Page 6 of Duchess (Royal Harlots MC: National New York Chapter #1)

Caleb

T he rain didn’t come, but I fucking wanted it to.

I wanted something to break open, something to soak the dirt and drown the silence because the weight pressing down on my chest hadn't let up. Alan’s death was building a quiet, calculated rage within me.

A kind of anger that had been simmering under my skin for far too long.

He had been a goddamn idiot. A reckless, dumb as rocks bastard with a smile that made people forget the knife he kept behind his back.

I should have let him rot years ago, life debt or not.

I owed him for pulling me out of Istanbul when the knives were already drawn for my throat, but the price of that debt had ballooned into something I never intended to carry this long.

He should have been smarter. He should have kept his dick in his pants and his hands off things that didn’t belong to him. And now he was gone.

The Turks don’t kill their golden boys without warning.

Alan had been stealing from our family, from me, someone who took him in.

Who gave him a new life, a new home, and introduced him to my family, and he threw all that away for a few million dollars.

My grandfather considered it a betrayal, and his order was executed just like any other would have been.

Because if you didn't go through with what Emir Killic ordered, you'd be found in a ditch somewhere, only after your body parts were meticulously detached from your body.

And if it were his family, he'd be brutal.

Your name would be forgotten, and the only one allowed to mourn your death was your mother.

You'd be buried out back with the dogs, and he made sure your name would never be spoken about again.

He was ruthless, a visceral human being who would do any and all type of harm without blinking an eye.

And he had been watching and waiting to implement his revenge.

When my grandfather gave the order, he had stated the kill be executed by his youngest grandson.

His way of having me prove myself was in killing my best friend.

Alan never saw it coming. There was no struggle.

No warning. He simply opened the door and I fired.

Empathy was for the weak, but as I watched my friend's blood drain from his head, I knew there was no turning back.

My soul had been sold, and my life had been bound to the Turkish Mafia and owned by the devil himself.

I was chained to this fate a long time ago.

I was fourteen when I saw my first execution.

My father slit a man’s throat in front of a marble fireplace while sipping Arak and humming a Turkish lullaby under his breath.

He told me it was justice. I didn’t flinch.

I didn’t cry. I just watched the blood stain the rug and the body twitch.

That’s when he knew I’d be useful.

By sixteen, I was delivering messages that ended in bodies. By twenty, I was in too deep to climb out. They called me a bodyguard, but that was just a polite way of saying I kept things clean. I made people disappear. I made assets behave. I was the blade they used when diplomacy failed.

What does this mean for a man like me?

It means I have gained a large number of enemies in this world. Enemies that want to destroy anything I'd built and ruin anyone I love. I knew the risks when Alan didn't. Now he was dead, and I was moving up in the system.

I stared at the casket even after the crowd had left.

The wind was sharp, cutting across my cheeks, and the burden of what the silence brought with it, settled on my shoulders.

I clenched my fists in the pockets of my coat, the leather gloves stretched taut over knuckles that were meant for violence.

And then there was her.

Stephanie fucking Winters.

She had no right standing there looking like a sex kitten wearing those black sunglasses; her lips were a bright red, an invitation for more.

Her long, dark hair grew wild in the wind, sexy curves poured into black denim, fist clenched at her side.

She was holding her rage back. A rage that matched my own.

I knew every inch of her. I had memorized the way her ass swayed when she walked, the sharp flick of her eyes when she was about to lie, the way her breath caught whenever I got too close.

I hated how much I noticed. How much I wanted her to notice me.

She was poison. Beautiful, burning poison.

But I didn’t trust her. I never could. She was too calm. Too collected. Alan might have died in a pool of his own brains, but she hadn't even shed a tear. That told me more than any police report could.

Stephanie knew something. Maybe not everything. But enough. And I was going to find out exactly what.

When Alan brought Stephanie into the fold, when he let her touch the books and sniff around in places she never should have been allowed, I knew he was sealing his fate.

And yet...

Goddammit, she was magnetic.

The first time I trailed her, I watched her walk out of a bank in Echo Park, hips swaying, boots clicking against the pavement as if sounding off a countdown.

She didn’t look back, didn’t flinch, didn’t check her surroundings.

She knew I was there. And she loved it. The little smirk at the corner of her mouth told me everything I needed to know.

She was built for trouble.

She paused at the crosswalk, took a short look over her shoulder, and dared me to follow.

I should have turned back. Should have let someone else handle her.

But I didn’t. I followed her into that underground bar.

I watched her laugh and press those curves against Alan, knowing the entire time my eyes were on her.

I watched her dance in that short dress, hypnotized by the way her body curved to the sultry beat of the music.

Her legs toned, thighs built to destroy men, and tits meant to feed them.

Fuck! I hated her for it.

I hated that my fists clenched when Alan touched her. I hated the way she looked in red. I hated the sound of her laugh. The way she bit her lip. The way she could tear a man apart with her words and leave him hanging on a thread, hoping for more.

I wanted her. Badly.

But I couldn’t have her.

So I watched. I cataloged. I waited. I didn't know what the fuck i was waiting for. But now Alan was dead, I needed to find the missing product, and she was the last loose end.

"You're going to tell me what I need to know, Duchess,” I snarled at her.

“Stop calling me that,” she gritted, eyes wild as she met my gaze.

Those eyes made my cock throb. I wanted to pin her down beneath me and have her look at me as I forced my cock inside of her sweet pussy.

