“Rome.”
“Jobe and I already existed as Carter by that point. She hadn’t noticed that she had just the one kid, while the other one hid away to let the other one live. But she wasn’t the final nail in the coffin. The abuse ended when she died and we went back to being Rome and Jobe. Until-”
“Charlotte.”
I hated that she’d broken them before I could love them. I hated that she was some messed up part of this, and Jobe’s ‘one’, although he would never live to learn he deserved so much better than her. She was Gareth’s brother, who was Michael’s friend, who was partners with the man who had ordered the murder on my family. And she was the only person left who had sat on the game-board and had a hand in the fate we’d been handed.
“Yes, Charlotte,” Rome said, as if the mere mention of her name reminded him of the heartbreak he’d suffered. “She embarrassed us. We were mortified and, for the only time in our life, we fought. Jobe wanted her, but I wanted her. Jobe loved her, but I loved her.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, we didn’t.”
“So…?”
Rome extended his arm over the balcony and pointed at the city below. A woman climbed out of a taxi and looked up at us, waving when she saw Rome.
“Turns out, she’s our mother all over again. She takes anything going because she can’t bear to be alone. Nor can she bear to be…less of a cunt.”
“What did you do?”
He shrugged. “You reminded me that deals are arranged online. So I hacked her computer, found the abusive messages from her dealer, and then contacted him and told him the deal…that she’ll never be able to pay, and that her brother, the man on Mole’s payroll, was dead. His money wasn’t coming in.”
“So-”
A flash lit up the street before the sound of a gunshot filled the space, and the woman Rome had pointed out as Charlotte fell to the ground. Cars screeched to a halt, women screamed. A woman had been killed, shot at point blank range, on the streets of London.
“Is she…”
“Dead? Yes. Consider my demons exorcised. Now.” He took hold of my shoulders and turned me to face the living room. “It’s time to get rid of yours.”
With a gentle nudge, he pushed me back into the room. I stood in front of Michael as Rome lifted bucket after bucket of water and poured them on the man passed out on the carpet. He coughed and spluttered, shaking his head and wincing when he woke up and remembered the pain.
“Are you done?” he groaned. “You’re going to kill me anyway.”
“I am,” I said, falling to my knees and rolling him onto his back. “I’m going to kill you for my mother, my father and my brother. I’m going to kill you for Evan. I’m going to kill you for the Carter twin you stole from me. I’m going to kill you for the Carter brother you left alive. I’m going to kill you for me. And I’m going to kill you for my baby.”
I straddled him, keeping my knees tight to his waist as I wrapped both hands around his neck. I wouldn’t kill him with a gun; I wouldn’t let him get out that easily. I wanted to feel the life drain from him. I wanted to feel the pain become him. I wanted to feel him give up, like he’d made me do. I wanted to feel everything.
A warm body slotted behind mine and two arms covered mine. Rome covered my hands with his and applied pressure, using his weight and physical strength to aid me in the murder. Michael tried to fight, but he was weak. His blood spread as his heart fought to keep beating, and it soaked into my clothes. It coated me in red, filled my nostrils with copper and made my heart swell with pride. Michael had stolen so much from both of us and, like Jobe and Rome shared their love for me, Rome and I shared the knowledge that we’d ended the man who ruined it all.
Rome held me for every second of a strangling that felt impossible. It felt like the minutes turned into hours, until blood vessels in Michael’s eyes popped, his lips swelled, his skin turned blue, and with a final gasp, he died.
And it was over.
Epilogue
I held her hand through every second. I’d driven us to the clinic while her hand held onto my thigh. The second we’d jumped out of the car, she slipped her hand in mine and locked our fingers together. When we sat in the waiting room, I slipped my arm around her and read a baby magazine—a fucking baby magazine—with her. She chose pushchairs and highchairs and bottles with built-in bibs. She picked out cute dummies, noticed deals on nappies and baby wipes, and asked me if I would take her shopping at the weekend. Of course I fucking would.
You see, Jobe and I had even shared a family. Sure, he had conceived the child, but I would raise it. He would be the dad the child only ever heard stories about, and I would be the daddy the child would make new memories with. And through it all Harley was the constant. She was the only person who had accepted us for everything we’d done, and everything we were, and she loved us in spite of it. No. She loved us because of it.
“Ms Davids?” the midwife called, smiling at us as we stood. I made a mental note to change her last name to my own very, very fucking soon.
Harley deposited the magazine and we followed the nurse through the corridor.
She let us into a room and we took our seats. While hiding the pregnancy from Harley, she hadn’t been for official check-ups and scans. Jobe and I had fed her folic acid, slipped vitamins into her milk, and prayed the effects of cocaine withdrawal wouldn’t take them both from us. So now it was over, now we could plan for a child with no risk of being blown up; now we could move on, and that began with an appointment with the midwife.
“If you want to just jump on the bed, I’ll be back in a minute,” the midwife said, after taking Harley’s blood pressure and pricking her finger and checking her blood sugar levels. I watched as Harley stripped, hating that even here, I wanted to take her.
