Merciless King
A Lawless Kings Novel
Sherilee Gray
Copyright © 2019 by Sherilee Gray
Cover Design: Mayhem Cover Creations
Editor: Andrea McKay
Proofreading: Lillie’s Literary Services
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.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Merciless King - Sherilee Gray - 1st ed
Contents
About Merciless King
Follow Me!
Also by Sherilee Gray
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
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Sherilee Gray
About Merciless King
Two years ago Van King killed a man and saved my life.
I’ve thought about the handsome private investigator every day since, fantasized about what would happen when I finally saw him again. And when I do, it’s far from the reunion of my dreams.
A copycat serial killer wants to finish what I barely survived. Van rushes to my side once more, and shows me the man he truly is: protective, possessive, merciless, especially when it comes to me and my safety. He thinks I’m afraid of him. But I’ve loved Van from the moment his dark, enigmatic gaze met mine.
This time, I won’t allow my fear or debilitating shyness to rule me. I sure as hell won’t hide from the heat that explodes between us while I’m under his protection. No, I’ll welcome it and beg for more.
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Also by Sherilee Gray
Knights of Hell:
Knight’s Redemption
Knight’s Salvation
Demon’s Temptation
Lawless Kings:
Shattered King
Broken Rebel
Beautiful Killer
Ruthless Protector
Glorious Sinner
Merciless King
The Smith Brothers:
Mountain Man
Wild Man
Boosted Hearts:
Swerve
Spin
Slide
Axle Alley Vipers:
Crashed
Revved
Wrecked
Black Hills Pack:
Lone Wolf’s Captive
A Wolf’s Deception
Stand Alone Novels:
Breaking Him
Prologue
Van
The florist walked by my car and I watched her as she headed for the door of her apartment building. It was late and I didn’t like that she was always alone. My interest in her over the last few months had become a problem. I recognized it. Didn’t stop the anticipation when I knew she was due home, the worry that she’d get there safe, the knot of lust in my gut when I eventually saw her.
London Rivera was not the reason I was staking out her apartment, but she’d made the job I was on a whole hell of a lot more interesting. Her neighbor was my target. The client who hired me, high profile. Mine and my brother Hunter’s PI business, the King Agency, had been up and running just over a year. With Hunter stuck in prison, I was working my ass off to make the business successful. When he got out, I wanted him to have something good waiting. If things went well, this job could bring us in a lot more cases like this. Most of it was evidence gathering, following the guy and staking out his place to keep track of his movements.
London had hit my radar the first day I parked up outside her building.
Like now, she was carrying flowers and wearing a brightly colored dress, the fabric skimming her curves, which she had a lot of. I liked curves. I was a big guy and when I took a woman to bed, I liked it hard and a little rough. I liked my women to have wide hips, lots of ass and tits. I wasn’t interested in a woman I was worried about breaking. There was no chance of that with London. But it wasn’t just her body that had me captivated. It was every fucking thing. I watched as she tucked her thick dark hair behind her ear and smile at Calvin, her doorman. The guy beamed back, like the clouds had parted and he’d been bathed in light and warmth.
This was not an uncommon response. That was the affect she often had on people, from what I’d observed.
She laughed at something he said, and it carried over to me. Soft, husky, genuine. Even from my spot across the street I could see her face flush with color. Another thing about London, she blushed a lot and was kind of awkward in her interactions with other people. London was sweet. Shy. And if I had to take a guess, pretty fucking innocent. Definitely not for a man like me. I should absolutely not have looked her up, but I hadn’t been able to help it. Which was messed up and not something I’d ever done before. If they weren’t a target or a client, I didn’t give a fuck about someone’s past or who they were.
London had somehow gotten under my skin and I’d broken my own rules.
I watched as she disappeared inside, until I could no longer see her through the glass-fronted doors when she climbed in the elevator. We had the hall on her floor wired as well as our mark’s apartment, the one next to hers. The ding of the elevator come over my earpiece, along with the sound of her soft humming as she walked down the hall. She said something to one of her neighbors, the elderly woman across from her place.
“I’m ordering pizza tonight. You know I can never finish it on my own. Why don’t you come over and we can watch your show together?” she was saying.
