Page 28 of Duchess

"You were drugged!"

I shook my head. "No. I wasn't. Well, yes I was but afterward.” I looked up at her, grabbing her hand. “And that's exactly what he wanted me to know. He wanted to fuck with my head. To makemethe one to blame."

"So, who the fuck said he won. You feel that anger," she slammed her palm against my chest nearly making me fall back. Grabbing me she steadied me. "You use that. You take that rage, and you make it count. But not now. Not like this."

I shook my head, backing away. "I shouldn't have ever trusted that he wouldn't come for me. I thought I had control. I thought I could handle Caleb fucking Killic."

"He’s playing a game, Steph. You think he’s not expecting this reaction? You walk into his trap now, he wins. We stick to the plan."

I turned toward her, seething. "What plan? I can’t breathe in this skin knowing he had me. I can’t exist in this body when I know he..."

Roulette pulled me into a tight hug, forcing me to stiffen against the touch until the tension broke. "We disappear. Killian’s already setting things in motion. Obsidian’s got the laptop. We wait for her call. And when the time’s right, we end him. On our terms. Not his."

My breathing slowed. I hated it. Hated the logic in her voice. Hated that she was right. But most of all, I hated that I still felt Caleb on my skin.

“I don’t think I can let this go, Rhea.” I clung to her.

“Fuck. Me,” she whispered, holding me tight, knowing damn well that we weren’t going anywhere until he paid for what he did to me.

Chapter 9

Duchess

2020… Los Angeles.

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. Notfor 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.

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