Salvage (Savages and Saints Book 3)

by C. M. Seabrook

  Blurb

  Love doesn't hurt. Expectations do.

  Those words were scribbled on the outside of her English binder, but I knew even then that they may as well have been tattooed on the fragments of her heart.

  My girl was broken, damaged, and yet I loved her. Foolishly, I'd thought I'd be able to banish her darkness, but I'd only chased it away for a few moments in the sun.

  I was too damn young to understand the demons she was fighting. But I'd soon be faced with my own darkness.

  Instead of me healing her, she would break me.

  Salvage

  Savages and Saints

  C.M. Seabrook

  Copyright © 2018 by C.M. Seabrook

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Edited by: Michelle Noland

  Cover Model: Jonny James

  Cover Designer: More Than Words Graphic Design

  Photographer: Shauna Kruse

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by C.M. Seabrook

  Preview of Torment

  Tanya, Dina, Ana, Lylian —

  You ladies rock!

  sal-vage: retrieve or preserve (something) from potential loss or adverse circumstances. rescue (a wrecked or disabled ship or its cargo) from loss at sea.

  “We salvage what we can, what truly matters to us, even at the gates of despair.” Guy Gavriel Kay

  Prologue

  Damon

  Seventeen

  Thunder cracks and a bolt of lightning races across the sky as waves splash over the hull, soaking straight through my hoodie and jeans. I grip the boat’s steering wheel with white knuckles, squinting through the cold pellets, desperate to find a glint of metal in the expanse of Lake Erie.

  “Where the hell are you, Lorelei?” My words are desperate, full of guilt, and spoken to the wind.

  She’s gone.

  I know it in the deepest part of my soul.

  And it is all my fault

  I hadn’t seen her standing in the shadows, didn’t know she’d heard my careless words, until one of my buddies slapped my back and pointed at the flash of long, dark hair that disappeared around the corner. And not before I’d seen the hurt in those soul-crushing blue eyes.

  “Shit.” I’d stood, about to chase after her, but the world swirled in a beer-induced haze.

  “Let her go, Savage.” Liam St. James held a bottle to his lips, one brow cocked. Even though his next words were laced with humor, I heard the warning in them. “She’s trouble. You really want Bence Farkas as a daddy-in-law?”

  Farkas and his thugs had moved into Port Clover a few years back, bringing with them a list of charges, including drug trafficking, prostitution, and money laundering, all of which the local authorities hadn’t been able to make stick. The man seemed untouchable. And Liam was right, he was dangerous.

  As depraved as it was, the man had made it clear to everyone in Port Clover that Lorelei was his.

  Hooking up with his step-daughter wasn’t just stupid, it was suicide. God only knew what Farkas would do to me if he found out I’d taken something he thought he owned.

  But she wasn’t his, she was mine. And one day I would make sure everyone knew it. However, embarrassment, or worse, cowardice, combined with the effects of the bottle of Jameson I’d shared with my buddies, not to mention the half dozen beers I’d tossed back, had loosened my tongue, and made my inner jackass rear his ugly head.

  I’d downplayed Toby’s comment about the rumors that I’d been spotted with my tongue halfway down Lorelei’s throat at the end of summer party on Gull’s Island.

  “She’s a good lay,” I’d muttered into my beer, carelessly. “It’s not like I’m dating the chick. I’m not a masochist.”

  Asshole. Bile had risen in my mouth as soon as I’d uttered the words, but it turned to acid in my throat when I’d seen her standing there.

  She’d heard what I said. But other than the flash of betrayal in her gaze, which was quickly replaced by disgust, she showed no other emotions. It was something she was good at, hiding herself from the world behind a mask of indifference. Shoulders squared, spine straight, she’d turned and acted like the guy’s laughter that followed after her didn’t bother her.

  I knew the truth. Knew the tender, fragile, damaged heart that burned with strength and ferociousness under the icy calm she masked herself with. But the second before she disappeared, I saw her close herself off to me. And I knew the damage I’d dealt was irreversible.

  “I heard Farkas has her working for him now.” Toby smirked and leaned back in his lawn chair, clearly oblivious to the rage that had my fingers clenching into fists. “But shit, who wouldn’t pay for a piece of that ass, am I right? Think you could get a discount for your buddies?” The bastard had the nerve to waggle his brows at me, just before I lunged forward and my knuckles slammed into his face.

  The chair he’d been sitting in snapped beneath both our weights, and we tumbled to the grass.

  “Jesus, Savage, relax.” Liam, the only guy there strong enough to pull me back, shoved me away from Toby, who lay whimpering on the ground, clutching his bloody nose.

  “What’s your problem, dude?”

  “It was just a joke.”

  I rolled my shoulders and stepped away from my friend, muttering pathetically, “I have to find her.”

