Boss

By W.S. Greer

~ International bestselling author WS Greer is at his all-time best in this long-awaited mafia romantic suspense standalone. BOSS is action-packed, scorching hot, and will have you out of breath as you struggle to turn the pages fast enough. ~

I was never supposed to be anything special. Born and raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn, I was supposed to know my place, and grow up to be absolutely nothing. But what they never knew was that I’ve always been special, just not in the way the world defines the word.
I’m special because I’m more ambitious than them. I’m smarter, and much more violent. When you add it all up, you get a man who’s capable of creating something out of nothing... a brand new mafia family right in the heart of New York. They have no idea what I’m willing to do, or how far I’m willing to go to make my family unstoppable.

I don’t care which Italian mob family thinks they run this city. Their rules don’t apply to me. Tell me I can’t take over this borough, I’ll take it. Tell me I can’t overpower the mafia, I’ll crush them. Tell me I can’t touch a mob boss’s daughter, and I’m gonna touch her up-and-down with my hands and tongue until she screams she belongs to me loud enough for her father to hear, and then the two of us are going to bring the entire structure of things crashing down around our enemies. She’ll be my Bonnie, and I’ll be the baddest Clyde the world has ever seen.

They say we’re angry for how we’ve been treated. Well, she and I are smart enough to know that if you get angry enough, and you harness your emotions just right, you get two things: passionate love, and a wildfire hot enough to burn down everything that ever held you back. This time, two wrongs will make it right.

Coming May 7th, 2019.

*Due to graphic scenes and sexual scenarios, this book is recommended for readers 18+.*

• Language: English
• Publisher: W.S. Greer
• Release date: May 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463274958

W.S. Greer

WS (Will) Greer is the author of bestselling novels such as Claiming Carter (The Carter Series), Kingpin (An Italian Mafia Romance), and The Therapist (The Therapist Series). He's also a USAF veteran since 2004, and is still serving today, after 3 deployments to the middle east and countless assignments overseas.WS grew up in Clovis, NM, and now resides in Delaware, where he lives with his family, and continues to write romantic thrillers and suspense like he's running out of time (shout out to Hamilton!).To learn more about WS Greer, please visit wsgreer.wordpress.comFind WS on social media:Facebook: www.facebook.com/AuthorWSGreerInstagram: www.instagram.com/author_ws_greerTwitter: www.twitter.com/authorwsgreerAmazon Central: http://amzn.to/2kztq7ZBookBub: http://bit.ly/2P6kzO8

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Copyright

Publishers Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2019 by WS Greer

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

Cover design by Robin Harper/Wicked by Design

Interior Design and Formatting by Champagne Book Design

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

HOMECOMING

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

PRINCIPESSA

Seven

Eight

Nine

TAKEOVER

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

FAMILY FEUD

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

TO GOD’S EYE

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

TREASON

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

NEW MANAGEMENT

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

CALM BEFORE

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

THE STORM

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

TOGETHER

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

WAR

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Fifty

Fifty-One

RUE

Firty-Two

Fifty-Three

Fifty-Four

MADE

Fifty-Five

Fifty-Six

Acknowledgments

More From WS Greer

About WS Greer

Read on for a free sample of Madman (Love & Chaos), by WS Greer

Be you. No matter where you are, or who you’re around. Be you. It’s not your job to make yourself uncomfortable, just so people who are different from you can feel more comfortable around you. If you don’t represent for you, nobody will. Be you.

#UnapologeticallyMe

AMARI

I was born September 5th, 1991. Today’s date is January 16th, 2019, but it’s still my birthday.

As I stand at the fence, looking at my younger brother leaning against a beat up, doo-doo-brown Chevy Spectrum, I half-expect it all to come crashing down. I watch the gate, expecting it to stay closed. I can see it smirking at me while I stare it down, my eyes filled with anticipation. As I glare in front of me, I wait for the correctional officers standing at my back to break out of their statuesque positions and rush towards me with their batons ready to take me down—like they have so many times over the past five years. I wait for it all to collapse right on top of me, but it doesn’t. An alarm next to me buzzes, and the chain-link gate starts to slide to the side. My brother smiles at the sight, and so do I, but we’re smiling for different reasons.

