The Nomad Series-Collectors Edition

by Janine Infante Bosco

  He knew too.

  Now he’s taken from me again and I’ve become the man I feared.

  I’ve become my father.

  And desperation has claimed me because I won’t let history repeat itself again. I won’t let Yankovich take from me and live to tell.

  Not this time.

  Not ever again.

  This is war and there is only one victor.

  All men have fears, but the ones that are brave place their fears down and move forward. Sometimes death is the only victory allowed. Lucky for me, I’ve never been afraid of dying. I used to think I’d die for my club; that the patch on my back was worth the sacrifice. It’s that patch that has led Satan to my doorstep.

  It’s the stitching that reads Brooklyn that has made my angel become Yankovich’s next target.

  Stripping the worn cut from my shoulders, I toss it to the ground as my boots pound the pavement and I run through the shipping yard. Alone and defying my brotherhood. Chasing retribution, I spot the boat anchored at the end of the pier.

  My father’s voice rings in my ears, reminding me to listen to my gut, schooling me on intuition.

  Intuition knows the game and has your best interest at heart.

  What my father should have taught me is that retribution and bad decisions go hand in hand. He should have taught me not to be reckless because one reckless mistake is about to cost me the sweetest and the purest love I’ve ever known.

  One mistake can cost me her.

  The distinct rumble and roar of straight pipes echoes behind me. I know the men I once called my brothers have arrived and their duty isn’t to save me but to kill me.

  They can try, but they gotta catch me to kill me.

  Rounding the dock, I see Yankovich’s men running toward the boat. Without hesitation I take my father’s advice and follow my gut, dragging the strap of my automatic shotgun around my shoulders. I lift the gun, wrap my finger around the trigger and ignore the voices behind me.

  “Cobra, stand down,” Riggs shouts.

  “Get back,” Blackie demands.

  Fuck them.

  I continue taking long strides along the wooden dock, closing in on my mark and deciding execution style is the way I’m going to deliver them to Hell, but I’m too slow. They spin around, draw their weapons and unleash their bullets in my direction.

  Shot after shot.

  Clip after clip.

  Bang! Bang!

  Gun powder fills the air mixing with the dense fog, making it impossible to see my targets, the bullets heading straight for me or the ones whizzing through the air from behind me.

  Blindly, I fire back, keeping my finger on the trigger as I have a showdown with death. Voices shout around me in both a native and foreign tongue. In front of me, my last rites are given to me in Russian. Behind me, orders of war are declared.

  “Riggs press the fucking button,” Blackie bellows.

  “Cobra, get down,” Riggs shouts.

  “Do it now,” Blackie commands.

  “No,” I scream at the top of my lungs as I drop my gun.

  Spreading my arms wide, I close my eyes and offer myself to both sides of the fence, praying they take me and spare her.

  A million smiles flash before my eyes.

  Every single one I’ve tallied through the years.

  All belong to Celeste except for the final one.

  It’s the smile of an innocent child.

  Big blue eyes, pure and full of wonder stare back at me, asking me—pleading with me to rescue her from the ugly world.

  Save me, Daddy.

  It’s her face I’ll remember as I die. The beautiful face of my daughter.

  Helpless, spent and defeated, I drop to my knees as the blast reverberates through me and the sky lights in hues of orange and red.

  I open my mouth to scream, but the voice I hear isn’t my own.

  “NO!”

  “Get back, Celeste,” Blackie barks.

  I close my eyes.

  “JAGGER!”

  Bullets tear through my skin.

  Blood pours from my wounds.

  But I don’t feel a thing.

  Numbly, I open my eyes and stare down the dock into the flames of hell.

  Once the wanderer, I am now the martyr.

  -One-

  Cobra

  Age: 24

  Place: New York

  Flexing my naked fingers, missing the silver that usually covered my tattoos, I reach for the glass and bring the crystal to my lips. Most men savor the first taste, taking just enough to wet their lips. I’m greedier than most men and I take a long sip of the aged whiskey, draining it until there’s nothing left but ice. Before setting it back on the table, I pluck an ice cube out with my fingers and pop it into my mouth, grinding it between my teeth as I glance down at my hands and the tattoos that mark my skin.

  Mother on one hand.

  Daddy on the other.

  A tribute to the two people who brought me into this world and left me alone to rot in it, chasing the ghost of revenge by myself. What once was a family’s quest for justice has now become a one man mission.

  I am the lone man.

  I am the wanderer.

  And I’m the motherfucking reaper chasing a phantom from coast to coast. Thirsty for the blood of the Russian cocksucker who wiped out my family and ruined any chance I had at a normal life.

  “Can I get you another?” the bartender asks, jarring me from my thoughts.

  I lift my head and acknowledge the guy who has been serving me for the last hour. With my index finger, I nudge the glass toward him and give him a curt nod. Whiskey ain’t my thing. Neither is the suit I’m wearing, but the pricey booze and the designer threads are a small price to pay for a taste of retribution. Silently, he goes about fixing me another as my eyes scan the room in search of the target that brought me to this swanky hotel in the first place. Unfortunately, I’ve come up short.

