STRIPPING CALLUM
LAST HANGMAN MC BOOK 6
MURIEL GARCIA
STRIPPING Callum
Copyright © 2017 by Muriel Garcia
All rights reserved.
This book is a word of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author makes no claims to, but instead acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the word marks mentioned in this work of fiction.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotation in a book review.
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Cover Design by Kirsty-Anne Still
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Cover Image Photographer – Eric David Battershell
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DEDICATION
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
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ALSO BY MURIEL GARCIA
AUTHOR BIO
The day I was born, I became a weapon to be used
To be mentally and physically abused.
To learn to be quiet, to learn to be sorry.
To learn to be aware, to learn only to worry.
The day I was born, I learned to only see
To never say a word and only plea.
Not only for me, but for my mom.
But my voice to help her was only ever numb.
The day I was born, I should have died.
To this day, I still have to hide.
To have a secret and never tell.
Only hiding the truth until I can dwell.
The day I was born, I had to protect
To make sure Mom and me wasn’t a project.
To see my mom black and blue.
Being too young to say I haven’t a clue.
The day I was born my mom breathed
To never hide anything you see, never from me.
To tell her would mean a beating from him.
Only to me to hide it would mean her face would be clean.
The day I was born, I knew I came from good and evil.
To me to become the good, I had to beat the devil.
To me I have to give and give.
Then I can really try to live.
Written by Karen
Thank you for sticking with me through this journey.
We’re almost at the end of the Last Hangman MC Series and i’m not ready to say goodbye.
This book is for you.
Thank you for believing in me!
Annabella
January 16, 2012
Coffee shops. There’s something about them. The smell, the atmosphere, the buzzing of people coming and going as they carry on with their day before or after work, needing their coffee fix before facing life’s daily adversities and challenges.
I love coffee shops. I don’t get to spend much time in them. Not because I don’t like coffee, but because they’re usually crazy expensive and I don’t have much money to spare, but today I decided to splurge and allow myself to have a hot chocolate and a piece of cake.
I take a long sip of my hot chocolate and smile at the scent filling my nose and the warm liquid filling my stomach. Bump must enjoy it too because I feel him kick. I rub over the spot where he kicked, and I feel him kick again.
I always thought it would be hella weird when I’d be pregnant and feel the baby kick for the first time, and to be honest, I freaked out. I had no idea what was going on, and it happened in the middle of my shift. Thankfully, my boss had been through three pregnancies so she helped me relax and reassured me.
Being seventeen, a runaway, and pregnant isn’t necessarily the easiest thing. I didn’t have a mother to tell me all those things about what it is to have a baby, and I didn’t particularly pay attention in class. So, any changes that went along with being pregnant worried me and freaked me out. I’m glad that on my way to New Orleans I met some amazing people who have been so kind and helpful to me these past seven months. I don’t know what I would have done without their help. Some of them helped me with a roof over my head and a job, some helped me with transports; some simply spent time with me and made me feel less lonely in this world.
Compared to some people I’ve had it easy. But when you’re in your own little world and stuck in a dire situation, you feel like the entire world is against you and you don’t know how to overcome what’s thrown at you.
My world ended when I was six, on a warm sunny July day. I was at my aunt’s for two weeks while my parents’ were going to the Bahamas to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary. I was sad that I couldn’t go with them, but they promised to call me every day and we would Skype so it made it a little better.
We had dropped them off at the airport a few hours prior to that, and I was playing with my aunt, Lilian, in the pool. Her phone rang, and she left me to play in the shallow end with my floaters.
She screamed, cried, and fell to her knees on the patio. I rushed out and ran to her, my floaters still around my arms. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew it was bad. My aunt was the happiest woman ever, after my mom.
She hung up the phone and pulled me in her arms.
“What’s wrong, Lili?” I asked her as she was crying while holding onto me for dear life. It took her a few minutes before she could mutter the words I never wanted to hear.
“I’m so sorry, baby girl. Th-there’s been an accident,” she sobbed while rubbing my back. I know I was just six when it happened, but I knew, I just knew what she meant.
I knew my parents were dead.
I knew I’d never hear them again.
I knew I’d never see them again.
The plane crashed mid-way to its destination. There was a problem with the engine, and the plane crashed into the ocean. There were no survivors.
I was angry at the world. Why did God have to take my parents’ away from me? Was I a bad child? I thought it was a punishment to me because I had been misbehaving. It took my aunt and a child psychiatrist to help me out of my self-loathing period
where I was blaming myself for my parents’ death.
