by Amber Lacie
Copyright © 2019 by Amber Lacie
Gray Publishing Edition
COPYRIGHT © 2019
Cover Art: Bookend Design
Editing and Formatting: Gray Publishing Services
Warning: This book contains explicit content including scenes of sexual nature. Intended for mature audiences.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, or other status is entirely coincidental.
eBooks are not transferrable. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in articles and reviews. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever known, not known or hereafter invented, or stored in any storage or retrieval system, is forbidden and punishable by the fullest extent of the law without written permission of the author.
There are so many people I want to thank. To list them all would be a book in itself. Rather than ramble on for pages on end, I would like to thank a special group. To my unicorn group, you support me daily and push me to keep going, even when I have tossed in the towel, thank you. You are beautiful, rare, magical, and most of all, loyal.
To the new reader picking up this book and taking a chance with my story, enjoy!
To my family, I love you even when you are driving me insane, don’t change.
To those who are looking for a few feels with their romance, I hope you find them within these pages.
To that one person, may karma’s door smack you on your ass on the way out.
Table of Contents
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
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Epilogue
Other Books by Amber Lacie
About Amber Lacie
Fuck me. She was gorgeous. She always was. Jim told me everything she had been up to, but he left out how sexy she was. Maybe he didn’t notice. Maybe he didn’t want to tell me because he knew how pissed I get. Maybe it didn’t matter. After all, she wasn’t mine anymore.
Everything changed the day they came for me. I knew they were coming. They weren’t expecting that. Turns out, I had a guy on the inside, too. It wasn’t just them. I knew I was being set up, but I also knew there wasn’t shit I could do about it. When your old man is the one who sets up the fall, it doesn’t matter how hard you try to fight it, he’s going to bring you down. He knew what I was doing. Fuck, it’s what he did. When it came down to him speaking the truth, protecting my mom and sister came first. ‘Deny. Deny. Deny.’ That’s what he told me to do. ‘Deny it all, Benny. I’ve seen what they got and it ain’t much. Just lay low and I’ll get you out of there. Deny. Deny. Deny. Your Uncle Aaron will pull through. You’ll see.’
Lies.
The only thing I saw for years was a cement wall and a lot of ugly ass faces. The only time I had even been able to talk to her, she pushed me away. She wanted me to let her go. I agreed, but I knew better––and so did she. There was no way I was going to let her go. Not my Gemini. She belonged to me.
Jim had told me she moved on. I was okay with it, for the most part. When I got out of here, I was going to show her just how good I could be for them––but seeing her the second time…that fucked me up. She wasn’t mine at all. Hell, she was never mine. That rock star of a boyfriend came back and swept her off her feet. He offered her a life I never could. I was sitting in a hard ass chair, behind some dirty plastic, watching her explain everything. Her hand brushed across her stomach. The first thing I noticed was the ring. The second was the way her hand lingered.
Arlington was pregnant. That changed everything. I had already fucked up her life, and I wasn’t going to be responsible for ruining another. She could leave, and I would never talk to her again. That’s what she had always wanted, and I was too stubborn to let her. I still remember the look of shock on her face when I let her go.
I looked her in the eyes and told her everything I had wanted to tell her for years. “I knew when I had you it was too good to be true. I kept telling myself that one day someone else would come along and give you the life I couldn’t, the life I threw away. I guess I should’ve listened. I guess I should’ve done a lot of things. Take care of our son. I love you, Gemini.”
We were done. There was no sense in me sitting there and letting her watch me break, so I got up and walked away. I didn’t look back until the door was already closed. I told the guard putting me back in my block to call Aaron Bryson. I had some things I needed to say regarding the fucker who had gotten me locked up. If I had anything in common with my Uncle Aaron, it was the amount of hate we had for my father. One more year––after that, I was going to make sure everything my father had burned to the ground. I didn’t care who I hurt doing it. My life was ruined, and it was his doing.
Three Years Later
A gray haze surrounded me. It had for years. Looking at my reflection in the cracked mirror hanging over the porcelain sink helped to bring me back to reality. For a moment, I looked like the man I knew when I was younger, when I thought I was untouchable. The scruff along my jaw was starting to grow thicker. About time. It felt like it took forever to grow a beard to match my hair. I had a clean-shaven head when I was younger, but prison has a way of changing a person. Not only in the way they look but also, who they are on the inside…once they’re finally able to escape the cement walls and iron bars. One thing I learned was that the world had a way of bringing you to your knees, no matter what connections you think you may have. In my case, my father was the world.
When I was younger, I wanted nothing more than to please him. His approval was all that mattered. When I was fifteen, I got my first chance to show him I could hold my own. The set up was planned for a local music gig. Once the lights came on and the sun faded, I was supposed to meet someone at the backstage entrance. It was a scheduled payment. I never had to touch anything except the money owed to my father. The guy meeting me was paying off a favor he owed.
