PROLOGUE
Bryce
I never thought I’d see my sister again.
When I was eight, she’d vanished without a trace. My mother had told me time and time again that she didn’t know where my sister was, and eventually I’d stopped asking. Sometimes I thought that I’d dreamt her or that she was an imaginary friend when I had no other kids to play with me.
Until my mother killed herself a little more than three years ago.
I’d just turned eighteen a few weeks before. I came home from being out with Tony, my mother’s husband. Though, as I read the suicide note that my mother had left, I found out that Tony was more than her husband and that my sister didn’t only exist in my imagination …
Bry,
I can’t deny it anymore. Tony is your biological father. I’m sorry we’ve lied to you your entire life. He wanted it that way.
Over the years, I’ve watched you grow from a boy and into a man. Sadly, you’re becoming like him, and it’s all my fault. Everything is my fault—even your sister leaving. At least I hope she left and wasn’t killed by him. Tony swears he didn’t do anything to her, but I know she ran away because I let him sell her virginity—like it was ours to sell for her. My heart breaks knowing I had a hand in it, but I had no choice. Your father was my Daddy. He started to whore me out not long after I had Joss. He’s already started showing you the ropes, and soon he’ll turn you into a pimp and have you working in his circle. I can’t watch you go down that path.
I’d give anything to go back to your sister’s seventeenth birthday. I would change it all. I would leave with the two of you, and I’d find a way to hide us from that horrific man. To let you grow up in a normal household. A home where I would show you how much I truly love you. A home where we would laugh. A home where we would be able to come and go as we pleased. A home where you could have grown up like a normal kid and not one surrounded by sex, lies, and drugs.
I’d be the mother you deserve—that Joss deserved.
Obviously, that didn’t happen, and it eats me alive every day. I deserve the way he has treated me for the last thirty-five years, but I can’t live like this anymore, Bry. I can’t live and watch you turn into him. Your sister wouldn’t have let that happen. Part of me feels that she’s still alive and has found happiness. That she laughs every day. That she’s happy and in love and not weak like me.
I want you to be happy. I want you to find a woman who you truly deserve and not one who will only warm your bed. But I don’t know how to get you away from your father, and that’s the only answer.
You’re eighteen now, but you’ll always be under his control. There’s no getting away from him, and for that, I’m sorry too. I can’t be under his control anymore, but please know that even though I was mean to you and acted like you were a mistake, I love you. I love you so much, and I can’t watch him destroy you like he destroyed Joss and me.
I’m sorry, please forgive me.
Mom
XOXO
I found the note on my pillow when I got home from going with Tony to my first Pimp Circle. He was trying to teach me the ways on how to turn out a ho because I was “finally” a man. When we got to a warehouse near the Vegas airport, my father’s pimp partners were there with a single girl.
“This is what we in the game call a Pimp Circle, son. It’s time you learn how to turn a cunt that’s being difficult,” he’d said.
The men circled the girl like lions ready to attack, and I watched my father and the other pimps intimidate the scared girl physically, emotionally and sexually. It wasn’t the first time I’d known Tony to beat a woman, but watching it firsthand made my mouth water for a taste of the action. After that day, I was shown that a pimp circle could be with any form of abuse or coercion to get the ho to turn out—force her into prostitution. When I was nineteen, my father made me force a ho by gang raping her with the other pimp partners in our circle. He’d told me, “One day, you’ll be me. You’ll take over the family business and run this town. You’ll be the top Gorilla Pimp in Clark County.” At first, I was nervous, but as I watched the other pimps take their turns, I got hard. I wanted to be in control for once, feel what it was like to take what was mine. For so long I’d been doing what Tony had told me to do, and then he was giving me the chance to, finally, become a man.