  Liam frowned at me and gave a small shake of his head like he could see the desperation that stormed inside of me but couldn’t understand it. “Go.”

  I didn’t hesitate, but she was already gone.

  “Lor, answer your damn phone.” The call went straight to her voicemail. “I didn’t mean what I said...The guys were giving me a hard time...And I didn’t know what else to say.” It was a shitty excuse. “Fuck. I’m sorry. Just call me back.”

  She didn’t.

  Two days passed before I’d become desperate enough to call her mother.

  “Hi, Mrs. Farkas. I’m a friend of Lor–”

  “Where is she?” the woman screeched into the receiver. A noise that sounded like something between a shriek and a sob vibrated through the line. “He’s going to kill me. Tell her that. He’ll toss me to the curb if she doesn’t come home. I swear to God, I’ll beat her myself if she–”

  I hung up, my stomach rolling from the void of motherly affection in the woman’s voice. Everyone in Lorelei's life had betrayed her–and so had I.

  The night she gave herself to me completely, I’d promised never to join the long list of people who’d hurt her. I’d meant every word, every vow I’d uttered. There was a primal need inside me to protect her, to make her happy, to pull a rare laugh from her soft lips.

  I’d failed.

  “Don’t make promises
you can’t keep,” she’d said, acceptance of the inevitable tugging at her features as she traced the pad of her thumb across my jaw, her body clinging to mine like she knew our time was limited.

  Even then, I’d wanted forever, which was scary as hell for a seventeen-year-old jock who’d become accustomed to thinking with his dick first, his brain second, and his heart a resounding last.

  But with Lorelei, my emotions were a crazy, intense vortex that had me doing shit I’d only thought pussies would do. Like making pathetic promises about forever, and love, and other shit I had no right promising.

  “Love you, Lorelei,” I’d declared only a few weeks before, draping a heavy arm over her pale skin as we lay stretched out on the boat’s hull. Out on the lake, there was no chance of being caught together. It was our place away from judging eyes. “You can trust me.”

  Trust me to screw up the best fucking thing in my life.

  “God!” I yell now, into the blinding storm that rages like all the desperation coiling and blistering inside me. “Stupid, fucking asshole.”

  Thunder cracks as if in agreement, and something settles in my chest. A knowing, an acknowledgement of the inevitable–I’ve lost her. And not just because of the careless words I’d spoken, but because the girl was always one step away from falling off a cliff into a darkness where I could never follow.

  Or into a storm where the waves threatened to drown her misery.

  “Sometimes I think about just disappearing.” Her back had been to me when she’d said the words, her legs dangling over the side of the boat.

  Secrets, like shadows, seemed to drape over her like a second skin despite the scorching heat of the July sun.

  I came up behind her, placed my arms around her waist, and pulled her against my chest. “I’d never stop looking for you. Never stop loving you.”

  She’d turned slightly and held my gaze, searching, like she wasn’t sure she believed me. “Did you know there have been over two thousand shipwrecks on this lake alone, most of which have never been found?”

  I kissed the tip of her nose and said drolly, “Morbid fact.”

  She’d shrugged and turned her gaze back toward the horizon. “People don’t realize how deep the Great Lakes are, how easy it’d be to be swallowed by the waters.”

  I hadn’t really been listening.

  Maybe if I had...

  I’d lifted her up, wrapped her legs around my waist, and crashed my mouth against hers, growling low and chuckling, “I have something better for you to swallow.”

  She’d huffed and rolled her eyes. “You’re terrible.”

  “But you love me anyways.”

  Holding my gaze, she’d taken a deep breath and said, “I do.”

  But it wasn’t lost on me that she never said the actual words back.

  Love doesn’t hurt. Expectations do. Those words were scribbled on the outside of her English binder, but I knew even then that they may as well have been tattooed on the fragments of her heart.

  My girl was broken, damaged, and yet I loved her. Because I saw her. Saw the gentleness and hope and strength that pushed her forward when everything else in her life was a shitshow.

  I’d made promises to spend the rest of my life loving those pieces back into place.

  Love doesn’t hurt. Expectations do.

  It wouldn’t be until years later that I’d realize how true those words were.

  Foolishly, I’d thought I’d be able to banish the darkness, but I’d only chased it away for a few moments in the sun.

  I was too damn young to understand the demons she was fighting. At least, that was my excuse in the days to come. But I’d soon be faced with my own darkness. A blackness in my soul that would never release me.

  Instead of me healing her, she would break me. Cut a wedge inside my chest that would never heal.

  In the darkness, searchlights flash ahead of me, and I steer my boat towards Gull’s Island where two emergency vessels slowly scour the area. The storm still rages around me, waves making it impossible to get any closer to the coast guard’s ships, but the rain subsides enough for me to see what their beams are focused on–a glint of metal on the shore of the small island.

