The Shattered Girl
Leigh Christopher
Prism Heart Press
Contents
Copyright 2016 Prism Heart Press
Description
Quote
Prologue
Tia
Chapter 1
Braxton
Chapter 2
Tia
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Tia
Chapter 5
Braxton
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Tia
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Tia
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Tia
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Tia
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Tia
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Tia
Epilogue
The End
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright 2016 Prism Heart Press
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Description
Crushed. Destroyed. Beyond broken.
After a lifetime of unbearable pain, all Tia wants is revenge—vengeance for all that was stripped from her. She’s been fed lies all her life, and it’s time to reveal all the truths hidden in the fragments of her mind. Her plan is in motion, and she knows where her target is, and what she has to do. But the darkness is the only thing stopping her, forcing her to question her own sanity. She can’t lose sight of her goal when it's in reaching distance.
Revenge is the only thing getting Braxton through the days, and nights. That is, until Tia knocks him off course and everything changes. His path becomes hers, and hers becomes his. But when secrets so damning are revealed they change the course of his plan.
Can he learn to trust this shattered girl?
Can the pieces of a broken mind ever be repaired?
“It’s not always just the heart.
Sometimes your mind breaks as well.”
R.H. Sin
Prologue
Tia
Rolling over, I stretch, feeling each muscle tense and then ease. My hair is matted to my head, and when I glance at the time, I realize I’m late.
I’m always fucking late. Pushing off the bed, I stare at the blood on the pillow. It’s seeped into the sheets and probably the mattress. Moving hurts. You did it again. No. Shaking my head, I drag my gaze to my legs. They’re red, stained.
Always. It’s your fault. No.
No.
Leave me alone!
Shouting doesn’t help, so I rise and pad over to my bathroom. They’ve given me a beautiful apartment. So pretty. Everything is perfect.
It’s a lie.
Fucking lie.
Jesus! Leave me alone.
It’s all you do. Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Opening the taps of my shower, I watch the spray steam up. I wait for the feeling of being cocooned, curled in the blanket of heat. Stripping my dirty clothes off, I step beneath the cascading hot water.
They will find you.
No.
Every day is the same song and dance. The threats and the hissing. The taunting.
They said it will stop, they told me I’d be okay. But it’s a lie. I’ll never be cured.
How can I be cured when I was born this way?
I pull at my hair, tugging it from the roots. The burn is the only thing that’s real.
Only thing. No it’s not.
“Leave me alone!” My throat burns from screaming so loud.
I’ve been telling her to leave me alone and she doesn’t.
Why? Why me? Yes.
There wasn’t a time I didn’t know her, hear her, feel her. I used to get lost inside my head all the time. My teachers told me it was normal. They said all kids have imaginary friends. So I believed them. I didn’t chase her away then, and she’s never left. She makes me do it. Don’t blame me. Fuck you!
Never. I’ll never be the same.
Tia
“Can you tell me about it, Tia?” Her voice is calm, but it doesn’t still the war inside me. It doesn’t allow me any reprieve from the thoughts. It’s safer in my head. In the place where she is. My best friend. She’s the only one who understands.
No one else has ever understood.
“Tia, get out of there, I can see you’re working through your mind. Don’t hide.”
It’s so easy for her. She tells me every time, I’m here in this goddamn chair, but I’m not like her.
I’m not like anyone.
I’m different.
Special. But I don’t see it.
“I’m… I don’t hide. I’m just thinking. I don’t know.” Shaking my head, I rake my hands through my hair and sigh when she sits back, her pen poised, waiting. She notes my movements. My words. My actions.
“Tell me about him.”
Glancing up, I look at her kind eyes. “He’s beautiful.” I smile. It’s an honest smile. I haven’t spoken to him. His friend flirts with me, but he doesn’t. He hates me.
“Tia, tell me what you think about him?” she questions carefully.
“He doesn’t like me. He ignores me. So I don’t know. His friend talks to me, I think he wants to fuck me.” She winces at my cursing. She always does. I like cursing. It feels good.
“And do you want to sleep with him?”
“No, I want Braxton. He’s nice. Even if he hates me. Don’t men who hate you love you more?” The question, when I voice it, sounds stupid. They’ve been coming to the bar for three months. Something in his intoxicating caramel eyes are like magnets; I feel myself being pulled into his force field.
Magnetic.
“He’s magnetic,” I tell her the word.
She nods slowly and jots down her notes.
She likes notes.
Always writing.
Always scrutinizing.
“You should talk to him. Do you feel the darkness when he’s there?”
