Villains & Vodka Read online

  Villains & Vodka

  Top Shelf Series

  Alta Hensley

  Contents

  Copyright

  Message From Alta Hensley

  Blurb

  1. Harley Crow

  2. Marlowe Masters

  3. Harley

  4. Marlowe

  5. Marlowe

  6. Marlowe

  7. Harley

  8. Marlowe

  9. Marlowe

  10. Marlowe

  11. Marlowe

  12. Marlowe

  13. Harley

  14. Harley

  15. Marlowe

  16. Marlowe

  17. Harley

  18. Marlowe

  19. Harley

  20. Marlowe

  BRIDE TO KEEP

  About the Author

  Newsletter

  Also by Alta Hensley

  BASTARDS & WHISKEY -Sneak Peek

  CAPTIVE VOW - Sneak Peek

  Villains & Vodka

  By

  Alta Hensley

  Copyright 2017© Alta Hensley

  All rights reserved .

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review .

  Thank you to Jay Aheer for another amazing cover! Also a big thanks to my wonderful editor and friend Maggie Ryan for editing and helping my book turn to magic! I also can’t forget my amazing betas! You all know who you are, and I love you. And of course L. Woods PR for pimping my ass. I have the best team in the world .

  ALTA HENSLEY’S HOT, DARK & DIRTY NEWS

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  Message From Alta Hensley

  H ello readers! Thank you so much for taking the time to read Villains & Vodka. I hope you enjoy this dark and sexy tale. Harley Crow is by far my most favorite hero I have written .

  I do want to give a small warning, however. There are a few scenes in this book that could be a trigger for some. One scene in particular includes self harm. Although a lot of time and consideration went into this scene, and it was not written without great care .

  So with that said …

  Sit back and enjoy !

  Let me introduce you to Harley and Marlowe !

  To those who like my fire .

  To those who understand that I am the type of flame that burns with thick black smoke swirling around it. The kind that burns your lungs and waters your eyes .

  Thank you to all who are willing to dance naked around my type of fire with wild abandon .

  Naked and howling at the moon as you do so .

  My life is one long fevered dream, balancing between being killed or killing .

  The name Harley Crow is one to be feared .

  I am an assassin .

  A killer .

  The villain .

  I own it. I choose this life. Hell, I crave it. I hunger for it. The smell of fear makes me hard and is the very reason the blood runs through my veins .

  Until I meet her …

  Marlowe Masters .

  Her darkness matches my own .

  In my twisted world of dancing along the jagged edge of the blade …

  She changes everything .

  No weapon can protect me from the kind of death she will ultimately deliver .

  *Villains & Vodka is a dark billionaire romance. If you don’t like a splash of shock, a dash of taboo, and a heavy dose of sex, then don’t take a sip of this TOP SHELF cocktail .

  1

  Harley Crow

  M y life had been one long fevered dream, balancing between being killed or killing .

  Though I was not afraid to die .

  I was already dead, for you cannot live without a soul .

  I was the creature you did not want to see in the shadows of an alley .

  I was death .

  I was evil .

  I was a man who played God, but really was the Devil in disguise .

  I was an assassin. A killer .

  The villain in this story .

  I own it. I chose this life. Hell, I craved it. I hungered for it. The smell of fear made my dick hard and was the very reason the blood ran through my veins. I would not apologize for what I did or who I was. The time of guilt had long passed many deaths ago .

  The name Harley Crow was one to be feared, and I took fucking pride in that fact. The more people who feared me, the more money I made. Fear also kept me safe… or safer. Don’t mess with Harley Crow they say, and my reply was always damn straight .

  As I stared out a single-pane window, with a gun on my lap ready to kill, I inhaled deeply. I had to absorb the bad. Soak in the fact that I was about to kill a man. It was my job and what I’d been hired to do. One task. Bullet through the head .

  I had two guns. One that would shoot far enough to kill, and one to keep near me for protection if someone were to enter the room or try to snag my ass during escape. The guns had names. They all had names with letters and numbers attached, but I didn’t give a fuck what they were called. They were guns. Plain and simple. Metal, black or silver, and could kill. I guess it was safe to say I wasn’t a gun man. Odd for an assassin, and could be downright dangerous not fully knowing the tools of your trade. But all I cared about was how far did it shoot, what kind of bullets did it take, and how much it was to purchase. Black and white. Keep all that AK number bullshit to yourself. I had no time or desire to care .

  Not anymore .

  I wasn’t always like that. Quite opposite, in fact. I used to make my own bullets, knew every single detail about every gun I owned. I once thrived off being involved in the illegal gun trade so that I could get the best of the best and before anyone else had a chance to. My life revolved around weapons, and the weight and smell of one could get me harder quicker than a naked woman could. I spent my every waking hour at the range honing my skills. I wanted to be unsurpassed by anyone, and I had made that fact a reality. I lived and breathed becoming the most lethal killer I could be. There was an art to it. A pride I fucking loved for the skill it required .

