Page 14 of Duchess (Royal Harlots MC: National New York Chapter #1)

Duchess

We stayed.

It had been five long years of this cat-and-mouse game with a monster.

Despite the threats, the bodies, the midnight whispers that warned me to run those first couple of years, I didn’t.

I couldn’t. Running would have meant Caleb Killic and the Turks had won.

So I stayed. And I turned every breath I took into a middle finger aimed straight at his heart.

Roulette and Obsidian fought me at first. They were afraid, and that was understandable.

They threatened to leave on their own, to never speak to me again, but they couldn’t.

Not after what I had done for them. And they weren’t loyal because of the money, but because they knew I was hurting, and they were risking their lives to help me.

I won’t deny I was stupid for staying, but they also understood that I couldn’t let them win.

It would show weakness, and we couldn’t afford it, not with what we were planning on executing.

So we decided not to hide. Not in the way you would have expected us to.

Members of the Death Row Shooters MC had helped us get Obsidian’s brother out of the hands of the Turks.

He had been given a new identity while Obsidian’s name had been wiped off the Turks registrar.

Rhea’s name was clear, and she already had an unhinged reputation in Los Angeles.

She had more protection on her than anyone I knew.

And me? Killian had helped me disappear as promised, but not in the way most people vanish.

In order for me to implement what I had planned, something drastic had to be done.

So we simply reshaped the narrative. I don’t know who he called or how he did it, but there was only one way for me to disappear.

He orchestrated my death like a goddamn concerto.

A motorcycle accident, blood samples planted, dental records altered.

They even staged a closed casket funeral.

There had been word that the Turks thought I was gone.

But Caleb?

That fucker never believed it.

And I knew it. Because we had watched it all unfold from the safety of my brand new hidden penthouse tucked above an abandoned theater in the Arts District of Downtown L.A.

, a place no one dared to look. Obsidian had hacked the church’s security feeds and patched them into our system.

The grainy black-and-white images on the screen showed him, stalking down the aisle, a look of suspicion on his face.

He approached the coffin slowly, one gloved hand already reaching for the lid.

But the Hellbound Lovers had been ready.

Members of the club stood guard, guns tucked beneath leather jackets as he approached.

The second his fingers brushed the edge, they surrounded him, weapons drawn.

Guns cocked, tension flared, and a warning was carved into every second that he did not back down.

After what seemed like an eternity, he assessed the situation and backed away, but not before he scanned the pews.

It looked like he was expecting me to rise from the dead and call his bluff.

He didn’t believe it. Not as the few strangers who attended, paid to bawl their eyes out, stood next to him, nor when the casket was put in the dirt.

Not for a second did he believe it. And that was exactly the way I wanted it.

I wanted my death to haunt him.

That was the beginning of his obsession.

After that day, he hunted me like a man unhinged, and I welcomed the fucking chase.

I craved it. I made a game of it just like he had made a game of me.

He didn’t rest, nor did he have mercy on anyone who got in his way, and I didn’t expect any less of him.

He was rage and obsession dressed in designer suits and bulletproof lies. And I loved every second of it.

I stayed buried in the shadows of Los Angeles, only ever resurfacing to fuck with his so-called Turkish empire.

I watched him grow in the Mafia, become an actual name that was mentioned in Forbes Magazine and the stock market on the news.

His dark high-end deals could easily be tracked in the black market.

And yet, even with all his power, I made sure I hit him where it hurt.

Slicing into his profits, and bleeding the Turks dry, one transaction at a time.

They never knew what hit them. We created fake manifests rerouting shipments into dead zones, where with the help of the Death Row Shooters, we hijacked and stripped hot products down within hours.

I torched his deals by bribing warehouse foremen and rigging contracts to implode.

His Turkish allies?

I embedded girls inside their clubs, eyes and ears in every booth, collecting secrets and leverage until the moment was right.

When they walked outside, we made sure they never came back.

One by one, they dropped like meat in the gutter.

Always close. Always brutal. Always leaving a trace of chaos without a single fingerprint.

And not once did they ever see my face. Yet all the while, I watched from the shadows as he lost control.

He never stopped chasing, and I never let him catch me.

I loved the way his fury tasted on my tongue, the way it kept him up at night.

I wanted him sweating in anxiety. I wanted him to show his weakness. I wanted him one breath away from madness. And I was planning on keeping him there until the end.

In the meantime we found a way to build our own empire.

I kept my promise to Rhea. And together, we began to build the Royal Harlots MC.

It was slow going at first, like any club, but we had gathered a few girls whom we trusted.

Rhea, or Roulette which was her chosen roadname, was my VP.

Elizabeth continued to use her hacker name and as Obsidian she became our Tech, but she preferred Black Hat and that was fine by me.

We had a few prospects lined up, including Calypso.

She was a wild child but had a good heart and initiative.

Demise was our War Lady. And she looked the part.

Short blonde hair, tattoos inked all over her body and a look of pure vigilante in her eye, she was the Rouge Roulette’s head of Security.

Because she had shown her loyalty to Rhea and myself those first few years, she’d easily been given the title of Sargent at Arms in the Royal Harlots.

