by Lexi Blake
Praise for the novels of
Lexi Blake
“I love Lexi Blake. Read Ruthless and see why.”
—New York Times bestselling author Lee Child
“Smart, savvy, clever, and always entertaining. That’s true of Riley Lawless, the hero in Ruthless, and likewise for his creator, Lexi Blake. Both are way ahead of the pack.”
—New York Times bestselling author Steve Berry
“A must-read! Lexi Blake is a master!”
—New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Probst
“The love story that develops will touch the hearts of fans. . . . A welcome and satisfying entry into the Lawless world.”
—RT Book Reviews
Titles by Lexi Blake
THE BUTTERFLY BAYOU NOVELS
Butterfly Bayou
THE COURTING JUSTICE NOVELS
Order of Protection
Evidence of Desire
THE LAWLESS NOVELS
Ruthless
Satisfaction
Revenge
THE PERFECT GENTLEMEN NOVELS
(with Shayla Black)
Scandal Never Sleeps
Seduction in Session
Big Easy Temptation
A JOVE BOOK
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 2020 by DLZ Entertainment, LLC
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
A JOVE BOOK, BERKLEY, and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Ebook ISBN: 9781984806574
First Edition: May 2020
Cover photos: Golden Retriever © asaStock / Shutterstock; Lake scenery with old wooden boat © FotograFFF / Shutterstock
Cover design by Vikki Chu
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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contents
Praise for Lexi Blake
Titles by Lexi Blake
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Acknowledgments
Coming Soon
About the Author
For Kim, who knows what it means to be on the bayou . . .
prologue
DALLAS, TEXAS
Lila Daley forced her hands to stop shaking. She wasn’t this person. She wasn’t the person whose hands shook. Who stammered or couldn’t speak in the face of tragedy. She stared straight ahead and her logical mind understood where she was. She was in the waiting room of the ER she’d worked at for years. But when she blinked, the scene changed and all she could see was blood and bodies and the careful walls she’d built shuddering and crashing around her.
“Lila?”
She looked up and her brother was standing there. Her brother. For much of her life Will had been the person she looked up to. Their childhood had been all about staying together, keeping their family intact in the wake of their mother’s chaos. Will and Laurel and Lisa. They’d been her whole world for the longest time.
“Yes?”
Will dropped to one knee, his face creased with concern. “The police are asking about taking a statement. I think you need some rest. You can do this tomorrow. I’m going to send them away.”
And then she would have to deal with the problem in the morning. Then she would have to know it was still waiting for her, still sitting there and wanting attention. She managed to shake her head, forcing a calm she didn’t feel. “Don’t. I would rather get this over with. I have to be at work in eight hours.”
It was the weekend. She couldn’t miss work. The crazies came out on the weekend. And the team was down one because . . .
The team was down one because Maryanne was dead. The team was down one because someone had walked into the ER and shot her friend. Lila was used to having blood on her. Trauma nurses weren’t squeamish about blood.
But this was Maryanne’s blood.
Trauma nurses weren’t squeamish about death.
But she’d watched as the light had faded from Maryanne’s eyes.
It had been easier to watch her friend die than it had been to look at the man who’d held a gun on her, told her if she touched Maryanne, if she helped, he would shoot her.
God, it was easier than thinking about the fact that if she’d been the tiniest bit braver, Maryanne wouldn’t be dead.
“Lila, you are not going to work,” Will said gently. “I think we should get you cleaned up and take you home. You can come with me or you can go to Laurel’s if you like. She and Mitch are on their way up here right now. I’ve already talked to Lisa. She’s getting in a car as soon as she can. She’ll be here by morning.”
Her youngest sister lived in Louisiana. She’d gotten married a couple of months before in a ceremony Lila hadn’t truly understood. There had been raucous dancing and an outdoor service where the groom had written poetry for his bride and her sister had looked radiant. Will and his wife and Laurel and her husband had been there. They’d brought their kids.
Her siblings had kids. They were all married and she was alone. She’d sat at her table as they’d all danced and known that she wouldn’t have that. She wouldn’t glow the way her sisters and Will’s wife did. She wouldn’t dance the way they did. She would be alone, always holding herself apart from the rest of them because she had work to do, because she couldn’t let herself open up.
A brief vision of a muscular man in a tux floated over her brain. Dark hair and striking blue eyes, broad shoulders that seemed to go on for days. He’d smiled at her, a warm, sensual thing that she hadn’t returned. When he’d started her way, she’d known he was going to ask her to dance and she’d excused herself quickly so she wouldn’t have to say no. She’d been a coward.
