When A Heartless Thug Holds Me Close

"After watching my mother be beaten in the name of love, I always dreamed of having my own perfect love story void of pain. One where my very own Prince Charming would sweep me off of my feet. And then I met Quade, who showed me that love should be everything but perfect." Yara Samuels has experienced her fair share of hurt in life. Growing up in a home ridden with domestic violence, Yara was taught at a young age that if it isn’t painful, then it isn’t love. It takes watching her mother be beaten to death by her stepfather for young Yara to learn that love taps shouldn’t send you to the grave. All grown up, she searches for a man who knows how to love a woman with his heart and not his fists. After years of looking, Yara believes that she finds the embodiment of this philosophy in her boyfriend, Amir, until she discovers that while he may provide physical peace, the mental isn’t there. With her sense of self-worth challenged, Yara is content with loving Amir when Quade comes hurtling into her life. The youngest of the infamous Townsend Brothers, Quade isn’t your run-of-the-mill hustler. A walking oxymoron, Quade has a baby face with a heart bred cold courtesy of the streets. Quade has been given the gift of sticky fingers, a trap king philosophy, and a trigger finger that hasn’t missed a target yet. When his aim leads him straight into the path of Yara while in the midst of a hit, Quade's heart melts and he's drawn to the mysterious Yara, who for some reason unbeknownst to him, can't stand him. Never one to back down from a challenge, Quade pursues Yara with the same recklessness that he handles business, and it makes for the start of a memorable love affair. Beneath her expensive clothing and designer handbags, Yara's best friend, Cashmere, is a woman tired of being kept at the expense of her sanity. While putting on a brave face for the world, Cash hides her frustration with her boyfriend behind her Chanel sunglasses. There's nothing picture perfect about the couple, and with each of Vito’s antics worse than the last, Cash finds herself seeking a backup plan in the event that her days of being a hustler’s princess are cut short. When Cash is greeted with an opportunity to secure the bag, she jumps at it immediately and finds herself on the path to becoming the queenpin that the streets have been begging for. What's standing in her way? Savion Townsend. Cash has got it bad for one of the Townsend Brothers, but between forming her own empire and her complicated relationship with Vito, Cash has to decide if she's willing to risk it all in the name of love.

Still reeling from Quade’s near-death experience, Yara handles being the girlfriend of a savage with kid gloves. She showers Quade with the affection he’s been missing while in exchange he gives her the loyalty she’s always craved. Fair exchange quickly becomes robbery when Quade demands more from Yara than she’s able to give, and sends her straight back to the dark times of her childhood. The monsters that haunted Yara’s childhood have nothing on Quade’s wild side, a side of him he’s always been able to suppress but never tame. When their relationship takes a devastating turn, Yara has to decide whether or not love will be enough to salvage a relationship that’s falling apart by the seams. Quade has always lived life recklessly, with his acceptance and encouragement of death a rare trait, but in the eye of the very thing he’s always welcomed with open arms, he finds a new reason to live for: Yara. Her beauty, kind heart, and smart mouth have given him a new reason to live, and only as he accepts it his life is put on the line. Yara helps nurse him back to health, which proves to be a high point in their relationship until they reach the ultimate low. Quade’s inner demons come out to play, demons that he hasn’t relived since he lost the first woman to ever love him unconditionally—his mother. With his actions speaking louder than his words, Quade has to fight one of the toughest battles of his life with an enemy equally as lethal as he is. If he loses, he stands to lose the very woman to make him breathe again. Known jokingly to everyone as an aspiring Griselda Blanco, Cash starts making serious money moves. She’s got a distributor in her pocket, her clientele is expanding, and the styling business she’s been dreaming of is nearly ready to launch. Cash goes from being a kept woman to keeping up with the Joneses, and for everything she has, only one thing is missing: a relationship with Savion Townsend. In order to keep their situationship thriving, Cash piles one lie on top of the other to the point where she doesn’t know what the truth is anymore. And once those money moves turn bloody, Cash finds out exactly how ruthless the game can be when she goes from being the one holding the gun to the one staring down the barrel of it. The second installment of When a Heartless Thug Holds Me Close weaves a story of being stuck on the wrong side of love. Will Quade be able to mend his relationship with Yara? Can Cash command the game and Savion’s heart? And most importantly, when given the opportunity to start over with a man that offers everything Quade has without the baggage will Yara accept, or does her love for Quade run deeper than she imagined?