Hot Set

by Ivy Blake

  We clinked our glasses together as a toast before we drank heavily from it in celebration.

  Epilogue

  Isabella

  Naples, Italy 2018

  I wanted to tell Leo, but I didn’t know how to. He had been so busy lately with his business and I had been working hard with the charities. In the past year since we had been together, I had never kept a secret from him but now, I didn’t know what his reaction would be.

  I believed that I knew my husband well. I knew that he was a good man, that he loved me more than life itself and Sofia was his rock. However, I also knew that he was a haunted man, troubled by his past and the things that Papa had made him do. I knew that Leo had still not gotten over the brutal way that his parents were killed and how close he had come to losing me and Sofia, to losing his own life.

  I wasn’t sure if he would want to know the news I had to give him. I had been ill for a few days, and finally, the evening before, I had set up an appointment with my doctor for a checkup. What I suspected had come true and now I wasn’t sure if Leo would take the news well.

  It was a Sunday and when I woke up, I could hear the voices of Leo and Sofia in the kitchen. I slipped on a robe and went to the kitchen and saw them at the kitchen table. Leo had an apron tied around his waist and he was flipping pancakes. Just seeing him and Sofia looking so happy filled me with pride and joy. I rushed to him, kissing him softly on his lips and then I went to Sofia, showering her with kisses and hugs too.

  “Pancakes for you, beautiful?” Leo asked, bringing over a plate of them to me.

  I sat down beside Sofia while Leo made coffee and I watched him moving around the kitchen.

  Everything I had ever wanted in my life had come true in the last year. I knew that wherever Mama was, wherever she was watching me from, she could see that I was happy…that I was leading the life she wanted to lead and the life she would have wanted for me.

  “Daddy says that we can go to the zoo today!” Sofia squealed, interrupting my thoughts.

  “He said that, did he?” I asked, looking at Leo as he brought my mug of coffee over. Leo shrugged and kissed me lightly on my forehead before he walked back to the remaining pancakes.

  “We didn’t have any other plans for the day, did we?” he asked and I shook my head.

  I had planned on telling him today, finding the perfect opportunity when we might find ourselves alone, but I thought now…it would have to wait another day.

  ***

  At the zoo, Sophia ran ahead of us, just like she had on that day at the beach. Leo and I walked together with his arm around me, and I could sense him keeping a keen eye on Sofia. He was an overprotective father, always anxious if she was happy and safe at all times. Sometimes it broke my heart to think about the life he had led before this, how unhappy and sad he must have been as a child. How much he had trusted Papa and looked up to him, and Papa had made him do the most horrible things in turn.

  Leo caught me looking at him and he kissed me.

  “Something on your mind, beautiful?” he asked and I shook my head.

  “No, just admiring my husband,” I replied.

  Sofia stopped running when she found the tigers enclosure and she stared through the iron rods at the tiger family, squealing with joy.

  “Stay back, baby,” Leo called out to her as we walked in her direction.

  “Mama! Daddy! Look! The lady tiger has so many babies. One…two…three…” Sofia was counting the tiger cubs and I felt my heart sinking as we watched her. Leo had a smile on his face as he looked at her daughter and I looked at him.

  “I wish I had a brother or a sister,” Sofia turned to us and pouted her lips. Leo chuckled and then looked at me, but I had been staring at him.

  This was the moment, it had to be now. I gulped, feeling too anxious to keep looking at him.

  “You won’t have to wait very long; Mama’s expecting a baby soon,” I said, looking at Sofia. I could sense Leo’s eyes on me. I knew that he was in shock. Sofia squealed with joy and hurled herself at me, wrapping her arms around my legs.

  Slowly, I lifted my gaze up towards Leo, whose eyes were fixed on me. He hadn’t said a word yet and I felt like my fears were coming true. He wasn’t happy.

  But in the next instance, Leo’s face broke into a smile. He reached for my shoulders and pulled me close to himself, wrapping his big strong arms around me. He kissed my face, my lips, my eyes and then he was laughing.

  “We’re having another baby?” he asked, staring into my eyes.

  I couldn’t hold back the laughter either now and I nodded and laughed. Leo kissed me again and lifted me up in the air, twirling me around.

  “We’re having another baby!” he shouted, making heads turn in our direction while Sofia squealed and clapped her hands.

  When he gently slid me back down, I kissed his neck. My face was flushed with excitement.

  “I didn’t know if it would make you happy, Leo. I was afraid to tell you,” I said and he hooked a finger under my chin, lifting my face towards him.

  “Are you crazy, Isabella? This is the happiest news you could have given me. I want nothing more than to grow our little family with you!” he exclaimed and as he held me in his arms, I knew everything was fine. The past was left behind and we were finally moving on.

  Protected by the Biker

  by Savannah Rylan

  Chapter 1

  Thorn

  Gun shots pierced through the quiet night making my heart start to race.

  “Get cover!” Enzo hollered.

  My brothers scattered, running from the shipping container that they were unloading to take cover.

  Enzo was our president of the MC. He was crouched behind his Harley with two of our other members. Flashing blue lights coming from unmarked sedans were the only thing besides a few rusty lights on the edge of a warehouse that lit up the darkness.

