by Zoey Parker
The three-story brick structure was clean and well-lit. New windows had been placed in the arches in the brick façade. The garage doors in the old delivery bays were new as well. There was a flag out front with the Hell’s Overlords’ back patch on it. It was the Grim Reaper riding an old motorcycle. The blade of his scythe arching overhead with Hell’s written in what was supposed to be blood. Underneath the reaper and his bike was a frayed banner with Overlords burned into it.
Even at night, there were lights on inside. The Overlords never slept. I figured they had a use for each floor of the building, but I wasn’t sure what to expect once I got inside. Working for Fang, I wasn’t exactly on speaking terms with other local bosses. No one really liked Fang, and since I’d probably stolen from everyone, no one wanted to talk.
So I had to resort to what I did best. I had to wing it.
The key to my success was avoiding the light and staying in the shadows. As far as I was concerned, I was a shadow. I dressed all in black. I wore shoes with smooth soles that didn’t leave prints. I wore gloves and a ski mask at all times. Even my backpack was black. One thing I didn’t carry was a weapon. I didn’t want to give myself the option of getting caught and fighting my way out.
I cased the joint first. I had to know where the entrances were, where the light fell around the building, and where the cameras and other security features were, among other things. I watched members come and go all night, starting with what looked like a meeting. A bunch of guys rode up on their motorcycles, riding into the building through the bay doors, which were then closed to hide and protect the bikes.
I waited until they left a little while later. Then, I approached to get closer to the building. A few guys came and went all throughout the night. I figured there was still someone inside to act as security, along with whoever was keeping the lights on upstairs.
There were cameras outside on the corners of the building, but after looking them over again and again, I realized there were no cameras facing the rear of the building. I moved to the rear door and found it unlocked. As I opened it, I checked to see if there were any wires or sensors, anything. The door was completely unguarded and unwatched.
This must be where deals are made or where certain guests are accepted, I thought as I quietly stepped into the building. It still seemed odd to me that a door like that wouldn’t be locked.
Regardless, I was in.
The ground floor was open from wall to wall. There were thick columns that looked like they were supporting the upper floors, but there were no inside walls. A few bikes were parked on the concrete pad just behind the bay doors, so I could count and guess how many people were at HQ overnight.
I crept around the room, looking for stairs or a door that would lead me downstairs. There were pool tables, dart boards, and TVs in the room. There was a bar along the opposite wall, and it looked well stocked. It was late enough that there was no one downstairs when I entered. I didn’t see any internal security measures either. They probably felt like they were their own security, I figured.
I eventually made my way around the room and found an open stairwell next to the bar. I walked carefully, trying to keep the hardwood floor from creaking beneath my footsteps. I crept down the concrete stairs, my padded feet not making a sound, until I reached a large sliding door set back in the wall.
My heart raced with adrenaline. My pulse echoed in my ears, and it felt loud enough to give me away. I put my hand on the handle to pull the door open and waited to listen for anyone who might have been waiting behind it. All I could hear was my breath. I waited for my breathing and my pulse to calm down before doing anything else.
I slid the door back, slowly at first, trying to be quiet, but the door could not be quiet as it slid into the wall.
“Fuck it,” I said under my breath, and shoved the door the rest of the way open.
I stepped into the concrete room underneath Hell’s Overlords’ HQ. In the brief moment before the door rolled back into place behind me, I clearly saw that there were no drugs waiting for me. The floor was bare, and darkness shrouded most of the room.
“Shit.” I jumped as the door slammed behind me, leaving me in complete darkness. I knew at that moment that I’d been caught in a trap. I knew Fang and I had been set up by his faulty intel.
Then, out of the darkness came a voice.
“Seems to me you were expecting to find something down here,” he said. “Well, you did find something, just not what you were looking for.”
Light suddenly filled the basement, and I could see that the square concrete room was empty except for a chair and myself, and a stranger. The stranger was a broad man with thick, muscular shoulders and arms. His wavy golden brown hair was brushed back away from his clean-shaven, chiseled face. He stared at me with intense green eyes. He kept his arms crossed in front of his chest as he leaned against the wall.
“Have a seat,” he said, nodding toward the chair in the center of the room.
I didn’t budge. I needed to find a way out of the room. I needed to get away from the gorgeous man in front of me with the entrancing green eyes.
“So, you’re the one who’s been stealing from me.” He pushed himself off the wall and started walking towards me.
My heart raced. My mind screamed at me to move and to find a way out, but I was frozen with shock. I’d never been caught. In fact, I’d spent the last six months stealing drugs from Hell’s Overlords without anyone ever seeing me. Yet my boss and I fell for the oldest trick in the book, faulty information planted on the street in order to catch someone.