That was how and who he was, and I didn’t know any different. Even after I read my mother’s suicide note and found her dead body, I thought being forceful was how to play the game. It was all I knew, how I was raised. Growing up, if I were to backtalk or tell Tony I didn’t want to do something, he’d beat me until I did it. That was why I stayed in the family business even after my mother’s final words. I feared deep down that if I were to ever disobey Tony to any extreme, he’d kill me. I’d even destroyed the suicide note in fear that Tony would blame me. I wasn’t even allowed to cry for my loss. I hated him, but had no choice. I had to do what he told me to do or I’d be beaten just like his whores.
A year later—and after many hours of training—I found my bottom bitch, Jasmine. One night she started walking my track (where my bitches ran their tricks and made their quota looking for dates). One of my girls called and said someone was on their turf. When I pulled my Rover to where they were working, I spotted Jasmine leaning against a brick wall by herself. Every ho in the business knows that you keep your head down and never make eye contact with a pimp because, if you do, you’re automatically choosing up—stolen from your current pimp. And Jasmine had done exactly that. She’d made a reckless eyeballing mistake, looking up when she thought I was a john. The moment our gazes met, she was mine.
“Shit,” she muttered, “Martinez.”
She knew who I was right away, and therefore, I didn’t need to coerce her or break her. Everyone knew the Martinez family. My father ran the town, and people knew not to fuck with me. Jasmine was mine, and I could see the defeat on her face immediately as she closed her eyes, looked back down at the ground and her body slumped as if she was defeated.
By the end of that night, I’d learned Jasmine’s pimp was taking ninety percent of her cut and not the typical seventy-five percent. So really, her mistake was meant to be for the both of us. She was making more money under my family, and I had another ho making me money.
Over the next two years, I began to trust her more and more, and six months ago I made her my bottom. Together we manage my stable of thirty plus hos. She’s my eyes, my ears, and my recruiter.
That was until my long-lost sister—a fucking FBI agent—took me down.
I’d heard about this bitch that Jasmine recruited who’d tried to square up. I thought this loose bitch was a renegade and couldn’t decide if she wanted to work as an escort, out of pocket as a renegade or what she didn’t know, in my pocket. Once they were recruited, they worked for me and only me. Since Jasmine was my bottom, she recruited the hos and set-up the first date. And then, after they passed the first test on their first date, I’d come in and head cut them, reminding them who was really in charge. They say pimpin’ ain’t easy, but you know what? It is until the cunts break the rules.
The first test was a date with my best friend, Aaron, who’d forcefully take control of the situation. The whores would think they were in control because they’d have what the john wanted, but the real truth was that I was their daddy and I was in control. At any moment, Aaron could be the man on the other side of the door. That was how I ran things. Recruits were raped by Aaron, and if they submitted, they passed. If they fought it or tried to back out, I’d step in.
They didn’t want me to step in.
I’d learned from my father that if a trick was scared and knew she was under my control, she wouldn’t stray. If they did stray or try to wrong me, they were sold—trafficked to Mexico. My father was in charge of doing the smuggling, so when one of my girls wronged me, I’d let him deal with them.
Aaron and I had been best friends from the moment I’d moved to Vegas when I was fifteen. We met at school, and eventually, we both found out who my father really was, though at the time we thought he was only my mother’s boyfriend. One day in high school, Tony had called me to pick up one of his girls. Aaron was with me, and when we arrived at the warehouse, we saw that she was black and blue. Tony turned to me and said, “Take notes, Bry. When you’re a man, this is how you’ll break in the whores.”
The minute I became a pimp, Aaron told me he wanted to break them in. While I was forceful with my hand, he was forceful with his dick. We’d warn the cunts that if they tried to fuck me over, I’d tell my father we had a live one and he’d get her sold.
That was what happened with Andi.
I never asked how Jasmine knew Andi was a good recruit because I trusted her. As long as she passed her first date and made me a shitload of money, I didn’t care. And Andi was good all right. So good that when I sat across from her at the restaurant, I had no idea she knew who I was. Of course, I didn’t recognize her. I was eight when I last saw her.