  “Put down your guns!” a voice on a megaphone yelled. “We have you surrounded.”

  Enzo was yelling again at everyone, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying over the sound of bullets whizzing by me. Enzo jumped up and returned fire at the ATF agents that were coming out of the fucking woodwork.

  The rest of my brothers followed suit and started firing at anything that moved. They needed to get out of there before more agents showed up. I tried my best to yell at them to leave but none of them listened to me. I felt my throat start to become raw from trying to get their attention.

  I heard the sound of sirens get closer as more police officers and agents drove inot the port.

  Four of my brothers decided to make a run for it, and try and hop over a nearby fence. I watched in horror as four of them were gunned down. Their bodies fell to the ground in heaps and I tried to rush over to them to help them, but my feet wouldn’t budge.

  All I could do was let out a loud scream.

  My body shot up from my bed with a start. Sweat covered my body and my bedsheets were kicked to the ground. I knew I was dreaming because I wasn’t there the night that my club got busted. I should have fucking been there with my brothers. More importantly, I should have looked into our Mexican contacts more. I should have realized that their deal was too good to be true. Because of my mistake, now our President, Enzo, was in jail.

  The fucked-up thing was, Enzo wasn’t supposed to be there at the port either. He didn’t usually attend the collection of our gun shipments because we all knew that it was risky for the President of an MC to be there for a collection. That night, however, because we were getting a shipment from our brand-new contacts in Mexico, Enzo decided to go. He wanted to oversee it himself; especially since I wasn’t going to be there to look into it.

  I had gotten shot the night before, right on my shoulder during a shootout with one of our rival clubs. The Steel Skulls had tried to raid one of our storage warehouses and steal some of our AK-47’s. The bastards had been trying to get into the gun business for months, and we had managed to lock them out of eve
r deal. SoCal was our fucking territory and we weren’t going to let them take it.

  We defended our assets and scared the fuckers off, but not before one of them snagged me in the shoulder. The wound was nothing to worry about, the bullet just grazed my skin. I tried to convince Enzo and the boys that I was fine, but they told me that I needed at least a day to recover. Now, I wished that I hadn’t listened to them. I was blaming myself. Maybe if I was there that night, I might have been able to do something differently.

  Every time I closed my eyes, I was pictured the moment that the ATF raided the port. Even though I wasn’t there, I kept imagining it in my sleep. Enzo and my brothers, going about their business, talking about what a goldmine these new contacts in Mexico were. Little did they know that all of it was a fucking set up.

  I had my doubts about them from the very beginning, and I should have listened to my gut. When something seems too good to be true, it probably was.

  They had been working with the ATF all along. It was a trap. We all knew that the ATF had been working hard to infiltrate our club for several months or catch us in an act that they could then hang over our heads. Raiding our secret port at night, in the middle of a weapon shipment being collected was ideal. They were able to arrest all the club members who were present at the time.

  Thankfully, the rest of us were still free. They had no hard evidence on us, not yet anyway.

  Now, four of my brothers were dead. Six of them were arrested, including Enzo. Our club was under attack, and I was sitting in my apartment, drinking endless cans of beer and watching some shit on the television. I didn’t need rest; there was nothing wrong with my shoulder. I should have been there with my brothers, putting up a defense, fighting beside them. I deserved to be in jail with the rest of them if that was our fate.

  Maybe we wouldn’t have lost the four others if there were more of us on the scene.

  I woke up in a cold sweat, panting.

  Our club had taken a bad hit. We were without a President. Enzo was the man we all looked up to. He was our guide. He was fair and harsh, and we all respected him. Now he was sitting in prison, and there was nothing that the club could do for him to get him out.

  Enzo had taken me under his wing several months ago; as the new VP and now with him gone-the natural progression was for me to take over. I didn’t know if I was ready to be the President of The Grim Reapers motorcycle club. I didn’t know if I could handle the responsibility. I was just a tough kid from a rough neighborhood who was given a break by The Grim Reapers. I didn’t know if I had any leadership skills, I didn’t know if I could replace Enzo-but what choice did I have now?

  I threw my legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Every night, for the past three days since the ATF busted us, had been like this. I hadn’t slept more than a handful of hours since then. My mind was wrecked with thoughts of the night, what I could have done to help, what I was going to do now that I was President, what Enzo and my brothers were going to face in prison now.

  I paced around my apartment in the dark, till I cracked open a can of beer to calm myself down. It was four in the morning and all I’d been fueled by in the last few days was alcohol.

  My phone rang in the bedroom, making me nearly jump out of my skin. I rushed to it and answered on the fourth ring. It was a collect call from the local prison, and I knew immediately who it was. I accepted it and waited for Enzo’s deep calm voice at the other end.

  “Did I wake you, Thorn?” he said, and I clenched my jaw and closed my eyes.

  “I don’t remember what it feels like to be sleeping,” I said, and when I heard Enzo chuckle, my shoulders relaxed a bit too.

  “I could say the same. Anyway, they’re transferring us to County jail tomorrow,” he continued, and my eyes flew open.

  “I’ll set up a protection ring inside for you and the others,” I said, still pacing around the apartment as I spoke to him.

