by Sara Hubbard
“Max?”
He sighs. “Did I play a role? Yes. But I didn’t pull the trigger.”
I let go of my legs and put my feet on the floor. With a raised voice, I say, “It’s the same thing. Don’t you see?”
“This is who I am,” he says. “I do what’s necessary. Always. You’ve been my only exception in twenty-six years. Just you.”
“How do I live now knowing five people are dead because of me?”
“They are not innocent people. My father killed yours. And you’re sad for him?”
I shake my head. “No, not sad. But none of them deserved to die, especially not just so I could go back to living a normal life. Or whatever the hell normal is. I don’t even know anymore.”
“It’s done. I can’t change any of it.”
I run my hands through my hair and take in a shaky breath. “The look in your eyes when you were hitting your brother. It scared me.”
“I know,” he says softly. With a sad expression on his face, he leans away. He doesn’t apologize for his behavior, and I guess I don’t expect him to.
“Are you okay,” he asks.
Am I okay? I scoff at that. I’m not sure I’ll ever be okay again. “Physically?” I wipe away tears. “Yeah. But mentally?” My voice cracks. “Is this the way things will always be? You willing to kill to get what you want? Me looking the other way because I’d rather do that than be without you?”
His face scrunches up then. I see his pain. The urge to hold him is real and undeniable, but I can’t let myself.
He runs his hands over his face and through his hair. “Luna, I’m not perfect. I told you before, this is all I know. I could tell you I’ll try to change. That I’ll work hard to be the man you deserve, and maybe I could for a while. Maybe I’d like that version of me. But I know it wouldn’t last. Eventually, you’d leave, like before, and I wouldn’t blame you.”
I sit back down and take his hands in mine. When he grips them tightly, I hang my head. I take a long, deep breath, and fight to stop crying. Just so I can get the words out that I need to say. To make him understand.
“Max…it’s too much. It’s just…” I can’t hold it off. I start to sob again. “It’s just too much.”
He inches to the edge of his seat and then he slides in next to me on mine. I crawl into his lap, and he holds me tight. He lets me cry into his chest as I grip his shirt. I let myself get comfortable again, and I let myself want more, when the whole time I knew there was never a chance for us. Like a fish and a bird, we don’t live in the same worlds, and it would kill us to try.
He clears his throat as he holds me and, softly, he starts to caress my arm. “You’re free now, Angel. You can go home. See your mom. Whatever you want.”
“What about you?”
“I go back to my life, too.”
A knock sounds on the door. Yuri pokes his head in. He stares at us with an odd expression on his face. “We have a lot to do before sunrise,” he says.
“Can you take Luna home?”
He nods. “Sure. I’ll wait downstairs.”
This is it. The moment I’ve prayed about for weeks. I can leave this place. So why am I so sad? Why do I feel as broken now as I did when I first arrived here?
I climb out of Maxim’s lap and wipe away my tears. Sniffling, I get the last of them with my sleeves. Maxim stands and steps forward so his front is pressing against my back. I lean against him, unwilling to turn around, to kiss him one more time, for fear it might make me stay. He wraps his arms around me and squeezes me so tight it’s nearly painful.
“It was never about a debt,” he whispers.
“I know.” I stroke his forearm before hugging his arms. “Will I see you again?”
“I don’t know. But if you need me, you know where I am. Your code will always stay the same. Understand?”
“Andrei knows it now so you might want to change it.” I push his arms away and hurry for the door. When I open it, I hesitate, but I don’t turn back. “I love you,” I tell him. “No matter what’s happened, I want you to know that.”
I find Yuri at the bottom of the stairs. I glance in the living room and find the rug is rolled up and Sergei is in a body bag like the ones we have for the morgue. I don’t want to know what they’ll do with him.
“Ready?” he asks me.
I tear my gaze away. I swear I smell the stench of death in here already, and I never want to smell it again. “Yes,” I say before he leads me out the door.
“If it matters at all,” he says as he jogs down the two front steps to the driveway, “you changed him.”
I want to believe that, but I’m not sure that’s true. “If only that were enough.”
* * *
End of Book I
Excerpt from Incapable
Today is the day my life changes. All I need is five minutes of Jimmy Dante’s time and he’ll see that I’m a horse he can bet on. I don’t care what I have to do or what I have to say to earn his trust and his support. I’ll get it... or I’ll die trying. Living in abandoned buildings and fishing food out of dumpsters have motivated me to rise above.
