Invincible (A Kingpin Love Affair Book 3) (29 page)

“Roger, let go of her.” There was vengeance in Diesel’s eyes, and his voice was strong. He moved to the edge of his seat and leaned over and gripped Roger’s shoulder.

“Get your hand the hell off me, cripple…” Roger rolled his shoulders forcing Diesel’s hand to fall away. I gripped Roger’s wrist prying it from my thigh.

“If you ever get done playing with the crippled boy… you know where to find me,” Roger whispered in my ear causing my hair to move. I could feel the heat from his breath against my skin and it just made me sick.

Without a word said, I turned away from him and toward the window waiting for him to leave. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him watch me for a mere second, his eyes eating away at my body, and then as he slipped from my seat and into his regular seat a ways back.

I released the breath I had been holding and allowed fresh oxygen to filter into my lungs. Roger was a monster. The living, breathing kind your parents forgot to tell you about. The kind that had the power to make your life a living hell day in and day out. He did just that.

“I told you not to stick up for me.” Diesel’s voice was right next to me, and as I turned around to see where he was, I came face to face with him. His dark hair was long and slung back in a ponytail. He was looking at me with anger in his eyes, anger I had never seen.

“Well, I told you I wouldn’t let them pick on you anymore. They don’t know what they’re saying. They’re dumb.” They didn’t know the reason Diesel was sick or why he didn’t talk to others. They didn’t know it was because of the cancer that surged through his veins.

“They know what they’re saying, Maggie,” he scoffed, his attention going back toward the front of the bus. “You always try to see the good in people. You always try to protect the weak. What you don’t understand is I don’t need protecting.” He turned back toward me, his eyes boring into mine.

“You can’t save everything. You can’t save me,” he hissed out. My gaze slid down to his clenched fists, his body built up with aggression. I understood why though. I knew he didn’t want to be protected, and he didn’t want even one friend if there was a chance he would die—and there was. Friends meant when you died you would leave someone behind. You would have a reason to feel guilty about your death. He didn’t want that.

“I don’t want to save you, Diesel,” I murmured.

“Yes, you do. You. The doctors. My parents. They all want to save me. Everyone wants me to live except myself.” There was so much agony in the words he was saying. It was as if he knew his fate and that fighting it was inevitable.

“That isn’t true—” My words cut off as his hand landed on my knee gripping it. He wasn’t hurting me, but he easily could. Even if he was sick, he still had strength.

“It is true. Believe me when I say it’s true. I know what you all think. I know you assume sticking up for me makes it better, maybe you even think if you’re nice to me, when I die, God will grant you something special.”

“That’s not the p—” My words were cut off again as he squeezed my knee. Pain radiated up my leg, and I bit my lip to stifle the cry that wanted to escape my mouth.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Maggie. I don’t want to do anything to ruin you, but whatever you think is going on between us, isn’t. Whatever help you think you can offer, you can’t. In the end, you only hurt yourself and bring more attention to me. Attention I have no need to seek.”

My mind was blank. Like a chalkboard that had been wiped clean. I had nothing to say—at least nothing worth saying. He didn’t care. He didn’t want support, and even though it broke my heart to see others beat him with their words and hands, there was nothing I could do to save someone who didn’t want to be saved. He was right… I was putting my nose somewhere it wasn’t needed. I had been for six months now.

“Do you understand me?” he asked softly. His voice caressed my body in a blanket of warmth. He didn’t realize the good he could produce.

I nodded my head, willing the tears on the verge of slipping from my eyes away. Be strong.

“Good,” he said satisfied with the conversation. His hand slipped from my knee. I had to force myself not to rub the pain out of it.

The rest of the bus ride consisted of me sitting in the far corner of my seat staring out the window pretending his body heat wasn’t what I was feeling next to me. I was forcing myself to not lash out and say something to him—something that would only push him further from me.

As we pulled up to the school and the bus stopped, my heart felt as if it were going to beat out of my chest.

