Chapter 1
***Book 2 is here! Road Chosen. I hope you’ll enjoy it and fall even more in love with the characters as I am. Let me know what you think!
I am editing A LOT and will be taking some things out and adding things until it’s what I want - so I apologize for that. However, nothing important to the story will be taken out.
Keep in mind this is a ROUGH rough draft :)
Thank you for your understanding****
Happy Reading!
Mike
Elena’s cries pierce the space in this hell hole. Tears flow like a steady river down her face. She squeezes her eyes shut. Her father is dead. My uncle ended his life.
Right in front of her.
The last three months flashed before my eyes as Randall pointed the barrel of the gun to the back of Elijah’s head.
Cobra as I liked to call him. I’ve been around death, it’s nothing new, but a part of me feels guilty for not telling Elijah that he wasn’t all that bad of a guy and that I had respect for him.
There was a feeling in the pit of my stomach that told me he wasn’t going to see Elena graduate high school. Ever since he made me promise that one thing: To watch over his little girl should something happen to him.
I yelled, begged for Randall to choose me; he was supposed to kill me. How will Elena ever be able to move on from this?
Without her father.
I’ve lost her. I’ve lost her in more ways than I can count.
With a clenched jaw, I seethe, “I’m gonna fucking kill you.”
Like the sick, demented dick that he is, Randall blows the invisible smoke away from his pistol and grins. “You touch me and Elena dies.” He says it just loud enough so I can hear above Elena’s agony.
I glare at him. First my mom, now Elena - my weaknesses. He knows how to make sure he gets what he wants.
My eyes cut to my broken heart. She’s barely holding on. With her head lowered, her hair hides the pain on her face and in her soul. Her throat is hoarse from her cries. She won’t look at me, she can’t, and I don’t blame her.
My attempts of breaking loose from the noose around my wrists are useless, with my skin broken and raw - I still fight through the gnawing pain. I’m sure the rope is full of my blood by now. The pain of the flesh is not near as bad as the pain that I feel for the woman across from me.
“Let her go,” I plead with a broken voice. I hate begging, despise it even, but at this point I don’t know what else to do.
He won. My fucking revolting, filthy, devil incarnate uncle won.
“I will.” Randall sighs and my chest feels less tight. “Jace!” he calls.
Stupid fucking Jace. I’m gonna kill him, too. He strides on over with a rag in his hand like nothing happened.
“You heard my nephew. Let her go. Take her back home.”
Jace gives me a smile. I fight my restraints and yell for him not to touch her, but he places a rag over Elena’s mouth. She screams and fights with what she has left, but Jace has her head locked by her hair. He pushes the rag against her mouth and nose. Within seconds, she’s limp and unconscious. I am useless to her – I feel sick. Jace kneels to untie her ankles from the chair then steps behind the chair to cut the rope from her wrists.
“Jace, I swear to God if you do anything to her –”
“Relax. She’ll be fine.” He may be a stupid idiot who’s chosen the wrong side, but the look in his eyes assure me that he won’t harm her. I’d like to think that after everything we’ve been through, this is just a phase for him. We’ve known each other for six years – surely the friendship we’ve had hasn’t completely diminished... He took a bullet for me once for God’s sake!
Unless that was all a part of his plan, too. He must have needed me alive. How long has he been working with my uncle?
I’m starting to see red again.
I watch helplessly as he picks her up from the chair, her head falls over his arm and her golden hair sways as he carries her out of the room.
Uncle Randall steps in front of my vision of Elena being carried in Jace’s damn arms. “Don’t worry, lad. She’ll wake up in her own bed, untouched. She’ll have you to thank for that since you’ve decided to join me,” he taunts.
I still work the ropes around my wrists. “What do you want from me?”
Randall walks around the chair Elena was in, gliding his fingers along the back of it before he sits in front of me. He leans on his knees with his elbows. “You’re going to work for me. You are family. This is a family business.” He cocks his head to look at me with those cold dark eyes. “Declan is no use to me; he has no clue what Marcus is or what we do.” He leans back in the chair with his eyes still on me as I glare up at him. “He is too much like his damn mother, he has a heart,” he snorts.