‘It’ll be easy, Benny. You just collect the money. The boys keep telling me you’re not ready for this, but I think you are. Tell me who’s right––them or me?’
‘You.’
‘Of course, I am. I’m always right. Now don’t fuck this up.’
It wasn’t much of a pep talk, so I took it for what it was––a warning. Failure wasn’t an option. The lights came on and I made my way to the back entrance, as instructed. Twenty minutes went by and no one showed. Fuck. My palms began to sweat as my nerves ate at me. Thinking quickly, I came up with a plan. If the guy didn’t show, I’d go to him. I wasn’t going home without my father’s money. How I was going to execute my plan was an
entirely different story. Thankfully, the guy showed up just as I was about to walk away.
“Benny, good to see ya’,” the man called out.
Shit. My heart sank to the floor as my eyes settled on the man before me. No, this wasn’t just some stranger, I knew this man. This wasn’t just any normal pick up. Mitchell Bumpus stood in front of me, nervously pulling at the watch on his wrist. In that moment everything instantly became complicated.
Mitchell wasn’t just any guy––he was one of my father’s top guys. Or he had been––for a while. He was also the stepfather of my closest friend, Jim. What my father didn’t know was that I had caught Mitchell sneaking out the garden room of our house a few months back. The red lipstick smeared on his cheek told me he wasn’t there to meet my father. Instead, it was my mother that had caught his attention. That wasn’t the first guy I found sneaking out of the house when my father was away on business, but it was the first time I recognized the adulterer.
Mitchell was a dick. He’d always had the idea stuck in his head that he was top dog in his house. He felt it gave him a reason to smack his wife around, along with his stepson. Jim and I had planned out his death on more than one occasion. When I caught him quietly shutting the glass door behind him, it was as though fate had intervened, bringing us together. However, thinking of murder was one thing, committing it was another kind of beast. Mitchell didn’t want to die, and I didn’t want to be the one to do it, so we made an arrangement. If he kept his hands off his family and never showed his face at my house again, we’d call it even. I’d keep his secret, sparing his life, and Jim wouldn’t get hurt anymore. At the time, it seemed like a good idea.
Standing in front of him, watching him nervously twitch in front of me, made me rethink our previous agreement. Taking a step closer, I watched as his eyes widened. I reveled in his fear. Holding my hand out, I gave him a silent nod. All I needed was his payment and then I would be on my way.
“We’re friends, right?”
“Mitch,” I said firmly. “The money.” Taking another step forward, he took one back. Our dance continued until his foot hit the bottom step of the cement stairs, leading to the exit.
“Listen, man, I don’t have all of it.”
“Not my problem.”
He laughed nervously as he reached into the back pocket of his black trousers. “You’re fucked, you know it? You, your father, and that fucking brat of my wife’s––you’re all fucked.”
“Careful, Mitch. There’s a line, and you’re close to it. Now, give me the money.”
“Nah. You can’t touch me. You’re too young. Your father would never let you get your hands dirty yet. Maybe I’ll make a trip to your parent’s place. After I fuck your mom’s slick cunt, I’ll leave the money on the table. How’s that sound?”
Red.
It’s the only thing I could see. My father had ingrained in my mind what he referred to as family values. We could talk badly about each other, but no one else could speak a word. Family was important. We protected family and in that moment, I was protecting mine.
Spinning quickly on his heel, he ran up the stairs, taking two at a time. If it weren’t for the crowd of people gathering outside, I would’ve caught up to him sooner. Instead, I found myself pushing my body through the horde, only to end up at the bottom of yet another staircase. Sadly, this one led to a bridge over several sets of train tracks. My tongue darted out, wetting my lips as they curled into a sneer.
The thing that made this bridge so unique was the tracks below were electric. There was nothing but chain link fence preventing someone from falling to their death. Lucky for me, Mitch wasn’t that smart. He opened the service gate, which led to a small landing on the outside of the fence.
“It’s too dangerous, Benny. We both can’t fit. One wrong move and we’ll both fall.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead while his eyes shifted back and forth between the tracks and me.
My boots slowly edged toward the gate. I knew two things at that moment. One, I wasn’t going home without the money. Two, I was stronger than him. The odds were in my favor. “Mitch, our little deal has come to an end. Now, you can give me the money and I’ll leave you out here on the landing, or I can end you. You choose.”
“Nah, nah, nah.” His head shook fervently back and forth. “Fuck!”
My smile grew wider as I breathed in his fear. Power raged through me. It was addicting. Holding out my hand once more, I gave him one final opportunity. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a folded manila envelope and carefully placed it in my hands. “This feels a little light,” I uttered devilishly. I was full of shit. I had never handled that kind of cash before, so there was no way I knew how much was in the envelope. I was simply toying with him.
