Beautifully Brutal (Southern Boy Mafia #1) Read Free Page A

never change.
    Present day
    March 3rd
    “She the one?”
    Max dared to turn his gaze toward the tall blonde moving slowly across the room. Although gliding would probably be a better way of describing her catlike grace. The woman was…
    Well, she was vicious. That’s what she was.
    Nice to look at, sure. Evil incarnate, definitely. Not to mention spoiled and vindictive.
    And Max had absolutely no interest in her, aside from appreciating her beauty from afar, admiring the political power that her family was affiliated with, but even that didn’t do much for him. His biggest issue with that woman was that the two of them weren’t on the same page regarding how things were supposed to work.
    In Max’s world, he called the shots. All of them.
    It’d been two years since he’d taken over as underboss, and during that time, he’d proven himself, proven that he could run the family business, do what needed to be done. Yet that woman seemed to think she had some sort of power over him. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t physically attracted to her in the least, nor did he want to spend any extra time in her presence; she was disillusioned in her beliefs to the contrary.
    Then again, with the current situation he found himself in, it wasn’t all that surprising that Angelica Winslow believed otherwise. He knew that she’d been put up to it, coerced by her grandfather and Max’s own father to pursue a business arrangement that Max couldn’t seem to wrap his head around but knew better than to brush off.
    However, yes, she was the one he’d been talking to his younger brother Brent about earlier that morning.
    “Yeah,” Max confirmed. “You’d be smart to stay far, far away from that one.”
    Max had never been the kind to give that sort of advice, but he couldn’t help himself. If Brent wanted to take a chance with a viper like her, more power to him. Truth was, if Brent would step up to the plate, Max’s life would be that much easier.
    If Max’s brother—hell, any of the three—would figure out what the fuck it was they wanted to do at all, Max would possibly be able to catch his breath. But until that happened, his focus had to remain on keeping his family’s businesses running smoothly. Luckily, his two sisters were capable of pulling their own weight, so at least he had that.
    “She doesn’t look evil,” Brent commented frankly, sipping his champagne and tucking one hand into the pocket of his slacks. It was a wonder Brent had bothered to dress up for the party. Max’s brother had traded his preferred black Stetson and Wrangler jeans for a tuxedo at Max’s insistence.
    “They never do,” Max grumbled under his breath, his thoughts immediately drifting back to the one woman he’d spent the better part of two fucking years wanting with an unrivaled passion. A woman who no other woman could ever hold a candle to.
    The very woman he expected to show up tonight.
    “You’ve got guests coming your way, sir,” the assertive voice in his ear said.
    “You need to take off.” Max nodded to his brother, a blatant dismissal that Brent didn’t argue with as he cast a curious glance over his shoulder before heading in the opposite direction.
    Max turned toward the closed doors of the elaborate ballroom, where he’d been hosting parties for the last couple of years, waiting to see which of the many guests on his extensive list had arrived. The moment the doors opened and she stepped into view, his heartbeat slowed, as did his breathing. It was an automatic, predatory response, one that he’d honed over the last two years. It was his body’s way of arming for the battle he knew would come. The battle that fired him up and made his body ache for her.
    Courtney Kogan.
    Fuck, she looked good enough to eat.
    He instantly knew that she had worn that dress to torment him. He loved the way the black strapless number hugged her curves, accentuating her narrow waist, her beautiful tits, and the toned muscles in her