My aunt got custody of me, and even though I hated myself and life in general, I was grateful that I was staying with her. She became a second mom to me, and she was amazing at making me feel better.
Unfortunately for her and for me, she never coped with the loss of her sister. She was so concerned with taking care of me and helping me through the emotional grieving process that she never got to grieve, and she started drinking.
In the beginning, I didn’t really notice a difference. She was often sad, but she would be a bit happier at times. That didn’t last long. She was still taking very good care of me and making sure I was a happy child, as much as I could be, but she wasn’t happy. She was putting up a front to make sure I wouldn’t worry about her, but I was. I knew she was crying herself to sleep every night. I don’t know if it was the alcohol or the depression she was slowly falling into, but it was heartbreaking. I didn’t want her to know because I didn’t know how she would react, and I was just a nine-year-old child.
Things were steady for a couple of years. She was still drinking a lot, but she was slowly coming out of her depression. We were doing more things together, and I enjoyed those years. She wasn’t going out at all. She cut everybody out of her life when my parents’ died and devoted her life to me and Jack Daniels.
She really worried me the night of my eleventh birthday. She was on another one of her drunken nights. Everybody had left my birthday party, which was just a dream for any eleven-year-old little girl. Pink stuff everywhere, cake, friends, pool, and a piñata. We’re not Mexican, but what kid doesn’t enjoy a papier-maché figure filled with candies and treats?
At the end of the night as I was going to bed, she pulled me to the patio and sat me next to her on the big double-seated swing.
“Annabella, I want you to promise me something,” she said stroking my strawberry blonde hair.
“What is it, Lili?” I cuddled into her side.
“If I ever try to hurt you, you have to promise me you’ll take what’s in the safe in your bedroom closet and leave without looking back. Go as far away as you can.”
“What do you mean, Lili? I know you’ll never hurt me.” I looked up at her, confused.
“Your grandfather, mine and your mom’s father, was a very mean alcoholic and abusive man. I never drank because I never wanted to end up like him, but I feel like I’m becoming him more and more every day.”
“You’re not. You’re lovely and nice to me.” I took her hand and squeezed it.
“Thank you, baby girl. I just, I hope I’ll never become him, but in the eventuality that I do, please promise me you will leave.” She let go of my hand and stroked my cheek.
“I can’t, Lili.”
“You have to promise.” She squeezed my cheek gently.
“I…I promise.” I swallowed hard and looked at the saddened expression on her face. It’s breaking my heart to see her so sad all the time.
“Thank you, Annabella. The code is your birthday backward. There’s enough in there to hold you some time and get you some place safe.” She sniffled and kissed my forehead.
“I don’t want to leave, Lili.”
“You don’t have to leave, not now. It’s just if I ever hurt you. I’ll never be able to forgive myself if I do.” She broke down crying, and I followed suit.
The prospect of losing the only family I had left was breaking my heart. My aunt was the only person left on my mom’s side of the family, and father’s family disowned him when he decided to marry my mom.
My father was born into a rich family and they had big plans for him, but he fell in love with my mom and fought to be with her. Even when his family threatened to disown him, he never backed down and married her. He didn’t care about losing the privileges that came with the family. He wanted to be happy, and that meant marrying my mom.
I didn’t want to think about that conversation, and that night I went to bed with a heavy heart. I was a really anxious kid as it was, but that talk didn’t help. I tried to keep it together. It was hard in the beginning, but as life went on, it was slightly easier.
I was witnessing my aunt going deeper into her depression, and her alcohol consumption was getting worse. After I turned thirteen, I don’t remember ever seeing her sober. She wasn’t mean or anything to me, she was just in a constant inebriated state, and I hated it. I wanted my carefree Lili back, but she was long gone.
She was taking me places less and less. I could have friends over, she didn’t mind as long as we wouldn’t require her to interact with us. The only things we did together were celebrating our birthdays and the holidays like Christmas and Easter. She was still throwing me parties for my birthday, which I’m grateful for; it made me feel more normal on those days as I could be carefree.
Things took a turn for the worse when I turned sixteen. We had a boys and girls party at her house, and we were having fun and messing around like any sixteen-year-old kids would. Everything was grand and jolly during the day, but once everybody left, she started yelling at me that I was an ungrateful slut who was using her just for her money and to get boys to like me. Apparently, she caught me making out with Jason in her office, where she keeps her alcohol stash.
