The Vigilantes Collection

by Lake, Keri

  My eyes narrow on the gash and the blood that’s mixed with her tears, staining her cheeks red.

  “Take a picture. It’ll last longer.”

  “Feisty little shit, aren’t you?” I chuckle, holding out a hand to her. “C’mon. You live in the park?”

  “No. Across the street.”

  My mom always says the folks who live across the street in the small subdivision are too good for us, even if they don’t have much more than we do. Ghetto snobs, she calls them. “I’ll walk you home. Think you need a doc for that cut.”

  “I’m not going to no doctor. It’s just a cut.” She clambers to her feet and collects her books. For a girl, she’s pretty damn tough. “So, I told you my name. What’s yours?”

  “Jase.” I sniff, stuffing my hands into my pockets. “You don’t look like a Lucy.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, you don’t look like a Jase either, Jerk.”

  “I been called worse.” I smile down at her. She's a little spitfire, for sure. “Lucy is too old-fashioned for a young girl.”

  “Well, what would you call me, then, if you’re such an expert on names.”

  I stare at her beautiful peach skin, so flawless it almost glows. “I’ll call you Luce.”

  Her brow furrows. “Loochay? What does that mean?”

  “It means light. My grandma’s Italian. My grandpa was English, so she used to call it our secret language. She used to say, when the sun and moon came together, it was soleluna. Which was basically a name she made up for an eclipse. And you couldn’t look at the sky because it was the most beautiful luce, or light, you ever saw, so bright, it’d make you blind just looking at it.”

  “Luce,” she echoes, dropping her gaze away, but I can see her smile. “Hmm.” She glances back up at me. “What’s your last name, Jase?”

  “Hawkins.”

  “Hawkins.” She tips her head, tapping her finger to her lip. “If you ever have a little girl, someday, I think you should name her Soleluna. Soleluna Hawkins. It’s real pretty.”

  “I’m never having kids.”

  “Why?”

  I nudge my head toward the surrounding shithole I’ve grown up in. “I wouldn’t want them to grow up here. Like I did. If I had kids, I’d want better for them.”

  “You don’t have to stay here, you know. My mother says you can change your fate.” Lucy huffs, glancing up toward a row of houses ahead of us. “She’ll be angry that I didn’t come straight home with the others.” She touches the gash at her eye and flinches.

  “Yeah, well. Shit happens.” I roll my shoulders back. “So, how …. How can I change my fate?”

  She stares at me for a moment and tips her head. “Why did you have the gun, Jase? Was it for me? Or something else?”

  “It was … something else.”

  “And that’s where you were going, when you found me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You see?” We reach her house, a small, boxy structure, nothing fancy. She twirls around on the front porch to face me. “You had planned to do one thing, but chose something different. Here you are, walking me home, instead. You changed your fate. Just by changing your mind.” From beside her, she snips two lilacs off the bush and hands them to me. “Nobody’s ever done what you did, Jase. You’re kind of a hero.”

  “I’m not anything.” I roll the lilac stem between my fingers, watching it spin back and forth.

  “You are to me. Thank you.” She leans forward and kisses me on the cheek, and I raise a hand to touch where I still feel her lips on my skin. It’s then that I notice her eyes—big beautiful gray eyes. I’ve never seen gray eyes before, only blue. Hers remind me of a winter sky that promises snow.

  “So … I don’t know how these things work. You know, when a girl gets hurt.” My mom sometimes takes days to bounce back after taking some hits from Robert. And that gash needs attention. I’m not a doctor, but I can at least help her clean it, if she’s home alone. Until her mom can drive her to get it stitched up. “You want me to stay with you a little bit, or something?”

  She smiles and looks away. “It’d be rude not to.”

  I blinked from the memory, my beautiful Luce lying next to me in the bed. Between us, our daughter, Soleluna Maria, slept peacefully, so tiny and fragile. I leaned in, gently lifting the curled ends of Lucy’s hair to my nose, that vanilla lilac scent infusing calm throughout my body.

  That calm belonged to me. Mine to wake to every morning.

  It still seemed surreal.

  I changed my fate that day—she changed my fate.

  For nearly a month after the attack, I’d walked her home every day after school, and we’d lie in the grass, talking, staring off at the sky. For the first time in my life, I'd had a reason to look forward to going home after that last bell at the end of class. Those gray eyes of hers never seemed to pay attention to my shitty thrift clothes, or the scars I’d later cover in tattoos. She saw me.

  Until one night, when Robert had beaten the hell out of me so bad, I had to skip school. When I returned the next day, she’d befriended a girl I’d later come to know as Milena. From that point on, I'd simply followed her, never making my presence known, and for all she knew, I’d up and ditched her.

  I'd always thought she’d never be mine, that she was too damn good for a hood-rat like me, but still I’d made sure no one so much as looked at her the wrong way, or they’d know the pain of my fists.

  For a good two months, I’d watched her, until the night I got home and found Robert molesting my brother Reed. Something inside of me had finally snapped that day. I’d jumped him and beat him into a coma. It’d been deemed self-defense, based on evidence found on Reed and years of hospital records that showed broken bones and follow-up visits by social workers. Shit, they hadn’t even seen the worst of it. The cuts. The burns. Not to mention all that psychological bullshit that couldn’t be proven, only remembered.