The moment Andi said, “My name’s Joselyn Marquez,” it felt as though my heart stopped. My sister’s name was Joselyn, and my last name, before Tony had changed it, was Marquez. It wasn’t a coincidence. Andi was my sister, Joss, and she was alive.
But before I could utter any words, the police had rushed in, and I was hauled away. I’d expected to be sent to jail—wouldn’t be the first time I caught a case—but instead, I sat in an unmarked car for what felt like hours, staring at my sister.
My sister.
Joss had been my best friend from the time I was born until the night she’d left. I needed to do the right thing. My heart was breaking in my chest as I watched Joss talk to the cops working the scene. I wanted her to come talk to me. I wanted her to hug me and tell me everything would be okay. I wanted her to tell me why she didn’t come back for me that night and take me with her. I wanted my sister back.
Except she was with the FBI and I was a criminal.
Eventually after my arrest, I was brought into an interrogation room. At first, Joss didn’t let on that she knew it was me, so I played along.
“Now, Martinez, let’s cut the shit. You hired me today to scare me because the other night a john in your company tried to rape me—”
“You have no proof I’m involved,” I cut her off.
“You said, and I quote, ‘What gives you the right to disobey my orders?’”
“That could mean anything, preciosa.” Yes, I’d called my sister gorgeous. I had to play my part like I didn’t know who she was.
“Don’t call me that!”
“Touchy, touchy!” I laughed.
“Your girl Jasmine and I have become close, you know. We’ve played craps at the Palazzo together.”
I leaned back in my chair, spread my legs wide and smiled. “Agent Marquez, I run an escort business similar to Saddles & Racks. It’s no different from what you do. It’s not my fault that you took a date from my company to make extra money on the side and that guy took it too far.” I looked under the table pretending to admire her body. “I don’t blame him. In fact, it’s my understanding you killed him. I was wondering why you weren’t being charged for murder. Now I know. So, Jasmine did her job. She hooked you and got you under my payroll.”
Joss laughed. “Bryce … Can I call you Bryce? I feel as if I’ve known you since the day you were born.”
I chuckled. She definitely had known me since I was born. “You can call me whatever you want.”
“Bryce, I met with your girls for drinks one night, and one mentioned her best friend, Nelly, was sold by you.”
I realized she knew more than I thought she did. But the fact was, I wasn’t selling girls. That was the other Martinez. “They’re just whores running their mouths.”
“That’s funny because I have them in my pocket ready to come forward. I told them that once I had you, I just needed them and they were quick to turn on you.”
She was trying to play me, and she could dig all she wanted, but I knew it wasn’t me she was really after. “That doesn’t make sense because they would have just led you to me.”
“See … I thought that, too. But you scared them and they thought you were going to scare me.” She laughed. “You thought you were going to scare me. Do you always set your girls up first with rape dates? Is that how it works? Rape them first so they do whatever you want, and if they don’t then you sell them?”
So maybe she knew a lot more than I thought she did. I still wasn’t the one she wanted, and so I sat there and let her accuse me further.
“How many have you sold, Bryce? How did this start? When did this start? When did you move to Vegas? Did Tony do this to you?”
At the mention of my father’s name, there was no doubt she knew it was me. His name hadn’t been uttered before that moment. My gaze darted to hers. “How do you know about Tony?”
She rubbed the bridge of her nose with a sigh. “Have you ever wanted a Dalmatian’s plantation?” She paused a brief moment and then quoted, “But I am, just the same. I’m so hungry I could eat a … a whole elephant.”
I couldn’t speak as I thought about what was happening. When I was ten or so, I envisioned the moment I would see my sister again. I’d thought about how I would hug her until the point we both couldn’t breathe and how I never would let her go. I never thought I’d be handcuffed while she interrogated me. I was going to jail. I was certain of it. The entire Vegas task force, and apparently the FBI, knew what went down today. So, I needed to make this right.