He grabbed my thin arm in his firm hand and held me still as he circled around behind me. I wondered if he’d noticed I was a woman yet, because I definitely noticed he was a man. His touch through my long black sleeves was electric. I felt my body quiver with desire for him almost immediately.
“Sit down,” he barked, shoving me down against the chair.
If he’d only known how much I liked to play rough! I grinned under my ski mask and considered getting up to fight back, but I thought it best to go ahead and take a seat as he’d insisted. I turned and sat with my back straight, staring up at the man with the beautiful green eyes. He didn’t look like just another lackey. He looked like a top member of the MC. He had a confidence about his expression and posture that wouldn’t have been present in someone beneath him.
“Let me see who’s behind that mask,” he said, leaning over to remove it from my head.
As the cloth revealed my face and let my blonde hair spill down from atop my head, I watched surprise register itself on his face. His jaw grew slack, and his eyes grew wide.
“You’re a woman?” His voice roared in the small room.
“You expected a man to be able to do what I do?” I asked him with a cocked eyebrow.
He looked at the ski mask in his hand and back at my face. His shock slowly turned into anger.
“Are you embarrassed?” I asked him.
“You’ve caused a lot of problems for me,” he said lowly, fighting back a growl. I watched as his arms and fists flexed in an attempt to contain all the rage that was flowing through his body.
I wished I could have offered him a better way to release all that pent up rage and frustration. It had been too long for me, and I was pretty sure it had been a while for him, too, judging by just how angry he was.
“You’ve been shown up by a girl,” I teased, “but you caught me, so that’s something.”
“I haven’t been shown up by anyone,” he barked in my face.
I shrugged. He was close enough to kiss, and I thought I could see the desire shared in his face. I had to look away from him to keep from indulging in my little schoolgirl fantasy. It just would have made things worse to try to kiss the man I’d stolen so much from over the last six months.
“You know, you’re the first person to catch me, so you should be proud of yourself.” It wasn’t entirely true. I’d allowed myself to get caught a few times bef
ore, but this was the first time that it hadn’t been part of my original plan.
“I’m honored,” he said sarcastically. “Now, look, I’ve got a few questions,” he said, starting to pace around me.
“People usually do when they meet me. I guess you can fire away. I’ll tell you what I’ll tell you, and the rest, well, we’ll see.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
I sighed. Was he trying to establish a dating profile for me?
“My name is Sasha Winters. I’m a Sagittarius. My favorite color, despite my profession and attire, is green. When I’m not at work, I enjoy long walks, lounging around in my pajamas, and listening to music while I clean my apartment. I’m currently single, you know, since my lifestyle isn’t all that compatible to relationships. I barely graduated high school and never made it to college. Is there anything else you need to know?” I watched for his reaction, hoping my little outburst would piss him off enough to leave me alone.
“Are you crazy? Who do you work for?” he asked.
“My boss.”
He levelled his eyes on me. They were a beautiful emerald green, and it was hard not to just spill everything out.
“Who’s your boss?” he asked.
I bit my lower lip. I wanted to tell him, “the guy I work for,” but I figured I was already pressing my luck. If he was who I thought he was, I’d heard stories about him, and pressing my luck with him wasn’t the wisest idea. But it was so much fun!
“Who’s your boss?” he asked again, forcing his words out of his mouth. He grabbed my shoulders and gave me a good shake against the back of the metal chair I sat in.
“Who’s your boss?” he asked a third time.
“I’m not going to tell you, so you can stop asking me.”
“You bitch,” he said as he let go of me and stood back up.
“So, can I go now?” I asked him.
“No, you can’t go now.” He chuckled and shook his head. He placed his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned back in my face.
“You know, I have ways of making people talk,” he threatened before standing up and walking way.
Chapter 3
I let the man tie me down to the chair. I waited while he rummaged around on a work bench for tape and rope. I didn’t get up. I didn’t make for the door. I waited for my captor to return. I figured that since I wasn’t able to find any drugs, allowing myself to be captured and tied to a chair would give me the opportunity to gather more information from whoever was questioning me.
Part of why I didn’t run while he was getting ready to tie me up was because it wouldn’t have done any good. Where would I have gone? I couldn’t go back to Fang and tell him I was empty-handed because I’d been caught by Cole’s Overlords. That wouldn’t have worked out very well for me.
“Do you know who I am?” the man asked as he wrapped the rope around my wrists and waist.
I almost missed the question as I watched him. He wasn’t rough with me. He didn’t wrap the rope too tightly around my wrists or my chest. He was almost tender in the way he strapped me into the chair. The way he knelt down in front of me seemed so trusting and submissive, I almost forgot I was really his prisoner. It felt more like some sort of roleplay.
“My name is Cole Masterson,” he said, looking up at me with his green eyes and hardened face.
