By
Shanora Williams
Copyright © 2014 Shanora Williams
All right reserved. This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any form without prior written permission of the publisher, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution, circulation or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
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Published December 2014
Editing by Yours Truly, The Editor
Cover Art and Design by Najla Qamber Designs
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CONTACT SHANORA
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Keeping Up With Shanora Williams
BEWARE 2: The Comeback cannot be read as a standalone. To read book one, BEWARE on your e-reader for only $0.99 cents, click the following links below. :)
BEWARE – Amazon US
BEWARE – Amazon UK
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Other Books By Shanora Williams
(All can be found on Amazon, B&N, iBooks and Kobo)
FireNine Series
*Who He Is (Book #1)
Who We Are (Book #2)
Who I Am (Book #3)
Who I’m Becoming (Book #4)
Hard to Resist Series
*Hard to Resist (#1)
Hard to Hold On (Hard to Resist Sequel) (#2)
Hard to Forget (Hard to Resist Prequel) (0.5)
Control Series
Control Me (Part 1) –
Free on Amazon and Wattpad
Release Me (Part 2) –
First 2 Parts free on Wattpad
Dedicated to all the single parents. You are strong. You keep your head held high. You provide for your child[ren] and for that you are loved. It’s not easy, but you make it work. Thank YOU for never giving up!
"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths." Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
It’s all supposed to be over. Right?
Wrong.
A gun goes off. There’s blood. So much blood. Everywhere. Who does it belong to?
I cling to him, eyes wide. In shock. Another gunshot rings in my ears. I don’t look. I can’t because I’m falling. Sinking. My head falls on its own. I struggle for breath. Pain… lots of pain.
Ace is above me, brown eyes wide and panicked, and moments later, I’m on the ground, unable to do anything.
Everyone is screaming. I’m in a trance, a lost state of mind, but soon, I come to peace with myself, and everything turns grey.
The sun disappears.
Ace disappears.
I disappear.
Darkness.
Just like that, I’m gone… Gone.
Now, I realize that it’s over. It’s finally over.
Wow. Finally.
Internal Bleeding – Kid Cudi
I watch her go, knowing it will be the last time I ever see her.
I give her hope. Faith. I give too much, knowing I won’t be able to keep the promises I make.
It all happens so fast.
I don’t know where it goes wrong. We were good. I was good. It’s crazy how quickly things can turn from peaceful to deadly in less than an hour. I thought, for sure, I had a chance at surviving—of getting through all the bullshit my ignorant father created years ago. I was ready to start over. I was ready to be free.
I was wrong.
Gunshots make my ears ring.
Pain seizes my shoulder, and I fall to the ground, helpless. I fight through the agony though, sitting up and pushing my back against the car door. I look towards London who’s screaming for me. Her eyes are wet, her face a bright shade of frustrated red. She’s on edge. I need to calm her down and get her the fuck away from all this shit.
I tell her that everything will be okay—that she has to go and I’ll find her soon. Of course, like the stubborn mule she is, she refuses to leave. I tell her to write me letters. Letters will keep us close together. In the back of my mind, I want to survive this thing. I want to fight as hard as I can, kill every single one of Pablo’s men, and move the hell on with my life like I planned.
But deep down, I know it won’t happen.
Fortunately, Tye forces London inside the truck. I watch as the truck skids backwards, and as she pulls a sharp right, not once does she look back.
Good. That’s my girl. Keep the faith.
Now that she’s gone, I need to get down to business. I glance at Gerrick, giving him an obvious look. No words need to be shared. He knows what has to be done. Wincing, he reaches for his metal piece and cocks it, nodding his head once as he meets my eyes again. Tye rushes to our side, looking us over with worry etching his face.
“Fuck,” he breathes, realizing the damage that’s been done to us both. “How the fuck are we gonna get outta this one?”
I turn away, reaching for my gun as well. The truth is, I have no clue how we’re going to get out of it, but if I’m going down, I won’t go down like a bitch. I refuse to go down without a fight.
“Y’all are my brothers,” I say, looking from Tye to Gerrick. “If we don’t make it out alive, I want you both to know I couldn’t have gotten anywhere in my life without you. It’s been real. Couldn’t have asked for better men.” I swallow hard, squeezing the hot metal in my hands.
Gerrick shuts his eyes and places the back of his head against the car. He doesn’t speak. He’s losing it. He’s already lost a lot of blood. He’s been shot through the arm and leg. If we don’t get out of this alley sooner, rather than later, I’m going to lose him too. I can’t lose him.
