Prohibited (Tulsa City Sinners #1)

1. Evie

Chapter one

Evie

Tulsa, 1920

He was angry with her again. Always angry these days.

Evie’s hands shook while she wetted her handkerchief in the cool running water and blotted the makeup from her face. She blinked at herself in the mirror over the pedestal sink and cursed softly. The cake mascara she had applied so carefully before coming to see him was sliding down her cheeks in sooty streaks no matter how hard she tried to stop crying.

She blotted at her face delicately, determined to keep as much of her makeup intact as possible. Her lip, though still stinging, had stopped bleeding. The bastard had bitten it until it bled.

Just thinking about it made her abused bottom lip wobble, brought more inky tears down her face that she carefully wiped away.

Her husband had needed to return to New York on a business trip for three weeks and she’d jumped at the chance to go with him, though they could barely manage to exchange a civil word between them these days. The opportunity to get away from Walter for three weeks was more than she could have hoped for.

It wasn’t like this in the beginning when it was raw, when it was hot. Walter practically owned the city, above and below. As wealthy as her husband, and even more powerful. And he commanded respect when he entered the room in a way her husband never had. People stopped talking when Walter opened his mouth. They watched him carefully, monitoring his expressions. Sought his opinions. His validation.

It made her feel like a goddess, being the ornament on his arm. The mournful voice in the back of her mind that asked over and over again, what are you doing? Is this all you want from your life now? was routinely ignored while she indulged in the decadence of what it was to be the mistress of the most powerful gangster in Tulsa. After all, her dreams died on the battlefield in France. There was nothing left for her but this.

After living in New York the years before and after the War, it was exhilarating to come home to Tulsa and find that the crummy little town she’d left behind was becoming bigger and more glamorous with more and more oil money pouring into the city all the time. She’d argued with her husband, Linus, for weeks against returning to Tulsa. He was one of the princes of the oil industry, rich and spoiled by his father’s unprecedented financial success. And it was to his father he owed his allegiance, so when the old man had a stroke, Linus insisted that they had no choice but to go back to the city that she swore she would never set foot in again.

If he hadn’t threatened to withdraw all financial support, she would have stayed without him in New York. Whatever hope she had had of finding happiness in a rushed and whirlwind marriage had burned away completely only months in, like a meteor blazing down into the darkness. And it was out of the question to ask her father for money. It would be incomprehensible to him that a woman would consider parting from her husband. He would order her to come home. Back under his supervision which was a far worse arrangement than being married to Linus.

So to Tulsa they went, though she had every intention of scheming her way back out of the city as soon as possible. And when her old acquaintance Police Lieutenant Roberts introduced her to Walter Stanley at a little mixer hosted by her own father, the air had exploded between them like fireworks. He reminded her of her first love. Something in the way he stood, the way he affected the air around him. The intensity of his gaze, the tilt of his head. But where Walter was dark and cool, the first had been warm and golden. Still, it served as a draw, an illusion of having known him. And it was a nice diversion, she’d reasoned, while she figured out how to get back to New York.

He made no effort to hide his icy temper from the beginning. His possessiveness. It was intoxicating at first, feeling so wanted. Her husband possessed her like a toddler possessed its mother, whining and pathetic, a childish tyrant. Walter Stanley was a real man, elegant and self-assured. He possessed her like an emperor possessed a conquest, regal and utterly ruthless. It was a rush to know she could have such an effect on a man.

But the cost of being the object of his possession became clear: she was absolutely his. He told her where to sit, how to sit, what to do, what to eat, what to wear. Though he knew from the very beginning that she was married, he began to intensely resent her relationship with her husband and the commitments that running a household placed on her. If she couldn’t consistently meet his demands to see her, he punished her viciously. On the other hand, he would make a promise to meet her and fail to show up or return her phone calls for two or three days. And she knew, with a sickening certainty, that he was with other women when this happened. Meanwhile, he backed her into the wall and demanded to know if she’d fucked her husband after they reunited. If she admitted to it, he wanted to know every detail of the encounter, and he punished her viciously. If she told the truth that she hadn’t, or lied that she hadn’t, he would accuse her of lying and punish her anyway.