  Patience.

  It’s not a virtue for me, instead it’s a fucking lifeline. Without it my mission fails and I become a reckless soldier, one that will likely get himself killed. I’ve made peace with the fact I will most likely die young. Between being a Satan’s Knight nomad and hunting the illusive mobster responsible for the desecration of my family—I’m lucky if I make it to thirty. No one is putting me in the dirt until I make that cocksucker beg me to kill him. Until I make him suffer for all his sins and all of mine, because if Yankovich never existed then neither would Cobra.

  I wouldn’t be the reaper dressed in leather sent to deliver your fate.

  There would be no blood on my hands and no body count.

  I wouldn’t be the man who calls his bike his home.

  I’d still be Jagger Richardson.

  “Here you go, buddy,” the bartender says, placing the refill down on the bar as he slides the leather folder in front of me. “Your check,” he continues, meeting my gaze briefly before diverting his eyes over my shoulder. I take a sip of the whiskey, welcoming the burn as it slides down my throat. I flick open the folder and glance down at the piece of paper. Reaching into my suit pocket, I pull out my credit card and pretend to go over the check, studying the message the bartender has written for me.

  4 am. Pier 56

  His hand closes over the leather folder and his gaze meets mine.

  “We’ve got company,” he mutters under his breath before disappearing toward the other end of the bar to process my tab. Patiently, I sip the whiskey and will myself not to reach for my gun and pump this bar with enough ammo to rip the life out of everyone in it. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for, a chance to tip the scales and let Yankovich know the motherfucking reaper is coming for him.

  A woman pulls out the stool beside me and I turn around, using her presence as decoy to steal a glance over at my enemy, one of the hitmen Yankovich hired to wipe my parents off the grid. The motherfucker isn’t alone.

  He steps around the table, taking a seat across from his dat
e and my gaze falls onto the beauty he’s with.

  My heart stops.

  My breath catches.

  The world stops turning as I stare at the face that haunts my dreams.

  Miles of blonde hair cascades around her shoulders, framing the face of the girl I left behind and the woman I never got the chance to know. She’s changed, but those eyes of hers—I’d know those sad, brown eyes anywhere. They match what’s in her heart and are full of regret, sorrow and guilt.

  She smiles but it's not genuine.

  They’re not the smiles I began tallying when we turned fourteen.

  The smiles that acted as a reprieve from the guilt that consumed us both.

  The beauty mark above the corner of her lip stares back at me, reminding me of all the times I kissed it. It’s been six long years since I pressed my lips to that spot. Six years since I left her without so much as a goodbye.

  Since the boy Celeste Spinelli knew and loved died and Cobra was born.

  “You keep staring like that and you’re going to blow your cover and mine,” the bartender hisses, forcing me to peel my eyes off Celeste and turn back to him.

  “You know her,” he says, refilling my glass again. It’s not a question. Anyone with a pair of working eyes can tell by the way I was gawking that she’s no stranger. They just don’t know she’s as familiar to me as breathing.

  “He was supposed to be alone,” I grind out, reaching for the glass and downing the contents.

  I knew if I came back to New York there would be a chance I’d run into her, but I told myself the odds of that happening were slim to none. I promised myself I wouldn’t seek her out. I’d only stick around long enough to do my job and then like always, drag my pipes across the state line and move onto the next target. I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t need the reminder of the life we could have had—the life we were meant to have. I’m reminded every night I close my eyes and lull myself to sleep, dreaming of what could have been.

  Still, the sliver of Jagger living inside of Cobra—that part of me knew it was inevitable. As long as we are both breathing our paths will somehow cross. Our souls may have died, but the memory of them lives inside of one another. The spirit of Jagger will always belong to Celeste and she’ll always be mine.

  Until they kill me.

  I snap my eyes toward the bartender and I can tell by the way he warily stares back at me that he sees the storm brewing in my pale blue eyes.

  “I need you to create a diversion,” I order, clenching my jaw as the words spill from my mouth.

  “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

  “Tell him his car was hit in the parking garage or that his mother died. Tell him anything, just as long as you get him the fuck away from her and give me enough time to get her out of here.”

  “Who is she?” he demands, glancing briefly at the table behind me before bringing his gaze back to me.

  I juggled with my answer. In another life she was everything, but in this life she was a cherished memory, one I’d do anything to save. There wasn’t time to explain who Celeste was and what she meant to me. Every moment she sat at that table was a moment too long.

  A million scattered thoughts ran through my mind.

  Did he know who she was? Had he connected her to my family? Was he planning on making another example out of her? It wasn’t a stretch to think that considering every time revenge was within reach Yankovich, or one of his hired men retaliated, leaving a sea of fatalities in their wake.

  I shook my head, clearing my mind as I stared back at the bartender who was still waiting for some sort of explanation. I don’t tell him the truth. I don’t tell him she’s everything and nothing all the same.

  “Does it matter?”

  Glaring at me, he bites the inside of his cheek before wiping his hands down the front of his shirt. I watch him reach for the wireless phone and step out from behind the bar.

