by Donn, KL
One Choice
Hogan Brother’s book 2 Levi & Hayes
KL DONN
Edited by
KA Matthews
Copyright © 2017 by KL DONN
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication or any part of this series may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your respect of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This book is a work of fiction. The names of characters, places, brands and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and owners of various products and locations referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication or use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people.
Warning: This book is intended for readers 18 years or older due to bad language, and explicit sex scenes.
ISBN: 978-1-5472-5617-4
Created with Vellum
Contents
Blurb
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Author Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by KL DONN
One Chance
One Call
Blurb
Live. Fight. Breathe.
Levi Hogan was looking for a piece of his soul when he first entered the underground ring. Taking men down, showing them who was Alpha gave him a high unlike any other.
He was happy, content, until his older brother fell in love and he saw what he was missing.
The other half of his heart. Her pain was palpable, piercing his soul.
A dash of color on the horizon and he found her, tackling her to the ground wasn’t in the plan. Neither was tripping over a fucking gopher hole.
Harder. Faster. Stronger.
Hayes Morrison lived and breathed the creed. Her life motto to push her boundaries. She was set for gold, Olympic dreams were on the horizon.
Until an accident changed her entire world.
Crippled with pain, physically and emotionally, she’d given up hope of more.
Until him.
The cocky fighter with a bad attitude and always saying the wrong things.
It wasn’t long until they both had One Choice to make, would they choose each other, or settle alone?
Dedication
For love.
For laughter.
For life.
For family.
Prologue
The best fighter is never angry.
Cracking knuckles.
Flesh hitting flesh.
Left hook, right hook. Jab.
The power behind each hit reverberated through Levi Hogan’s arms and directly to his heart, inflaming his need to inflict more pain on his opponent. The crowd’s cheering only spurred him on to swing faster, kick higher, cause more damage. The adrenaline rush flowing through his veins was unlike any drug some of the other fighters took before stepping into the ring. Levi got off on the pain. His pain, other’s pain. He needed it. Craved it.
A swift uppercut to his rival’s jaw ended the match as he felt the other man’s jaw crack in an unnatural way. Levi watched in fascination as he fell to the mat in slow motion. Blood dribbled from his nose, lip, and multiple open cuts along his cheek and jaw, pooling in a puddle below his unconscious face.
People were on their feet cheering for him, the underdog, the guy slated to lose. The bell rang, and the announcer hollered and cheered him on as the winner. Money exchanged hands. Dirty looks were given. Desperation was palpable in the air for those hoping he’d take the loss.
“Levi “Knuckles” Hogan, not a fucking scratch on him. The underdog, the motherfucking champ!” The announcer acted more excited than he was. “Hand over the money, pay your debts, and come back next week to see him fight another loser!”
Walking out of the home-made ring, Levi ignored the whores trying to get his attention and the fans wanting an autograph. He had to get out. Having no reason to keep up appearances since he fought in an underground ring, he had zero desire to make other people happy. All he wanted to do was fight. Inflicting pain was the only thing important to him. Being his first fight and win, he knew he was going to now have a reputation to uphold. Which meant harder training, more time, and letting his girlfriend go.
Christina had gotten clingier the longer their relationship went on. He hadn’t wanted anything serious when they first met, but the more they spent time together, the more he thought they could be. Until she met Soph. Her real colors showed through then.
Now, he wanted to start fresh, to move forward doing what he loved without the confines of a woman holding him down.
At least…
Not the right woman.
Chapter One
The hardest fight you’ll ever have is with yourself.
Faster.
Harder.
Stronger.
Hayes Morrison pushed herself past her limits. She had to be better, faster, stronger. Her goals left no room for failure. No option to attain anything less than absolute perfection. She had everything planned out. All her dreams had been within her grasp; so close, yet, so far.
Then it happened.
A careless accident.
One drunken night.
Two stupid boys.
They walked away. Hayes spent six months switching between a hospital and rehab. Her dreams of being an Olympic sprinter dashed in a split second because two stupid frat boys decided to drink and drive instead of calling a cab.
After a long night of studying for finals, she had chosen to celebrate by going for an early morning run. The moon had been bright, she had all the right reflective gear on; they should have seen her. They should have stopped. They shouldn’t have been in the damn car.
Hayes never saw it coming. She hadn’t heard anything but the tires squealing as they sped off after hitting her. Tearing muscles from bone, ripping skin wide open, leaving her for dead. She remembered laying there in pain believing she was going to die, wishing she’d tried out for the Olympics sooner, that she’d followed her dreams instead of waiting for her brother to return home from the Navy.
