Ambition: A Dark Billionaire Romance Anthology by Lauren Landish, Lauren Landish
Authors: Lauren Landish, Lauren Landish
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year old if desired. Still, The Playground seemed to be happy that one of their own had gotten out of the hood while not forgetting where I came from, and my building hadn't had a break-in the entire two months I'd been in office.
I had another reason to close my door quickly however, and that was what was hanging on my living room wall. I'd have put my outfit away somewhere different, but to be honest my apartment was seriously lacking in hiding places. Also, I'd just laundered the thing, and had to hang it up to dry, the dryers downstairs were all taken up when I'd washed it. Getting blood out of the fabric is kind of important, after all.
Looking over my uniform, I wondered which side of me was more important, or perhaps which was the real me. Was I the newbie politician, who seemed to have the gift for gab that attracted the voters, while at the same time was a little bit cocky, unflappable under pressure from the vested interests of the city?
Was I the masked vigilante who was starting to clean up Filmore Heights? I'd chosen Filmore simply because it wasn't the same neighborhood I lived, but was still nearby and needed help. If I'd gone into action in The Playground I was worried I'd get recognized. Also, I had to admit to myself that busting the heads of the 88's had been thrilling.
Or was I the guy who had just had one of the best dates of his life, who had intentionally been sensitive and listening, and had found that in listening to Tabby I'd found a deeper level of enjoyment than I'd ever had before with a woman?
As these whirled through my mind, another, darker voice whispered to me, one that I had tried to suppress for a very long time. What if I was the asshole, the player, the criminal I was on the path to becoming in my teen years? What if everything I'd done since then, the years of struggling as a bartender, running for city council, hell, even trying to date a woman as classy and high quality as Tabby Williams was just a front, a desperate attempt to run away from what I really was? What if I was just another kid from the ghetto who'd drunk his first malt liquor before he could do long division, and whose chemistry knowledge depended mostly on how to mix household stuff together to get somebody high? What if I was just another piece of Playground trash?
I looked up at my mask, a simple black hood, and made a decision. If I was trash, then so be it. I'd heard somewhere, I didn't remember where, that sometimes, to combat evil, you didn't need good. You just needed a different kind of evil.
Pulling off my Spartans shirt, I reached for my uniform.
----
A n hour later , I was crouching in an alleyway in Filmore Heights, listening as three of the Latin Kings were talking business outside a brownstone apartment across the street. I was using a cheap parabolic microphone, the sort you could get from just about any electronic shop for about a hundred dollars, and had to wince every time a car or bus drove by on the street, overwhelming the microphone and temporarily deafening me. Thankfully this late at night, few people were stupid enough to try and drive through Filmore Heights unless they were looking for trouble. The Kings used a lot of code words, but if you grew up in the bad part of town, you knew what was going on.
" Orale . After the hit on that group of Eights the other night, El Patron is worried. Thinks Filmore's gonna cook off," one of the Latin Kings, a short skinny guy in a black tank top said. "Wants us soldiers to keep our eyes out for trouble."
His compatriots, one bald and overweight while the other was long haired and looked kind of like a rat, nodded. Rat-face, who had a black and gold Latin King bandanna tied around his forehead, reached between his legs for the forty ounce malt liquor on the steps and took a pull. " Es frio , man. You know the GD's ain't gonna come up here. They're just gonna bark and talk shit like the little bitches they are."
The big man interjected. "They
I had another reason to close my door quickly however, and that was what was hanging on my living room wall. I'd have put my outfit away somewhere different, but to be honest my apartment was seriously lacking in hiding places. Also, I'd just laundered the thing, and had to hang it up to dry, the dryers downstairs were all taken up when I'd washed it. Getting blood out of the fabric is kind of important, after all.
Looking over my uniform, I wondered which side of me was more important, or perhaps which was the real me. Was I the newbie politician, who seemed to have the gift for gab that attracted the voters, while at the same time was a little bit cocky, unflappable under pressure from the vested interests of the city?
Was I the masked vigilante who was starting to clean up Filmore Heights? I'd chosen Filmore simply because it wasn't the same neighborhood I lived, but was still nearby and needed help. If I'd gone into action in The Playground I was worried I'd get recognized. Also, I had to admit to myself that busting the heads of the 88's had been thrilling.
Or was I the guy who had just had one of the best dates of his life, who had intentionally been sensitive and listening, and had found that in listening to Tabby I'd found a deeper level of enjoyment than I'd ever had before with a woman?
As these whirled through my mind, another, darker voice whispered to me, one that I had tried to suppress for a very long time. What if I was the asshole, the player, the criminal I was on the path to becoming in my teen years? What if everything I'd done since then, the years of struggling as a bartender, running for city council, hell, even trying to date a woman as classy and high quality as Tabby Williams was just a front, a desperate attempt to run away from what I really was? What if I was just another kid from the ghetto who'd drunk his first malt liquor before he could do long division, and whose chemistry knowledge depended mostly on how to mix household stuff together to get somebody high? What if I was just another piece of Playground trash?
I looked up at my mask, a simple black hood, and made a decision. If I was trash, then so be it. I'd heard somewhere, I didn't remember where, that sometimes, to combat evil, you didn't need good. You just needed a different kind of evil.
Pulling off my Spartans shirt, I reached for my uniform.
----
A n hour later , I was crouching in an alleyway in Filmore Heights, listening as three of the Latin Kings were talking business outside a brownstone apartment across the street. I was using a cheap parabolic microphone, the sort you could get from just about any electronic shop for about a hundred dollars, and had to wince every time a car or bus drove by on the street, overwhelming the microphone and temporarily deafening me. Thankfully this late at night, few people were stupid enough to try and drive through Filmore Heights unless they were looking for trouble. The Kings used a lot of code words, but if you grew up in the bad part of town, you knew what was going on.
" Orale . After the hit on that group of Eights the other night, El Patron is worried. Thinks Filmore's gonna cook off," one of the Latin Kings, a short skinny guy in a black tank top said. "Wants us soldiers to keep our eyes out for trouble."
His compatriots, one bald and overweight while the other was long haired and looked kind of like a rat, nodded. Rat-face, who had a black and gold Latin King bandanna tied around his forehead, reached between his legs for the forty ounce malt liquor on the steps and took a pull. " Es frio , man. You know the GD's ain't gonna come up here. They're just gonna bark and talk shit like the little bitches they are."
The big man interjected. "They
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