“You, on the other hand are just like me. You are ruthless, heartless. I mean, hell, look at what you do did to Elena. Elijah, here.” He gestures with a hand towards the man who I had great respect for. “Hired you to be her bodyguard and you made sure she fell in love with you so you could do your job. You used the feelings she had for you against her. Bravo.” He claps a few slow claps and leans in, then lowers his voice. “You tortured and killed a nineteen-year-old - your cousin - without batting an eyelash. You would make a great soldier for me.
“I will give you assignments and you’ll do them. Simple as that. If you fight me on anything, or try to kill me, I will have some of my own fun with Elena.” His smile is disturbing and there’s a rumble deep in my chest at the thought of him being able to get to her again.
“Easy,” he warns. “Don’t want you losing your hands there. I already know you must be near the bone by now.”
My jaw clenches. “I will not move, sell, or buy any women for you.”
“You will do whatever your assignment is.”
“I will not. Do. That.” I growl. Give me drugs, get me involved with the cartel. Hell, I’ll even be an assassin for him - chew me up and spit me out, but I refuse to help ruin innocent lives for some asshole’s sick pleasure.
Elena. I ruined her life... I thought I found my heart, apparently, I’m not meant to have one.
He strokes his peppered beard in thought and purses his lips. There’s an uncomfortable silence before he waves his tattooed hand in the air. “Fine. I’m thinking about giving that business up anyways.” He sighs. “Those women can be a handful to deal with.” He shakes his head. “We’ll see, but okay. I’ll put you on other assignments.”
At least he’s able to compromise. Small victory.
Asshole.
Jace comes walking back into the room, causing us both to snap our heads at the sound of his boots. “She’s tucked in her bed,” he announces.
I glance at the dead weight of Elijah. His head is hanging over his lap as blood pools around his feet from the exit wound of his forehead, dripping crimson fall steadily down the sides of his face. A bullet to the back of the head; he didn’t deserve this no matter what his past sins were.
My chest tightens; Detective Elijah Cochran was a good man.
“Good. She can mourn the loss of her father in her own home.” He turns to me and I slide my sights back on him. “You can take this one back, too.” He looks at Jace. “Put the prepaid phone in his pocket after you dump him wherever you desire.”
Jace moves one foot in front of the other with a sinister smile as he makes his way towards me with the cloth in his hand.
I’m not able to stop it, but I fight anyway. I close my mouth and thrash my head around not wanting the awful stench of the rag to come near my face. With the look in Jace’s eyes, I can tell he’s enjoying this way too much.
He’s a dead man.
The rag is over my nose and mouth so I hold my breath as long as I can. He then punches me in the gut causing my nose and mouth to open for the burn of chloroform to lick up my nose and down my throat. Within seconds I feel my eyes droop and darkness takes hold of me once again.
****
Chirping. Chirping? Birds?
Oh, my head hurts.
The smell of stale air awakens the rest of the senses that the chloroform didn’t kill off.
I crack open my lids just to be blinded by the light of the hot sun peeking up from the horizon behind a wooden railing.
With slanted eyes, I pinch the bridge of my nose with one hand, grab the wood structure with the other, then slowly pull myself up with a groan. I’m on familiar stained wooden steps. My narrow sights dance around to find the Charlie’s sign over my head.
Stupid Jace.
He brought me to Charlie’s. Now I gotta walk my ass back home.
Home... Where would that be exactly? I hang my head to think. The clubhouse has always been my home, but I can’t go back there right now – not when I know Jace is in charge.
The ripped leather on my vest that I did not wear last night tells me Jace removed my patch. He said he should have been President; it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s there at the head of the table barking orders with my patch.
Although, on second thought, maybe I should head there and beat his ass, strip his ink away, and make sure he never steps foot in this town again.
What about Elena? The house beside hers has grown on me, home has become where she is.
I shake my head with disgust. She must really hate me.
I stand up and nearly miss the last step, the railing breaks my fall. Grabbing a hold of my bearings and holding my head, I focus on the tasks that I need to do.
First, I need to trudge through the vacant gravel lot down the road to find Elena and pray to God that she’ll be okay.
She won’t want to see me, but I need to know she’s okay before I start checking things off my list.