  But not now. Yes, I was still lethal. But I no longer cared if I was the best. At this stage in my life, hand me a fucking gun, point at the guy who needed to be dead, and I was done. Mission accomplished. I had been the vicious predator most of my life and made my billion in doing so. But today, now, I just didn’t give a fuck. I didn’t really give a fuck about much .

  It was time to retire I guess you could say. I knew this. I even went into business with others in a gentlemen’s club called Spiked Roses . My first legit business venture. But an assassin couldn’t just give his notice and collect his pension. An assassin doesn’t just break away from the darkness—not until you lay him down in the cold ground. My fate had been sealed the day I’d killed my first man for pay. Tired and over it, I still was an assassin. A tattoo forever marked on my soul .

  I even used to want to know all about my victim before I pulled the trigger. I wanted to learn what he’d done to deserve a bullet through the back of his skull. I was even the sick fuck who wanted to know what his last meal was before his death. I would stalk my prey for days to try to see a glimpse of evil that gave me cause to end his life. But not anymore. I realized it didn’t matter. A good man would believe no one deserved to be assassinated no matter what .

  But like I said, I was not a good man .

  The truth was that I believed everyone deserved the bullet. Darkness and evil ran in all of u
s. There were no innocents in this life other than children, and that would soon change. Age made us bad. Maturity poisoned us .

  Just like the man across the way who sat at a cheap particleboard desk in his office. He shredded papers with shaking hands and beads of sweat dripping off his brow. He had a secret. They all had secrets. Secrets that got them killed. He needed to stand so I could get a clean shot, which meant I had to wait. Wait while the sweaty bastard worked to destroy whatever evidence—I didn’t give a shit about—was hidden on those papers. All that concerned me was that the man had a huge bounty on his head, and I would be collecting it by dawn .

  Cracking my knuckles, I tried to fight off the anxious tension in my hands. I needed a cigarette, but I had given that habit up recently. Ironic that I was worried about my health when the bounty on my own head was higher than any job I’d ever done in the past or that I was likely to do in the future. I was walking dead, but I still didn’t want to die with a breathing tube jammed in my throat. My voice already sounded like I had swallowed a box of jagged glass, and the last thing I needed was to be lugging around an oxygen tank and have plastic sticking out of my nostrils. No thank you. Hard to give off the bad boy, tattoo-covered killer look while wheezing for air. I wasn’t in my young twenties anymore, but I sure as hell wasn’t an old bastard, yet my lungs felt like it at times .

  But I still wanted a cigarette . Fuck .

  Judging by the large stack of papers needing to be destroyed beside my soon-to-be victim’s desk, I knew I could be sitting on this metal folding chair for several hours. My only hope was him needing to stand up and take a piss or stretch his legs. Maybe I would be lucky, and he’d walk over to the window to stare out of it and make my job really easy. But I had done enough of these gigs to know that nothing about them was ever easy. They took patience. A shit load of patience .

  My need for a cigarette only grew with the ruckus from the room up above. The sounds of shouts, bangs, crying, screaming. I wasn’t in the mood to listen to some dude beat up his old lady in this piece of shit apartment building. It made my skin crawl hearing her plead. And no matter how hard I tried to not pay attention, they grew louder. I had one rule as an assassin. Leave women alone. I’d never killed a single woman, and never would. And I sure as shit wouldn’t beat on one. What the hell was the man doing to her? Motherfucker !

  Not being able to take it any longer, I stood up, placed the handgun in the waistband against my spine, and charged out the door. This was stupid of me. I knew I didn’t need to be drawing attention to being in the building at all. I’d already had to bribe the landlord a thousand dollars to open the unoccupied apartment’s door, and had thrown in an extra hundred-dollar bill to reward him when he didn’t ask a single question as I carried nothing but a black duffle bag through the entryway. The man even had provided me with a chair. Although, I didn’t think Mr. Landlord would be too pleased if I beat up one of his tenants for being an abusive asshole. He didn’t want the cops beating on his door, and I didn’t blame him. But enough was enough .

  I knocked on the door of apartment 623. I was half tempted to just kick it in, but I would give the dickhead a chance to apologize and back down with his tail between his legs .

  The door opened and a greasy-haired white man dressed in a dirty wrinkled dress shirt and baggy black slacks greeted me in a way that only a fool would, had he known who I was .

  “What the fuck do you want?” he asked. Booze permeated his breath, and his pupils were dilated. Drunk and high meant I had to be careful. These types of fuckers don’t scare easily. A look and a warning would not be enough .

  I didn’t answer his question, but pushed my way inside the apartment .

  “Who the hell do you think you are? You can’t just barge in here!” He reached for my arm, which was a big mistake. I do not like to be touched by dirty hands. By dirty anything. Who knew where those hands had been, and I didn’t want them touching me .

