by Ruff, K. S.
in a Broken Dream
by k.s. ruff
book four in the broken series
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locales, brands, media, businesses, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status of and trademark owners of various products referenced in this book of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication and use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by these trademark owners.
In accordance with the US Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book, without the permission of the author and/or artist constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. The only exception is short excerpts or the cover image in book reviews. If you would like to use material from this book for any other purpose other than review purposes, prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the author at ksruff.com. Please respect the rights of the author and the artist to protect their work by purchasing only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted material.
Copyright © 2014 by Ruff Publishing, LLC
Cover design and photography by Kari Kunkel Anderson
All rights reserved.
ASIN: B00P30Z09S
Discover other titles by K.S. Ruff at ksruff.com
Dedication
To my friend Cenia,
who remains courageous in all things.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank my husband, Tobin, for putting out all the house fires while I worked on this book. To this day, he remains my inspiration for Kadyn. Thanks for lining up the AK-47 and for shooting off all the ammo so I could use the brass for the book cover!
I really must thank my daughters, Lexie and Madison, for tolerating the ridiculous amount of hours I’ve spent on the computer this year. I’d also like to thank my parents for their encouragement and support. It’s easy to craft a loving, supportive family for Kri when I’ve been blessed with one myself.
I want to thank my friend, Cenia, for allowing me to share her wedding with the rest of the world, for double checking all my Spanish, and for letting me get her ring dirty when we were shooting the book cover!
I’m extremely grateful to two very dear friends who, for safety sake, must remain unnamed. Thankfully, they survived the shoot-out between the drug cartels. Their gripping story served as the inspiration for this book.
I also want to thank my friend, Kari Kunkel-Anderson, for photographing and designing my book cover. I still can’t believe you shot the AK-47! I would also like to thank Kari’s husband, Brent, for managing the pyrotechnics during the photo shoot and for supervising our use of the gun. Their children, Mia and Clayton, were equally helpful in blocking the wind, which was wreaking all kinds of havoc when we were playing with fire!
I would like to thank Chris Levy for lending us his AK-47 and for donating all the bullets for the book cover. I’d also like to thank the staff at Blue Ridge Arsenal for helping us safely gather the brass.
I’d like to extend a special thanks to my friend, TJ Crane, for his copyright advice. A huge thanks to Phil Hagen for his business advice and to Dave Burris for designing a website that still takes my breath away. You guys seriously rock!
I want to thank those friends who inspired the characters in this book, those who are mentioned by name and those who preferred aliases. I love sharing you guys with the rest of the world! I’d also like to thank those friends who served as reviewers: Heidi Lieu, Cenia Miller, Christine Bedard-Dannels, Kari Kunkel-Anderson, Erica Allder, Faddwa Brubaker, and Gloria Bernini. Thank you for suffering through the first draft. Your feedback proved invaluable.
I’d like to thank my readers for keeping me motivated. I love hearing from you on Facebook, and I truly appreciate your reviews! Last, but certainly not least, I’d like to thank the folks at Amazon for creating a venue for self-publishing authors like me.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 – Love don’t die
Chapter 2 – A sky full of stars
Chapter 3 – Me and my broken heart
Chapter 4 – Heart headed home
Chapter 5 - Dare to believe
Chapter 6 - Wake me up inside
Chapter 7 – Change the world
Chapter 8 – Story of my life
Chapter 9 – Walk through walls
Chapter 10 – Take heart
About the Author
Additional books by K.S. Ruff
Chapter 1 – Love don’t die
Rafael plopped down next to me on the couch. His arm settled casually over my shoulders as he nuzzled my neck. “What are you working on?”
I scooted a couple inches away. “I’m developing an agenda for a personal risk seminar my professor asked Shae and me to lead in October.”
“October is eight weeks away,” he noted softly. He closed the lid on my laptop and tilted my chin toward his.
I tried not to cringe as his lips captured mine. He had no way of knowing that a piece of me died every time he kissed me. I gently pulled away. “I need a glass of water. Can I get you anything?”
His soft brown eyes darkened. “Don’t do that.”
I set the laptop on the coffee table and rose from the couch. “Do what?” I asked with forced innocence.
“Withdraw. Pull away. Shut me out,” he responded, as if ticking items off a list.
I turned away. “I wasn’t. I was just getting a glass of water.”
He rose from the couch. “No. You weren’t just getting a glass of water. You were drumming up another excuse to distance yourself from me. What’s going on, Kristine? You’ve been doing this for over a month now.”
I walked to the kitchen, pulled a glass out of the cupboard, and shoved it under the water dispenser in the refrigerator. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I felt a twinge of guilt for lying to him, but I wasn’t ready to have this conversation.
Rafael followed me into the kitchen. He stood there patiently while I drank the water. Then he peeled the glass from my hand and set it on the copper speckled countertop. “Don’t lie to me. You’ve been distancing yourself ever since you saw that picture in Saint-Tropez. It’s like you caught a glimpse into our future and now you’re trying to sabotage everything. Why?”