  “You better pray to whatever god you believe in that you know what the fuck you’re doing,” he growls as he passes by, making his way toward the table Celeste is sharing with the man I’m going to kill.

  We live in one hell of a fucked up world. A world where innocent children go missing and families fall apart. A world where young love is destroyed and the remnants leave us hollow. A world where a man with a future loses himself and becomes a monster with no regard for life—not his nor his neighbors. A world where fate tempts him to do the right thing when he’s committed himself to a life of evil. A world where God dangles the beauty in front of me and reminds me I’m the beast who can’t have her.

  Like I said, we live in a fucked up world.

  “Sir, I have the front desk on the line, are you the owner of a black Bentley with the license plate number FAA 2824?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Nothing but unfortunately there was an accident and one of the parking attendants lost control of another vehicle and it collided with yours,” the bartender says.

  “Fucking imbeciles,” he sneers, his Russian accent thick.

  I hear his chair scrape against the wooden floor and I grip the edge of the bar, preparing myself for what comes next.

  “Stay here. Give me a moment to handle this mess. In the meantime, order whatever you like,” he tells Celeste as I turn slightly. Out of the corner of my eye I watch as he points a finger toward the bartender. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

  “No, sir, am I supposed to?”

  “You will,” he vows.

  I take that as my cue to turn around, watching his back as he walks out of the bar. My eyes trail back to the table and lock on her, but she’s looking down at her hands. My brain sends a message to my feet and I start for her.

  I’ve spent countless nights dreaming of her and the reunion I never thought I’d see. No dream could have prepared me for this moment when I slide into the chair across from her and watch as she lifts her sad eyes to mine.

  Time stops.

  Worlds collide.

  Innocence and sin.

  Heaven and Hell.

  They become one.

  -Two-

  Celeste

  Age: 24

  Place: New York

  I’ve spent the last ten years trying to make the world seem like it’s a better place than it actually is. I wake up and go through the motions, put one foot in front of the other and try to make my life count for something. I tell myself what I need to hear—that God has a plan for me, that I’m here for a reason. It’s the only logical explanation for why I was spared and my best friend wasn’t.

  It doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself these things, or how much I struggle to believe them, I’ll never fully understand why God switched places between me and Alexandria.

  It should have been me that went missing at fourteen.

  Not her.

  I can’t change that though. I can’t change that I selfishly asked her to work my shift at the pizzeria so I could go to the high school football game and swoon over her brother. I can’t take back that night and worse than that, a part of me doesn’t want to.

  In a single night, both my dreams and nightmares came true.

  I became Jagger’s girlfriend at the expense of losing my best friend. She was abducted as she walked home from the pizzeria while I was kissing her brother under the bleachers. Jagger lost his twin sister that night and we both learned guilt will slowly kill you.

  Ten years later, I’m still in therapy learning to live for her and not just me. I often think of the dreams we had as children and make a conscious effort to do all the things she wished to do herself. It’s my tribute to her, to her life and the only way I know how to say I’m sorry.

  I’m so sorry you were taken from us.

  I’m so sorry I’m here and you’re not.

  I’m so sorry…so very sorry.

  It’s the reason I went skydiving last summer. Alexandria was adventurous and she couldn’t wait to turn eighteen so she could jump out of a plane.
It didn’t appeal to me but I pushed away my fear and reunited with my best friend as I jumped from that plane. I closed my eyes, pictured her smiling face and heard her contagious laugh as I pulled the chord and descended.

  It’s the reason I enrolled in nursing school. Alexandria had a bigger heart than anyone I’ve ever known. She wanted to help others, to heal them and comfort them. She couldn’t fulfill her dream but I did. When I officially became a nurse her spirit was with me at the ceremony as I received my pin.

  She wanted to get married. She wanted to be a mom. She wanted a fairy tale.

  Even though I stopped believing in happily ever after, I am still trying to make that dream of hers come true. It’s why I’m forcing myself to sit through dinner with this moron who thinks his flashy car and expensive suit will somehow impress me.

  If I have to hear about his hernia operation one more time I might stab him with my salad fork. I mean I get it, first dates are full of awkward conversations and all that, but he’s taken the whole TMI thing a bit too far. I could have lived without knowing he couldn’t shit for three days after surgery. Yeah, the constipation story kind of dampened the mood.

  “The only good thing about my stay in the hospital was waking up every day and seeing your beautiful face,” Ian continues, laying on the charm.

  Don’t roll your eyes, Celeste.

  Don’t!

  The bartender walks over to our table and I pray to God he’s there to tell us there is a fire and we have to evacuate…an apocalypse...something…anything.

  “Sir, I have the front desk on the line, are you the owner of a black Bentley with the license plate number FAA 2824?”

  Yes! Thank you sweet baby Jesus.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Nothing but unfortunately there was an accident and one of the parking attendants lost control of another vehicle and it collided with yours,” the bartender says.

  “Fucking imbeciles,” he sneers, causing me to raise an eyebrow.

  First dates.

  Everyone pretends they’re something they’re not, and it seems like Ian is trying to hide the fact he’s an asshole. It’s fitting considering all the ass talk we’ve been engaging in over the basket of bread.