No, no, no. He’s perfect. His mouth, his face, and his eyes. Even his body.
“It’s safe when he’s there, she doesn’t come to me. Memories don’t plague me. I don’t feel like I need to go away, like I go into my head.” She encourages with a hand gesture for me to co
ntinue. “I want to climb into him, does that make sense? The safe place in my head is like him, it’s light.”
“Mmm…” she murmurs and writes furiously. The ding of the clock tells me our time is up. “I want you to think about this session. I want you to make sure you take your medication, it’s only a precaution, but it will help. I’ll see you in two days.”
She rises from her chair. So poised. So feminine. Nodding, I shrug on my jacket and head for the door.
“Two days,” I whisper before exiting her office. A lot can happen in two days.
Chapter 1
Braxton
When I lift my gaze from the empty glass in front of me, it falls on her immediately. It always does. There’s a smile on her face that seems to light up the room. It’s the one she always gives him when he walks in. Although he’s my best friend, I know what he does behind her back. And as much as I’d love to be her knight in shining armor, I know it will hurt them both. She needs to find out on her own. So, I haven’t told her. Perhaps I should. Ryker has been an asshole since we arrived home from Afghanistan, and I don’t know how to make him see that what he’s doing to her is wrong.
I’m biding my time for the moment she walks in on him, or finds him with one of the sluts, and then I’ll be there to watch her fall. And when she does, I’ll be the one who catches her, because when he breaks her heart, and makes her cry, I’ll kiss those tears away. I bet they’ll taste as sweet as I imagine.
They’ve been together for six months, and I’ve been here in the wings just watching her. Taking her in, inch by inch. I know every curve of her body, every spot that makes her giggle. That makes her eyes shimmer with intense need.
Sitting back on the soft leather sofa, I watch them interact as they always do, sweet and loving, romantic even, but I’ve known Ryker since we were kids and I know what type of man he’s grown up to be.
Me? I’m not any better. I love it as dark and filthy as it comes.
The only difference is if I had the girl I have my eye on, I wouldn’t fuck her around like he’s doing.
She’s perfect… for me.
My name is Brax, and I’d like to fuck my best friend’s girlfriend until she can’t walk. To take her incredibly lithe body and throw it around like a rag doll. I want those plump lips wrapped around the base of my dick while she swallows every inch.
Why? Because I’m an asshole.
Pushing up from the seat, I saunter toward the bar and slam my empty glass on the shiny oak counter, interrupting their sweet exchange of fuck knows what. I don’t know how he can whisper sweet nothings in her ear now, and later tonight, when he blows her off for someone else, be balls deep in another woman. “I need a refill.” She glares at me with those blue eyes, grabs my glass and turns to pour another beer.
“Do you have to be such a dick to her?” Ryk bites out in frustration. He acts as if he’s the loving boyfriend, but I know better. He’s had his dick in every tight cunt from the West Coast to the fucking East Coast.
“Yeah, man. I do.” When she brings the glass back, I cock my head to the side and offer her a salacious grin, only to be met with a scowl. A sexy one at that. One that makes my dick hard. “Thank you.” I drop my tone, softening it to a smoky rumble, and I don’t miss the glimmer in that stare she pins me with.
Turning my back to them, I pull out my phone and hit dial on the number for the office, which is where we’ll be heading once I finish my drink.
The familiar deep voice of Grant greets me from the other side of the line.
“Sweet cheeks, you bringing me one of those brewskies?” Cheeky fucker.
“Fuck off, we’ll be there in fifteen. Be ready.” With that, I hang up, down the ice-cold beer, and pull on my leather jacket. “Let’s go Ryk, you can fuck her later.” I chuckle when I hear him sigh as I make my way out the door. Soon, little Tatiana, I’ll be riding your sweet ass, real soon.
“What the fuck, B?” Ignoring my partner, I slide into the driver’s seat of my sleek silver Aston. It purrs to life and the radio blares as he slips into the passenger seat. “Brax, why are you always such an asshole with her?” he questions again, and I can’t help chuckling.
“You’re getting your cock sucked and fucked by every woman from here to God knows where when we’re on the job, and now you want to talk about me being a dick to her?” My retort doesn’t go unnoticed; he regards me with as much animosity as I figured he would.
“Do you want her?” he grits out through clenched teeth.
Scoffing at his question, I pull out onto the main road and head south. We’ve got a meeting at headquarters and I’m not getting into this with him while I’m driving. I ignore him and turn the radio up, hoping the rock sounds of The Killers singing—Mr. Brightside—will drown him out and diminish this need I have for that woman.