“Remember what I said, Maggie.” His voice was a whisper in the wind as he got out of the seat and pushed into the line to get off the bus. Those words would be the last he would ever speak to me unless I instigated him.

I couldn’t force myself to move. It was as if I had lost control of my body.

Eventually, I found my bearings and slipped into the back of the line, my mind drifting to Diesel’s words. I can’t be saved… Maybe he didn’t think he could be saved, maybe he didn’t think he was worth it—but I did.

Diesel was worth saving. He just didn’t know it yet.

COMING MAY 2015!!!

Add to your To Be Read List on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24486710-project?ac=1

SNEAK PEAK—FEAR YOU

By B.B. Reid

Chapter One

I’M GOING TO wring her fucking neck.

Of course, it probably wasn’t the fault of the poor fuck whose neck I currently had my hands wrapped around. He just happened to be in my line of fire when I grew sick of smelling her, and feeling her, and seeing her weird fucking eyes taunting me in my head when I couldn’t have her.

Fuck
.

I squeezed harder.

“Inmate 960, let go of the other inmate, now!” I heard the command loud and clear behind me, but I couldn’t care less. They were all scared to come in here so they talked shit behind the safety of the bars.
Pussies.

“Come on, young blood, you don’t want to give them a reason to keep you in here. Keep it together,” the gruff voice of a well-respected, older inmate said.

Right, I was locked up again.

Only this time, I wasn’t in juvie.

I was heading to the real deal if this shit stuck.

Prison.

I wouldn’t see the light of day for a very long time, and she could escape me forever.

Funny how that last thought made me let go. I was a second too late as I felt the electric volts pass through my body just as I let go of my cellmate’s neck. My muscles locked up and all I could do was grunt as I hit the floor, counting the seconds until it was over. It lasted ten seconds but felt more like ten lifetimes. I guess I deserved it. I looked over at the form of my still gasping cellmate as he tried to catch his breath.

My calves where they hit me burned, and I felt a little weak in the knees when I tried to stand. I let out a laugh when I remembered a promise a certain someone made me when I entered here for the first time.

I guess she kept her promise in a roundabout way, and I wondered what made me harder—thinking about the feeling of her pussy or the fact that she finally fought back.

Dash said my obsession with her was unhealthy. He might be right, but it didn’t mean I had to give a shit. She was mine, and I vowed to do whatever was necessary to remind her who controlled her, but when I saw her face again, I wondered who really owned who. I willed my erection away by thinking of anything other than her.

“Somebody, get him out of there,” one of the guards ordered. I prepared myself for a fight because the one thing I hated was someone thinking I could be handled. When the guard cautiously bypassed me and grabbed onto Jed, my unfortunate cellmate, I relaxed.

I probably shouldn’t have attacked him for simply admiring a picture, but three minutes ago you couldn’t have told me it wasn’t justified. It was who was in the photo he was admiring that set me off. It was the picture of her I swiped the morning after our date.

I don’t know what made me take the picture of her. I just knew I had to have it. I carried it everywhere, always, and didn’t even realize when I’d stopped clinging to Lily’s necklace instead. She looked happy in the photo and my gut told me it was taken while I was gone. My throat burned and my fingers dug into my fists thinking about her being happy. I told myself I didn’t want her happy. I wanted her to pay.

Truth is, as much as I really wanted her to pay for making me feel, when the time had come, I couldn’t bring myself to be as ruthless as I was taught. I know some people would think what I’d done was more than fucked up, but I could and should have done much worse. Even though she turned out to be innocent, I promised myself it was a mistake I wouldn’t make again. This time I wasn’t going to hold back.

Monroe was going to feel me. All the pain, hatred, and anger—I was going to give it to her, one way or another.

Fuck, I’m hard again.

* * *

“WHAT’S HAPPENING TO you, young-blood? I thought you had better sense than these other knuckleheads in here,” Rufus, the older inmate from this morning, gruffly scolded as he sat down with his tray next to me.