Hopefully this is the last time we see each other, one of the correctional officers says from behind me as I take my first step towards my brother, Shawn. I don’t respond with words. I simply look over my shoulder and glare at him. I see him swallow nervously, and I know he means it. He doesn’t ever want to see me again, but I do hope to see him, and I want him to know it through the look in my eyes. That goes for every other C.O. I interacted with during my five years on Rikers Island. If we see each other again, the roles will be reversed, and they’ll know how I felt all these years.

I stare at the C.O. until I feel the pull of my brother’s embrace. I can’t even believe it! he chirps in my ear as he hugs me. We wrap our arms around each other and I feel affectionate human contact for the first time in far too long. It feels incredible, and the hate I had brewing inside me for the C.O. quickly dissipates.

You look good, man! I tell Shawn. I see you out here rockin’ the beard. Lookin’ like Idris Elba! We share a laugh as we stand back, looking each other up and down, finally seeing each other without being separated by thick glass. My brother, Shawn Goddard is twenty-five years old now and standing about five-foot-ten or so, roughly three inches shorter than me. He’s of medium build and I can see it in his face that he’s been through some stuff while I was locked up. He looks tougher now—still the smart, calm, cerebral person he was before, but tougher somehow. His t-shirt is loose on him and wrinkled, giving away the fact that he’s still poor, just like he was before I went it. Just like we always have been.

Me? Look at you! Shawn replies. Damn, Amari, you got big, bruh. Like, for real, you lookin’ swole! I’m impressed. You were going hard on the weights in there or what?

Somethin’ like that. I stayed exercisin’ my body and mind.

Hey, well it payed off. Everybody is gonna be shocked when they see you. Your clothes don’t even fit.

That’s because they’re the same clothes I came in with, and I’ve gained about thirty pounds since then.

That’s crazy, Shawn says with a smile, still looking at the new size of my shoulders, arms, and chest. It looks good on you, man. What do you say we get the hell outta here?

Shawn smacks me on the shoulder with one final smile, before turning on his heel to walk towards the car. Before I walk away, I turn around and take one last look at Rikers. One-thousand eight hundred and twenty-five days have gone by since I first arrived here, and now my time has come. I was twenty-two when I went in, I’m twenty-seven now, and my life is about to begin anew. I know what the world expects of an ex-con like me, and I know it underestimates me. I know what the criminal justice system was designed to do to me, and I know what society sees when it looks at me. So, while Shawn smiles for my release, I smile because I’m ready to take the world by surprise. I look forward to being underestimated.

I turn to my brother and let my smile linger. Let’s get it.

AMARI

Hey, did you hear me?

Huh? My bad, bruh, what’d you say? I reply as I snap out of my daze. Shawn weaves through traffic and I find myself staring out the window, mesmerized at the feeling of driving over Rikers Island Bridge. I remember how I felt the only other time I was on this bridge. I like driving this direction much better.

I said, how’s it feel being out? Shawn asks with a chuckle. I know you been waitin’ on this day a long time, man. So, now that it’s here and you’re a free man, how’s it feel?

Better than I thought it would.

For real?

No doubt. I adjust in my small seat as we exit the bridge and make our way into Queens. I have to take a deep breath to steady myself. This moment feels surreal. "I imagined it about a million times, but there’s nothin’ like the real thing. Some stuff you just can’t understand ‘til you experience it. Like this—seein’ Queens again. All of these buildings, both the good and the bad ones. This is home, and there’s nothin’ like it. There’s nothin’ like New York. And I can’t wait to see Brooklyn."

"Oooh, now I know you been locked up for a minute! Shawn blurts with a laugh. Hey, Brooklyn ain’t changed, bruh. I don’t know how you may have imagined Brooklyn changin’ while you was gone, but Brooklyn is still Brooklyn, especially Brownsville."

I turn to my brother and flash a smile.

Good. I ain’t want it to change. Not yet, anyway.

What you mean by that?

I turn and look out the window.

Nothin’, I lie as I try to roll down the window on the Spectrum. It doesn’t even budge when I try to turn the old handle. Not enough money to afford power windows. I sigh and let it go. All right, so fill me in. How have things been at home lately? It’s been a minute since we last saw each other—since Pop got sick and y’all stopped coming to visit.

Shawn adjusts in his seat as if my question has suddenly made him physically uncomfortable.