She’s fucking gorgeous. Long flowing brown hair with these thin strands of gold shimmering through them. Her tanned skin is exquisite, like smooth malt, honeyed from what I’m guessing to be Puerto Rican or Spanish roots. Those ice-blue eyes that shoot daggers at me every time I walk into the bar. And those curves, Jesus Christ, those curves that could make a sane man lose his mind.
Shaking my head to clear it from the images of all the filthy things I’d love to do to her, I take the road toward the industrial side of town. Our HQ is in a warehouse on the docks, desolate where no one else can find us. We’re an elite squad of ex-Marine’s who feel that something needs to be done with the sick, vile things happening in our city, and our country.
After being injured, I’d been sent home, and now I call the city of Chicago home. The underground that we patrol is not for the fainthearted. I’d seen shit when I was in other countries where killing and maiming was normal, but when I learned of what was going on in my own home, something had to be done. Ryker joined me not long after, and for three years I’ve called Retribution—our squad—home.
As soon as I pull into the parking lot, my best friend jumps from the car and heads inside. I know he’s pissed, but there’s nothing I can do now. He knows I want her. The only question is—what is he going to do about it?
Stalking into the warehouse, I nod at Grant. He’s been with us for a couple of years and he mans the phones and all the incoming inquiries. “What’s up, man? What crawled up Ryk’s ass?” he growls. The man could easily pass for seven feet and is built like a brick shithouse. He is one of the only men in here that could take me down with one fucking hand.
“He’s an asshole,” I bite back.
“Did you fuck his girl yet?” He chuckles, and I can’t help pinning him with a glare.
We normally head to the bar where Tatiana works after a session at the gym and I guess my eye fucking hasn’t gone unnoticed.
“Not yet.” Lowering my voice, I respond, “because when she catches him with his dick out, that’s when I’ll swoop in to pick up the pieces and make sure that tight little pussy is purring happily.”
He guffaws as I turn to walk away. The place is deadly quiet tonight, but upon reaching the upper level, I find all the guys watching the large screen bolted to the wall.
The images that greet me are familiar and I realize it’s the nightclub I’ve spent too much time in. Girls on every floor cater to you, especially in the VIP section where they’re happy to drop to their knees for a wad of cash. “What are we watching?” I question, flopping onto the sofa beside Jake, one of the younger recruits.
“Apparently this is our next hit. Guy who owns the place is a dealer.” He drags his gaze from the screen and meets mine. “In girls, ammo, and drugs. Anything you want, he can get it, any price, any age, any high.”
My blood pressure skyrockets and I can’t help the anger that fuels me. “Then let’s take the fucker down.”
My response is met with a loud, “Yeah!”
“We will, I want you and Ryk on the inside.” Corp strides up to us, dressed in his combat uniform. He looks ever the general. A graying fifty-year-old ex-vet who’s fit
ter than most twenty-year-olds, he’s been through it all, lost men in battle, and now he’s here, coaching us and training us to take down fuckers like the one we’re about to nail.
“Sounds good, boss. Do you want to give me the breakdown now?” He shakes his head, glancing between my partner and me.
“Tomorrow at ten and don’t be late.” Lifting my hand in a salute, I offer him my signature smirk.
Once he’s disappeared into his office, the guys start yapping at the screen, which has me dragging my attention back to the images in front of me. There in the throng of beautiful bodies is a dark haired vixen with the tiniest fucking skirt on. Her top is tight, hugging a pair of tits I’d love to slide my dick between. Jesus, Tatiana. She may as well be naked.
“Let’s go.” Pushing up, I grip Ryker’s arm and tug him along behind me.
Braxton
I saw her again today. It’s the same every time. Her beautiful eyes pierce me. They fill me with need. An ache I haven’t known in years. I’ve been broken for so long, I just don’t understand the emotions racing through me. All I want to do is throw her over my shoulder and claim her. She’s mine.
I’ll make sure of it.
It’s silent tonight. There isn’t always this peace in here, but tonight they’ve granted me a reprieve. The blood that runs through my veins doesn’t heat tonight. Lying back, I stare at the white ceiling. It’s plain, nothing adorning it, no pattern to concentrate on. Although the small light bulb that hangs from the center of the ceiling swings slowly as if a gentle breeze has just tickled it.
“Braxton,” a soft murmur jolts my mind from racing through the darkness I get so lost in, and I sit up in bed. My door is closed, but I hear her.
Pushing up, I pad over to the door and swing it open. “Hey,” I greet her with a smirk.
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