“What, you don’t like that I know your secrets?” I leaned into her, grazing the backs of my fingers over her cheek.

“I know everything that you do, Duchess.” I whispered against her lips, feeling her body stiffen against me.

I gave a slow cynical smile, knowing full well her pussy was wet and as needy as she made me.

She never broke, never gave me what I needed. Which meant the only way I was ever going to get it was to follow her sweet ass.

I knew every move she made. And I knew she'd be back here tonight. I knew she wasn't going to stay away. Time was running out and whatever it was she was going to do, she wasn't going to wait on it. She was too clever for that. Too dangerous.

Back at Alan's apartment, I broke through the police tape and made my way inside. Blood was still splattered on the floorboards and couch cushions. I made my way to the window and watched the street.

You needed to have patience in my line of work. It didn't help to get anxious or want to rush things; that's how mistakes were made. Instead, you wait in the shadows to see them slip up, and that's when you strike.

Two hours later, I saw the motorcycle slip into an alley across the street. A few minutes later, a curvy figure dressed in all black emerged. She scanned the empty street before crossing it and heading toward the building.

I watched from the shadows as she slipped inside.

I could instantly tell she was here to look for something.

Something I desperately needed to get to, and she was going to lead me right to it.

So I waited and I tracked her moving across the living room toward the bedroom.

I was calm, slowed down my heartbeat as I moved when she moved.

I saw the panel opening, I saw her enter the room, and I also saw her grab the laptop.

She thought no one had followed her, but I knew she was expecting me. That was the sick dance between us. A toxic push and pull we both got off on.

I moved when she stepped into that hidden room. Slipped inside the door just as she hit enter on a screen I couldn’t see. The floorboards creaked beneath my weight, and she paused, scanning the area.

Quickly, she picked up the laptop and ran out the door.

She barely made it past it when I was on her.

She spun around, her hand already halfway to the gun I knew she kept tucked in the back of her waistband.

I caught her wrist, slammed her against the wall, and pressed my body flush against hers.

I pinned her against the wall, my hand in her hair and my breath at her ear, but she didn’t fight me. She only seethed at me.

“What are you doing here, Duchess?”

What do you think I'm doing? I'm cleaning up the mess your boy left.”

"Liar. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into." I growled.

She smiled, soft and slow. "No, Caleb. You just don’t know what I’m capable of."

Fuck.

I always knew I was in trouble, because the woman I hated most in this world might be the only one who ever truly saw through me. And I didn’t know if I wanted to kill her... or keep her. And that scared me more than any Turk ever could.

"What are you hiding?"

She smiled. Not afraid. Never afraid. That’s what made her lethal.

"You think I scare that easy? You forget who trained me?"

Her chest rose and fell against mine, heat bleeding through her skin into mine. My hand was still on her wrist, her pulse hammering beneath my thumb.

"I know you found something," I said.

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"I should break your fingers. Torture you until you give it to me."

"Do it. But if you want what I found, you better start using something other than your threats, cause those don’t work on me."

I dragged her closer. Our lips, just inches apart.

Her hot breath hovered against my mouth as her scent of sweet lilies filled my lungs.

My hand slid from her wrist, up her arm, over her shoulder, and around her throat.

She didn't move, but I felt her shudder against me as I squeezed.

A small whimper fell from her lips, and I thought I was going to lose it right then and there.

“You're not leaving here alive, Winters. We both know that. Give me what you found, and I may make your death quick.”

"You can try. But you won’t survive what comes next,” she whispered.

I grunted in approval. “You will fear me, Duchess.”

“I am not afraid of you, Killic. I never was.”

"That’s your first mistake, Winters."

I kissed her. I don’t know why I did it, but I kissed her.

Hard.

Violent.

I didn't know what the fuck I was doing, but the sound of her moan getting lost in my mouth made my cock jerk, and I wanted to take her right there against that wall.

She bit my lip, clawed her nails into my chest like she wanted to tear me apart and take me all at once. I slammed her back against the wall, one leg between hers, grinding until she gasped.

I broke the kiss, leaning back just in time to see her cheeks flush, the redness running down across her plush tits.

I let my eyes take their time lingering on those globes, wanting to tear them out of her tank top.

My gaze was distracted by the way she licked her kiss-swollen lips, and then they traveled up to meet the rage in her eyes.

Her anger only made me grow harder for her.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” she hissed at me, that sweet venom lacing every syllable.

But those words? They lit something inside me. She made me feel this rage mixed with a heartbreak so deep it hurt my fucking chest. And then it filled with a hunger so vicious it curled in my gut and whispered ruin her just so I wouldn’t have to feel this ache clawing at my ribs.

“It means everything,” I growled against her mouth, my voice like gravel, my lips brushing hers, wanting another one of those kisses. “And we both fucking know it.”

“Fuck you,” she spat out, the fire flashing in her eyes.

God, she was beautiful when she hated me.

“This isn’t over, Duchess,” I snarled, every syllable dripping with promise.

She bent to grab the laptop from the floor, her breath uneven, eyes steady on mine, thinking I might stop her, might pull her back into what we’d just started.

But I wasn’t going to. I was going to let her run because the thrill was in the torment. The torment of knowing damn well that I wouldn’t stop until I had her pinned down beneath me, breathless and begging for her life, right where I wanted her to be.