It ain’t no sense in lyin’ to you, Amari, especially now that you out, he says, his tone suddenly solemn. It’s been a little tough on your boy, bruh. We just ain’t got no money, and like I said before, Brooklyn is still Brooklyn, Brownsville is still Brownsville. People is still gettin’ robbed, stabbed, and shot up on the block on the regular. Drugs are sweepin’ through Brownsville more than ever, it seems like. You remember Brandon from down the block?

I nod.

He OD’d last month. Heroin

Damn.

Yeah, man. Then you add Pop getting sicker and sicker all the time, and it’s hard, bruh. We know he ain’t got much time left. As hard as that is to accept, we doin’ our best to accept it. He’s basically bedridden at this point, and we can’t even afford to take him to the hospital, and doctors won’t come to the house no more. Every day I wonder if he’s gonna wake up…

Shawn’s voice falters and he stops himself. I watch him place a hand over his mouth, acting like he’s just stroking his beard, but I know he’s upset by the thought of our father’s health. Shawn clears his throat, but doesn’t finish whatever he was thinking about Pop.

Our father, Leroy Goddard, is sixty-two and slowly being killed by lung cancer. It’s like our family is playing tug-o-war with this terrible disease and we’re losing our strength, watching helplessly as our father is pulled away from us inch by inch. In his heyday, our dad was known as The Godfather in Brooklyn, because he used to run and gun with the Bloods all over East Brooklyn, building a reputation for himself as a leader and the guy you never wanted to mess with. Now though, his days of running anything are long gone, snatched away by living fast with too much alcohol and cigarettes.

How’s Mom? I ask, dreading the answer as I stare out the window.

She’s struggling with it, of course, Shawn answers, now with tears in his eyes. She’s been with Pop since they was teenagers, and I ain’t sure she knows how to exist without him. Her health isn’t exactly top notch either, so we’re all worried about her too. It’s crazy right now, man. I don’t mean to bring you down though, this is your homecoming, after all. It’s supposed to be a happy occasion.

"It is a happy occasion, I reply. Nothin’ll keep me from being happy about gettin’ out, but I also need to know what’s goin’ on at home. I don’t wanna be surprised when I get there. Nothin’s more important to me than my family, so I need to be prepared for what’s to come. Everybody needs to be prepared, Shawn. All of y’all. Things are gonna change."

You mean when Pop passes?

I pause for a moment, then answer, Yeah.

I feel you, my little brother replies.

But that’s not what I meant.

AMARI

Shawn turns the car onto a street that I immediately recognize. I see old buildings that look familiar and the whole vibe of the area morphs into something that feels like home. We’re in East Brooklyn, only a few minutes from my parents’ house. Everything looks tired and worn out, like the neighborhood put up its best fight, but it’s got nothing left to give and no longer sees a point in trying. There’s people on the corner who are obviously faded off of something, either drugs or alcohol, and there’s too many abandoned buildings for one neighborhood. Crack houses are sprinkled every few blocks and the closer we get to home, the sadder the sight of my old stomping grounds makes me. Brownsville is a bad place, but maybe I’d forgotten how bad it all is. When you’re gone for so long, it’s easy to choose to only remember the good stuff about home and conveniently forget the bad. The truth of the matter is that Brownsville has a lot of bad stuff that should never be forgotten. You can’t know where you’re going if you forget where you came from.

A right onto Blake Avenue, followed by a left on Rockaway Ave. brings us to Brownsville. I see familiar signs and symbols that set my brain off, sending me reeling into a swarm of memories about my childhood and my life before Rikers. The Popeyes next to the Checkers, the Rise and Shine Learning Center across the street from the ninety-nine cent store that has been robbed more times than I can count. The people standing on the street in small groups, chopping it up with each other, completely inside their comfort zone in our little hood. The sun shines down on my hometown and my stomach is filled with millions of tiny, overactive butterflies. Home sweet home.

Shawn veers onto Thomas S. Boyland Street and I immediately see the place I’ve been dying to see the past five years. Our street is mostly empty, except the group of people standing outside of my parents’ complex. At the end of the six-home, one-story complex is my family, all eagerly awaiting my arrival.

As we approach I see my three other siblings standing from oldest to youngest, and my heart races. It’s been a long time, and no matter how bad things got inside, I always thought of the faces I’m looking at right now. Before Shawn can even bring the car to a complete stop, all of my siblings, along with two of my aunts and three of my uncles rush over to the car in excitement. I hear them calling my name and doing little happy dances like kids when they’re struggling to hold their pee, and Shawn and I can’t help but laugh.

