Authors: Stella Rhys
Wrong (30 page)
The search went on for what felt like an eternity until we got news that was both good and bad.
Max was leaving. He had long planned his move to California, and hoped to open up Cage Kings West. In the final six months that he was renovating his townhouse in Fort Greene, he knew it wouldn’t be for himself, and he knew exactly who his dream buyers would be.
I loved the building. Liam did too. But we resisted because we didn’t want him to leave us. There were nights spent at the bar where A.J, Aria and I just watched Liam and Max go at it, shouting, pounding tables and fighting over the pros and the cons until as usual, they hugged and Liam said he’d be happy as long as Max was.
“It’s the true end of an era,” A.J said as we all sat in the living room in which I’d cried with Liam the day he turned himself in. It was furnished now, with the old couch from Liam’s apartment and a whole bunch of new pieces, but still, A.J sat on the floor, Max on the table and Liam up against the couch that Aria and I sprawled out on.
“As much as I’ll miss you Max, I’m glad it’s the true end of an era,” I said, raising my coffee mug of champagne, since we’d broken our crystal flutes during move-in.
Liam nodded, raising his cup. “A toast to new beginnings and a goddamned good reason for us to all visit California.”
“Cheers!”
“Cheers!”
I locked eyes on Liam as we all brought our drinks to our lips. He told me it was okay to have a little, but still, I faked my sip. And I tried not to giggle as Aria caught me, craning her neck to look into my full glass and flashing me a look that said
no fucking way
. “I was going to tell you tonight,” I whispered to her as the guys launched into their half-drunken nostalgia. She bounced in her seat like a crazy person, tears welling instantly in her eyes.
“Boy or girl – do you know?”
My cheeks flushed with a joy I couldn’t contain as I gazed down at my belly. Three months in, I wasn’t quite showing, but still, I had a pretty good hunch. “Girl,” I said. Aria squealed before I added, “I think. I mean that’s what I feel.”
She shot me a look. “Dude, that’s not how it works,” she snorted.
“I know. But I have a feeling.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not up to you, ding-dong. It’s up to nature.”
I flinched momentarily at her words but then smirked. “Yeah, well. I think nature and I are more in tune that anyone thinks.”
“You know what, fuck it, I believe you. Cheers again, and this time, I’m drinking yours ‘cause I’m already done with mine.”
We touched our mugs together and I coated my lips with the sweet champagne before giving Aria my share.
That night, as I lay in bed with Liam, I enjoyed the fact that he was actually knocked right out for once. In the nine months that he’d been out of jail, he still hadn’t quit his habit of sleeping only after I had dozed off. It was just innate for him – the part of his body that was wired to protect me. But tonight, after his monster fight against Walsh, he was finally breathing softly and steadily behind me, his arm around my waist and his hand cupped just under my belly.
Lying there in his arms, I stared out the window. Despite the hazy New York sky, I spotted a star. Then another, and another. In the dark of our new bedroom, I smiled out at the three shimmering lights. I couldn’t remember the last time I was relaxed enough to look at the stars. Nestling back into Liam’s chest – still my favorite place the world – I tried to think of any remaining doubts. Anything in my life that wasn’t utterly perfect anymore.
I had been told by so many people that I wouldn’t find peace. As much as I didn’t want to, I still remembered my mother’s exact words to me.
“The path you’ve chosen won’t lead to happiness. If you really think you’re going to stumble into some happily ever after with Liam, you are shockingly stupid for someone so full of deceit.”
I was pretty confident the deceit part was over. All my secrets had been aired out to the world, and strangely enough, I had never felt lighter. My mother might still pin her blame on me, but I was validated by a million strangers who knew the truth. But more important than that, I knew the value now in the one opinion that did matter, and that one belonged to the father of my child.
No one expected us to find happiness together. I had a feeling some of our friends even worried for us, wondering how we’d survive blow after blow after blow. But every hit that knocked us down saw us standing back up. Liam was strong, I’d become stronger, and together, we were bulletproof. We’d taken every beating, risen past every battle and finally found ourselves in that quiet place where we could start a life. If this wasn’t happily ever after, I wasn’t sure what was. With my husband holding me in our bed, a second heartbeat inside me, we were the undeniable winners of this fight. My mind relaxed toward slumber because I realized we were officially past our world of skeptics. Together, as a couple, Liam and I were undefeated, in possession of everything in our lives that we had ever wanted.
Plain and simple, we were happy.
I was happy.
Boom.
* * *
The End
For Liam and Sasha’s Second Prologue from Wrong,
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HAVOC
by Stella Rhys
Stella Rhys
Copyright © 2015 by Stella Rhys
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
After her ex’s confession, Isla swore her night could not get worse. But two drinks later, a drunk stumble landed her in front of the tallest, broadest, most devastatingly sexy man she’d ever laid eyes on – standing over a dead body.
Abram Lenox is the city’s kind of sin. The head of Manhattan’s biggest underground gambling ring, he has dirt on just about every celebrity, billionaire and politician in town. His fast-paced world revolves around indulging secret vices, and there are no priorities beyond cash, thrill and satisfaction.
Until Isla Mara comes along. Now he’s got a murdered Mafioso on his hands and a girl who shouldn’t have seen.
But it doesn’t take long before he realizes that he’ll stop at nothing to protect her.
Contents
chapter one
I was indecent, the eyes of the street flying to my body.