Like she’d been tonight when she’d had to make the choice between saving Maryanne’s life and saving her own.
“Why would Lisa drive up here? I’m fine.” She said the words and was pleased with how perfectly normal they came out. The world around her had turned chaotic again, and it was her job to make sense of it, to force it to be normal through sheer willpower.
“Lila, you were held captive for over an
hour,” he said gently. “You watched two people die and you couldn’t help them. You could have died yourself. I know you’re a strong woman, one of the strongest I know, but you’re not okay.”
Before she could reply that she was fine, that she’d survived and was relieved to have done so, Laurel was rushing in. Her sister’s brown and gold hair was up in a messy bun and it looked like she’d done nothing more than throw on a coat before rushing out in the middle of the night.
“Lila, god, I didn’t know. I didn’t have the TV on.” Tears streamed down her sister’s face.
They were obviously going to be very dramatic. She forced herself to stand. Will was right. She needed to get cleaned up. She’d stayed in her scrubs because she hadn’t been sure if the police would need them as evidence, but that was a ridiculous thought. After all, it wasn’t like there was someone to arrest. The man who’d held her hostage was dead, too.
She hadn’t saved anyone today. Anyone except herself, and she wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
“I’m going to take a shower and change. Tell the police I’ll give them a statement when I’m done.” She tried to give her younger sister a reassuring smile. It couldn’t have been easy for her to hear about what had happened. Laurel and Lisa had always looked up to her. Where Will had been responsible for having a job and protecting them, she had been the mom of the group. Even when their mother had been out of prison, it had been Lila’s job to ensure they had something of a normal upbringing. “I’m fine, Laurel. It was a rough night, but I’m all right.”
Laurel looked to Will as though she was confused.
Will simply shrugged. “I think it’s shock.”
Shock. Her mind focused on the word. It was a word she understood. There were five major types of shock. Anaphylactic, cardiogenic, hypovolemic, neurogenic, and septic.
Hypovolemic shock. It was what happened to a body when more than twenty percent of the blood volume was lost. When blood rushed from a wound. When the wound couldn’t be closed because someone held a gun to the head of the only person in the room who could do it, who could save her.
“I’m not in shock. You should know the signs.” After all, her brother was a neurologist. “I wasn’t physically injured.”
But only because at the last moment Maryanne’s ex-husband had turned the gun on himself. Had he meant to kill her? She couldn’t be sure. She only knew that when the time had come to be brave, she’d looked at that gun and done nothing.
Her brother put his hands on her shoulders and it took everything she had not to step away from him. “I wasn’t talking about physical shock. You were held captive. You were forced to watch your friend die. He could have killed you. You are in shock.”
“I’m not the one who died.” Maryanne was. Maryanne, who’d almost gotten away. Maryanne, who’d chosen to leave her abuser. She’d been brave and it had cost her everything.
Lila had nothing. That was what she’d realized in those moments when she’d knelt on the floor and waited for the bullet that would end her life. She had nothing. Her siblings were starting their lives. They were all married and having kids and building something. She went to work and came home and thought that looking strong meant she was strong.
It should have been me.
It should have been me.
It should have been me.
The world went watery and she felt arms go around her. Someone was crying—screaming, really.
It was her.
Despite the fact that her family surrounded her, Lila Daley had never felt more alone.
chapter one
PAPILLON, LOUISIANA
Eight months later
“I don’t understand why you can’t stay with us. We’ve got plenty of room.” Lisa Daley’s voice came over the car speakers loud and clear, as though reminding Lila that her sister wasn’t far away anymore.
Not far at all now. The sign that let her know she was entering Papillon Parish rushed by, or rather she rushed by it. Papillon Parish was on the sign, but her sister often referred to the place as Butterfly Bayou. A quaint name for a quaint place. It had been a long drive from Dallas, and everything she owned was in the back of her crossover. She did not need this argument with her sister. She needed to get to the new house, find the bottle of wine she’d packed, and settle in for the night. Unpacking could wait. “You’re still newlyweds, Lis. I’m not going to be the third wheel.”
“You wouldn’t be,” Lisa replied. “You would be like the eighth wheel or something. Remy’s family is always around. Well, when Zep’s not in jail, that is.” There was a soft gasp over the line. “That came out wrong. Zep’s not on drugs or anything. He’s just really obnoxious, and the police around here know how to deal with his smart mouth.”
