So, a couple of things. Firstly, I have a website these days! If you wanna check it out, just visit:

www.paulheatley.com

It’s got links to all my books, and a couple of pictures of me looking moody in the woods. Cos, y’know, why not.

Secondly, I have a new book out! Bad Bastards is available right now from Fahrenheit 13, an imprint of Fahrenheit Press. If you wanna check that out, link below:

http://www.fahrenheit-press.com/books_bad_bastards.html

Bad Bastards is a noir love story, telling the tale of Patton and Tammy, and Tammy’s father who is a member of the eponymous Bad Bastards Motorcycle Club. It also includes a trailer park hitman, a militia, and a creepy best friend. There’s a lot going on in this one, but it remains fast-paced and brutal, just like the rest of my works. I’m gonna post the prologue and chapter one down the bottom of this post. But you know what else is cool? Fahrenheit made a t-shirt for it! Here it is:

Doesn’t that look amazing? I’m so pleased with this. I have merchandise! Haha. If you’re interested in getting one for yourself (and be sure to check out the book, too!) you’ll be able to find the merchandise section on the Fahrenheit link I posted above. Anyway, as promised, here’s the prologue and chapter one of Bad Bastards.
Prologue
Be Prepared.
Be Quick.
Be Wary.
Harvey thinks, Fuck this shit.
Harvey thinks, if he’d known what a fucking clusterfucking fuck this whole thing would be, he’d’ve chased this kid soon as he’d laid eyes on him.
Be Prepared.
Be Quick.
Be Wary.
Shit, he remembers. I did chase this kid.
But he was persistent.
Harvey should’ve chased him further.
Now it’s too late.
Now what he’s got is one hell of a fucking mess to clean up.
Bullets.
Blood.
And a fuckload of bodies.
Be Prepared.
Be Quick.
Be Wary.

Chapter One
How it begins:
Patton is fucking a girl.
He knows he shouldn’t be fucking her, but he is.
He thinks he’s in love.
It’s a fool notion. He knows it, same as how he knows he shouldn’t be fucking her, shouldn’t be anywhere near her.
The girl’s name is Tammy Dawson.
Tammy Dawson is the most beautiful girl Patton’s ever seen.
She’s tall, almost as tall as he is, and most of her length can be attributed to her legs. They go on and on, from the tops of her thighs to the tips of her toes.
The rest of her is real swell, too. She’s tight-bodied, like a supermodel. Her hair is long, brown, straight, like a supermodel. She’s flat-chested, like a supermodel, but when he sucks on her pink rosebud nipples, feels them harden between his teeth, it doesn’t matter how big or small her breasts are.
They went to school together, but she’s a couple of years younger. She didn’t look then how she looks now. Kept herself covered up with thick jumpers and plaid skirts that went down past her knees, coke-bottle glasses that covered half her face and made her bug-eyed. Books clutched to her chest like she was trying to hide behind them. Always hiding. The clothes, disguising what was beneath, who she was.
Didn’t matter what she’d worn, though. People stayed away.
People knew who her father was.
Knew who he was with.
Knew the things he’d done.
Same way Patton knows it. Knows it right now, deep inside her, her long legs wrapped around him.
But, right now, deep inside her, her long legs wrapped around him, Tammy’s father is the furthest thing from his mind.
The first time they hooked up, he couldn’t shake Bobby Hodge’s bearded visage. Took him a long time to finish, in the back of his car. The sweat was dripping from him, from the tip of his nose, and running in rivulets down his back. It wasn’t solely the exertion that made him sweat. The constant looking over his shoulder, out the steamed windows, making sure Bobby Hodge wasn’t closing in like some all-knowing force of nature – the fear was making him sweat hard.
They’d met in the bar.
Tammy was dressed different.
Gone were the home-knit hand-me-down sweaters gifted from her grandmother. Gone were the too-long skirts that concealed the toned muscles in her thighs. Gone were those painfully thick granny-glasses.
Instead, she wore denim cut-offs that barely covered all of her ass, and a loose black vest that flashed her bra if she moved too quick. The glasses were gone completely.
She looked like what she was.
A biker’s daughter.
Or a biker’s old lady.
Patton hadn’t recognised her. When he voiced his surprise at her metamorphosis, she said she’d recognised him straight off. Said she remembered him.
Remembered him from school.
She’d always thought he was cute.
That surprised him, too. It wasn’t like he’d been popular, like he’d been on any sports team, like he’d been particularly noticeable. He’d kept to himself. A loner. He’d been as invisible as Tammy had tried to make herself.
So they talked. Then they went to his car, and they fucked.
After, they exchanged numbers. He didn’t expect her to call, but she did. They met up more. They fucked more.
Sometimes they didn’t fuck. They sat together. Lay together. Talked.
Patton fell in love.
Like a fucking idiot, he fell in love with Bobby Hodge’s daughter.
But now, now is one of the times they fuck.
Time has passed, so now Patton is relaxed. He’s at ease. His mind is concentrated solely upon Tammy, below him, around him, what he’s doing to her and what she’s doing to him. He’s not listening to anything beyond her breaths, beyond her gasps. He’s not listening to the house. He doesn’t hear the door open. Doesn’t hear the footfalls out in the corridor, getting closer.
They’re in her house. It’s a nice house, in a not-so-nice neighbourhood. No one bothers Tammy, though. Not the drug dealers or the crack heads. Her father’s name, the club he’s a part of, it still carries as much weight now as it did when they were in high school. More so. The drug dealers work for them. The crack heads rely on them. They won’t go near Tammy.
Whoever’s in the house, it’s not them. Tammy’s is the only house that has never been broken into.
Tammy’s house is under constant surveillance.
By the drug dealers.
By the crack heads.
And they report back to Bobby.
They tell him who comes and goes.
They especially tell him about the guy that keeps coming back. That stays the night.
Bobby is especially interested.
Bobby comes down the hallway. He isn’t trying to be quiet.
First Patton knows of it, there’re hands on his shoulders. They yank him up, drag him from the bed. He can smell sweat, and leather. He can feel the strength in those hands.
Then those hands throw him to the ground. Those hands are decorated with rings. Thick fucking rings. They do more damage than knuckles ever could. They tear up Patton’s face with every blow rained down.
At first, all Patton can think is, I’m naked. I’m getting my ass kicked, and I’m naked.
Then he hears Tammy, on the bed still. She’s screaming.
Then he realises it’s Bobby, the hands, the rings, they belong to Bobby, and he gets scared.
Really scared.
Those fists keep raining down, and he thinks he’s gonna die.
Bobby will kill him. Bobby won’t think twice.
Bobby’s killed men before. Everyone knows it. He’s been to prison for one of them. He got off on another on the grounds of self-defence, though everyone knows that’s bullshit. Same way everyone knows there’s a whole bunch of other corpses that’ve never been found.
That’s me.
They ain’t gonna find me.
Then the punching stops. There’s a boot gets driven into his ribs for good measure, and it’s over.
His head swims. He tastes blood. It’s in his eyes. He can’t open his eyes. They’re swollen shut. The whole of his face feels swollen, and it pulses, it throbs.
Tammy is screaming still, and then she’s not.
Something is said, shouted. Patton can’t tell by whom. It feels like he’s underwater. He can’t hear a thing.
Then those hands have him again, one of them tangles itself in his hair, and it drags him down the hallway. It feels like his scalp will tear from his skull.
And then he’s outside. The ground gets cold, and it’s kind of wet, and Patton remembers that he is still naked.
He feels warm breath on his face. It gets close to his ear, making sure he hears.
“You come back here, and I’ll kill ya.”
Then the door to the house is slammed shut.
Patton is out in the cold.