Love and Lead
CoraLee June
Copyright © 2018 by Megan Harris
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover by Amanda Rose Cover Design
Edited by Helayna Trask
Proofread by Denise Krekling with Serious Moonlight Editing
To you. Yeah, you.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
21. Twenty-One
22. Twenty-Two
23. Twenty-Three
24. Twenty-Four
25. Twenty-Five
26. Twenty-Six
27. Twenty-Seven
Epilogue
28. Bitter Pills
29. Coming Soon…
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by CoraLee June
Prologue
Grace Moretti
I’d never been kidnapped before, but it wasn’t anything like I’d ever expected. The room Santobello locked me in was decorated with expensive, traditional furniture that was bulky and took up most of the spacious room. The four-poster bed was dressed with a plush red comforter that made it feel like I was staying in one of those fancy hotels Gavriel always insisted on visiting when we traveled, back when it was worth it to us to pretend to be a happy family. We don’t go many places anymore.
My brother and I stopped trying to get to know one another ages ago. I’d never be a Bullet. I didn’t have the stomach or the patience for that sort of loyalty. We’d never be the family either of us craved.
Not that I’d given much time to imagining what being kidnapped would be like, but I expected a damp basement with angry men looming over me as I ate rations of mush.
Instead, I was kept in a bright, airy bedroom with light grey walls and ample natural light that filtered through the open windows. It wasn’t dirty. There wasn’t some compartment door with an angry man that slid my food under it. In fact, we had dinner downstairs in the formal dining room every evening precisely at six o'clock.
Given the circumstances, it wasn’t too bad. But it was all still creepy as fuck. I was captured from Joe and Sherrie’s home in Harlem. Sherrie had just left to take Joe to physical therapy. He absolutely hated his perky therapist. She made him run, and Joe fucking hated running.
I was just lying in their guest bed, preparing to ease my tension headache with an orgasm and some caffeine from their fancy coffee maker. Their apartment was falling apart, but Joe didn't fuck around when it came to his coffee.
The men that took me didn’t wear masks, which is when I knew that I was going to die. Men wore masks when they were worried that you’d later identify them. They knew I wouldn’t be escaping. I just wished that they would get it over with already. The waiting was the hard part. Wondering when I was going to die was seriously stressing me out. But maybe Santobello liked it that way? Maybe he enjoyed a little psychological fuckery.
And it was working. I’d been stuck here with nothing but my rambling thoughts and a craving for Sunshine Whiskey. Odd how I craved my brother’s drink of choice. It was easier than admitting that I wanted him to hurry up and save me. I wasn’t much of a fan of my brother, but I wasn’t stupid enough to not accept his help, given the circumstances. But every day that passed, I doubted him more and more. We were each responsible for saving ourselves at the end of it all.
Someone opened the door to my bedroom and walked inside, his shoes clicking on the wood floors. “You coming down for dinner?” That voice. That stupid voice, always so pleasant and polite despite being one of the reasons I was stuck here.
“I think I’m going to skip today,” I replied, refusing to turn around and face him. I was sitting at my vanity, applying makeup just to take it back off again. I wasn’t sure why, but Santobello was constantly giving me dresses, trying to dress me up just to stare creepily at me from over the rim of his wine glass at dinner.
He hadn’t said one word to me. Not one. Not when I’d screamed my questions, asking why I was there. Not when I spat in his face. Nothing. Santobello just smirked. He had all the power, and he knew it—he loved it.
“You’ve been losing weight. You need to eat,” the man said. He was distractingly handsome and always in my room, trying to chat with me. I didn’t understand why. He was smart, a hacker of sorts, but Santobello seemed to have a lot of faith in him, or at least that’s what I thought. They were close.
I should have paid more attention to Gavriel’s organization. Was there a ranking system for mobsters? If so, this asshole was at the top of the pyramid, beneath Santobello, of course.
“I’m not in the mood to just sit there and watch you suck Santobello’s dick,” I replied with a snap before turning around mid-application of my copper lipstick, only the top lip was covered in the bronze warpaint. “I wish y’all would figure out what you’re doing with me already. I never asked to be a part of any of this. I didn’t even want to be a part of my family.” He smirked at my Southern twang. It drew a lot of attention, and I’d been trying to cover it up.
Gavriel found me in a strip club in Alabama three years ago. I was underaged but still working what my Mama gave me. She didn’t have a will, but she passed down her ability to attract the wrong kind of men. Some inheritance, right? I had no money and no idea how to survive without my mom. So I did the only thing I knew how to do. I danced—and I danced well.
Gavriel rolled in not like a hero. He didn’t ride into Luis’s Gentlemen's Club like a white knight determined to save me. No, he was too damaged for that. He was more like a reluctant demon. He didn’t want to drag me down to hell, but I sensed that he felt like he had no other choice.