I didn’t understand what she was going on about and why she was so mad; I still don’t know to this day. We had a huge fight after that. I kept trying to get what was wrong out of her, but she wouldn’t tell me and was just shouting things that made no sense. It took me a few minutes to realize that she was completely shitfaced. I agreed with her, not wanting to antagonize her even more, and I went to bed.
That episode quickly became a daily occurrence. I tried to help her. I tried to get the neighbor to help us and get her to AA meetings, but she didn’t want any of it. I couldn’t get her the help she desperately needed, and I was too young to have her institutionalized. I felt lost, and I was slowly going down a dangerous slope. I would drink some of her alcohol and sneak out of the house when she was passed out. She never noticed anything or so I thought.
A couple of months later, she snapped at me because I was late coming back from a movie with Jason. She didn’t let me speak to try and explain myself. She just yelled at me and slapped me across the cheek. She was a frail woman, alcohol took its toll on her, but the hatred in her voice and in her eyes was enough to make me be afraid of her.
I was in my rebelling period, but I didn’t dare talk back to her. I rushed up the stairs and locked myself in my room and cried. I fell asleep at some point, and when I woke up I remembered her words on my eleventh birthday. ‘If I ever try to hurt you, you have to promise me you’ll take what’s in the safe in your bedroom closet and leave without looking back. Go as far away as you can.”
And that’s what I did.
I looked in my closet and found the safe she mentioned, right at the bottom of it. I entered the code, my birthday backward, and opened it.
Inside I found five thousand dollars, a pocket knife, and a gun. I took everything, packed my bag with the bare necessities, and quietly went downstairs.
I didn’t want to risk waking her up if she was asleep.
It broke my heart to leave her, but it was for my own good. I couldn’t take this anymore. I never wanted this. I wanted my family back, but she was long gone. In hindsight, I think my aunt Lili died the same day my parents’ died. I wish I had noticed earlier she needed help so I could have provided her the help she desperately needed.
I tried not to let myself dwell on the past too much as it was my downfall. Once I began to dwell, my spirits would fall and I’d have anxiety attacks.
I walked to the bus station that was two miles away from home and bought a ticket on the next bus leaving.
Goodbye Seattle, hello Boise.
What the hell am I going to do there?
I was freaking out. I was sixteen, alone without any family or friends, and I had nowhere to go. I was in serious trouble, and I couldn’t tell anybody.
I slept through the trip. Once I got there, I was feeling as lost as I was when I started my journey. I had no idea where I could go. Sure, I had money and could get myself a nice place for a couple of nights, but I didn’t want to spend it all in one go. I had no idea how long I’d be homeless and what would happen to me. I’d be lying if I said traveling around with five thousand dollars wasn’t nerve wrecking. If I could have, I would have exchanged that money for my old life back. All the money in the world can’t fix what’s broken inside of you.
When I arrived in Boise and walked out of the bus station, I made my way to what I assumed was the center of town, but I was wrong. I ended up on the outskirts of the city. At that point, I had walked for hours. I was getting hungry, thirsty, and frustrated with myself that I had gotten lost. Just when I was about to give up and walk in the other direction, I stumbled across a place that looked decent. It was a small hotel that appeared a bit run down, but it would do for at least a night.
I walked inside, and the owners looked at me as if I had grown a second head. I’m sure they knew I wasn’t of age to be traveling on my own, but they said nothing. They kindly offered me their cheapest room at half price because I didn’t have a lot of money. I knew it wasn’t good to lie, but desperate times called for desperate measures. I gave them a bullshit story that my parents’ kicked me out, and that I used the little money that I had to get on the first bus to get as far away from them as I could. They bought my story and offered to let me stay there for a small fee and gave me a job in the diner that was a part of the hotel. I was grateful that I had somewhere to live and somewhere to work for the next couple of weeks until I made enough extra money to go somewhere else. I knew I had the money my aunt left me, but I wanted to save as much of it as I could until I really needed it and had no other choice but to use it.
I hadn’t planned to stay there long enough to get to know the people I was dealing with on a daily basis. I couldn’t risk the chance of them finding out what really happened. I loved my aunt, but I despised her at the same time. I hate drunk people and people drinking in general. It brought back so many bad memories even if it was the first and only time she ever raised her hand to me. I knew I didn’t want to risk the possibility of going through that again and feeling like my aunt—my only family—failed me and purposely hurt me.
Stripping Callum (Last Hangman MC Book 6) Page 1