I knew exactly which photograph he was talking about, the picture we’d taken after building a sandcastle with a little boy named Gabriel. Rafael adored that picture, so much so that he was using it as wallpaper on his cell phone. I shook my head. “I’m not...”
He boxed me in against the refrigerator. “What are you afraid of, Kristine?”
“I’m not...”
He swallowed my denial in a kiss that was edging on brutal. “Then why do you fight tears every time I kiss you?” His fingers grazed my hip… my waist… my breast before grasping my shoulder. His eyes pierced mine. “Why do you cringe every time I touch you?”
I wedged my hands between us and shoved at his chest. “Stop pushing me!” I hissed.
“Talk to me!” he roared. His voice echoed through the house. His face quickly softened with regret. He pushed away from the refrigerator and took a step back.
“I can’t,” I choked out. My heart was racing, making it impossible to breathe. I stumbled away from him.
He reached for my arm. “Kristine. God, please don’t
run away from this... from us... from me.”
“I’m not,” I insisted. I looked around frantically. I stilled when I realized I really did want to run away. I shrugged his hand off my arm and slowly backed away. Tears welled in my eyes. “I’m scared,” I confessed warily. My heart was shredding my ribs like some feral animal.
His eyes softened. He took a step forward, then froze. “What are you afraid of, Kristine?”
I choked down my tears. “Of you, of me, of us,” I admitted despondently. I edged toward the sun room, yanked the door open, and breathed in the musky scent of lavender. I was looking for something, anything that would soothe me. I wasn’t just scared. I was completely terrified.
“Why?” Rafael whispered as he walked up behind me. He didn’t touch me, he just stood there radiating heat. I wanted to lean into him, to feel his arms around me. I wondered how it was possible to want and fear the same thing.
I didn’t turn around to look at him. I couldn’t look at him. I knew what would happen if I did. I’d burst into tears and run from the room, like I had so many other times over the past few weeks. I took a deep breath and slowly released it from my lungs. Rafael saved my life, I reasoned. He was understanding and kind. Far more patient than any other man would have been with me. He deserved to know what he was getting himself into, how messed up and truly hopeless I really was. If he knew, maybe he’d stop pushing me. Maybe he’d cut his losses and walk away. Maybe then I could just shrivel up and die, and it wouldn’t have to cost him his life.
“Talk to me,” he pleaded softly. “Tell me you remember how good things were between us.”
“I do,” I responded brokenly. “I do remember how good everything was before I left for Ukraine.” God, how I longed to roll back time. What I wouldn’t give to erase the last two months.
He leaned into me. “Tell me your heart still belongs to me... that you know you still hold my heart in your hands,” he demanded in a voice thick with despair.
I closed my eyes and leaned back against his chest even though I knew I shouldn’t. The guy was like a damn magnet, which is why I was still in this relationship. It was physically impossible to walk away. “There is no one else, Rafael. My heart is all tangled up in you, but...”
“But what?” he asked. He grasped my shoulders and turned me around.
Tears streamed down my face. “I know what I saw in that picture, and I know what I want almost as certainly as I know it can never be.”
He tried to hide his alarm and failed miserably. “Why?” he demanded. “Why can’t it be?”
I choked on my tears. “Because I don’t get happy endings, Rafael. I only get broken dreams.”
“What?” he asked incredulously.
I swiped the tears from my cheeks. “Every dream I’ve ever had has turned into a vicious nightmare or completely disintegrated in front of me... my marriage, my relationship with Kadyn, my engagement to Michael, Genevieve, peacebuilding in Ukraine...”
He shook his head.
I removed his hands from my shoulders and walked into the living room. “Do you want to know why I’ve been building all these walls? To protect you. I don’t dare love you, Rafael. I don’t dare dream of a future with you, because if I do, something truly horrific will happen. You’ll die. I’ll die. We’ll never get our happy ending... and do you know why? Because I don’t get happy endings! I can’t leave you because I need you. God, I need you more than the air I breathe, but I can’t be with you because I can’t risk something terrible happening to you. So I’m stuck here in limbo, completely incapable of leaving, unable to move forward, stuck inside another broken dream.”
Rafael chuckled softly. “That’s why you’ve been avoiding me? Baby, I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. I’ve nearly lost you... how many times? You’re husband nearly killed you before we even met. Justin Morris strangled and tried to shoot you. Emerico Alentisca tried to drown you. I had to breathe life into your body knowing that if you lived you still wouldn’t be mine. Then the SVR tortured you until you wanted to die. I watched my brother die. I watched a piece of you die right alongside him, and a piece of me died watching the two of you die in each other’s arms. We’ve been through hell, Kristine. If there’s anyone who deserves a happy ending it’s us. If we walk away from this, then what good has come from all of this sadness and loss?”
I raked my hands through my hair and looked around wildly. “I don’t know!” I yelled in frustration.
He took a step toward me, cautiously. “We can build new dreams, Kristine; but you have to be willing to fight for us. Fight for me. Fight for our happy ending.”