He was her best friend growing up. Being seven years older than her never made a difference to them. At sixteen, she’d been cocky, knowing she’d make it to the 2020 Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo. She believed Ryder would have been there, too. That night changed both their lives in very different ways.
Hayes was left with a permanent limp.
Ryder was left dead and burned in a cave in Syria after weeks of torture by IS
IS.
He was a believer in God and country.
She believed in him.
Now she had nothing. No Ryder to cheer her on and challenge her on a professional level. Nothing to work towards. She was going to have a limp from the accident for the rest of her life. No surgery in the world could fix her busted hip and knee.
Growing up in San Diego, California, close to one of the bigger Naval bases, her family hadn’t been surprised that Ryder followed in their grandfather’s footsteps by enlisting. They had spent hours every day running on the beach of San Diego Bay training Hayes. She’d always chased after the gold; ever since she was a little girl.
Ryder had always been fascinated by the Navy—the drills, the routine, the constant challenge. All through his enlistment and graduation with top honors, she’d been his biggest cheerleader. Their parents had been proud, yet nervous when he’d been accepted into the Pacific Fleet. They hadn’t been aware that he did anything other than logistics on one of the fleet’s bigger ships, so they had no idea he’d been called to action in Syria.
More than once.
When Hayes had finally been found hours after being hit, by a teacher from her school that travelled the road she ran to school, she had no idea her brother was even missing. No idea her parents had gotten a terrifying knock on their door minutes after she’d left.
That had all happened nearly two years ago. She still felt the immense loss of her brother, of her dreams. She kept pushing herself to do more than she could if only to make him proud. To give him something to hold on to, even in death.
It beat wallowing in the pain.
Not long after Ryder’s death and her accident, they had moved to Loveland, Colorado. A sleepy little city that had accepted them like old friends. Hayes had a hard time fitting in because of rehab and needing the use of forearm braces to walk while doing it. On her seventeenth birthday, she’d had enough and forced her mind to make her body submit. She wanted to be normal again. To have friends, go out, meet boys. The normal teenage girl stuff. Much to her disappointment, it had never happened. She’d never fit in and found it hard to fight her way out of the depression that had taken her hostage.
When her parents noticed, which pressured them to emerge from their own grief, the worry she saw in their eyes only added to her guilt. So, she began running again, trying to show them she was moving forward. Even when she wasn’t.
Running erased everything in her mind. It gave her peace. Quieted the whispered voices trying to drag her down. The very reason she was up at the ass crack of dawn covering the length of Sunnyside Park before going to school. With only one month left before graduation, Hayes struggled with the choice of attending college or not, even though she’d been accepted to a couple.
Working at the local grocery store wasn’t something she wanted to do for the rest of her life, either. Full-out running wasn’t exactly an option anymore. Jogging a mile a day was only a fraction of what she had been capable of. She hadn’t done a thing with her life yet, and already, she felt like a failure.
Veering off the path to the middle of the baseball field, she watched as the sun began to rise over the trees. The beautiful hues of color exploded as the sun rose. Birds took flight, a breeze blew, Hayes closed her eyes. Sun-kissed warmth hit her skin like a balm. She felt a single moment of peace. With Ryder’s image in her mind’s eye, she felt his presence as the wind melted around her.
A hard hit from behind ruined everything.
* * *
Shit. Levi hadn’t meant to ram the willowy redhead from behind so hard. He had been trying to stop her before she stepped into the stupid gopher hole in the middle of the damn field when he’d trip over one of his own.
Fucking rodents.
“Son of a monkey biscuit!” He heard her cursing as he untangled their limbs. “What’s wrong with you?”
He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or what. “I’m sorry, sugar.” Holding out a hand as he stood, he pulled her up. An electric pulse zapped through his arm as their skin touched.
“What’d you run into me for?” she demanded, full of spit and fire. Her eyes, he was mesmerized by their radiance. They shone bright like the blue sky. Trying to discover every sparkle they emitted, he nearly missed her impatient growl as she turned to walk away.
“Wait!” he called, grabbing her fingers. “I was trying to stop you from tripping in the fucking gopher hole. Suckers have dug up nearly the entire field.”
She huffed out an annoyed breath before asking, “And you thought the best way to do that was tackle me to the ground?” With one hand on her hip and her foot tapping on the grass, he had to force back the laugh trying to rip from his throat.