I sighed. I should have known. He didn’t seem like the type who would have taken orders from anyone.
“I wanted to catch you myself,” he explained as he stood back up.
“Of course. I don’t blame you for that,” I told him. “I feel honored that the president of Hell’s Overlords was waiting for me himself,” I admitted with a grin. The fact that he’d waited for me himself meant I’d gotten under his skin as a thief. Now, it had become my job to do so as a woman if I wanted to defeat his reputation and get out of here with any intel that would help Fang take him down.
“I must say, I’m impressed,” he added, beginning to pace around me. “I didn’t think anyone could have done what you did. But a woman? It never occurred to me that a woman, an attractive woman, could get away with stealing from Hell’s Overlords. I almost want to applaud you, but you’ve cost me a lot of money and caused a lot of trouble for me.”
I knew I was in deep shit now. I could hear the tension in his voice. He was holding back his urge to beat me the way he’d beaten so many others. I wondered how long he could hold back. I knew the only thing keeping me safe in the short term was probably the same thing putting me in more danger in the long run—the fact that I was a woman. He didn’t want to rough me up because I was just a girl, but that probably meant there were other perils down the road if I didn’t do something.
“So, who would hire a female thief to steal from Hell’s Overlords? The question of our thief’s identity has been plaguing me since the first time we noticed some of our product was missing. We couldn’t figure out who would be bold enough to send anyone to steal from us like that. But now? Now, I really don’t know who would be behind it.” He walked around me while he talked himself up to the question.
He put his hands on my tied wrists, pressing them hard against the metal arms of the chair. It wasn’t painful, but I winced anyway, giving him what he wanted to see. I could play along with the best of them.
“So, who sent you?” he asked me again.
I closed my mouth tightly and smiled at him. I wasn’t about to tell him so easily. He was going to have to work for that answer.
“No more smart-ass answers, huh?”
“Not at the moment,” I told him. I couldn’t help myself.
“I see. So, what? If I let go of your arms and stand up, maybe step away from you, you’ll start with the smart mouth again?” he asked, stepping away.
“No,” I said, shaking my head, taunting him. He didn’t know what to do with someone who wasn’t afraid of him, and I was loving it. He probably didn’t realize it, but he had given himself away with the tenderness he’d shown while tying me up.
“What’s it going to take, then?” he asked. “You obviously want something out of me in return for that information. What do you want? Do you want me to promise I’ll keep you safe from your boss when they learn that you were caught and that you gave them up? Sure, I can do that. I can help you get far away from them, where you won’t be able to bother either one of us anymore.”
I cocked an eyebrow. Was he really bargaining with me? I really must have gotten under this man’s skin for him to trade in his usual brutal methods for trying to talk information out of me. I decided to throw him a bone. I took a deep breath so I could keep a straight face.
“I don’t want immunity or protection,” I told him. “What I want to know is when you’re going to start torturing me for information. If you’re really Cole Masterson, known for beating the shit out of anyone who crosses your path, why haven’t you done the same to me? I’m waiting for the sting of your hand across my cheek, the taste of my own blood in my mouth from where you busted my lip. I’m waiting on cuts and bruises from where you try to force information out of me,” I taunted him.
I’d never thought of torture as something that might have been sexually gratifying, but as I listened to my own words, I started to get turned on by the possibility of such close physical contact with Cole. It wasn’t that I wanted him to hit me or beat me, but I craved his touch again.
“I won’t be torturing you,” he answered me. He stepped closer to me as a smile crept across his face, and he ran a hand gently along my cheek.
I turned my face and let his skin pass in front of my lips. I thought about nipping him with my teeth lightly, just enough to get his attention and let him know what kind of physical contact I did want from him.
“I can take it,” I told him, looking up at him, letting my voice grow heavy with desire.
“I’m sure you can. You seem to be able to handle yourself very well, Sasha. I’m impressed you can run with the big boys out here like you do,” he sa
id. I couldn’t tell if he was paying me a compliment or just being patronizing. I wanted to take it as a compliment.
It was definitely a boys’ club, this whole business of dealing with crime bosses. I hadn’t run into many women while I’d been working for Fang. Most of them had been on the sidelines, performing supporting roles instead of trying to make any progress of their own. I didn’t really mind the lack of women in my line of work. It made my job easier. There was no real competition, and I was able to slip under the radar because most of the other bosses didn’t expect to find a woman stealing from them.
As a woman, when I was “caught,” some of the guys even went so far as to assume I was just a decoy. Of course, until running into Cole for the first time, I’d only ever been caught when I allowed myself to be. Being legitimately caught and tied to a chair was new to me. I wasn’t quite sure how to handle myself, but I could see the desire in his eyes, and I knew I’d found my way out of trouble, my way into his bed, and my way into his confidence.