Lisa wasn’t a Daley anymore. It was odd to think of her little sister as a Guidry. Most of her life had been spent trying desperately to keep the four of them together, and now they were all off on their own.
“It sounds like you’ve got enough family around you.” She loved her sister, but she couldn’t handle her rowdy in-laws right now.
Was she making a mistake? She’d left a perfectly good fast-track job in a cosmopolitan city in exchange for a tiny clinic in the sticks.
Of course, she couldn’t actually walk into that gleaming, high-tech hospital without seeing her friend on the ground bleeding out.
“I love my in-laws, but I miss my sister,” Lisa said.
The road went a little watery in front of her and she had to take a deep breath. Ever since that day she’d broken down, it had been a fight to stay in control, to get back the Lila she’d been before.
The Lila who hadn’t been happy? The one who ticked off the days like they were a checklist she needed to get through? The one who’d nearly married a man she didn’t love because he “made sense”?
Her inner voice had also gotten obnoxiously loud since that terrible day.
“I need some space. I’m sorry. I’m here. I want to spend time with you and be close to you, but I need my space, too.” She’d also gotten way more honest. Maybe it had been the seventy-two-hour psych hold they’d put her on or the months and months of therapy.
There was a pause over the line. “Okay. I’m backing off, but you’re coming for Sunday supper. Delphine makes the best gumbo.”
She wasn’t really into spicy foods. She kind of stuck to salads and the occasional steak, but she was new here and that meant giving the place a chance. Even if she got heartburn.
She slammed on the brakes because there was something in her way. Something big and creepy and alive.
“There’s an alligator in the road.” A massive reptile blocked the path. She had to stare at it for a moment because it was completely surreal. Were the doors locked? She looked and made sure and then wondered how she thought the alligator would open the door in the first place.
“Is he missing the tip of his tail?” Lisa asked as though they were talking about something perfectly normal. If baby sis was worried that her precious sibling was about to be mauled, it didn’t sound like it.
Sure enough, the primeval-looking thing in the middle of the road had a tail that ended in a stump. Not that his tail wasn’t still long and terrifying-looking. “Yes.”
“That’s Otis. He’s a sweetheart,” Lisa said breezily. “Don’t worry about him. He’s sunning himself, that’s all. Are you on the highway? Because as long as you haven’t hit the stretch by the water, you should be able to go around him. Now, if you are real close to town, you have to be careful because that ground around the pavement is tricky and you could get stuck. Normally that’s not a problem because it’s not like Herve has anything else to do, but this is his monthly hunting trip and his son is in charge of the shop. I saw him with his girlfriend earlier and he’s useless while he’s under Lorraine’s spell. Unless she says it’s okay, nothing’s getting done in that
shop today. It’s fine. Just get out and shoo Otis off.”
Get out of her safe vehicle and shoo off what had to be a five-hundred-pound reptile who probably ate the last person who did that? She glanced around and thanked god there wasn’t a ton of water on either side of the road.
“I can get around him, but I need to concentrate on the road.” She was almost there, and then she would see what her savings had bought her. Lisa had described the small house on the outskirts of town as a fixer-upper, but the price had been right, and it wasn’t like she was afraid of hard work.
“All right. I’m waiting at your new place and I’m super excited you’re here. Love you.”
The line went dead before she could reply.
Okay. She could drive around this Otis thing and then she would move on. Nothing to worry about. She was from Dallas. She’d dealt with many, many way scarier things than an animal with a pea-sized brain.
Still, when she’d managed to maneuver around the gator, she hit the gas hard as though the damn thing was going to follow her. She was doing at least seventy-five by the time she blew past the billboard advertising that a shopper could get both bait and Bibles at Fuzzy’s Faithful Bait Depot.
That was when she heard the sirens, saw the red and blue lights come on behind her. For the briefest of moments, she went cold, her whole soul going back to that night.
But she wasn’t in Texas. She was in Louisiana and it was daytime, and she was safe because she’d gotten away from the alligator. That brief moment of fear was replaced with annoyance because that was a cop behind her and he wasn’t going around her in an attempt to go and save someone who needed saving. Nope. He pulled in right behind her and flashed his lights.
What was the speed limit? It had been seventy earlier. He was pulling her over for going five miles over the limit?
With a long sigh, she maneuvered to the side of the road and put the car in park. Surely she could talk her way out of this. Small-town cops liked to ticket out-of-towners, and her car still had Texas plates. She would explain that she was a new resident and he could go back to his donut eating and preying on tourists.