Tye shakes his head, a growl scratching as his throat. “Fuck this! They killed my fucking brother! That’s already too much! They won’t kill y’all too. Those motherfuckers have to die!” Tye positions his gun in front of him and hops to his feet.
“No, Tye!” I shout after him, but it’s already too late.
Before I can stop him, he’s rushing around the open car door and towards Pablo’s men. I fight through the excruciating discomfort as I spring to my feet. Tye has a temper, and sometimes, it gets us into some deep shit. He’s not thinking clearly—he just lost his twin—but I can’t let him go out there alone.
Gerrick, although in pain, sluggishly follows my lead, and we round the car, shooting at Pablo’s men while trying to duck and dodge the violent bullets coming right at us. There are only six of Pablo’s men left.
Tye kills two.
I kill thre
e, and killing them feels fucking wonderful.
Gerrick kills the last one, but the one man he shoots returns fire, shooting him right in the heart of his chest. A thick grunt fills my ears, and he falls with a heavy thud.
Then, everything seems to go in slow motion. My pulse pounds in my ears, watching as he goes down, tumbling to the ground. I bark his name, rushing in his direction, not giving a fuck about anything else.
Gerrick is my main man. He’s almost like a partner to me. He’s the one who keeps my head on straight. He’s been here since the beginning. I’m almost there—my hands reach out to him—but before I can make it, something pierces my back, causing me to fall to the ground.
I’m stunned by how fast it all happens. My eyes glisten. I groan, on the verge of fading. The pain is unbearable.
Agonizing.
I can’t breathe.
Fighting through the pain, I flop onto my back but cry out, clutching my side as the torture shoots up to my chest. It’s raw and wet near my ribs. The blood spills out without any kind of restraint. My hand flies to my side, applying pressure to the wound. My head falls to my right, and I stare ahead at Gerrick who is on his back, his eyes wide open. Lifeless. Blood pools around his bulky frame, his dreadlocks spread all around him.
“No,” I moan. Tears build in my eyes as I look to my left, spotting Tye lying right next to his brother. They’re gone. All of them—gone. Yes the pain in my side is excruciating, but nothing hurts more than seeing my men—the men I grew up with and trusted—now dead. It’s tearing me up inside. Destroying me.
A hot, unwelcome tear runs down the side of my face as I stare up at the sky. The sun is nowhere in sight, and I get pissed. The clouds are grey and bundled. I don’t want to die on a gloomy day. It’s depressing as hell. At least give me a ray of sunlight, something to hold onto as I fade away in this alley.
The sounds around me are drowned out by the pounding of my heart, racing in my chest and reverberating through my head. I feel numb, my body losing feeling as I stare up at the empty sky. And then, before I know it, the hallucinations start.
London appears out of thin air.
So beautiful.
So caring.
She bends down to her knees, caressing my cheek. Smiling down at me, she says, “Get up, silly.”
A smile scratches at my lips. “I can’t,” I whisper.
“Yes you can. For me.”
“I’ve been shot,” I breathe. “Twice. Impossible right now, Red.”
“But you’re a fighter. You have to fight through this. Nothing’s impossible for Ace Crow, right?”
I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut. “I can’t.” And truthfully, I don’t even know if I want to survive anymore. I know she isn’t here and that I’ll die in this alley, never to see her again. That, alone, kills me. She nods but doesn’t say anything more. She simply smiles and continues caressing my cheek. She understands.
All I can tell her is, “I can’t.” That negative statement runs out repeatedly. The tears that line the sides of my face have thickened. I’ve lost. I can’t believe it, but I’ve lost.
It’s over.
It’s all over.
Several minutes later, I hear footsteps, and I figure it’s one of Pablo’s men coming to make sure I’ve officially been killed. London stops stroking my cheek and glances back, her eyes widening. She then stands, running in the opposite direction—away from me and this crazy, fucked up situation.
My head falls to the side, watching her brown locks swimming around her shoulders until, finally, she disappears. My ears are thick with blood, but I can hear the voice speaking. Another one speaks. Both deep, murmuring to each other.
“Looks like he’s still alive,” the first one says.
“Yeah? Check his pulse,” the second voice demands. A hand immediately grabs my arm, and two fingers press on my wrist and then my neck.
“Yep. Still beatin’.”
“Good.” The silence is bleak, but before it registers, a gun makes a clinking noise, and the second voice says, “Back up.”
“W-west,” the first voice stutters. The soles of his shoes scrape the pavement as he backs away. “What the fuck are you doing?” he spits.
“I can’t fucking share, Parks. You know that. Knew it from the start.”
“But we had a deal! We were doing this together. You need my fucking help!”