“Stop it,” she chastised, smiling over at me as she thrust her hands behind her head.
The midwife returned with a machine and bottle of gel. My heart clenched, knowing our baby was in there. A real baby, Jobe’s baby, my baby. How fucking messed up but perfect had it turned out?
When the midwife had squirted gel onto the wand, she pressed it to Harley’s stomach and turned the machine on.
“Oh my,” she breathed, as the sound of a heartbeat filled the room, and tears filled Harley’s eyes.
Ba-dum.
Ba-dum.
Ba-dum.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
“Well,” the midwife said after ‘hmm’ing for what felt like forever, while she squished Harley’s stomach, restricting my baby’s living space. “Congratulations.” She placed the wand back and handed Harley a wad of tissue to clean the gel off her stomach.
When she turned the screen to face us, Harley gripped my hand and choked on a sob. I gasped and felt my eyes well when we glanced at the grainy image. The midwife beamed, pointing her index finger to first one spot on the screen, and then a second.
“You’re having twins.”
86400
Seconds
An Intense Dark Thriller
By Rebecca Sherwin
&
D H Sidebottom
The day I died began with a sharp rush of breath and a fierce thud of my heart against my ribcage. A heavy sheen of sweat that clung to every millimetre of my icy skin, and the scent of decay in my nostrils so raw that I knew I’d never smell purity again.
The last twenty-four hours were a blur, a void in my memories. Where there should have been joyful memories of my twenty fifth birthday, a gaping hole of nothing now prevailed. Like an eraser had moved across my mind and scrubbed away yesterday as though it had never come and gone.
But I’d never forget the next twenty-four hours. The terrifying rush of the next one thousand, four hundred and forty minutes. The swiftly fading eighty-six thousand, four hundred seconds filled with the remaining twenty-eight thousand breaths of my life.
Because that’s all he
gave me.
Eighty-six thousand and four hundred seconds to play his game.
Eighty-six thousand and four hundred seconds to complete his five tasks before it would all blissfully end.
Each one took a piece of me until by the conclusion of his cruel self-made amusement only the slow, reluctant beat of my heart remained. Nothing else of me was left.
And then, finally, my finishing task.
Embrace death.
And embrace I did. Willingly.
Coming late autumn 2016
Caged
Erotic Thriller
By D H Sidebottom
Judd Asher was taken from his front garden when he was just four years old. After an extensive search he was never found.
Twenty-one years after a random call out, Judd is found chained and beaten in the basement of an old rundown farmhouse where he has lived the life of an animal for the last twenty-one years.
Kloe Grant is assigned as Judd’s personal therapist. It’s her job to rehabilitate him, to guide him back to normal life. But as Judd’s only emotion is rage, Kloe finds it both heart-breaking and challenging mending a soul that’s not only broken but caged inside him by the demons of his past.
However, when Kloe’s relationship with her patient raises some eyebrows, Kloe can’t fight against the powers that want to see her fail, and with an arm behind her back, she walks away, leaving behind a man who has come to live life again for her.
Four years later Judd, now known as Anderson Cain, the darkest and most formidable cage fighter in a world where violence and crime are the only way to keep breathing, Judd finds there’s not a lot in life that can abate the rage that still twists and prowls beneath his skin.
Not until a chance encounter brings him to her door. To the woman with the bluest eyes and the most stunning smile, the woman who took his hand in the darkness and led him through the door into the sun.
But Kloe Grant left him when he needed her the most. She took the only shred of hope and trust he had left and annihilated it. She starved his belief, and she fed his fury.
She owes him. And he’s going to make sure that this time, she pays. In blood. In lust. In pain. And with her soul.
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GRIT Sector 1: Elias
By
Rebecca Sherwin
I thought I was safe.
I FOUGHT TO KEEP THEM ALIVE.
I thought I was good.
THERE WAS NO GOOD LEFT HERE.
I thought I was just a girl.
I WAS MORE THAN JUST A MAN.
I didn't see it coming.
I SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING.
Destiny had brought us together.
HISTORY WOULD TEAR US APART.
Twenty-first century London - daytime
Freedom is non-existent.
Self-expression is confined to sunlight hours.
Happiness is on a schedule.
Safety is a temporary fixture.
Twenty-first century London - nighttime.
Blood cascades over cobbled stones.
Criminals emerge from the shadows.
The depraved, the deviant, the morally corrupt, own the streets.
Happiness comes in the form of final breaths.
Safety is found in the shrills of death.
A love story emerges inside the barricades.
A story played out many times before...
But not like this.
It's evolution of tradition.
It's insanity fighting to break the cycle.
It's history's repetition with hope for a better outcome.
Can love survive in a drowning capital?
What if the good guys aren't the good guys?
What if the heroes have become the villains?
Trixie Ashford has been living a lie.
Elias Blackwood has been creating it.
It is their destiny to meet.
It will be their downfall to fall in love...
Amazon US: https://amzn.com/B01FPTHULW
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01FPTHULW
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