RASHID: HER RUTHLESS BOSS: 50 Loving States, Hawaii

by Taylor, Theodora

“I was willing to let you make your betrayal up to me. I was going to allow you to stay in this cabin and show me you could be a good wife.”

  Wow, lucky me…I want to call back with all the sarcasm that has ever been sarcasmed.

  But unlike him, I can’t let my ego guide me. If there’s a chance he didn’t see me run behind this tree….

  “I know exactly where you are, whore! I’m coming to you now. And when I drag you out from behind that tree I’m not going to give you another chance, I’m going to kill you dead. Then I’m going to fuck your whore corpse so that you have my cum dripping out of you for the rest of your eternity in hell for what you did to me.”

  Okay, well, that’s an image….and I guess my plan to hide behind this tree is done.

  I abruptly take off running again. This time away from the trail, since Alberto is currently standing between me and it. With his gun.

  And just in case I thought he was kidding about knowing exactly where I was, a shot pings off a nearby tree as soon as I take off.

  Going against instinct, I pitch right in the direction of the shot instead of away from it, downhill instead of up. Knowing Alberto, he’s trying to get me to run back toward the cabin where he can deal with my body way more easily.

  But forget that noise. I’m done making manipulating me easy for him. If he wants to kill me and fuck my whore corpse, I’m going to make him drag my dead body as far a distance as possible back up that hill.

  I’m determined to clock as much distance as I can, but it doesn’t sound like I’ll make it much further.

  A volley of shots stars popping off behind me.

  And I’m sure one of them has my name on it. This is it…the sad ending of my K-Drama.

  Epilogue

  ZAHIR

  Christmas Eve

  “I’m not sure how he will be, but we won’t stay long,” I promise, turning around to face my wife and family at the beginning of the long entryway leading up to the house.

  All of them are dressed in black. From Kasha and Sasha, Prin’s identical twin sisters, to the little baby girl passed out on my wife’s shoulder. It is the middle of the day here, but she is exhausted after such a long plane ride.

  I know how she feels. The thought of seeing my cousin again as he used to be before Mika’s arrival into his life exhausts me as well.

  I would never have brought my family into this situation, but when Prin had found out I was coming out here to console my cousin after what happened with Mika, she’d said, “You think you’re going to Hawaii without me and Hiba?” her New Jersey accent crackling even thicker than usual with outrage. “Un-unh. Mama and baby need a vacay, son—after providing some hardcore emotional support for your cousin, of course.”

  “Us too!” the twins had chimed in when Prin relayed the story to them while they were visiting us the following weekend.

  So I’d agreed to bring them along to Hawaii, but now I’m having second thoughts about exposing them to an even worse version of the cousin I saw before his too-short flit of happiness with Mika.

  “Perhaps you should go straight away to the hotel and wait for me,” I say, nodding my chin to the long black car that dropped us off. “I will meet you there.”

  “Baby, stop it,” Prin says. Reaching out for my hand, she guides me down the long entryway. “I know this is going to be difficult. But that’s your family. You’ve got to support him. And we’re your family, so we gotta support you supporting him.”

  “We sure do!” Kasha says behind us with a happy cheerleader smile in her voice.

  “What they said,” Sasha adds, her own voice deadpan and frank, proving what anyone who’s met them well already knows. That though they look exactly alike, they’re complete opposites…except when it comes to supporting their family, which now includes me.

  Not for the first time, I consider how lucky I am to have found Prin, her sisters, and now this child we have made together. Prin was worth giving up my kingdom. Prin is worth a thousand kingdoms, in fact.

  I just hope seeing my cousin regressed to his previous bitter state doesn’t upset them. Poor Rashid…

  Taking a deep breath, I press the doorbell…only to be surprised when Mika’s son answers the door, wearing nothing but a pair of board shorts.

  “Albie?” I say, having to strain my memory to come up with his name. “What are you doing here?”

