Chapter 1
ONE
Present Day …
Karsyn Curr
I sat back in my seat, watching my girl dance while Junnie slapped bills across her butt.
Glo’s latest filled the club while the libations were in constant flow.
The scene was sizzling, and I was here in the very place he told me to steer clear of, the very space I should have been calling our spot …
Too bad we were acting like we didn’t know one another today, or so I thought.
I closed my eyes, taking down yet another shot with my head back and the music swaying my motions.
“You heard what I said, Kars?” Junnie’s voice shattered my thoughts, making me look up into her concerned eyes.
“Nah, what did you say?”
“I asked when the last time you’ve seen him is.”
I grinned. Two days ago was the truth, but hell nah I wasn’t about to have my girl grilling me when we both agreed two weeks ago that I needed to steer clear of him and all that came with him. I was trying to stand up, as the girls called it, but damn did it have to be so hard?
“Since the last time we talked, Junnie.”
She twisted her face because she knew me. “Stop lying. I see it all on your face with your horrible lying ass.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Mhmm, tell me anything. Just be careful—" she started but her statement was interrupted by Stassi.
“I found some friends, you know, to add a little more testosterone to the space.” She smiled drunkenly, motioning to the guys behind her.
I rolled my eyes because leave it to her to bring randoms to the section. Men I was pretty sure didn’t have their own section which was why they were so eager to enter ours… mine.
“Nah, I’m good.” I shook my head and Junnie laughed. She knew me well enough to know I didn’t party with randoms because half the time I didn’t party at all. Tonight I was blowing off steam, and celebrating a win, something else I didn’t do often.
“What do you mean you’re good?” Stassi asked.
“Means she isn’t up for you bringing randoms to the section you didn’t pay for and neither am I. Sorry y’all, this isn’t that type of party,” Junnie responded.
Stassi rolled her eyes, about to respond, but a big butch type stood at the end of the other entrance to the section. His face was familiar. I knew exactly who he was and who had sent him.
“Ay, y’all are gonna have to move the fuck around. This ain’t that type of party.” Diablo’s voice was heavy and irritated, as he and his glasses had all of his attention on the two fools behind Stassi.
I shook my head and sat back in my seat. He didn’t want me yet would send big Debo types with shades on in the club to cock block. The audacity.
I had never been the type to play games or do all that heart warfare with a man.
It was what it was and wasn’t what it wasn’t.
I never forced anything, or begged a soul, but God he was different.
He was everything my mother told me to steer clear of because he would undoubtedly break my heart.
He was everything about Watertown that my father hated and everything I was drawn to.
If I was correct in my ear hustling, Daddy hated him with a passion because he wasn’t from our world and didn’t want to be.
Instead he was from his own world and made his own world work for him.
“Kars, Psy wants to see you in the office,” Diablo said after the dudes and Stassi had dispersed. It was just me and Junnie in the section, watching the next act go onto the stage. She was beautiful and a straight up performer.
“Tell him I’m good.” I didn’t even look at Diablo. I kept my eyes and attention ahead. One of us had to break this cycle.
“He ain’t gonna like that.”
“I don’t like a lot of shit, but that doesn’t change anything. Have a good night, Diablo.”
He laughed, then walked off. “Yeah, okay.”
When it was just me and Junnie, she busted up laughing. “So, let me get this straight, you want him to come out here and act up?”
“Nope. I want him to leave me alone.” I was lying, but it sounded good.
“No you don’t. You want him but you don’t want to share him.”
“Same thing.” My eyes went from Junnie to Stassi reentering the section with a round of drinks. I loved my girl, but she could drink a fish out of the tank.
Junnie laughed. “It isn’t but I understand. Which is why I said you need to decide what it is you really want from him. Because you cannot change nor grow a man up, Kars. He’s my cousin and all, but you’re my girl, so I’ma tell you how it is before I let you get hurt.”
I sighed, my eyes on the stage watching the performer. Then randomly, the music was cut, and everything grew quiet before a crisp voice cut through the space. Diablo’s voice filled the speakers of the venue.
“This is a message for Karsyn Curr in the VIP section. Psy said to make your way to that fucking office before he shuts all this shit down.”
My eyes momentarily bulged. I could not fucking believe him. I immediately cut my eyes to Junnie. She was cracking up laughing like this was funny.
