CHAPTER 1

“Happy birthday to you!”

The group finished singing the song and everyone quickly raised their shot glasses and downed them in one gulp. Then they proceeded to slam the shot glasses on the table and let out a whooping cheer.

Tori Rhodes let the whiskey burn down the back of her throat and then slammed her shot glass down with the rest of the group. It was her fourth shot and she could feel a slight buzz starting to creep through her head, but the evening was just beginning. She was a girl who could hold her liquor like a guy, in fact she had won many drinking challenges and drank guys twice her size under the table. Some guys were such wussies.

She was hoping the last shot would go to her head quickly so she could get the memory of her friends singing happy birthday to her, which they all insisted on just because they knew it would embarrass the hell out of her. They were wrong of course. Tori never got embarrassed; she just got annoyed. And nothing was more annoying than that.

It was her twenty-third birthday and she and her friends were at Hank’s Bar, a local favorite hangout where they always went when it was somebody’s birthday, or a Saturday, or a Monday… or really any time they felt like getting ripped. It was a great way to unleash after the boring family dinner she had just suffered through with her father, uncles, and cousins. Tori loved her family, but they could be a bit smothering and her father was completely over protective. It was kind of strange to see how one of the most feared Mafia Bosses in the city turned to jelly if he thought his little girl might be in danger.

It was almost like he didn’t even know her. Tori was a tough girl; she prided herself on it. She had started studying martial arts when she was eight and quickly rose up the ranks and achieved a black belt by the time she was fourteen. It had come in handy to all those people who were stupid enough to mess with Tony Rhodes’ daughter; if they didn’t get the memo about not being nice to the mafia crime boss’s daughter then she would deliver a few well-placed kicks to give them another reason not to mess with her.

By the time she was a junior in high school Tori had earned a reputation as a bit of a hellion who could beat the crap out of anyone who messed with her, including any guys who just wanted to push their luck.

And there had been a few guys here and there, after all Tori was one of the prettiest girls around. Even though she was only five foot three, she was curvy and athletic. She loved to get physical and in addition to her martial arts training, and her gun training, she ran five miles every morning and spent an hour in the weight room. But she did not resemble a body builder in any way. It was funny how so many women were afraid to touch the weights at the gym and then asked her how she stayed so toned, but still lean, and curvy.

She had been told that she looked like a shorter version of Jessica Biel. Tori always took that as a compliment and she had to admit she agreed with it to some extent, except Tori had been blessed with a head of gorgeous, fiery red hair. And a personality to match behind her sexy, hazel eyes.

“Well, girl you got another year in the tank! You are getting closer to the big two five!” Laila, Tori’s best friend said.

“No, I do not fear age; if anything I just get a bit sexier every year!” Tori replied.

Laila gave her a high five and motioned to the waitress to get them another round of shots.

Laila Lewis had been Tori’s best friend since they were in high school. She was tall, athletic, but often too sweet for her own good. She was usually complaining about some guy who would not call her back. Tori suspected they were such good friends because she brought Laila out of her shell a bit and Laila held her back as well. It was a good balancing act between the two of them.

“Well, somebody thinks highly of themselves!” Laila said.

“I think highly of me too!” Tori replied. She was really starting to feel that last shot now.

“I wonder how highly your father would be thinking of you if he knew how much fun you were having right now?”

“I can handle my father,” Tori replied. “We have an understanding; I do what I want and then I don’t tell him any of the things I do.”

Laila and their other friends erupted in laughter. Her father did not approve of alcohol at all—he never touched a drop. Tori found this ironic being that her father owned several bars and also dabbled in the drug trade quite extensively. The only reason he owned bars, laundries, and convenient stores was so that he could launder the money he made from his illegal activities. She had called her father a hypocrite a few times; it had not ended well when she did that though. She was the only person who could piss him off beyond a certain point and live to tell about it.

“So when you go into work tomorrow hung over, your dad is just going to pretend not to notice? Don’t you have to pick up rounds tomorrow?” Laila asked.

“Rounds” as they referred to them were when Tori went around to various community businesses and collected the “protection” fee that they owed her father. Of course they knew and she knew that they were paying to be protected from her father. It was a slimy deal, but it was the family business.

Tori had known about her father’s business since she was about twelve years old. He tried to keep it secret from her but after she found out she was fascinated to learn every asset of the business. Tori did not approve of a lot of the things her father did, especially the violence he often did or had done for business reasons, but she loved her father and this was the family business she had grown up in. She didn’t know if she wanted to do it forever, but she figured if they didn’t do it then another crime family would. That was the way the world worked; her father did not have a monopoly on organized crime. There were a lot of other crime families around.

Of course Laila did not approve.

“Yes, but I’ll be fine,” Tori said.

“I don’t know why you don’t just quit,” Laila replied. “Doesn’t it bother you to force people to give you money for no reason?”