  “I been here since Thanksgiving,” he answers jerking his head back as if I’ve interrupted him at home. “What are you doing here, Mr. Zahir?” he asks.

  I just shake my head at him, “But Faizan said…”

  “Never mind,” the little boy exclaims, cutting me off. “You’re right on time. C’mon!”

  In a confused daze, we follow him, into a house that looks nothing like I remember it.

  The living room no longer has that completely untouched magazine quality. Surfboards, forearm crutches and several bags of luggage are leaning against the walls. There’s also sand all over the floor. And the window walls are all open, which makes the beach in the distance look like it’s spilling into the room.

  “Quick! Quick!” Albie yells over his shoulder, running straight into that picture perfect view. “You don’t want to miss it!”

  No, we don’t, we decide, getting caught up in the boy’s excitement despite having no idea what’s going on. I take the baby from Prin and we all jog out to the beach. Where we find a bit of a crowd gathered at the shoreline. Stone’s there, of all people, along with his heavily pregnant wife and the two girls they pseudo-fostered for a year.

  “What are you doing here, Zaman?” Stone asks, calling me by the last name I used in school for security purposes.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing,” I answer.

  “Rashid invited me out for the holidays. Keane, too.”

  “Who you should introduce Zahir to,” his wife Naima says, nudging him with the back of her hand.

  “Oh yeah, Keane meet Zahir. He used to be the king of Jahwar but now he’s running The Tourmaline Group. Keane’s about the business too. Real Estate.”

  “Yes, I believe we’ve met before,” I say, reaching out to shake the hand of the man with a titanium prosthetic leg sticking out of his beach trunks. I vaguely recognize him as Rashid’s old boarding school roommate. But he’s all grown up now with a wife and three kids, two boys and a girl.

  “Why are you all wearing black?” Max, his oldest, asks with a curious grin. “It’s Hawaii.”

  “Obvs, because we just got off a plane from New York,” Sasha answers.

  Max crooks his head. “How is that obvious?”

  “Aw, look how confused he looks! You’re so cute!” Kasha squeals, as if Max not knowing about New Yorker’s love of black clothing was the most darling thing ever.

  “What exactly is going on?” I ask Stone. “Why is everyone gathered around outside? And where did Albie go?” I look around, realizing the little boy has disappeared.

  “Everybody look!” Max yells, before Stone can answer. “The surf’s coming in!”

  Still confused, I look in the direction of Max’s pointing finger.

  My mouth drops open and Prin yells out, “Oh my God!” when we see Rashid in the ocean.

  No, make that on top of the ocean. He’s surfing…actually surfing with what looks like columns of blue titanium around each leg. And Albie and a large man who looks like Maui from Moana are surfing on either side of him.

  I can barely believe what I’m seeing, but my family joins along with Stone’s and Keane’s in cheering him on.

  But no one, I notice cheers bigger than the woman further down the beach.

  It’s Mika! She’s not back in Connecticut as Faizan told me when he last reported in that Rashid was despondent, working himself to death, drinking too much alcohol and barely sleeping. She’s waiting for them when they reach the shore.

  And I’m not a crying man, but tears well in my eyes when she runs all the way into the water to throw herself into Rashid�
��s arms.

  No, Rashid is certainly not worse off than when I saw him last.

  In fact, it is obvious to everyone standing on that shoreline that he’s found a new beginning.

  MIKA

  Christmas Morning

  I wake up to the sensation of ropes around my wrists. “Sayonee…” I groan as I watch Rashid attach one of the ropes around my ankles to a bedpost. “We don’t have time for this.”

  “I disagree, my love.” Rashid secures my other foot. “After Connecticut, we have all the time in the world.”

  My mind flashes back to that morning when I thought I was about to die in that volley of shots. Only to realize I was somehow still alive.

  I didn’t stop running until I made it all the way to the road…

  Where Rashid was waiting on his forearm crutch, looking frantic with worry over the shots he’d heard.