My brother didn’t want many to know this, but his sense of loyalty and duty trumped his conscience. He’d damn anyone for the sake of blood and family. I remembered laughing in his face, but I sure as hell still accepted the wad of cash he handed me and an apartment in the city.
I didn’t have to like him to finish up school and claim an inheritance I previously knew nothing about. I just wished that I had known sooner that there was money. Maybe then I could have used it for my mom’s treatments. Maybe she wouldn’t have died in a crappy hospital all alone.
I brought my attention back to…what was his name again? I’d just been calling him a bastard so much in my head that I couldn’t remember his real name.
“Why am I still alive?” I asked. Maybe if I were honest, they’d finally tell me my purpose for being here.
The bastard looked up at the ceiling in exasperation, as if wondering how he could answer my question. He was always so damn pensive, chewing every syllable of a word before spitting it out.
Finally, he opened his mouth and said, “Because you’re a pretty, wild little thing that he would like to break. Because h
e likes owning anything that belongs to a Moretti. Because he’s a sick bastard. Do you really need a reason? You’re alive. Be thankful for each minute your lungs still suck in Santobello’s crazy as fuck air.”
My brows shot up in surprise. “Pretty ballsy thing to say about the man that cuts your checks,” I observed, forcing myself not to find the bastard attractive for hating Santobello as much as I did.
He sighed dramatically. “Just come to dinner, please.”
“I’m not hungry. Don’t you have some banks to hack into or some shit?” The bastard was smart as hell. Scary smart. Almost as smart as…
Phoenix.
Damn Phoenix. A guy I had only known for a couple of days had decided to move into my brain permanently. Was he thinking of me? Did he wonder where I was? Was he stroking himself, thinking of that sexy night we shared like I’d been doing every night since then?
He was a drug. An addiction I shouldn’t want. One hit was all it took to know that he’d destroy me. He was a bitter pill I’d like to swallow again and again…and again.
The bastard sauntered up to me, breaking me from my daydreams of Phoenix. I stood up, ready to meet him head-on. His grey eyes were dark as he pushed a hand through his chestnut hair. “Come down for dinner, Grace.” I looked up at him, both loving and hating how he towered over me. I’d always had a thing for tall guys.
I scowled, balling my fists as he wrapped an arm around me, cradling me close as my spine went utterly rigid. I didn’t want his touch, but my skin was tingling as if anticipating his nearness, and liking it too. I wanted him but didn’t want him all the same.
“Nix is coming for you,” he whispered in my ear, making my jaw drop open in surprise. How did he know Phoenix? “Be a good little girl. Play the games Santobello wants to play. Then I’ll get you out of here.”
The bastard pulled away, biting his lip before running a hand down the front of his soft, black t-shirt. “Why?” I asked, keeping my voice quiet and forcing myself not to check for listening ears.
“I knew him long ago. Before I got mixed up here. I owe him one.”
I couldn’t help the smile that was creeping up on my face. Phoenix Bailey. Even now, being a bossy asshole. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hug or kiss the bastard for giving me hope.
I also wasn’t surprised that Phoenix would be the one to get me out of this strange place with pretty dresses and power plays. We were reluctant about our connection, but yet it still thrived, knitting us together.
Like my brother, I preferred to choose the people I cared for, and I somehow had begun to care for Phoenix, despite barely knowing him. Was that normal? Maybe obsessing over our love interests was a Moretti trait.
“Oh,” I finally answered.
Bastard looked at me, a flicker of disappointment passing across his face, lessening the sharpness of his jawline for a moment. “Nix doesn’t usually get attached. Or at least not the Nix I used to know.”
Was there a sense of longing in his tone?
“He’s loyal to a fault,” I explained before running my hands along my freckled arms. “I think that when he picks a person he likes, he sticks with them. I’m not exactly sure how I made that list, but since it’s going to get me out of here, I’m kind of glad to be getting the VIP treatment.”
In a flash, the bastard’s eyes grew dark with an emotion I couldn’t place. “Must be fucking nice,” he growled before spinning around. “Be at dinner, Grace. Santobello doesn’t like people that defy them. He’ll break you before you even get the chance to get out of here.” The bastard then slammed the door, causing a framed painting to fall to the ground. It was probably worth the tuition at the private school I was likely going to flunk out of, thanks to this.
Bastard.
Chapter One
Gavriel
Six weeks ago
The first sound I heard when I woke up was a steady cadence of beats in an annoying, high-pitched tone. I thought I was dreaming at first, that I’d slept through my alarm. I was in a dark sort of awareness, one that hovered somewhere between alive and dead. I’d only been in this place a handful of times. Or maybe I was always in that place. My brain wasn’t working.