“We’ve talked about this before; you aren’t going to talk me into quitting my family’s business. I know you don’t approve, but you are going to have to deal with it,” Tori said. “Now, come on and let’s take this other shot!”

Laila smiled as the waitress sat the drinks on the table. Everybody counted to three and downed them.

“Whoo!” Tori screamed. She was starting to feel really good.

“I’m going to put some good music on that jukebox,” Rachel said getting up from the table. She staggered a few steps and then continued to make her way across the room with the rest of them laughing.

“I’ll be surprised if she makes it back here,” Tori said.

“I’m not sure I could walk any better right now,” Laila added.

“Whoa! Who is that?” Mary asked.

Tori turned her head just in time to see Mikhail Maximoff walk through the door. She knew who Mikhail Maximoff was. He was the leader of one of the biggest biker gangs in the city—The Hellraisers. They were basically an organized crime outfit who masqueraded as a typical biker gang. But they had their hands into everything from drugs, to theft, racketeering, loan sharking, and gambling. Mikhail himself owned several small gambling places full of slot machines; and of course for those special customers who knew about the card games in the secret basement.

The Hellraisers had been at war with her father’s crime syndicate for a few years now, ever since they had established themselves in the area. She had met Mikhail on a few missions for her father, mostly to try to smooth things over to prevent an all-out war regarding turf. Her father believed that the Hellraisers were less likely to try to kill his pretty, young daughter. Of course little did they know that she was usually armed and could have probably taken a good many of them out if she were so inclined or they wanted to start something.

“That’s Mikhail Maximoff,” Tori said. “He’s the leader of The Hellraisers.”

“Oh, yea. I heard you mention him once before. You did not tell me he was that damn fine!”

Tori smiled. She could not pretend that she had never noticed Mikhail’s attractiveness. He was tall, about six foot three with broad, athletic shoulders and a tight body. He kind of reminded her of John Cena with long, wavy, blonde hair that you just wanted to run your fingers through. And he was tough. Tori loved tough guys. She was a tough girl and she could only respect a man who was a lot tougher than she was; those guys were hard to find.

But Mikhail was also thick headed, unbending, and unreasonable. He was very intelligent and very driven, just like her and her father. But he just saw things from another angle and he refused to ever compromise even an inch which made doing business with him almost impossible sometimes. Lately communication between their factions had come to a complete stand still and Tori sensed a war about to erupt.

It was probably going to get messy.

Mikhail spotted her and began to approach, moving in his slow, cocky swagger. The man walked like he had titanium between his legs. The entire bar suddenly began to grow silent, until only the click clack of his boots remained on the hard floor.

“Hey, there stranger,” Mikhail said in his deep, bass voice.

Tori rolled her eyes and grunted out a “hey”, trying to ignore him and send the message that she did not want bothered. She had always kind of gotten the impression that Mikhail might have a bit of a crush on her. He liked to tease her and some of it bordered on flirting, but his style was to give her a mild insult in a flirtatious way so she never knew if he was being sincere or not.

“Now, who let you have alcohol? You can’t be old enough to drink; you’re much too small,” Mikhail said.

“Hey, we don’t want any trouble,” Laila said. “It’s her birthday; we are just trying to have some fun.”

“Oh, it’s your birthday? Well, happy birthday. I promise I’ll behave,” Mikhail said with a cocky grin.

“Well, since you promised,” Laila said. Tori almost shot her a glare as if to say “really?” but didn’t. It sounded like Laila was trying to get herself into flirt mode.

“So, did you get anything cool for your birthday?” Mikhail asked sitting down at an empty chair beside Tori.

“Well, if you would get lost then that would be the best possible gift I could ever have,” Tori replied with a chuckle. Her friends’ mouths almost dropped to the ground in shock, but even they could not hide their laughter.

“Oh, now don’t be that—“Mikhail started.

BANG!

The gunshot echoed in Tori’s ears for a nanosecond before she hit the ground rolling away from the table. She bolted to her stance and surveyed what was going on quickly.

On the other side of the bar there was a group of guys who were now in the middle of a brawl. One man was on the ground bleeding while several guys tried to wrestle a gun from one man’s hand. They were all screaming at the top of their lungs, a few of the men broke away and started fist fighting each other. Tori wasn’t sure if they guys were in rival gangs or if it was just a drunken brawl gone terribly wrong.

“Laila! Get down!” Tori yelled. Laila and her friends dropped to the floor all screaming. This was usually a nice part of town, but in New York City anything could happen anywhere apparently.

Tori pulled out her gun hoping to diffuse the situation as the gunman on the other side of the room broke free from his attackers and started firing shots at them as they all scrambled to get their own guns out.

She took aim and began to squeeze the trigger, ready to blow a hole in this man.

Then everything went black.