  “Get back in the car!” I screamed at him, scared that he would be caught by one of Alberto’s bullets.

  But Rashid had just pulled me to him with one arm and said, “It is okay now, sayonee. You are safe.”

  I’d been about to counter that claim for real when a voice behind me said, “Well, if that bitch wasn’t dead before, he’s deader than dead now.”

  What…?

  I turned around to see a man coming down the mountain the same way I did. Only he was dressed in a tailored suit…and had a smoking gun in his hand. I recognized him immediately from his Instagram pictures, which often featured his beautiful toddler, Garnet.

  “Hey, what’s with the frying pan?” he asked, frowning at me like I was the strangest thing that had happened on this mountain.

  And that was how I finally met Stone, baby Garnet’s adopted father.

  Speaking of which….

  “Everybody’s going to be waking up and getting here soon, including Zahir and his fam,” I whine at my husband. “It’s Christmas morning.”

  “I’m aware, and that is why I’m opening my best present first.”

  With that, he drops down onto his stomach between my legs and parts my slit with his flattened tongue.

  “Well, when you put it that way…” I say, giving in. “Merry Christmas, Sayonee. Please, may I come?”

  This being Rashid, it takes him a while to say yes to my request. And I’m so revved up by the time he relents that he has to cover my mouth so that no one will hear my screams as he claims me slowly. Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream. Even better than halo-halo.

  * * *

  Opening presents later is a messy and loud affair. It feels like all the families are trying to make Rashid regret inviting them, as well as his decision to move Albie and me down here to his former mausoleum-quiet house.

  Instead of letting Rashid open my present in front of the group, I catch him when he’s rolling out of our bedroom after a pit stop later in the morning and hand him a long rectangular box.

  I casually fiddle with the ring we picked out the day after Albie and I landed in Oahu as I slyly eye him opening it. I’m pretty sure he thinks it’s a watch until he sees the stick with the huge plus sign on it. And I say, “It looks like we’re starting our Instagram page a little earlier than either of us thought.”

  His eyes well up. “Is it true?”

  “Yeah, it is,” I answer, my voice frank and wry because it’s only been one month since we reunited and had sex without me being on birth control. “Boy, first GoBionics fully funds Future Legs, and now I’m living here with you and already knocked up? When you want something you really go out and get it, don’t you?”

  I break off laughing when he pulls me down to his lap for a happy kiss.

  My parents arrive a little bit after I give Rashid his unexpected Christmas present, and Mom and I whip up dinner for two dozen while Rashid and my father discuss the different kinds of wheelchairs he might want to use as he loses his mobility at the kitchen table.

  Dad is still doing great on the medicine, so I didn’t even know he was already thinking about chairs. But as I watch him and Rashid talk, I see how nice it is for Dad to be able to speak with someone else with mobility issues.

  “Hey, babe, I’m all done, do you want the rest?” I ask Rashid after I’m full from dinner.

  “You know in Jahwar, that means you’re…” Zahir starts to point out.

  “Oh she knows, Mr. Zahir,” Albie says, interrupting him with a roll of his eyes. “She’s been asking to marry him at every single meal, even though he already bought Mom a ring.”

  “And I’ll keep on saying yes every time she asks,” Rashid says taking my plate from me. “For the rest of my life.”

  Then he tucks in like this life is the best meal he’s ever had.

  Albie makes a disgusted noise. “You know, back in Connecticut, I didn’t have to put up with this.”

  We all burst out laughing.

  After dinner, Rashid puts on his Future Legs, and we all go out to the ocean side lanai to dance under the setting sun. “To Aisha!” Rashid calls out as one of her favorite K-Pop songs plays on the speakers.

  “To Aisha!” we all agree, raising glasses and shaking booties.

  It’s all perfect. Just so beautiful and perfect.

  There’s only one thing missing.

  “Hey, where’s Jazz?” I ask my parents.

  JAZZ

  “I’m tired of waiting. We will go in. Now.”

