That night I screamed for my parents and when they looked away, I screamed as loud as I could into the phone that was left on my bed. They shoved me in the back of their car and gave me a cocktail of drugs that took the fight right out of me.

The first night was the worst. They all took turns with the less pretty ones, I fell into that category. I cried, I puked, I begged for death, and it was only the first day. The girls who had been there longer were just wasting away in beds, so high they couldn’t even pick themselves up.

I knew I wasn’t going to end up like them. I swore I wasn’t going to end up like them. I planned on killing myself the moment I had a chance. When my next round of guests came on the second day, they laughed at me as I struggled against the chains. They liked fighters, they liked breaking them, and just as they dropped their pants, bullets were flying everywhere.

They seemed like angels of death, shooting down the pigs who dared to call themselves men. It happened so fast that I wasn’t even sure if I was still sane. I thought my mind was just trying to protect me. That was until I saw her. She walked in, looked around until she met my gaze, and I had never felt so disgusted with myself. I cried, and she simply walked over to me and gave me her white jacket.

She told me, “As long as I live, this will never happen to you ever again.”

That was the start. She took me in and forced me into therapy while she personally kicked my ass in training day in and day out for a year and a half. It felt like only weeks then. When I was better, in the sense that I was no longer weeping during the day and puking during the night, she told me I could go. But where could I go? I begged her to let me stay. I promised to stay loyal to her as long as I lived. It was then that she told me about who she was and what she did.

After a year and a half of seeing bloody walls, drugs, and guns everywhere, it wasn’t too hard to figure out. She told me the only way I could stay was to prove myself. I wasn’t sure how, but I would do anything.

So she drove me back to my old house on the corner of 54th and Adam Street, gave me a gun, and told me to get my justice. My heart was beating so fast I could hear it my ears, and I didn’t want to let her down. I didn’t want to let myself down. I wanted to kill them for what they did to me. Parents like that shouldn’t get to live. So I rang the doorbell, and when my father opened the door, he nearly pissed himself.

“Hi, Daddy.” It was the last thing I remembered saying before I lost myself. When it was over, I walked into the kitchen to find Mel eating the dinner my mother would never get to eat. She looked me over before sliding me a glass of wine.

“From this day forward, Adriana, I’m your Boss,” she said to me. “You will treat me with respect. I will treat you with a lesser form of that respect. But if you ever betray me, I will kill you, and I like you. But I will still kill you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, sucking down the wine.

“Do you need anything?” she asked once she stood up.

“There is nothing for me here, ma’am.”

“Then burn it to the ground,” she said, before walking out the door.

Any part of the old Adriana died in that fire. From those ashes, I came out a Phoenix. Mel had always reminded me that we all had the capacity to be ruthless, that all we needed was the right push.

“Whoa.” Antonio smirked from my doorway at the transformed woman staring back at me. Kissing my neck, he met my gaze in the mirror. “Sexy, but this isn’t my Phoenix. Where are you going?”

“The Boss,” I said, and he didn’t ask any more questions, he knew not to. He kissed my neck before walking to the door.

“Be safe, baby,” he said as the door shut.

Antonio and I . . . well it was new, complicated, and fun. I hadn’t dated since joining Mel, however, Antonio and I always found ourselves in these situations with our clothes off. I had to tell Mel, and when I did, she said that as long as our loyalty to her outranked our lust for each other, she didn’t give a fuck who we screwed.

Grabbing my stuff, I walked out of the house basically unnoticed, and it was only when I was about to board my flight, I sent a text to Liam. Mel would be right behind me. She wanted blood. She would get her revenge.

THIRTY-TWO

“There was a murdered corpse,

in secret land and violent death

in thousand shapes displayed.”

~ Geoffrey Chaucer

LIAM

I couldn’t help but watch her as I drank my brandy. The way she cleaned her gun over and over again had to be one of the sexiest things I had ever seen her do. She was mesmerizing, from her long ponytail, to her sleek tank top and camo pants, everything about her was memorizing.

“I feel you staring at my breasts,” she said not bothering to look at me. But her voice alone was enough to give me a hard-on.

“If it bothers you, love, stand up and let me stare at your ass instead.” I grinned, finishing the rest of my drink before standing up.

“Liam, we need to focus,” she hissed as I ran my fingers against her neck.

Kissing the base of her throat, I grabbed her breasts. “I am focusing.”

“Liam stop,” she said, pushing me away.

Backing away from her, I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to calm myself down. What the fuck was wrong with me? She had just started to speak less than twelve hours ago, and I was trying not to jump her. Being in the plane with her so close didn’t help. Never had I been happier to take her bitching.

“Mel . . .”

“Liam . . .”

We both stopped when there was a knock on the door. Sighing, Mel stood up and opened the lodge door, allowing both Neal and Declan to walk in. Declan immediately gave me a look as if he knew what had just happened. However, with the thin walls I wouldn’t be that surprised.

Vance was right in coming to Tanzania. Neither Mel nor I had ever been here before, but luckily the American dollar was as good as gold. It only cost us five hundred dollars to buy this wooden lodge in the middle of the fucking jungle. It wasn’t the Ritz, but it would do for now.

“Can we come in?” Neal asked.

“She opened the fucking door didn’t she?” I stated, pouring myself more brandy. Thank God that Nelson kid kept the plane well stocked.

Walking over to me, Mel capped the brandy bottle, glaring at me before looking back at them. “What do you have?”

Declan pulled out a map and opened it over the table. “So were in Seronera, here.” He pointed. “From what we’ve gathered speaking to some of the locals, a group of men with Vs on their arms came through here two weeks ago.”

“We think they are hiding out in Lobo, about forty-five miles from here. If we leave now, we can make it before daybreak. I’ve already bought a helicopter from one of the townsfolk, Jinx is fixing it up the best he can now,” Neal added, pulling on the strap of his sniper rifle.

“You, Antonio, and Jinx along with the rest of the snipers will stay back ten miles. I’m guessing the helicopter you bought isn’t going to hold all twelve of us, so look for another one and have Adriana fly it,” Mel stated looking over the map. “Declan, you and Monte, along with the rest of the men, will back the twenty-five mile mark.”

We stared at her as though she had just lost her fucking mind.

“So you and I are supposed to raid their hideout by ourselves?” I asked her slowly. Maybe she wasn’t quite ready to come back yet.