Welcome home, bruh, Shawn says as he stops his beater, puts it in park, and cuts off the engine.

He opens the door and the thrilled voices come rushing in through the driver’s side.

Oh my god, Amari’s home! I hear someone shout in a shriek of excitement.

Amari!

Amari’s back home, everybody!

I open my door and I’m nearly knocked over by my family. They hug and kiss me like they’ve missed me every single second of the last five years, and I hug and kiss them back the same way. We laugh without hearing anything funny, and it’s truly the homecoming I’d been dreaming about while I was locked up.

You got big, bruh, my youngest brother, Jaz, exclaims. Damn!

A little bit, I tell him with a smile.

Hey, you gotta tell me how you did this. Look at you! You been hittin’ pushups on the regular or what?

Somethin’ like that, bruh. I’ll put you on a routine.

Hell yeah!

I push my way through the crowd, doing my best to speak to everyone, because these people are my family and I love every single one of them. But as I say hi to them all, I notice there are two very important people missing from this moment.

I take a second to scan the area as I hug my one and only sister, Ashanti. She’s much shorter than me, at five-foot-six, with braided hair, almond-shaped eyes, and full lips. She has a look of innocence to her, but Ashanti Goddard is one of the toughest in our family, and she sees me looking around.

Boy, you better hug me and stop lookin’ around, she says, half-joking, half-serious. Ashanti wears a thick brown coat that has fur on the hood, and she has morphed into a gorgeous, young black woman. She was only seventeen when I went in, and she’s a strong, confident twenty-two now.

My bad, Ashanti. You look more beautiful than ever, girl. How you been?

I’ve been all right. I missed you. It ain’t been the same around here without you.

I missed you too. A lot.

I know. So, what was it like?

I look into my sister’s light brown eyes. Hell.

Ashanti breaks eye contact with me and looks down at the cracking concrete.

Yeah, I figured. Sorry I asked, she replies, suddenly solemn.

It’s all good, I tell her as I lean forward and kiss her gently on the forehead like I used to do when we were kids. Where they at?

Ashanti looks up at me, and she already knows who I’m talking about.

In the house, she answers. Waitin’ on you. You know how Momma is, she ain’t wanna be in the group with everybody else, plus she didn’t want to be too far away from Pop.

I nod. It’s that bad, huh?

Yeah. It is.

I nod again, preparing myself for what I might see when I go inside.

Go see them, she demands with a small smile. They waited a long time for this. All of us have, but no one more than them.

I give my little sister another hug before letting her go and leaving the entire group behind. The whole lot of them falls silent as I head inside, all of them already aware of what I’m about to see, and dreading it for me.

AMARI

The house is smaller than I remember. That’s really saying something seeing as how I was just released from a prison cell earlier this morning.

Regardless of the size, however, everything about the place is just as I remember it. I used to sit in my cell in Rikers and think about walking into this front door. I’d remember the smell of my mother’s cooking, or the smell of my father’s cigars as he sat on the stoop, watching as I walked past him to get into the house. I remember the look of the kitchen and the feel of the linoleum on my bare feet as I made my way throughout the house, doing whatever I used to do before I was sent away. Thoughts of my childhood would hit me at random times while I laid in bed at night, wishing I could look through the ceiling so I could see the stars.

An image of me stealing a model car and a remote control car from two different stores flashes through my mind like a piece of a movie montage. I’d steal them just so I could lay in the middle of this living room floor and take the remote control car apart. I’d dismantle the entire thing so I could attach the springs from it to the model car, and manipulate the gears in it to give the model car hydraulics like the cars from the west coast. I’d make the car bounce up and down this hallway, right up to my parents’ door, where the two of them would be laying in bed watching TV together. They’d smile at me and marvel at my little creation. They used to look so proud of me in those moments. When they see me now, the pride is coated with fear, dread, and sadness.

Amari! my mother whispers excitedly as I stand in the doorway and look in on my parents. Her distressed face struggles to allow even the slightest bit of happiness to be expressed, but she fights through it and smiles at me, slowly lifting herself off of the bed to come give me a hug.

My mother’s name is Nia Goddard, and she’s sixty years old as of last week. Still young, in my opinion, but watching her husband slowly die has taken its toll on her, and she looks older than she should. Her body is plump, and rounder than I remember, while her hair is still cut into the short style it’s always been in. Her eyes, however, are so much sadder than anytime I can remember.

