Page 1 of Give It a Day
Prologue
Kayla
Another day, another night spent in someone else’s bed. I wake up sore between my thighs, and my thong feels sticky.
Really, this guy didn’t pull out? What in the breeding kink did I get myself into last night?
I yawn, stretching on this sorta rickety bed, kicking the motel’s thin sheets off me. Seriously, what kind of cheap motel did he bring me to? And why did I agree to come here?
And came, I did. Lots, if I may add.
But, as I’m putting my shirt, tights, and heels on, I look around and figure that this place is pretty seedy, with mustard walls and the smell of old cigarette smoke in the air. Even if I was only a little bit tipsy last night, I would imagine I’d be more discerning than this.
I take a glimpse behind me, seeing the kinda smoking hot biker with a thick beard and hair slicked back with a bandana—in bed, really?—still sleeping soundly like I made him feelthatgood, that I knocked him out forthislong. Or I don’t know, maybe he’s a heavy sleeper.
But I’m leaning on the former. I have a certain reputation after all, especially in the criminal underworld. Slayer of bad boys, master of baiting.
I stifle my little giggle over my own silly dirty joke—master of baiting, get it?—and look over at the biker again. Yep, he’s still knocked out, and definitely, probably, most likely because of my skills in bed.
Frowning a bit, and lost in thought, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was really the case. Since I could figure out how to make a man come apart, I’ve been really talented at it. In othermore honestwords, I mean to say that it’s all I do, drown my life in mutual orgasms, inviting strangers to one-night stands, and escaping from the reality that is my very sad and lonely life, forced to keep the real me secret, because if I even reveal bits of myself, I’m scared the truth will come out, and it’ll put both my family and our business at risk. And me in prison.
I get up from the motel bed slowly and silently, not wanting to wake up Sleeping Beauty Bandana Biker because I never do round two in the morning. One-night stands are all I can…well,stand. Commitments of even the remotely affectionate or long-term type are a big, hardno.
Which reminds me. I take out my morning-after pill from my purse and take it with a sip of stale water in a glass that’s been on the bedside table.
Quietly, I move across the oddly gluey carpet. Fighting back my disgusted whimper, I slowly open the motel door and slip out, closing the door delicately before I walk briskly away.
Now, one might wonder why is Kayla running away? She has a sexy biker wearing a bandana for whatever reason, waiting in bed, and he’s not even snoring, yet she’s walking away from him?
Well, it’s because I’m a bit of a yapper and once I start yapping, I might never stop, and I’m desperate as hell to spill all there is about my life, but I’ve been taught since I could talknot to.
You see, to my many one-night stands, I’m an anonymous everyday girl who happens to club and bar hop, then find someone eager to have me under them. But outside of that, I’m Kayla Knight.
Knightas in the infamous family who runs the bloodthirsty streets of Darkhaven, a city that makes Batman’s Gotham pale in comparison. Shady dealings, sketchy cover-ups, and a neverending chasm of how low the city’s morals can keep sinking until we finally dig our way intothe fiery pits of hell, where we’d be making even the devil struggle to think of a fitting punishment for me and my family.
That’s the life I’m used to, despite the way I carry myself, which is to be as unrelated to Darkhaven as possible.
I don’t stand out. I have long, dark straight hair with unruly wavy ends that naturally happen no matter how hot my straightening iron is. I have plain brown eyes that I hide behind makeup as often as possible because I have a tiny scar below my left eye from when I got into a near-death brawl. That is, near-death for the other people. Usually, I wear very typical clothes, and not the fur coat over sparkling dresses that my mother loves to wear, which by the way, looks gorgeous on her. Or the heavy, golden Rolexes my father wears that go well with his striking Brunello Cucinelli suits.
I sprint to catch the bus—yes, the bus because again, I’m roleplaying as a normal girl. I might have people watching me, so being around innocent people helps. It’s also a way to prove to potential spies that they’ve got the wrong girl.Andin any case, buses are great. Public transportation is for the people, and I’m here for it.
But while the bus drives off and I’m sitting in the back corner, catching up on encrypted emails and text messages, I keep on thinking. My head’s in the clouds—quite a common thing for me.
The few people whomaybeknow me well have told me that I’m not a typical mafia ‘princess’. What the hell does that even mean? Whenever I’d ask that, they’d tell me they imagine being a mafia princess means lots of perks—money, power, endless spoils. But for me, that’s not what life’s been like.
I have to keep a lot of people away. I don’t really have friends, and that’s why I only hook up with strangers, giving them made-up names. Last night, I’m pretty sure I called myself Tequila and that I’m from Long Island because I was drinking Long Island iced tea. If memory serves right, that biker I slept with last night didn’t give a shit about whoI was, and was more concerned if I was willing to give him my body for the night. Like I cared about him either. I don’t even remember his name or the color of his eyes.
The less my lover for the night and I know about each other, the better. As much as I want to open up to someone and tell them the things I do for a living—which are too awful for me to even remember so early on a sunny morning—I have to keep people at bay.
My family runs a horrible business—horrible in the sense that what we do is truly terrifying, but also horrible in the sense that my parents have been messing up the way we run things since they were handed the helm.
We’ve been a sinking ship since I could understand what was going on, and that was at a very young age. Since I was a child, I was exposed to the criminal world, and that has easily messed me up, has made me enjoy the cruel things, and has almost taken away all of my ability to live authentically.
And though I had to pay the price of my childhood and innocence… Well, at least, I can patch up the metaphoric ship before we could completely sink. Otherwise, I don’t think our family could financially recover and find other careers outside of our grim criminal activities.
Here’s my resume. Yes, I’m a mafia princess and have ruined lives. What do you mean that’s not good enough to take drive-through orders?
I’m also pretty sure that if my family ever runs out of money, the targets on our heads will finally reach their goal. I imagine blood splattered on the wall once the sniper gets their go-ahead to take us out because we ran out of money and can’t beef up our security.