There was no winning with him.

These days, she just felt tired. So tired all the time. When she went to sleep at night, and when she woke up in the morning. For months now, she’d felt the life draining out of her one day at a time. He sucked it all down and wanted more, more, more. The way he held her hand, the way he fucked her, the way he kissed her with his eyes open, watching her. Like he wanted to crawl inside of her skin. In the beginning it was glorious. Now she hated him for it. He was a vampire and he was consuming her alive.

But what could she do? The more she pulled away, the harder he held onto her. Sometimes he took her hand and crushed it in his while they were at dinner until she couldn’t help but cry out, for absolutely no reason at all. And he watched her, impassively, not letting go. Just to show her how much power he had over her.

Evie turned off the water and finished dabbing at her cheeks, finally satisfied that the tide of tears had turned. Reapplied her lipstick. Then she patted her hair, woven into an elaborate chignon at the base of her neck, and returned to the den in Walter’s large, sumptuous home where he and his boys were drinking brandy and smoking cigars.

“Nose powdered?” he said, raising an eyebrow at her, an amused look on his face. Like he hadn’t just sent her to the washroom with blood running down her chin.

She forced herself to smile.

He stood up from the sofa and moved toward her, backing her up against the wall right by the door. The boys went on with their conversation, but there wasn’t a doubt they were watching out of the corner of their eyes.

“So beautiful,” Walter murmured. He lifted his hand to caress her cheek, and she flinched. Couldn’t help herself .

He paused when she flinched. Then he drew the backs of his fingers down the length of her face, watching her expression carefully. Her heart was racing, and she smiled to try to correct the error she had just made, desperately wishing she could keep herself more under control. There was nothing worse than showing Walter Stanley you were afraid of him.

His dark eyes moved around her face, consuming every plane, every feature. He was handsome, in a cold, almost sinister way. His face was pale, and his features rose in sharp, pointed angles. The strong, square curve of his jaw prevented his face from looking too ethereal and elfin. It had made her heart flutter the first time she laid eyes on him. Now she watched that jaw to see whether or not it flexed, a reliable indicator of his rising temper.

“Are you afraid of me, baby?” he murmured.

“No,” she managed to say in an even tone. She forced her gaze to soften. “Of course not.”

Then, his hand was around her throat, squeezing just enough to frighten her. She held perfectly still, a rabbit trying not to trigger a predator ready to pounce.

“You should be.” That dark look came into his eyes, the one that made her stomach clench with fear. He increased the pressure on her throat ever so slightly. “If you ever leave me again for that long, I’ll kill you.” He paused and then said it again. Simply. “I’ll kill you. And your husband too.” Dear God, he meant it.

“Understood.” She grasped his wrist gently, imploringly, trying not to give in to the panic she felt .

“Good,” he said at last. “I’m glad we understand one another.” Then, he loosened his hand just enough that she could suck in a breath. He kissed her, hard, so that her lip started bleeding again. But he paid no attention, and he forced his tongue into her mouth, taking what he wanted from her as he always did. And she, in return, forced herself to perform for him. Shifting her body against his.

And the whole while, a voice inside her screaming at her to get away.

“I’ve thought of a way you can make it up to me,” he said at last, breaking away from her. He licked the red of her blood off his lips, the coppery scent of it on his breath as he looked down into her face.

“And how is that?” she said, also licking her lips, stomach turning at the taste of blood going down her throat.

“I need you to do something for me,” he said. “We’ve got a job to do and I need bait.” He smiled, the smile that he wore when he was about to hurt someone. “And I can’t think of a finer piece of bait than you.”

“What kind of job?” Eels swirled around in her stomach, churning and churning until she felt like she would vomit.

“Just a robbery,” he said, stroking her cheek again. “Don’t worry your pretty head too much, Evelyn. Just do what I tell you and everything will turn out perfectly.”

A robbery. He’d never asked her to dabble in any of his illicit dealings. It was her one consolation while being forced to remain in his orbit. Now that too was being eliminated. An ominous feeling filled her belly, but she nodded. “Okay.”

Walter smiled.