Yeah, fucking sweet. I’d noticed her neighbor never had visitors and it was obvious London worried about her. They made plans to meet up in an hour, and then I heard the sounds of her going into her place. Our mark hadn’t come home yet and the equipment we used had incredible range. With how thin the walls between apartments were, I could actually hear the odd muffled sound through the wall. Could hear her talking. She’d mentioned a goldfish before in one of her hallway conversations, and the idea of her talking to it had me grinning.
The tone of her voice changed. No, I couldn’t hear what she was saying but the tone she was using was higher, and she was speaking faster…
The muffled sound of another voice came through, deeper. Unmistakably male.
That’s when London screamed.
I shoved my door open and sprinted across the street, almost taking out Calvin as I pushed him out of the way, and rather than wait for the elevator, took the stairs two at a time. I didn’t slow as I ran to her apartment near the end of the hall. I kicked the door in…
London was on the floor with a guy stan
ding over her. He had a knife, and her blood was all over it. Fuck. There was blood everywhere. A sound escaped me, raw and unfamiliar.
Her attacker turned to me, eyes wild.
I pulled my gun and shot him between the eyes.
Ignoring him as he crumpled to the floor, I rushed to London, slipping on the blood around her—so much fucking blood. I yanked off my shirt and tried to staunch it, but there was more than one stab wound. The elderly woman from across the hall moved into the doorway.
“Call 911,” I barked at her.
I looked back down. London’s blue eyes were on me, and fuck, I could see the life draining from them.
“Stay with me, London. Stay with me. Help’s on the way…” Her lids started to slide shut. “Come on, baby…you’re not going to die. I won’t let you fucking die.”
That’s when she stopped breathing.
1
London
Two years later
The rain stung my skin, tiny pinpricks all over my body, covering my face and washing away my tears. My hair stuck to my neck and I was frozen to the bone. I used the small hand trowel I’d bought on my way home from work earlier to dig the last little bit. By the time I’d finished, my fingers were numb and my nails were chipped and clogged with mud.
I lifted Heathcliff’s small, still body wrapped in his favorite blanket—it was blue with tiny white bones all over it—his favorite toy tucked in there with him, and lowered him into the hole I’d dug. He was cold. So cold. I couldn’t bring myself to do it yesterday when I came home and found him. Not until he was cold.
Some people would think it was crazy, burying my dog in a park, but it wasn’t to me. This was his favorite place in the world. We came here every day. Heathcliff would run around, playing with the other dogs, chasing birds, wagging his little tail. He was the being I loved most in the world. All I had left.
Now he was gone, too, and I didn’t know what I’d do without him.
Another sob escaped as I covered him over and patted down the dirt. “I’m gonna miss you, buddy.”
I’d come back in a couple of days, maybe plant something, with flowers, beautiful and sweetly perfumed. A gardenia or a hyacinth. I straightened and brushed my muddy hands on my already filthy jeans. It felt wrong, walking away, going home and leaving him there.
I sniffed and wiped my eyes on my shirt.
Pull it together, London.
At least the rain had slowed.
Shoving the trowel in the small backpack I’d brought, I forced myself to move away, to head for the park exit. It was quieter now, a combination of the rain almost stopping and my own uncontrollable sobs finally coming to an end. But now that I wasn’t overcome with grief, I became acutely aware of my surroundings suddenly and realized it had gotten dark—and just how stupid this was.
When I’d left home it had been late afternoon with just a few threatening rain clouds. I’d ignored the threat of rain, desperate to get this done. I couldn’t handle another night with Heathcliff in the apartment. It hurt too much. The clouds had started gathering when I got here, and it had taken a lot longer than I thought it would to dig a hole for my tiny dog.
I shivered, tugging my coat tighter around me, and wrapped my arms around myself.
Don’t let the fear get the better of you. Don’t let it win.
I headed down the small trail, repeating the mantra over and over in my head, desperate to get home, have a hot shower, and cry myself to sleep.
A branch snapping to my left had me whipping around, staring into the shrubs and the shadowy tree line, but nothing moved. I walked faster, the hair on the back of my neck lifting.
Another snap. This one closer.
My adrenaline spiked. I started running and didn’t stop until I reached the exit and hit the street.
A few people glanced at me, eyes widening as they took in my drenched and muddy state. I ignored them and tried to control my racing heart. I glanced behind me. Nothing out of the ordinary. No one following me.
There’s nothing there. Get it together.
I forced down the fear and headed for home.
