| BOOK SIX | THE LONDON CRIME KING | A DARK MAFIA ROMANCE NOVEL |
This book contains adult language and subject matter, including graphic violence, drugs and explicit sex that may be disturbing to some readers.
This series is NOT a typical romance...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I studied the unrecognisable girl in the Hollywood-style vanity mirror with LED bulb lights.
Her shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair no longer complemented her refulgent blue eyes, high carved cheekbones, heart-shaped face and sharply outlined lips.
The dove grey roots, droopy eyelids, milk-white skin and red, non-prescribed glasses aged her by ten or fifteen years.
I missed the long, waist-length hair that rippled in the wind when I walked, the varicoloured blue highlights and choppy, feathery layers.
Turquoise nail varnish is the closest I felt to my old self, metallic lacquer and my mother's vintage-style ring.
I suppose the eyes, bluer than the deep nature of spectacular lagoons in the Caribbean archipelagoes, provided a piece of me that no amount of liquid contour or camouflage techniques could take away.
Twirling the cheek-to-cheek blusher brush, I swept the high-performing bristles across the tender apricot palette and strategically powdered the prominent lines of my cheekbones—a touch of bronzer to the collarbones for a more defined look.
I had nowhere to be, places to visit or people to see, but when boredom is an occupational hazard for ladies of leisure, self-care is the only line of business I prioritised to manage stress and improve mental health. It's not like I had anything better to do in this glorified cesspit of dehumanised prisoners.
Access to the main house is prohibited.
An encounter with the boss is prohibited.
An inquiry about almost everything is prohibited.
Basically, with a bucket load of unrealistic rules and nonsensical regulations that irked the wry little spitfire in me, the stubborn rebel, I lived in a gilded cage of good versus evil, entrapped by hawk-eyed guards in fancy three-piece suits, fashionably knotted ties and twenty-four karat gold, not to mention the semi-automatic firearms, the sadistic smiles promising ultimate death if you stepped out of line.
Life is a drag.
Intimidation by pitiful liegemen is not an exaggeration. I speak from experience when I say the excessive and unwarranted use of force by syndicate members is a serious problem at the Jones estate.
Just last week, when I strolled afoot to the front garden—minding my own business, might I add—five armed men appeared from nowhere, lambasted me for the unauthorised entry of a restricted area and used brute physical strength against me, the victim of coercive control—well, the unpleasant halfwit that reeked of aftershave and cannabis, who quite literally put me in a headlock and dragged me, kicking, screaming and protesting, back to annexe building, did not, as far as I could tell, draw the line between persuasion and coercion—to get the message across that I should "stay in my lane" if I want to live to see another day.