“Ten seconds, Kars.” Diablo’s voice flowed through the speakers. Then, as if he wasn’t embarrassing enough, he started counting down.
“Nine…eight…seven.”
“Go see what he wants, Karsyn. I’ll be out here. And tell him I’m telling my auntie he’s acting like a bitch.” Junnie laughed, reaching for her drink.
Begrudgingly, I was on my feet by five and moving toward his office, which might I add was right fucking behind us, behind thick, two-sided glass. He was only part owner of this club, yet he had an office he barely used.
I didn’t bother knocking, but instead opened the door and walked in.
What greeted me was him sitting against the crushed blue velvet sofa in dim lighting with a scowl plastered across his handsome face.
Posydiann was the richest form of deep brown with warm russet undertones.
His features were dangerously alluring. He had a strong, square jawline covered fully by his beard, with striking cheekbones and these deep, dark set, weighted eyes.
They said the window to the soul was in the eyes, but Posydiann’s eyes were intentionally blank and always masking.
His eyebrows were thick and always slightly drawn, adding to the intense naturally mugged up expression he always wore.
He was a no-nonsense type of man who spoke less than most but made up for it in the almost genius-like thought process he possessed.
His hair was cut into a crisp, old-school, low-cut fade, with waves running rampant.
Posydiann Murphy was dangerously handsome, but deeply complex in a way that would have you up in the middle of the night pulling your eyelashes out one by one with tweezers.
“Since when do I tell you to come here and you don’t come?” His voice was every bit of pissed off, interrupting my mental tallying of his features.
I shook my head, then put my body against the door. I could barely hear the music that was back on outside the office. “God, you’re psycho. You know that, right?”
He nodded. “Nothing new. You knew that before you let me in.”
I shook my head and sighed. “What do you want from me, Posydiann?”
“Whatever you are willing to give me, Syn.”
I blinked several times, my attention locked on him. “Nothing, because I told you I’m done going back and forth. I’m over this game of cat and mouse.”
He laughed. “You’ll never be done with me. You can’t. I’m the purest hit of heroin. Once you get that first hit, it’s a craving, a need. Your caffeine shakes ain’t got shit on the type of withdrawals you’ll go through tryna leave me alone.”
I stared at his cocky ass. “And how do you know this so well?”
“’Cause that’s what I feel like when you pull this bullshit you’re pulling right now.” He stood slowly, moving in my direction.
“God, Posydiann. What the hell. You’re trying to make me crazy. You don’t know what you want and neither do I. You pull me in, then you push me away. It’s too much. Figure out what you want or leave me alone.”
He stood directly in front of me, hooded eyes locked on mine.
“You know I can’t do that.”
“But you have to, because if you don’t, I’m not gonna be any good for the man who actually knows what he wants.”
He laughed. “Fuck that and all that arranged marriage shit you rich motherfuckers be doing. You belong to me.”
I shook my head. “Any arrangement would be better than this.”
“You're lying, plus you give my shit up to somebody else, and I promise you he’ll be dead before morning. If you’re fine with getting people killed, then be my guest. You know exactly what I’m capable of, my love.”
His words echoed in my head, taking me back to that night when this all started, the night when my common sense abandoned me at the curb.
“I told you I wasn’t interested. Now please leave me alone.” I glared at the man who had followed me from the front door of the club to the space where I was waiting for my rideshare to pull up. I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to dampen everyone else’s time.
“Nah, c’mon, shorty. I got you,” he said, stepping too close for comfort.
I put my hand out, creating some space. “I said I’m not interested.”
He grabbed my arm, pulling me into him, but before he could get me too close, I heard a loud sound, then something wet against my face. Ol’ boy no longer had any grip on my arm because he was lying on the floor with blood pooling from his head.
“You're gonna stand there and stare or come on.” His hand was extended.
I didn’t know what possessed me to take his hand, but I did.
He had killed a man in front of me and used the shirt he was wearing to clean said man’s blood and brain matter from my face when we got into his car.
I should have gotten away from him then, but I didn’t.
My hot ass stayed and entertained the thought.
“You look good tonight, Syn. Playing with life type good.”
I shook my head. “What is it gonna take?”
“For what?” he asked, confusion sitting in his eyes for a moment.
“For you to let me go?”