimped the women out to other men for extra cash.
Memories of my sister, and a past I would never have a chance to make right, sent an onslaught of red-hot fury throbbing in my veins, the fire pulsing like lava until I was burning with rage from the inside out. Without warning, the glass in my hand shattered, crystal splintering into pieces to send sharp shards deep into the soft flesh of my palm.
Son of a bitch!
Dark red welled from my closed fist and began dripping down my arm as I hurried over to the sink and stuck my hand under the tap. I hissed as I plucked out the larger bits of glass. Blood mixed with water swirled together in the sink, the inky red liqui
d turning pink as it spiraled to disappear down the drain. On closer inspection, I discovered the cuts were still bleeding quite a bit, several of them possibly deep enough to require stitches.