Being the target of a serial killer, living through it, had changed me in a way I would never have predicted. Yes, I was still painfully shy and my social anxiety disorder didn’t help. I’d been avoiding, well, life, for as long as I could remember. Now, though, I worked really hard at not letting my fears hold me back, because life was short, and if someone wanted to hurt you, four walls and a door wouldn’t save you.
I had learned that first hand.
If someone wanted to really hurt you, they’d find a way to do it.
Okay, I was still a work in progress. I hadn’t changed and become the confident woman I’d always wanted to be overnight, but I really wanted to change. I was trying.
That same unease from the park washed over me again and I stopped and scanned the street. I shook my head. The monster who had broken into my apartment and stabbed me five times was cold in the ground. Shot dead before he could finish what he started. His other victims, women who hadn’t been as lucky as me, and their families, could rest easy knowing he wouldn’t hurt anyone again.
Still, that feeling wouldn’t leave me.
I forced myself to ignore it and walked quickly to my apartment. I’d moved after the attack, to somewhere with better security, a place that didn’t send dread through me just looking at the front door.
But when I finally shut myself in, a pair of pale cold dead eyes flashed through my mind. I tried to shove them back out, even as the room around me started to feel fuzzy.
I hadn’t had a flashback in months, but I knew the signs. I quickly opened my phone and turned on some music, blasting it through my Bluetooth speaker, using one of the grounding techniques my therapist taught me to keep me in the present.
This wasn’t the same as back then. I was only imagining things. That same prickle down the back of my neck, the feeling if being watched, it wasn’t real. It was coming up to the second anniversary of the attack and my mind was playing tricks on me, that’s all.
No one wants to hurt you.
Lightning never struck the same place twice, right?
I thought of Heathcliff, how full of energy he’d been. He’d been young, no health issues. A shiver moved through me.
What if someone had hurt him?
Stop it, London.
I tried not to let my imagination run away on me, but when I climbed into bed, my heart was racing so fast I struggled to breathe. I needed to shut down those thoughts and fast, before I spiraled.
I shoved my earbuds in and turned on the music again.
I did what I had when I’d left the hospital, when I’d spent endless nights lying in my bed in terror—the only thing that would calm me. I thought of another set of eyes, these ones dark, so dark they were almost black. So intense they took my breath away.
Eyes that when they’d been on me, I’d felt safer than I had in my whole life.
* * *
Business had been brisk all week and even with my assistant, Erin, there helping, we’d been rushed off our feet. The phone rang in the back, and I hustled to answer it. There were several people holding one of my premade arrangements, waiting to pay, and they were starting to get impatient. Erin had been manning the counter while I made up the special orders. I wasn’t sure I could handle any more, not this afternoon, and the phone ringing more than likely meant just that.
Turning away business wasn’t something I liked doing.
I picked up the phone. “Beautiful Blooms, you’re speaking with London.”
Silence.
“Hello?”
Still nothing.
Had they been cut off? I heard a quiet noise.
“Hello, is anyone there?”
What was that? Was someone…breathing, down the line? It grew heavier.
I quickly hung up, my heart banging violently into action, erratic, seeming to skip over itself.
You’re being paran
oid. It’s nothing. Just a wrong number. Or someone messing around.
I forced myself to get back to work, the best way to keep my mind off…well, anything, everything. It was what I’d been doing for close to two years, and so far, so good. Okay, it had worked up until a week ago, before I found Heathcliff dead and my trip to the park.
Erin called for me and handed me another online order.
We got back to work, clearing them, and while I was working on the last one for the day, the phone started up again. “Can you get that?” I called to Erin, still feeling uneasy.
She greeted the caller and chatted animatedly in that enthusiastic way of hers, taking an order for the next day, and I released the breath I’d been holding.
See? Paranoia.
I let Erin leave a short while later and was making sure the cut flowers had enough water when the phone rang again. The phone rang a lot here. That was a good thing. Business was great. But a knot formed in my stomach as soon as it started. I knew. I just knew what I’d hear when I answered.
But I did answer because I wanted to be wrong. I wanted to prove myself wrong. “Beautiful Booms.”
Nothing.
That knot in my belly sprouted thorns.
“Is anyone there? Hello?”
Someone giggled.
I slammed the phone down.
Grabbing my bag, I quickly locked up, rushed out of the shop, and waved down a cab.
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