“No, sugar.” Pointing behind him, he told her, “I went to grab your arm and tripped over another fucking hole. Might bring out my pellet gun soon.” He grumbled the last part more to himself than anything.
“Must you swear?” Taken aback by her question, he smiled, making sure his dimple appeared and hoping to get on her good side. “Nice try, dimples,” she huffed. Turning, she walked away from him before switching to a light jog.
Dropping to his knees, Levi brought his hands to his chest, whispering aloud, “Be still my beating fucking heart. I think I’m in love.” He was kidding, of course. Love at first sight didn’t really exist.
Watching her like a creeper until she was out of sight, he had to wonder if maybe it did? Shaking the thought from his head, he knew he had to walk away. He couldn’t deal with it. He was training for his next fight against one of the biggest names in the Colorado underground circuit.
He had one week to be ready. His winning streak of 16-0 could be broken, and he wasn’t ready for that yet. His brothers kept asking him about the bruises and the black eyes. Where he went every Saturday night. But he wasn’t ready to tell them. The compulsion he felt to beat the crap out of someone confused him. It was more than just the violence of the act, and he didn’t know why or what it meant.
If his mother ever found out, she’d kick his ass around the world and back. Worse than any other fighter could, too. Disappointing her wasn’t something he would handle well, either. She was the strongest woman he knew and finding out he was fighting would destroy her. For the time being, it had to remain a secret.
Jogging out of the park, his mind swirled with thoughts of the redhead as he’d plowed her to the ground. The way she molded to his body. A feeling he could most definitely get used to. As he pumped his legs harder, he thought back to when she walked away and the light limp he’d noticed. Curiosity piqued, he wondered if he’d see her again. More importantly, he realized he wanted to see her again.
“Son of a bitch!”
His best-laid plans may have just been tossed out the window by his attraction to a mystery woman with a limp. And now that he was thinking about her, she looked young. He prayed to God she was at least legal, or he’d be screwed six ways to Sunday.
Thrust from his thoughts as his phone rang, he suffered a quick moment of regret. “Yeah?” he demanded, not bothering to look at the caller ID.
“Yo! Knuckles, my man, how you been?” Cringing as he heard his announcer/agent, Casper, on the other end of the line. The man was an overbearing ass. He liked to push Levi more than was wise.
“What?” he snapped.
“Someone needs to get laid.” It was a joke to him, not to Levi. “Look, man, I just want to be sure you’re ready for the fight on Saturday. You’re training, right? You need at least six hours a day.”
He heard the same fucking spiel every day, and frankly, he was getting sick of it. “Casp?” Levi grunted.
“Yo?” One day he was gonna knock the other man’s happy voice down his throat.
“Back off. I got this. You ain’t gonna lose no fucking money on me.” He was cocksure. Confidence in himself was what had gotten him this far, so he wasn’t wavering any time soon.
“Sure, sure, man. I know.” Jackass didn’t sound confident.
“You bet
against me, bro?”
“Hell no! This guy, though, he’s huge. Just want you prepared.”
“I’m ready, Casp. You better have cash in hand when I walk out.” Hanging up, Levi got his head in the game. Forgetting about the spitfire he’d run down, he continued on with his daily training.
The run back to his house was refreshing. He pushed harder than he normally would. His opponent this weekend was nothing to take lightly. If Levi wasn’t prepared, the other man could and would kill him.
Since he started fighting in the underground ring, he’d lost a piece of himself. Something he didn’t even realize he had. Looking at strangers as opponents rather than ordinary people wasn’t how he had pictured himself. Yet that’s just what he did. He sized up every man he saw, wondering how many hits to the temple it would take to knock them out. Would they make him enough money in a night to be worth it?
With that part he lost of himself, he also found something new. An inner strength he never even knew he had. When Casper found him after a drunken bar fight, the man said he knew, immediately, that Levi was meant for the octagon. That he could be a prized fighter. At the time, Levi had laughed in his face, not listening or caring about what anyone thought of him. Now, he wanted to be the best so he could beat the best.
He had no need for the money or the fame. Instead, setting out to prove to himself that he could be something outside of what his big brother was. Nox was a great sibling and a great man. Someone he’d looked up to his entire life. But he was also the person that everyone thought it okay to measure Levi up to. Ever since he could remember, almost everyone they’d met compared him and his brothers. No one knew why; that’s just the way it was. His parents never treated any one of them differently than the other. There was no favoritism. They each got the same chances in life thanks to his mother’s love and their father’s encouragement.