“I told you I didn’t have it all.”
I inched a little closer. His face twisted as he tried to figure out a way out. I didn’t want him to die; I just wanted to scare him a bit. He needed to understand that I was just as powerful as my father. His fingers wrapped around the iron railing pressing into his back. His only way out was either through me, or by climbing down the fence. And I had no intention of letting him back in. In a rash movement, he stepped over the railing. His feet now straddling on either side of the railing, he swallowed hard before slowly lifting his other foot over. He stood there, his feet barely on the landing, his fingers turning white from his tight grip, and sweat trickling down his face.
Standing under the yellow warning lights flashing just above our heads, I leaned closer. “How fast do you think you’d fall if I pushed you?” I whispered deviously.
“You wouldn’t?”
“You sure about that?” I replied, a wicked glint in my eyes.
He blinked and gasped for air as he clung to the railing. Taking a deep breath, I took a step back. I’d had my fun and I was certain he had learned his lesson. Besides, it’s not like I could collect money from a dead guy. My mind made up, I took another step backwards. I was standing just inside the gate when Mitch tried to swing his leg over the railing, back to safety. His grip loosened, I assumed from sweat since his jacket was now showing pit marks, and his eyes went wide. I jumped towards him with my arm extended, and our fingers collided briefly before he fell to the tracks below.
I wasn’t quick enough. His body hit the metal rails below and blue sparks shot out of the box of wires on the side of the wall. Fuck. Terrified, I took off quickly, back toward the crowd of people. With a panicked look on my face, I bumped into a cop. As if things weren’t already fucked up enough, I was now face-to-face with the police. Not knowing what to do, I spun the cop a tale of a man I saw standing on the bridge over the tracks. I explained how I tried to talk him out of it, but he fell, and I was too slow to catch him.
The police, of course, had me lead the way to the scene. They weren’t letting me out of their sight, at least not until they knew exactly what had gone down. Thankfully, the fates were on my side that night. A homeless man had been nearby, and unbeknownst to me, he had watched our interaction. He backed up my story and I was taken to the police station to make a statement. Turns out, the railroad company had security cameras recording the area. The only problem was that it flipped back and forth between cameras. When the police reviewed the tapes, what they saw was me, slowly stepping towards Mitch, as he stepped over the railing. Then it flipped to me stepping back through the gate before cutting to Mitch falling with me trying to reach him. I was grateful the exchange of money hadn’t been recorded, and there was no way to connect me to him prior to the bridge.
The news spun a story of me being a hero that night. Reporters flocked to my parent’s house. My father let a few in to interview me but after that, he cut everyone off. To the outside world he was a proud father, but that was a lie. He was pissed. I had come close to exposing the family. After that, he kicked me in with what I call, ‘the bottom feeders’, and he left me there for years. I was nothing more than an errand boy fighting for scraps.
At nineteen I was done. I had more than my fill of him. After packing my shit and leaving, I started running my own business, pushing pills. Using connections I had built over the years as a bottom feeder, I quickly rose up the ladder. Eventually, I was moving cocaine by the ton all throughout Chicago. In all my years working with my father, I knew enough to keep my head low so none of it ever touched my hands. After Mitch’s death, Jim vowed to always protect me. To him, I spared his life from years of torture and abuse. I didn’t see it that way, but one thing I learned early on is that you can’t argue with Jim.
Everything was going great for a few years, until one of my father’s pawns moved too close for comfort. Brenden was young and messy. There was no sense of class about him, which made sense, seeing as his mom used to be one of the girls working exclusive events for my father. I would bet my life that Brenden was most likely the result of a tryst between his mom and one of the rich elitists that flocked to my father’s elaborate parties. Unlimited amounts of cocaine and pussy tended to draw a crowd. With enough money, a person could pay for problems to not exist. Problems like knocking up a hooker were easily resolved. That’s where people like Brenden came into play. My father would pay the girls to stay quiet, and in doing so, he would eventually convince the kids to work for him.
Sick, twisted, fucked up, and sure as hell illegal––those were the kind of activities my father had the pleasure of running. The only thing he didn’t have control over was me. With Brenden moving in closer, I knew he wasn’t just invading my territory, he was sent to watch me. My father had sworn I couldn’t survive without him, and I was determined to prove him wrong.
Eventually, Brenden started crashing my parties. At first, I let him, carefully watching him. When he started to try to move merchandise under my nose at my own events, I put a stop to it. Under my orders, I had Jim drag Brenden to a loft I was leasing on the north side of Chicago. It was just out of my father’s reach. The police and officials there weren’t bought by my father––yet. No one was paid off, which was my main reason for using that particular location.