This shit with my dad has beaten my mother up worse than any physical abuse she could suffer, and the look in her eyes makes me want to explode. I want to lash out and hurt something—someone. When I look at her, I feel both breathtaking love and gut-wrenching anger. She shouldn’t have to suffer through this, and neither should my father. I wish I could’ve been here to help them. I only had two jobs my entire life. One was at an electronics store where the owner sold electronics out of the front of the store, and heroin out the back. The other was at a small cybersecurity firm. If I would’ve known how all of this was going to turn out, I would’ve saved every penny from those jobs and given it to my parents before being shipped off to that zoo called Rikers Island.

You look so good, baby, my mother says in the world’s sweetest voice as she looks at me, sizing me up, realizing her boy is no longer a boy, but a grown man. So good. We’ve missed you so much. As she hugs me, tears start to stream down her face and embed themselves in my shirt. I feel the wetness tease my skin through the shirt as we embrace.

Hey, Momma, I greet her, but even my voice is shaky with emotion. It’s so good to see you. I wrap my arms around my mother and breathe her in. It’s been so long, and to see her stricken with grief sickens me to my core. But seeing what lies behind her is like taking an anvil to the chest.

My father lies on the bed in front of me, and I can hear his wheezing from here. His chest rises and falls, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, as he struggles to breathe. Each breath is difficult for him, and I’m sure doing all of this is more than he can take. I know my father, and he never liked to be in pain, yet his entire existence now consists of never-ending agony.

How is he? I whisper to my mother, and she quickly lets me go, wipes away her tears, and turns around to look at my dad. It’s as if she suddenly remembered she had to get herself together and be strong before letting my father see her face. She’s always been like that. Always the strong one for the rest of us.

Unfortunately, my mother says. It ain’t so good, baby. Doctors won’t come out to us no more.

I heard, I reply.

Fuck ‘em, my father suddenly exclaims behind a labored breath. His voice comes out raspy and tired, but he manages enough strength to curse the doctors for not coming to him, and I can’t help but smile.

Hey, Pop, I greet him as I let go of my mother and sit down on the bed next to my dying father. They stopped coming out here, huh? Why?

"Because fuck poor people, that’s why, he blurts. It’s good to see my father is still the sharp-tongued gangster he’s always been. You know them motherfuckers don’t give a shit about no poor folks. Especially poor black folks. As soon as we couldn’t pay no more, they was done with us."

Y’all ain’t have no insurance to help out with this? I ask.

"You know better, Amari. You know good and hell well we ain’t got no insurance. You got some insurance money?"

I smile at the question. It reminds me of when I was little and my brothers would talk me into asking my parents for McDonald’s because I was the oldest and therefore considered the favorite. It never failed, though, every time I would ask for Mcdonald’s, one of my parents would reply with an attitude, "You got some McDonald’s money?" Once they broke that question out, I would just turn around and walk out, because I knew it was over. Of course I didn’t have any money.

I wish I did, because then you’d have doctors out here, I tell my father, gripping his hand. It trembles when I touch it. It ain’t right for you to be out here like this. We should’a got you some insurance or somethin’. You shouldn’t have to suffer like this, Pop. This ain’t fair.

Aww, life ain’t fair, son, my father replies. Sick, but still full of wisdom. You know ain’t nothin’ given to you in this world. You gotta work for stuff like insurance and home visits from doctors. I made my bed, now I gotta lay in it. You don’t worry about that now.

"How am I gonna not worry about it, Pop? Look at you."

What’s done is done, Amari. I’m gettin’ ready to go up to the lord, so I ain’t worried about this life. You, on the other hand, need to be.

What’s that supposed to mean?

Listen to me, son, my father says, putting forth enough strength to finally grip my hand in return. "My time is almost up, and if you sittin’ here worried about me, how you gonna take care of the family? You my eldest child, and when I’m gone, takin’ care of everybody is gonna be on you. I know you been through a lot, and it ain’t been easy growin’ up here, so I know everything you know ain’t good. Everything you into ain’t legal. I was into a lot of illegal shit when I was your age, but you smarter than me, Amari. I remember you taking them motherboards outta them computers you’d steal, and doin’ all kinds of cool shit with them. You smart. You got talent. Don’t waste it like I did. We take care of our own, Amari. You