  I spun my body enough to avoid his filthy touch and reached behind me for my gun. Pulling it out and pointing it at his head didn’t make him instantly cower. I didn’t expect it to. He was too fucked up to process that he was about to be killed. I would have to make it very clear to his dumb ass. “Touch me and die,” I warned with a calm and steady voice, still pointing the gun at his forehead. A wise man would know that the calmer your opponent was, the more danger you were in. But this idiot was far from wise .

  I took the time it required for the white trash piece of shit to process my words and actions to glance around the room. A beaten and shaken older woman cowered against the wallpaper-torn wall a few feet away from me. By her wide-eyed stare and her frozen stance, I wasn’t sure if she was more afraid of the man beating her, or me. I didn’t really give a fuck either way. Blood dripped from a gash near her eye, and her lip was busted so bad that I knew she would need stitches for both wounds. The woman was definitely used and abused. She appeared weathered and worn—but it could very well be years of living a brutal life deceiving me. Cheeks sunken in, lusterless hair, skin full of pockmarks. She was hard on the surface, though her eyes told a story of a frightened and scared woman. The apartment was shitty—not that I expected anything else in a building like this. The couch looked worse than something you would see for free on the curb right before a Monday morning garbage day. The rest of the furniture wasn’t any better, and the room smelled like stale cigarettes and cat piss .

  Finally, the fear set in for the man. He raised his hands and took a few steps back. “I don’t want any problems, dude. I have no beef with you .”

  “You do that to her?” I asked, nodding toward the bloodied woman .

  He swallowed hard and took another half step back. “Listen, man. I don’t know who you are, but I got nothing to offer you. I’m broke. That dirty old whore owes me money for last night’s jobs. Go ahead and get the money from her. It’s yours. Like I said, I want no trouble .”

  Of course he would say those words. I was the one with the fucking gun pointed at his head. Damn pimp and whore situation. I hated these more than anything. No woman should ever be owned. Especially by a dirty prick like this man nearly shitting himself before me. Pimps were the sickest of all men. I ran with ruthless fuckers. I knew the bad guys and would rarely judge. Monsters among men. But not dirty street pimps. I fucking hated pimps .

  “You owe him money?” I asked the woman .

  She shook her head. “I got jumped last night. I didn’t collect. I lost everything.” When she opened her mouth to speak, I could see she was missing most of her teeth, and what remained were stained and crooked .

  “Lying cunt,” the man snapped .

  Without hesitation, I struck the side of his head with the weight of my gun. He stumbled back until he fell against the wall, lifting his dirt-encrusted hand to the blood dripping from the wound near his temple .

  “Don’t ever call a woman that name,” I lectured in the same even toned voice I had been using since entering the apartment. I looked back at the woman. “Are you lying ?”

  She shook her head as tears cascaded down her bruised face. “No, sir. I swear it.” Her body shook, and when she went to wrap her arms around her skinny frame, I saw the track marks running along her inner arm. Junkie or not, she didn’t deserve a beating .

  “Did he do this to you?” I asked, using my free hand to motion up and down her body .

  She nodded .

  “Does he do this to you often ?”

  She nodded again, shame adding to the fear on her face .

  “What would you like me to do?” I asked. The pimp asshole remained frozen against the wall. I knew he would. I wasn’t concerned he would try anything. A good pistol whipping had a way of making any man compliant .

  “Excuse me?” she asked in a frail voice .

  “I asked you what you wanted me to do. To him .”

  She glanced at her attacker, and then back at me .

  “Make him leave me alone .”

  “Foreve
r?” I asked to clarify .

  She nodded as she looked back at the man I had no doubt caused her great misery. For a few moments I saw courage and dignity wash over her eyes, but it quickly disappeared when the dumb fuck said, “Shut your mouth. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even have a roof over your head, bitch .”

  I hit him again with the gun—harder this time—causing his head to slam against the wall, knocking off a nearby picture. The sound of breaking glass blended with his own cry. Yeah, that shit hurt. Being hit with a gun was nowhere near like being hit with a fist. I knew this. And now this asshole sure as hell did as well .

  “If I left here, would he leave you alone? Tomorrow? The day after that?” I asked, turning my attention back to the woman .

  She looked down at the stained carpet and shook her head. “He’ll never leave me alone.” I could barely hear the words coming from her bloody lips .

  “But you want him to?” I asked .

  She nodded. “So much so . But …”

  I took hold of the cheap polyester-covered arm of the pimp jackass and pushed him into the bathroom a few feet away. He stumbled but didn’t resist. I shoved him up against the chipped bathtub with an ugly plastic floral shower curtain behind him. I pointed my gun to his head again .

  “Please, man,” he begged. “I’ll leave. I’ll never return. Whatever you want .”