  “That won’t be necessary, Thorn, we’re already on it,” Enzo said, and I was surprised again by how calm he sounded. By how calm he had been through this entire thing. It was like he trusted me to handle all this completely. I didn’t even trust myself.

  “What I need you to do is handle things on the outside,” he continued, and I gripped the phone tighter in my hand.

  “I’m going to figure out a way to fight back. Those assholes in Mexico need to be shown that nobody snitches on us,” I was gritting my teeth hard as I spoke, and instead of Enzo agreeing with me, I was surprised to hear him clucking his tongue. Like he disapproved.

  “See, that is exactly what you need not to do, Thorn,” Enzo said, and I stopped pacing in my tracks. My brows were crossed. I was confused, and my veins were pumped with adrenaline.

  “I need you to lay low. You think you can do that?” Enzo’s voice sounded firm and hopeful at the same time. I shook my head, my eyes small and burning with rage and confusion.

  “You want us to lay low? You don’t want us to fight back? What are they doing to you in there, boss?” I asked, and I heard him take in a deep breath.

  “Nothing. We took a big hit. Four of our guys are dead. Six of us are in prison. What do you think is going on, Thorn?” he sounded angrier now and I gritted my teeth.

  “Our club is under attack,” I said, in a low deep growl.

  “That’s right, and now is not the time to launch our own attack. You hear me, Thorn?” Enzo said. I said nothing.

  “You are President now, and I picked you as VP for exactly a situation like this. I need you to be calm, to lay low, stay away from weapons and all the other bullshit, so the whole club doesn’t end up here,” he continued.

  “What do we do then? You want us to just sit around and do nothing?” I was barking into the phone, but Enzo was still calm.

  “I know you’ll figure something out, Thorn. This is what you’re good at. You know how to figure shit out,” he said, but I could hear the worry in his voice. He might have been pretending to be calm and like he was in control of what was going on around him, but underneath the surface, he was just as fucked up about this as I was.

  “Yeah, I’ll figure something out,” I replied in a deep quiet voice.

  “Good. I’ll see you on the other side, soon,” Enzo said, and with that, he had ended the call.

  I waited for a few moments, listening to the white noise of the disconnected call and then, in anger, I threw my phone to the ground. Stopping myself just in time from stomping on it. I wasn’t mad at Enzo. I was mad at myself. Mad at those fucking assholes in Mexico. Mad at the ATF.

  I should have been there. I should have looked into the new contacts. I should have sniffed out that something was up.

  I picked up my phone again and sent a text out to my core team. I was calling for Church first thing in the morning. We needed to figure this shit out. If laying low and staying away from trouble was what Enzo wanted, that was what I’d give him.

  Picking up my discarded can of beer, I sat down on the couch in the living room and waited for the sun to rise.

  Chapter 2

  Ensley

  I walked back towards my dressing room, with the sound of receding cheers in the background. It was my third late-night talk show of the week, and just like all the other ones, this one too had been a complete success. It was surprising how comfortable I had gotten with being in the public eye. I enjoyed the attention and the love that people around the country were showering on me. It made me feel like every decision I had made till now, had been the right one. They had all got me here, to this moment, when I was on national TV.

  I had been assigned a personal stylist, ever since I landed the new role on the sitcom. I didn’t particularly like the idea of someone dressing me on a regular basis, but I was trying to persuade myself to appreciate all the things that my newfound fame had to offer.

  So, I had put on the tight red dress, the pearls at my neck and the super high black stilettos that my stylist had picked out for me for that evening. She was gone
now, as was my personal makeup artist and I returned to the dressing room on a high. Still reeling from the success of the interview.

  When I shut the door behind me, I could hear the live audience clapping. It was still a crazy thought to accept that these people were falling in love with me. I just couldn’t wrap my brain around it.

  Until a few weeks ago, I was nothing more than a faintly familiar face on television. I’d bagged a couple of roles on soaps and a few smaller roles on TV movies in the past few years. None of those roles had been even close to being as big as the one I had now.

  The sitcom, Failing at Love, had its whole series out on popular streaming service. Maybe the show would have gone unnoticed if it was aired on any other cable network, but with the streaming service quickly becoming one of the most popular ways for people to watch their shows in the country now; Failing at Love received rave reviews. Within weeks I had already become a household name before I even knew what hit me.

  I had always wanted to be an actress. Ever since I was four years old, I had dreamt of being a well-known and well-loved face on TV. Acting in films, on the big screen hadn’t ever been my end objective. I had always believed that being a daily presence in people’s lives on TV was more personal. That I would be better appreciated by an audience that way. Now, at the age of twenty-five, I had my big break, and all my Hollywood dreams were coming true.

  It had definitely been a good decision to move to LA.

  The thought made my fingers twitch, as I sat in front of the lit mirror in the dressing room. I was working away carefully at taking off my makeup. The red lipstick came off, as did the thick layers of mascara from my eyelashes and the foundation from my face. I didn’t want to think about New York and the life I had left behind there. I’d had a good night, just like every other night these past few weeks. Thinking about New York would only make me anxious, and that was the last thing I wanted right now.