  My mom had lost custody of us, and with Robert out of commission, she'd OD’d for the last time. A part of me had always hated that I couldn’t save her. She'd never wanted to be saved, though. She’d chosen her fate and, in the end, paid the ultimate price.

  Could’ve been worse. I could’ve killed myself, been beaten to death by the whole fucking football team, or landed my ass in prison for killing Robert and my own mother.

  Fate was cruel for the way it’d thrown Lucy into the path of the bullet that day. I cringed every time I thought about the seconds that could’ve changed everything. Had I left the house two seconds earlier, I’d have shot myself before hearing her scream.

  Maybe Reed might’ve still been alive, but his soul had died the moment Robert stole it from him. And my grandmother, Maria … I’d forever miss Maria, but I knew, somewhere, she was looking down on me, screaming at me to stop fussing over her.

  A lot of things would’ve been different in my life, if I hadn’t met my Luce. I’d have never experienced the remarkable feeling of unconditional love.

  I leaned forward and kissed the top of my baby girl’s head, then her mother’s, and thumbed the scar on her cheek that was as painful to me every day as it was to her.

  I’d have never learned how to give unconditional love in return.

  Sometimes, though, shit happened for a reason, and plans backfired in the best ways.

  * * *

  IT’S NOT OVER!

  Keep scrolling to check out Ballistic, a standalone book set in the same world as Ricochet and Backfire. And be sure to claim your FREE copy of Intrepid!

  Pssst!

  Intrepid includes a bonus scene, featuring Nick and Aubree!

  Please consider leaving a review. Long or short, your review is always appreciated, and along with telling a friend about the book, it is the most wonderful gift you can give an author ❤️

  Thank you for reading.

  BALLISTIC

  Keri Lake

  Copyright © 2018

  All Rights Reserved.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE This book i
s a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Cover Art © By Hang Le

  Photo © Eric Battershell, Eric Battershell Photography

  Model: Matthew Pappadia

  Editing by Julie Belfield

  You have to die a few times before you can really live.

  Charles Bukowski

  Dear Reader

  This book marks the end of the Vigilantes series. When I first published Ricochet back in 2015, I had no idea it would blossom into these stories and characters that I’ve grown to love so much. I’m truly sad to see this one come to an end—kind of bittersweet as it’s been a fun ride the past three years. It’s not to say there won’t be some bonus scenes and maybe spinoff novellas, revisiting these couples in the future, but I won’t touch the HEA’s. These characters have gone through hell and deserve their happy endings.

  Since you’ve made it this far into the series, you know my style. This story is a rollercoaster of darkness and light, with scenes of torture and abuse that some readers may find disturbing. Trigger warning for child abuse, drug abuse and attempted suicide.

  Be sure to check out the playlist! Seems like each book I write has a few key artists who helped inspire many of the scenes and set the mood. My favorites for Dax and Nicoleta’s book were The Neighborhood, Arctic Monkeys and, of course, Jaymes Young’s Stoned On You.

  I set out to end the series on a bang, and I hope you love this story as much as I do.

  Thank you for reading my books.

  Love,

  Keri

  Prologue

  Death has a pretty unique scent.

  First time you come across it, you never forget it. Although it’s not a physical thing, it tends to feel heavy on the air. Stagnant and still. Suffocating. It looms like a shadow. Watching. Waiting.

  A soundless observer with no regard for time, or place.

  Some see it coming. Their eyes go wide with fear, because anyone who says they’re not afraid to die is a fucking liar. Their faces turn white. Bodies feel cold all of a sudden. They shiver. A few even piss themselves.

  They say sharks can detect death that way. They smell it on the water when one of their kind is slaughtered, like a chemical signature for tragedy, and just know to stay the hell away.

  Others don’t see it coming, at all, though, until that cold steel barrel is pressed into the back of their heads with a steady hand.

  Game over.

  I stare down at Tesarik, who sits slumped over himself on the wooden floor. A pool of blood marks his own circle of death. His skin is ghost-white, eyes kinda glassy, like he’s got one foot on the other side already. He lifts his arm up into the air, and where his hand should be is nothing but a stump, through which bones have poked, the skin melted away into the mess around him.

  “Perhaps now, we both regret … touching her.” The loud and obnoxious laugh that follows tells me he’s more than one step on the other side.

  I’m surprised the loopy bastard even recognizes me behind that batshit expression on his face.

  The steel pushing into the back of my head presses harder, as Death’s cold breath hits the nape of my neck, feeling closer than before. “Do you?” it asks.

  “No,” I answer, in a voice more resolute than I’d imagine, given the circumstances. Not even my own demise can make me regret one moment with her.

  The scent of death grows stronger. Sweeter. Thicker on the air.

  I close my eyes, imagining her face and those soft amber eyes that’ll haunt me in my fucking grave.

  I wait for the bullet’s silence.