We were headed in the right direction and we had the backup of two of the two most respected MCs in Los Angeles.

The Hellbound Lovers and their President, Wolf Stone.

As well as the Death Row Shooters and their President, Reaper. We lived by a code and we took no shit.

Our reach went deep and we had our hands in every pocket and eyes in every alley.

We laundered millions through strip joints, restaurants, crypto scams, and high-end businesses masked in glitter and tits.

With Rouge Roulette as backup we slowly began to own the exclusive nightclubs in Downtown, L.A.

Many of them frequented by the Turks themselves.

We couldn’t let the millions just sit in the bank, so we invested in properties.

Upscale massage parlors with locked back rooms, boutique crypto consulting firms, and an art gallery that doubled as a laundering front for both us and the Death Row Shooters.

Everything was carefully worked and calculated.

The Turks hated us, local MC gangs liked to test us.

Being an all female MC was not an easy feat, especially one that could be respected.

Although Rhea and ____held their connections in the HLMC, I still had not reached out to mine in the Royal Bastards MC.

Hell, we had stayed inconspicuous, fearing that Rancid, their President, would either want to take our money or would want to destroy us like he had so many others.

Either way, we did what we could with what we have, but recently the girls were growing fearful.

There were rumors at the Rouge Roulette that the Turks were catching on to our game and that they were asking questions.

Particularly about the Royal Harlots. Who we were, what business we had here, and what were we dealing in.

With the questions came the threats, and the girls grew fearful every day.

“We’re fucked,” Rhea stated, slumping down into a chair.

“I’m tired of tip-toeing around these sons of bitches. Let’s just take them out.” Demise sighed.

“If only,” Obsidian rolled her eyes and looked at me. “What are you thinking?”

I paused, leaning against my desk and looking down at my feet. “I don’t like it,” I said quietly.

“Your gut feeling is telling you to run, isn’t it?” Rhea asked.

“I don’t run,” I snapped.

“Yeah, we know that.” Rhea agreed, a cynical note in her tone.

“Don’t you think you’ve fucked with him enough. Just take him out already, that way we can move on and get the hell out of this city.” Rhea continued.

“And go where, Rhea?”

“New York. We can expand, get more prospects.”

I let my gaze fall to the floor. She wasn’t wrong. We would never get anywhere constantly watching our backs and hiding.

“Why don’t you contact, Colt?” Obsidian chimed in.

“My brother and the Royal Bastards are off the table. Or do you want Rancid to come after us? If you think my brother has the balls to protect us from that monster, your dead wrong.”

“Rancid? The President?” Demise asked, raising her head from the shot she was pouring.

“That’s right. Why, babe?” We all turned to look at her.

“Nothing. I just heard from a client that Rancid was out. They mentioned some new guy.”

I leaned away from my desk and walked over to her. Placing my hand over her glass, I stopped her from pouring and got her full attention.

“Exactly what did you hear, Demise?”

Demise lifted her eyes to meet mine. “One of my regulars... he said Rancid's being hunted down by the CIA. Word is, he got caught up in trafficking something, or someone, maybe. And that there’s already a new President taking over.”

I stiffened. “A new President?”

“Yeah,” she nodded.” She lifted the glass to her lips. “It was something that sounded like a whiskey, I think.”

My stomach dropped. My voice was barely a whisper. “Jameson?”

She nodded slowly. “That’s it.”

I turned away from her and grabbed my phone off the desk. My fingers trembled only slightly as I texted Colt.

Duchess: We need to talk.

His reply came seconds later.

Colt: You heard?

Duchess: So it’s true?

Colt: Rancid’s not going to survive this.

Duchess: And Jameson?

Colt: I had Knuckles call Jameson.

Duchess: Fuck.

Colt: I was gonna call you. Steph... he doesn't trust anyone. I'm just gonna warn you now, that you may hear from him.

Duchess: You told him!

"Motherfucker!" I yelled out, startling the group.

Colt: I had no choice. I had to regain his trust.

Duchess: So you put me, your sister, on the chopping block.

Colt: It’s not like that…

Duchess: Just remember that I'm going to kill you when I see you.

I stared at the screen, heart pounding. Then turned back to the girls.

“Shit’s about to change, ladies.”

Before anyone could respond, the office doors slammed open. Paramore, a current prospect brought in by Demise, stormed in. Her face was flushed and her eyes wide with panic.

“Whoa! What the hell’s going on?”

Demise shot to her feet, hand sliding toward the pistol at her hip.

I rushed over and grabbed Paramore’s arm. “What are you doing here? Did anyone follow you?”

She gasped, still catching her breath. “No. I came alone. But… it's not good."

"What is it Paramore? What's not good?" I spoke in a calm voice, trying to get her to calm down.

"It's Jinx. She's missing.”

“What do you mean missing?” Rhea asked, crossing the room.

“She left with a Turk last night,” Paramore said, voice cracking. “Older guy. Nasty looking. No one’s seen her since. We've called her, been to her place. It's not like her to disappear like that. She always tells us where she is.”

I looked at Rhea and when she glanced back at me, a moment of understanding slid between us.

We both knew what this meant.

The rumors were true, and the Turks had just made it personal.