My hands clenched in my hair. I wanted to rip out every last strand. I shook my head as I began sobbing. “I can’t,” I rasped. “I can’t fight this fight, Rafael. I’m tired of fighting. I have nothing left to give. You deserve more. You deserve better than this... than me... than God-forsaken dreams.”
He took another step forward. “You don’t think I know you want to die? You don’t think I know how much you long to give up, to slip silently away in sleep? You don’t think I’ve seen how many sleeping pills you’re taking these days? You’re so deeply buried beneath them you don’t even wake from your nightmares anymore. You just lie there locked in sleep as you scream. I know why you’re doing this, Kristine.”
My eyes widened. Fear inexplicably licked at me.
“You want to die so you can be with Michael,” he stated flatly.
The air rushed from my lungs so forcefully I felt as if I’d been punched in the chest. “That’s... that’s...”
“True,” he finished softly. “It’s the truth,” he repeated a bit more loudly, “but it doesn’t work like that.”
“What? Why?”
“You won’t end up in the same place as Michael if you commit suicide, Kristine; and you know it. Besides, Michael wouldn’t want this. He didn’t risk his life so you could die. He risked his life so you could live.”
I flinched, recalling the way Michael’s chest bowed when the bullet struck him… Rafael dragging him up those cold metal stairs… his blood filling my mouth when I kissed him… his eyes gazing apologetically into mine as I begged him to live. A deep, keening sound reverberated through my chest.
Rafael caught me as my knees buckled. He pulled me into his arms as he knelt beside me on the floor. “You don’t belong with Michael, Kristine. You may have, at one point in time, but not anymore. You belong with me.”
Fear and regret battled for my heart. “Why?” I groaned. “Nothing good can come of this, Rafael. Why do you still want me?”
He smoothed the hair out of my face and tucked his finger under my chin until my eyes met his. “Because you hold my heart, Kristine. It is physically impossible for me to live without you when you have my heart.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry you fell in love with me.” And I was, although I felt more sorry for him than me because I was certain our relationship would cause him a lifetime of misery. For one fleeting second, I had dared to hope and dream of a future with Rafael when we took that picture on the beach, a future that included a little boy just like Gabriel. But I knew. In my heart of hearts I knew I’d never be able to give him that. My chances of getting pregnant again were slim to none, leaning heavily toward none since I was too scared to have sex after being tortured by the SVR.
“I’m not,” Rafael rebutted firmly. “I’ll never regret falling in love with you.”
I shook my head, then burst into tears. How could this man love me? How could he even look at me when my actions had cost his brother’s life?
Rafael tightened his hold on me. “We’ll build new dreams,” he whispered soothingly.
I shuddered violently. I knew I wouldn’t survive another broken dream.
* * * * *
“Hey, Kri. Fancy meeting you here,” Kadyn called, his voice echoing through the parking garage. The overhead light reflected off his cleanly shaven head as he strapped his helmet near th
e rear tire of his motorcycle and climbed off the bike. He was wearing faded blue jeans and a navy Decatur Staleys short-sleeve t-shirt. The shirt fit snugly across his biceps and chest, but hid the eight-pack abs he sported so effortlessly.
I cut a sidelong glance toward Jase. “You remember Kadyn from Berlin?” I prompted. Jase, Chance, Brogan, and Aidan worked for Rafael. They met us in Berlin when we escaped from Ukraine. Since Ethan and Brady were temporarily out of commission, Jase had stepped up to serve as my bodyguard. I suspected he was receiving hazard pay.
Jase smiled as he joined me on the passenger side of Rafael’s Lincoln Navigator. “Sure. I remember Kadyn.” He strode toward Kadyn and shook his hand.
Kadyn patted Jase on the shoulder before pulling me in for a hug. “You okay?” he whispered. “I’ve been worried about you.”
I offered up a tremulous smile. “I’m doing okay... hanging in there,” I replied. I diverted my eyes so they wouldn’t betray me. Strappy white sandals served as the perfect frame for the French pedicure Rafael had insisted on. I smoothed my hands down my soft pink slip dress while briefly admiring my toes.
“I see Rafael’s keeping you on a tight leash,” he noted softly. We began walking toward the entrance of the parking garage.
I glanced at Jase apologetically. I relented to having Jase serve as my bodyguard when Rafael threatened to accompany me to school and every other personal engagement if I didn’t concede. “He’s still worried the SVR will try to come after me.”
Kadyn nodded. “I’m sure they’ve got agents working in the United States, so it’s not out of the realm of possibilities. How are Ethan and Brady doing?”
I smiled. “Brady gets his casts off next week. Ethan got annoyed with all the itching and sawed his casts off himself. His orthopedic surgeon cleared him for physical therapy, but he still has to use a wheel chair so he doesn’t put too much pressure on his legs.” I still felt guilty about their predicament. The two men had paid a hefty price for serving as my bodyguards in Ukraine. As much as I hated the SVR for the pain and humiliation they’d caused me, I hated them more for what they’d done to the people I cared about. Michael especially.