“Yeah, well…” Before the second man finishes his sentence, a loud bang echoes off the walls of the alleyway. Parks collapses, landing only a few feet away from me, his eyes wide. Mine are barely open, but I can see his face. He’s strangely familiar. His tan skin, his brown eyes, and even his buzz-cut.
My haze grows dense, but I swear I know that face. I know that man. Before it can sink in, my body is snatched up, and I groan as the man starts taking off all my clothes. He strips me of my dress shirt, pants, and shoes, and then places my body against the gravelly brick wall, marching for Parks’s dead body.
Through thin-slit eyes, I watch as the burly man takes all of Parks’s clothes off and sets them aside. He then dresses him in my clothes, making sure each button is buttoned correctly and that even my belt is tightly fit around his waist. He does this vastly while checking his surroundings, almost like he’s done it before.
He comes back in my direction, puts Parks’s clothes on me, and then grunts while dragging me down the alley. His car is parked in the deck, and once we reach it, he shoves me inside. I wince, my wound screaming around the bullet lodged inside.
Before he closes the door, I ask, “Who the hell are you?”
I can’t see much of his face, but I do see the demonic smile he flashes at me before slamming the door behind him. He pops his trunk, digging around inside, and then slams it closed. It takes him several minutes before he returns to the car and hops in the driver’s seat, tossing what looks like a gas can and a box of matches on the passenger side. The car roars to life, and I shift agonizingly, turning onto my back.
He sighs, and it doesn’t take long for me to realize what he’s done. Parks has similarities of mine. His haircut. His stature. Even his bone structure.
Shit.
The man skids away from the alley without so much as a look back, but as he turns in the opposite direction, I spot the reflection of the fire he’s created on the tinted window across from me. I groan at the sight of it. Disbelief washes over me. Who the fuck is this man?
Sadly, I don’t have the energy to think. My body is at its weakest. I’m losing more and more blood by the second. I hear police sirens fading in and out. It’s hard keeping my eyes open, but before I drift off, I finally figure out exactly who it is that’s taking me away from the crime scene.
His voice.
His ways.
Yes, I remember him clearly now. I’m not sure why it took me so long to figure it out.
Nixon West, the dirtiest, filthiest ex-cop I ever had the displeasure of meeting. He hated my father when he was around, and when he died, he put all that rage into taking me down.
I groan again. From this moment on, I know that, in his grasps, I will soon be dead. There is no hope with this selfish motherfucker. He wanted Crow destroyed for years—for me to be taken down—and he finally has the opportunity.
Damn, I think before I drift into a dark sea of despair. I’m fucked.
Blue Ocean Floor - Justin Timberlake
Present Day – Three Years Later
I never thought I’d see the day—the day the storm would finally pass.
It passed many months ago; I just never gave it much thought with how busy my life has been. Each day, I hoped he would return. I hoped that all the information, all the proof, was a lie and he was still out there, somewhere. But three and a half years have gone by, and the waiting, hoping, became tiresome a long time ago.
It was time to start a new life.
Time to build myself up again.
Although the first eighteen months after he died were the toughest to
get through, I was glad I could smile again. I could laugh. For moments, I felt free.
But then, I’d see Aden’s face, and some of that happiness would fade—not because of him, but because my son, Aden, was a spitting image of his father. Sometimes he acted like him—as stubborn as a mule when he wanted to be. I loved him, and I hated that I couldn’t explain to him who his father was.
I know, one day, once he gets old enough to figure out his skin is a few shades darker than mine and his hair is raven-like, he’ll ask who his father is. I’m afraid of that day. I don’t want it to come.
How am I to explain that his father was one of the most ruthless men I knew? He was a drug dealer. A gun dealer. A liar that tricked me into going upstate with him. There were good qualities within him, but those rarely surfaced, certainly not enough for me to brag about. The only good thing I could say was that I loved him, and that I would never stop loving who he was.
Ace… my Ace. Long gone now.
My thoughts are interrupted as a warm hand presses on my waist. He reels me into him, and his 4 o’clock shadow rubs across my shoulder. I smile, tilting my head back and indulging in his embrace. Slowly, his fingers run down my hip and ease their way to the curve of my ass. He cups it, gently squeezing.
“Morning gorgeous,” he murmurs into my ear, his voice sensual and warm.
“Morning,” I whisper. He continues touching me, moving his hand from my ass to the middle of my thighs. He stops right before reaching my womanhood, and I absentmindedly constrict with need. He chuckles low and deep, knowing how much I can’t stand the torture of being teased.
I turn in his arms, draping mine around his waist, and he stares down at me, his baby blue irises sparkling from the rising sun filtering in through the small window above.
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