  1

  Dax

  Only two types of people in the world made my skin crawl: pedophiles and shitty liars. And the shady son of a bitch sitting across from me happened to be throwing off both vibes.

  “How’d you find me?” I leaned back against the booth, eyes glued on the slightly older man opposite me, whose black wool overcoat swallowed his lithe frame. Too fancy not to stick out in a hellhole bar like Sharky’s, which mostly catered to locals. The thick aroma of greasy burgers and frying fish clashed with whatever the hell aftershave settled over everything like smog since he’d walked in. “Try answering truthfully this time.”

  Black gloves covered his hands, ones he hadn’t bothered to remove. Maybe a germophobe. Like those sick fucks who’d eat someone’s spleen straight from the body cavity, but lose their shit after touching a wet doorknob. “I already told you, Mr. Wolfe. Mutual friend.” His voice carried a thick Slavic accent, though I didn’t have a clue which language. Could’ve been Russian.

  “Bullshit.” No friend of mine would’ve said a word to the asshole, unless he beat it out of ‘em. “I may look like some swinging dick to you, but half this joint’s been peeping you out since you walked through that door. Not a single one would give you the time, let alone my favorite fucking hang out.”

  He casually scanned the room, no doubt taking note of all the stares, before his gaze fell on me again. “You’d be surprised how quickly money changes the game in a city like Detroit. Couple grand, and I know more than I care to about you.”

  “Wanna tell me which chatty cocksucker I need to slap?”

  “Your ex, ironically.”

  Christ. I hadn’t officially dated in months, but the break up with my last girlfriend could’ve qualified as a cold war. Stripper, and feisty as hell. Wasn’t exactly quiet, either, considering she’d posted my mug on some ex-bashing website called The Hall of Shame, telling everyone what an absolute bastard I was. That’d been after she’d smashed the windows out of my car and set every piece of clothing I owned on fire. She’d have, undoubtedly, jumped at the chance to sic some decrepit mafia-looking son of a bitch on my ass. “No shit.”

  “I’m here because it’s come to my attention that you’re looking for a young girl who was picked up at an auction a few months ago.”

  I snorted, resting my elbow on the back of the booth. “Yeah? My ex tell you that, too?”

  “No. Word travels fast, as I’m sure you’re aware. And as it relates to my daughter, I’ve made a point to listen for any clues that might lead to her whereabouts.”

  “You’re her father.” It wasn’t a question. It was a smack upside my head.

  “I am. And I’m quite invested in bringing her back home.” He leaned in, then glanced over his shoulder, before lowering his voice. “So much so, I’m willing to finance your efforts to find her.”

  “Finance my efforts.” I shook my head and sighed. I’d already been given access to a large sum of money—for an all-expenses-paid trip to steal back Nicoleta and take out as many of Tesarik’s men as I could, courtesy of a well-known hactivist in the underground scene, whose reputation put asshole’s in front of me to shame. “Look, I’m all set. ‘Sides that, how do I know you’re not some twitchy prick out to steal her for yourself?”

  “You trust no one. I like that. I appreciate it, in fact. But perhaps I’m the one who should be asking what your intentions are, Mister Wolfe.” His brows winged up, and he cleared his throat. “As far as I’m aware, you’ve no other connection with my daughter, outside of having witnessed Tesarik purchase her at auction.”

  “I have my reasons for finding both of them.” I had no intentions of telling him that I’d been provided information on where to find Tesarik, and by week’s end, a nearly year-long chase would come to a screeching halt.

  “As do I. Nicoleta and I have not had the best relationship, as any father of a teenager will admit, but she is al
l I have. I’m at a bit of a handicap, though, since this isn’t my territory.” He glanced around again and rolled his shoulders back. “And as you so candidly pointed out, no one would give me the time of day here. My efforts at tracking down Tesarik, thus far, have failed miserably.”

  Jutting my chin toward him, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Prove it.”

  “Prove … what?”

  “That you’re her father. He’s supposed to be some bigwig rival to Tesarik, right?” I waved over the owner of the bar—Stoli, we called him, after his favorite vodka. He had ties with just about every criminal in the city. The moment he strolled up next to the table, I nodded toward the stranger. “You recognize this guy, Stol’?”

  “Nah. You from around here?”

  Entwining his creepy gloved fingers, the stranger lifted his gaze to Stoli. “No.”

  “If anyone would’ve recognized you, it’d be Stoli, here.” I kicked back the shot glass that’d been in front of me since the guy first sat his bold ass down at my booth. “You remember that girl, Nicoleta, right, Stoli? Her dad’s some big time criminal, ain’t he?”

  “Yeah, never met him, but his reputation is something else. Dmitry’s his name. Supposed to have ties to the Vory, from what I hear, and they run in packs, last I checked.”

  The man entwined his fingers and sat forward. “I prove to you what I am, and we’ll stop wasting time here?”

  “Sure.”

  “Very well.” He lifted his arm and snapped his fingers.

  Previously concealed in the crowd, two men emerged from the corners of the bar, each wearing suits. Big guys, about my height, but who looked like they lifted more cheeseburgers than weights.