  I sit in the passenger seat of Han’s car, my right hand curled over my left hand. Like a prayer made of fists.

  “We don’t have to go in. I don’t understand why you’re making me do this.”

  He glances at me, then back at the house. So bright and loud we can hear all the people talking and music spilling out, even though we’re parked on the street since the carport was full.

  “I would like for both you and your family to understand,” he answers.

  “Understand what?”

  “That you’re mine now.”

  His…I uncover my left fist, to reveal the ring of black onyx encircled by two raised bars of steel on my wedding ring finger. Apparently, this is the ring given to all the wives of the Silent Triad. Han is wearing a matching one on his left hand.

  “I hate you,” I whisper, meaning it.

  “And yet you are still going to take me inside and introduce me to your family,” he answers. He almost sounds bored.

  Yes, I guess I am.

  I swallow down the bitter lump in my throat and push open the door to introduce my family to the worst mistake I’ve ever made.

  Dearest Wonder Readers,

  Thank you so much for reading RASHID, the last book in the Broken and Ruthless trilogy. Rashid has been on my mind since he lost his family in Zahir’s book, and now I’m so happy he was able to find his way to a new beginning.

  Super sweet but crazy kinky couples are my favorite in both book life and IRL. So I couldn’t be more thrilled that these two found each other and their happily ever after.

  If you loved this story, please leave a review and check out all the books in the Broken and Ruthless trilogy:

  KEANE: Her Ruthless Ex

  STONE: Her Ruthless Enforcer

  RASHID: Her Ruthless Boss

  Curious about Zahir? Click here for his crazy hot story.

  And please click here for more information about the Ruthless Triad series.

  So much love,

  Theodora Taylor

  P.S. Keep on swiping for a special preview of Stone and Naima’s crazy heartwarming story!

  STONE PREVIEW

  “Hey, Naima.”

  I freeze, inside the empty rectangle of my doorless kitchen, a spike of fear replacing my early morning yawn.

  There is a man sitting at my kitchen table. A total stranger I’ve never seen before. And, even scarier than that….

  A gun rested on the otherwise empty kitchen table in front of him. Lethal and almost as menacing as the stranger’s non-smiling face.

  And to think just a few moments ago, I’d been wondering
if even a large cup of coffee would be enough to get me alert and out the door this morning.

  I’m wide awake now, no coffee needed.

  “Sit down, Naima,” the stranger says. He has a thick Jersey accent, but his voice lacks any emotion whatsoever. Neither do his cold black eyes. The single kitchen light I always leave on reflects off his completely shaven head. But other than that, he’s all shadow. And though he hasn’t touched the gun on the table, it feels like he’s pointing it straight at me.

  I can only stand there, my body stuck in a rictus of previously unknown terror. What does he want? Why is he here?

  The midnight black suit he’s wearing looks like it was specifically tailored to fit over his huge, hulking body. It has to have cost more than the entire monthly rent on this townhouse, which I used to share with my blind parents before they moved to the Dominican Republic to retire way more cheaply than they would have been able to here in New York. He’s dressed for business, but I’m a social worker, living paycheck to paycheck. I can barely afford rent now that I’m handling it alone, much less a suit anywhere close to the quality of the one he’s wearing. If he came here to rob me, he’s incredibly stupid.

  And this stranger doesn’t strike me as stupid.

  “Sit down,” he says again. “We can do this the easy way or the dead way.”

  Both my body and mind scream in protest as I fight my primal flight instinct to do what he says. But this stranger doesn’t strike me as stupid…or flippant. He said he’d kill me if I don’t sit down, and I believe him. Eyeing him warily, I take a seat in the chair furthest away from him at the table.

  The stranger is technically handsome with tanned skin I’m almost sure isn’t due to the summer sun but genetics. He has ebony eyes, and what I’m guessing would be black hair to match, if he hadn’t shaven his head bald. His coloring and Jersey accent put me in mind of my best friend Amber’s ex-husband, Luca.