  Battered and torn, the small craft is damaged beyond repair. I recognize the small motorboat Liam’s dad, Mike St. James, reported stolen two days ago. The same boat my brother, Kade, had seen Lorelei filling with gas at the old harbor earlier that same night.

  I suck in a breath, but the air chokes me.

  She could have survived. She was a good swimmer. She could have swam to the beach. Even as I think it, I know that even if the waters hadn’t been choppy, it was near impossible for her to swim the fifteen or more miles to the shore.

  “Lorelei.” Her name is a plea on the wind. “What did you do?”

  Something small bobs in the water to the left of my boat. A bright red lid, drawing my attention away from the circus of activity closer to the island. I ignore it at first, until the metal container bangs against the side of the boat.

  Clank.

  Clank.

  Clank.

  Using a fishing net, I scoop the old coffee tin out. Patterns have been drawn in permanent black marker on it, surrounding a large heart with Damon + Lorelei written in cursive.

  Lorelei’s handwriting. It was one of the only girly things about her, the little designs she left everywhere...her locker, her desk, her books, sometimes even on my body. The faded geometric pattern she’d drawn in black pen on my forearm a week ago itches, like it’s some clue to her disappearance.

  I sit with the coffee can in my lap, the boat rocking, fingers shaking as I open the plastic top.

  A large wad of cash dominates the contents. Removing the elastic band, I flip through the twenties, fifties, and hundred-dollar bills.

  “Shit.” I can’t guess how much is there, but it’s a lot. What the hell was she doing with that much money?

  Running. She was running away. From me. From the bastard who swore to defend her, but couldn’t even protect her from himself. I’d failed her.

  The words ricochet around my brain, condemnation overpowering every other emotion.

  “We found something.” Shouting echoes across the lake. “Over here.”

  The money forgotten, I stand abruptly. The can falls from my lap, my body feeling heavy and yet weightless at the same time. I squint towards the men who lift something limp and lifeless out of the water.

  No. No. No.

  I hold my breath, my heart pounding so hard in my ears that every other sound is muted.

  But it’s not her.

  An old army duffle bag is pulled up and over the side of the boat. Generic. Worn. But I know it’s hers.

  She was here. But the small island is barren now except for the beat-up boat and the rescue workers who scour the rocky shores.

  Numb, I stand there. Minutes, hours, I don’t know how much time passes. Enough for more rescue crafts to surround the area, for men in wetsuits to dive into the cold waters, searching...for what?

  A body, my mind screams. They’re searching for her body.

  A body they’ll never find. Because I know in the deepest part of my soul that wherever she is, in the depths of the lake with the unsalvageable ships, or hitching a ride as far away from Port Clover as she can get, Lorelei has accomplished what she always wanted.

  She’s disappeared.

  Chapter 1

  Damon

  Eleven Years Later…

  “You look like shit.” Jasper shifts into the booth in front of me. Dressed in a tailored suit, hair slicked back, he looks like he owns the Boeing BBJ he pilots some oil tycoon around the world in, rather than just flying it.

  The complete opposite of my own appearance.

  I drag a hand over my thick, untrimmed beard and watch my brother’s gaze drop to the sleeve of tattoos on my right arm.

  “They let you work like that?”

  “I’m Sheriff now. I can do whatever the hell I want
.”

  He raises a critical brow and gives a small shake of his head.

  Even as kids, my oldest brother dreamed of being more than one of Port Clover’s notorious Savages. That didn’t stop him from causing shit just like the rest of us, he’d just been a lot better at not getting caught. But recently, he’s had his head so far up his ass, I sometimes wonder if he’s the same guy who invented the infamous Gull’s Island Summer Bash.

  I guess time changes people. It sure as hell changed me. I may look like one of the men whose faces are plastered on the most wanted list hanging on the wall by my desk, but I spend my life taking those fuckers down.

  And I’ve done a pretty good job of it.

  Not only have I put away half of Farkas’ men on charges that would keep them locked up in a state penitentiary for over a decade, I’ve also managed to run the remaining lowlifes out of my town.

  My only regret is that Farkas is still out there somewhere. Last I heard, he’d set up shop in Harristown, which is too fucking close to Port Clover for my liking.

  There’s something inside me that will never be settled, never find peace until I put that man where he belongs–either behind bars, or six feet under.

  He’s the real reason I took up the badge. Maybe it’s my way of trying to erase my own fuck-up, to satisfy my conscience. Even though I know nothing will ever bring Lorelei back.

  “What do you want, Jasper?” I stretch my legs under the table and lean back against the red plastic seat, studying the man, knowing this impromptu breakfast isn’t about brotherly bonding. “You couldn’t drive the extra thirty minutes into town?”