Mickey and I wait outside the double doors to Jimmy Dante’s office. Two assholes wearing sunglasses and suits stand between me and my future and I stare them down, refusing to be intimidated. They’re twice the size of me, but I’m sixteen and I’ll catch up. I don’t back down from any fight, not even one I know I’ll lose.
The one on the right, with the bald head and the pock-marked face, scowls at me. He grips the muzzle and trigger of his automatic rifle a little tighter. It’s easy to act all tough when you’re packing, isn’t it?
Mickey nudges me, as if he can hear what I’m thinking—which is impressive considering I only met him a few weeks ago. “Keep your mouth shut, kid, and let me do the talking.”
I glance over at him, clenching and unclenching my fists. “Whatever you say.”
“Exactly.”
The doors open into a concrete room with no windows. There’s a door to the right and the entrance is at my back. In the center of the room is a desk, and behind it sits a very thick man with blond hair and beady eyes.
“Take a seat,” he says, pointing to the two chairs in front of the desk.
Mickey saunters forward and I match his pace, staying by his side. He drops into one seat and I take the other.
The man’s eyes stay on me the whole time. I don’t look away. I don’t give a fuck who this guy is and if I want to work for him, I have to show him that I’m tough—tough enough to stare right back at him.
“You know who I am?” he asks.
“Jimmy Dante,” I say with confidence.
“And you are?”
Mickey jumps in, introducing me instead. “Declan Lewis. He’s the kid I was telling you about. Balls of steel and tenacious as fuck.” Mickey claps me on the shoulder, beaming at me like he’s proud. It’s something I’ve never before experienced and it distracts me for a moment. “I think he could have a real shot here if you give him a chance.”
“Really?” Jimmy leans back in his chair and sighs. “How old are you, kid?”
“Don’t call me a kid. I’m sixteen.”
“Sixteen,” he says with a smile. “Sorry. I’m mistaken.”
Mickey throws me a warning glance, knowing that I’ll knock this prick out if he continues to talk to me with that smug look on his face.
“You want to fight in my club?” asks Jimmy.
I sit up a little straighter and stick out my chest. “I’m good at it. I’ll fight whoever you want, and I’ll win.”
“And why would you want to work for me?”
“Counselor at school said the only thing I’m good at is fighting, so I figure maybe that’s what I should do with my life. Might as well get paid to do something I’m already doing, right?”
“I’m not going to have your mother running in here, crying, saying I ruined her son…?”
I scoff at his question. If he knew my mother at all, he wo
uldn’t consider wasting our time with stupid questions. I’ve got no one in my life and nothing to my name. Until last week, I was sleeping under a bridge with an alcoholic snoring four feet away from me.
“You seem so confident,” Jimmy says. “How could I refuse?”
“You won’t regret it,” I say.
He nods to the man behind us before pointing to the door. “Get Stone and Mallory. Let’s see if this cocky little fuck is as good as he says he is.”
“Wait now,” Mickey says, holding out his hands. “You want him to fight both those guys? At once?”
“I can handle myself just fine,” I say, refusing to let fear creep into my mind. This is my chance, probably my one and only.
Jimmy stands, smiling wider. “Well, there you have it. The boy can handle it.”
I stand, pausing for a moment to collect my thoughts. “And if I win, you’ll let me work for you. And you’ll never call me boy again.”
“Demanding, aren’t you?”
“You’re getting a lot in return,” I say, referring not just to my body but to my soul, too. Because everyone knows that making a deal with Jimmy is like making a deal with the devil.
And like it or not, it’s for life.
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About the Author
Sara Hubbard is a romantic fiction author. She loves alpha males and the sweet, sassy women who make them believe in change. Sara lives in Nova Scotia, Canada with her two children (four if you count her husband and her needy labradoodle) and works as a registered nurse.
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Also by Sara Hubbard
Contemporary Novels
Beautiful and Broken
Saving Sullivan
inCapable (An inCapable World Novel #1)
unForgivable (An inCapable World Novel #2)
The Debt (Coming 2021)
The Choice (Coming 2021)
Flawed
The Last Shot
The Player
Pucker Up (Pucker Up #1)
The Goon (Pucker Up #2)
The Heartbreaker (Pucker Up #3)
Too Good To Refuse: A Rock Star Romance
The Debt (The Debt, #1)
The Choice (The Debt, #2) Coming Fall 2021!
Fantasy Novels
Blood, She Read
By Force
By Choice
Tainted Blood