I wanted to groan, but I couldn’t feel shit. Just this irritating and overwhelming need to cough, like air was trapped inside me, demanding to get out. But when I tried to open my mouth, I realized that something was stopping me. There was a tube shoved down my throat.
I couldn’t move my body. Not a toe. Not an inch. It felt like I’d been paralyzed, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I couldn’t open my eyes and see where I was, and it felt like hard bricks were weighing me down, stacked up in heavy rows along the length of my body and scratching my burning hot skin.
No. No. Not again. Not ever.
“He’s conscious,” a voice said. And I screamed a thousand obscenities in my mind. I demanded that they tell me where I was. I demanded they give me back my body. I think I groaned; I wasn’t sure. And then I was asleep again, not caring about the dry tube down my throat without my permission, or the itch on my nose, or the compulsive gagging that kept taking over my body, making me feel like I was drowning in my own spit and snot.
I thought of her. Sunshine. I wondered where she was. If she was okay. I needed her, and I rarely needed anyone. But fuck if I didn’t need her love.
I hated the chaotic way my mind shut down. Without rhyme or reason, I was forced to give in to whatever it needed. It protected me from the paranoia but took away my freedom. Yet, she always remained. She was always at the forefront of my mind, guiding me to something that didn’t hurt as badly as this hellhole of an existence. She was my sleep. Did I even make sense anymore? It was like my brain was puking thorned roses that were watered with blood. I then planted them in the soil the doctors tilled from my burning skin.
Yeah. I didn’t make sense.
Damn, I needed a drink. I craved it like I craved air. Like I craved her. Did this mean I was an alcoholic?
I woke up to pain the next time. I wasn’t sure how many days had passed. Wasn't sure if this was what hell was like. It was a subtle sort of agony, something scratching at the torn muscles along my back and legs. Fuck this. It burned in a demanding way, breaking me apart as I suffocated. It reminded me of the time Dad took a thin belt to my back, striking me again and again for being a disappointment.
I knew that if I could control my own limbs, I’d just reach for a glass of water. Or whiskey. It should be simple, right? It should be easy. But I had no control. None. I vowed never again to be another man’s puppet, but here I was, a victim of survival, reaching out for death and begging it to swallow me.
The next time I woke up, I realized I was no longer suffocating. I wasn’t sure what monster they shoved down my throat, demanding I live, but it was gone now. My body was breathing on its own. I still couldn’t open my eyes, couldn’t move my limbs. But thank Sunshine, I could breathe. I could fucking inhale and exhale, decide on my own if my body deserved the oxygen it craved. I had a little power back, and it felt fucking good.
I opened my mouth after a few hours. It took incredible concentration. I focused on the words, tried my best to curve my tongue in the shape of her name, but all that came out was a hiss. “Ssss.” The sound escaping my lips was faint around the room, but I needed to know she was okay. I needed to hear her husky voice.
“Did you hear that?” a low voice asked. I recognized it. Whoever it was had taken good care of me. Even when the rest of the world didn’t think I could understand, this nurse took a moment each day to try and explain. I rarely was awake enough for his stupid fucking commentary about my broken body to sink in, but that minuscule effort and control had me clinging to life. “He’s calling for her.” That’s right, asshole. Bring me my girl.
“Ssss,” I hissed again.
“I’ll get her,” another male voice said frantically before a door clicking shut over towards my left sounded. Adrenaline skyrocketed through me, and I heard the ev
idence in my excitement through the beeping of the monitors. “Don’t worry, Sir. We’re bringing your wife in.”
Wife? I kind of liked the sound of that. Maybe when I wasn’t dying, I could figure out what the fuck that even meant. Wife. Huh. Wonder if it’s permanent.
Beep. Beep, beep. Beep, beep, beep. My heart was practically stumbling over itself to get to her. It had only been a few moments, but it felt like years. I listened for the shift in the air, waiting for Sunshine to walk back into my life.
“Sir?” her voice sounded hoarse but still shot through me like a knife. “Sir, it’s me. You’re at the hospital. I’m here. I love you.” A sob broke through her chest, and if I weren’t strapped down and paralyzed from the drugs they were pumping through my system, I’d wrap my arms around her and pretend to be the comfort she craved. I wasn’t good at that shit, but for her, I wanted to be.
I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or something else, but I felt a soft tear land on my forearm, trailing down the length of my exposed skin before disappearing on the sheets. I could hear the sad desperation in her voice. I knew it was terrible, knew I looked bad. “Is he okay?” she asked the other nurse in the room.
“He’s making surprisingly good progress. I think we can start weaning him off the sedatives soon. His skin grafts are healing nicely. He got lucky. You can touch his hand if you’d like,” the familiar voice encouraged, and once again I felt myself drifting into that place between who I was and the boy locked inside of his body, fighting for control but losing all the same.
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