“Are you okay?” Agent Reigles asked Joss.
“Yeah. Sorry, I never got to eat at lunch since this was supposed to be my lunch date.” Joss laughed nervously. “So, Bryce—”
“I’m the middle man,” I blurted. I had my sister sitting in front of me, and I wasn’t going to screw this up. My mother was right. I needed to get out from under my father. I needed to be the man Joss would have raised me to be. She’d obviously turned out well.
“What?” Joss blinked.
“You’re right. Tony made me do it.”
“Who’s Tony?” Agent Reigles asked.
“My father,” I stated even though Joss had already mentioned him.
“Your … father?” Joss stammered.
I nodded. “Do you want my life story or what?” It was apparent she didn’t know that the man who sold her virginity was also my father. Sadly, he’d sold mine too, except I’d wanted it taken and I got to choose the whore who took it.
“Does it pertain to the case?” Agent Reigles asked.
“I think most of it does.” I nodded. “It started when I was eight—”
“And you’re willing to talk without a lawyer present?” Agent Reigles asked me.
Yes, bitch. This is my sister!
“Let the man talk!” Joss bit out.
I laughed. We were on the same page, and now it was my chance to tell her how the last thirteen years had gone down. “I’ve been waiting for the day I could take down my father.”
“I think we can remove the cuffs now. Get you some water.”
I wasn’t sure why Joss stopped me. Maybe it was because she was having a hard time staring at her brother in handcuffs. Maybe she wanted my DNA to test to make sure I was her brother. Or maybe she wanted to hug me. I wanted to hug her. It had been too long since I felt her love—any love in fact.
After Agent Reigles returned with a bottle of water, I took a few sips before I told the Cliff Notes version of my story. “The night of my sister’s seventeenth birthday, all I wanted was cake. We never got treats. I was eight and thought that we’d at least have a cake. Instead, our mother sent her out with my dad. At the time, I didn’t know he was my dad. I don’t think she knew he was my father either because he wasn’t her dad. Anyway, she never came back. To this day, I don’t know what happened to her.” Except she was sitting in front of me.
“That night, my dad came into our trailer and beat my mom. I’d thought that he’d beaten her to death, but I was too young to know for sure, so I left her in her room. The next day he returned and took us. She wasn’t dead, but we left and never returned. I thought for sure my sister was dead and I cried. I cried for days, but never in front of my mother and that man. I didn’t want him to beat me like he beat her, but I just wanted my sister because she was my best friend. But she never returned to get me.”
Joss stood, causing the metal chair to screech in the process, and I startled. I expected her to say something, but instead, she just paced the room.
“He filed some papers and changed my last name to Martinez. Growing up, he forced me to do things that I never wanted to do. Steal this, beat him up, fuck her. It escalated each time. Eventually, we moved here from Miami and started picking up the prostitutes working the streets of Vegas, or the Weekend Warriors who fly in just on the weekends to have a good time. Those are the best ones because it’s harder to know they’re missing.
“Anyway, my mother killed herself three years ago. She left a suicide note and confessed that Tony was my father, so it’s only fitting he has me running his business for him.”
“How did …”
“She overdosed on oxy. She said the pain of losing her daughter for selling her at seventeen was eating her alive and it was too much for her to take. She was tired of living under Tony and his orders.”
“And you still think it’s okay to sell women?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Why not come to the police?”
“I’d still end up in prison.”
“But you’ll be doing the right thing. Think about your mother. Think about your sister.”
I was thinking about my sister. “Can I make a deal?”
“What kind of deal?”
“I can’t save my mother, but in hopes that my sister’s still alive, I want to make a plea in exchange for Tony. I’ll work with you to bring him down.”
If it were any other of the thousands of cops in Vegas, I’d be holed up in a six by eight cell for at least three years. But Joss wasn’t one of the many officers in Vegas. She was with the FBI, and the man who sold her virginity needed to be taken out.
But how do you take down a man that runs the city?