It had been a few hours since the incident that morning, and surprisingly, I had escaped it unscathed minus the tasing. Now I was enduring lunch chow, which was food I wouldn’t even insult my dog with if I had a dog.

“Your faith in me is misplaced and unwanted,” I responded. No matter how much I was a dick to the guy, he always came back for more. It reminded me a lot of how Dash and I became friends. I didn’t want friends, but he was intent on showing me he wasn’t afraid of me, which was kind of fucking funny.

The older inmate chuckled, forcing my attention back to him. He rubbed his fingers across his lips, and I took in the markings on the dark skin above his knuckles. I couldn’t really make out whatever the hell it was supposed to mean, but I knew instantly he was a member of a gang. I ran across plenty of them and was even made to train killing a few who crossed my owner. It seemed liked a whole lifetime ago. I also knew this guy wasn’t from around here so he must have gotten caught up.

“I’m not your enemy, and I’m not trying to be, but I imagine you had someone on the outside who kept you levelheaded.”

“Yeah, he had a problem getting lost, too.”

“Well, consider me your guardian angel.”

“Why?” I asked my suspicion and ire rising simultaneously.

“Because you need one, and I hate to see kids fall because they’re too stupid to know when they need to stand down.”

“Is that why you’re in here?” I asked sarcastically.

“You can say that. But I’m not a kid anymore either. It’s too late for me but not for you.” I turned back to my tray of untouched food and dug in. “Why are you in here,” he asked after a few moments of silent eating.

“Suspicion of murder.”

“So if you made it past the holding cell, I imagine they have some kind of evidence on you.”

“A witness,” I answered and immediately wondered why I was confiding in him.

“That can be eradicated.” He shrugged.

“Not this one,” I said, hearing the dangerous level my voice had dropped. He snapped his head back and lifted both his eyebrows in surprise. The thought of someone hurting Monroe brought out a protective instinct in me that I hadn’t been able to feel since Lily. The irony of it did not escape me.

“Family?” he asked.

“No, she’s—” I hesitated because it wasn’t easy describing Monroe and what she was to me. “I go to school with her,” I finished.

“Girl, huh? She important to you?”

“No.” I reached for my water and chugged it down. I knew what a lie tasted like. I washed the bitter taste down and then shoved a fork full of…
I don’t even know what it is. 

“Son, you mean to tell me you’re willing to go to prison for a girl you
don’t
care for?”

“It’s complicated,” I barked, taking a bite of my food to keep from saying more.

“Love always is, young-blood.”

Reflex, or whatever the fuck you call it, made me swallow down my food a little too quickly, causing me to choke. Rufus’s heavy hand slammed down on my back repeatedly until I was no longer being assaulted by my own food. “So I guess that means it’s serious?” he laughed outrageously.

I clutched my tray and considered hitting him across the face with it. I let go after a few deep breaths because it wasn’t exactly wise to insult what could be my only ally until I got out of here.
If I get out here
.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t able to trust people—I wasn’t willing. Why let anyone in when the majority of the people I meet I would likely kill just because it suited me?

Maybe Monroe was right and I was sick. I could tell she wanted to fix me. I could see it in her eyes every time she looked at me with hope and… something else. I didn’t bother to tell her that my sickness couldn’t be fixed. There wasn’t a cure other than death, and I don’t plan to die anytime soon.

One thing was certain though—and that was I do not love Lake Monroe.

* * *

“YOU.” THE BURLY man with an enormous amount of facial hair pointed at me with a chubby finger. “Get dressed. Your training starts today.”

“Training?” I asked while trying to hide the fear I felt. I saw what happened to the others who showed fear. They were beaten, starved, or just disappeared. 

“It’s your lucky day. You get to start earning your keep and maybe we’ll even feed you more.” He laughed hard causing his belly to shake.