I’d left my bomber jacket in the bar – the one I’d saved up three paychecks for, that I had promised to give Elle the day she turned thirteen. She used to wear it around the house whenever I visited home, her little frame absolutely drowning under all that leather. The one time I forgot it there, she hung it up on the closet door in front of her bed so she could look at it all week. Apparently, she had refused to wear it out even once, citing the fact that I hadn’t given her explicit permission. I don’t know why, but she worshipped that jacket. And for that reason, I always promised to protect it with my life.
But tonight, I threw that promise out the window. Along with every other one I’d ever made. I didn’t care anymore.
Elle was gone and my ex was marrying my best friend.
On top of that, he was still at the bar, ordering a fifth round of drinks to convince me that I should give him a “last hurrah” before he was officially off the market. He’d shaken his head, murmuring to my legs as he ran his hands all over my shell-shocked body. “I mean Christ, Isla, I didn’t expect you to come in looking
this
fucking good.” He looked straight down my cleavage, digging his fingers into my thighs as he groaned. “Come on, babe… I need to see those beautiful things bounce on top of me one more time. It’ll be like our last secret together. Which is kind of romantic. Right?”
You unbelievable piece of shit
.
I should’ve known something like this would happen, but he’d managed to charm me over the phone. He had mentioned a new job. Paid bills. He looked good as ever when I spotted him through the window, wearing the Jackson Hole T-shirt I’d bought him last year on our snowboarding trip. And it had taken him a full minute to tear his eyes off of my body when I finally walked in wearing a new dress I shouldn’t have bought for multiple reasons – one being that I can’t afford a cup of coffee let alone a twenty dollar dress from H&M, the other being that I really,
really
shouldn’t have been considering the idea of anything sexual.
But I was running on a year without letting anyone touch me and Evan was someone familiar. I wanted sex, yes, but I’d settle for just the warmth of an embrace that could swallow me and take me somewhere else for a moment. Three hundred fifty days later and I still didn’t feel whole. And I knew Evan wasn’t going to be my answer but I wasn’t foolish enough to look for an answer anymore. I was just looking for a second free of heartache.
Instead, I got his bombshell dropped onto my skull.
“Look, I know this is going to be hard for you to process, but Holly and I got engaged last week.”
I blinked. What?
Holly? As in
my
Holly?
No, no, no.
I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Holly McPherson was the girl I’d known my entire life – the girl born on September Eighth, at six thirty-four in the morning, just a minute before me and in the delivery room next to mine. I’d spent entire months living at her house as a kid. From sixteen to eighteen, she drove me to school every morning, despite going to a different one. She blew off NYU to join me at Rutgers.
We’d grown apart as of late. She hadn’t come to Elle’s funeral. But I would never call her anything besides my best friend in the entire world. She had been with me through all the trials and tribulations of my formative years, and both of the screaming, crying breakups I’d had with Evan.
But now they were getting married.
And all I wanted was to disappear.
I couldn’t tell if it was the news or the double margaritas Evan kept ordering, but I felt suddenly sick. I needed to empty the horror churning my stomach and I needed to do it as far from the bar as I could. Because knowing Evan, he’d come looking for me, and the last thing I wanted was for him to see me throwing up. I’d acted calm when he told me about proposing. Perhaps because I hadn’t yet processed his words. Either way, I didn’t want him to see me like this because I couldn’t possibly feel dumber. I was dolled up for him in curls, full makeup, a black dress too tight and sheer to suggest anything but sex – and I was seconds from keeling over to vomit my guts out.
“Isla?”
Fuck.
My stomach lurched when I heard his voice down the block. Panicked, my eyes flew to a narrow alley between two buildings. It was dark as night, protected by a cast iron gate cracked barely an inch. Ignoring the sign, I pushed through it, disappearing into the shadows just as Evan came around. Ducking behind a dumpster, I watched him gaze inside, looking thoroughly intimidated as he pushed at the squeaky gate.
“Isla?” He stepped one foot in, frozen there, his eyes failing to find me even as I began walking backward, submerging myself into the dark. “Isla, if you’re in here, come out! I knew you were going to react like this so I’m not mad. I even paid for the drinks.”
My God, what a saint.
Though with Evan, paying for anything was a miracle.
Standing dead center in the alley, I stared down at him, a sneer curling my lips as I dared him to step foot into the pitch black. He didn’t have the guts to. I knew it. So I stood there watching until he backed away. When he was finally out of sight, I sucked in a deep, quivering breath and willed myself to calm down.
You’re strong. Be strong. You’re fine
. I repeated the words I told everyone in my family when they felt like they couldn’t hold on.
You’re strong. Be strong. You’re fine.
They always worked on my mom, albeit temporarily, and I could almost feel them slowly lifting me out of my hole.
I’ll be okay.
But the second I believed myself, my body hurled forward.
“
Get the fuck out of here!”
A growl and a shriek – the latter was my own as I felt a hard grip on my shoulder, controlling my body and shoving me away. Gasping, I stumbled to the ground, gravel scraping my knees. Panic clenched in my throat as I scrambled onto my back, ready to bolt the fuck out with no questions asked.
But I froze when I saw what stood before me.
Breathless, chest heaving, I stared ahead at two long legs in dark jeans and leather boots, my heart slamming faster as my eyes traveled skyward, realizing the sheer height and size on the man who’d roared for me to leave. His sweat-drenched T-shirt clung to the tapered V of his torso, every muscle flexed and rigid like those shoulders wide enough to break a doorframe.
Holy fuck.
I scrambled backward when my darting eyes saw his fingers wrapped around a metal pipe. His grip crushed it, the vein in the back of his hand bulging, traveling up his muscled forearm and all the way to a lean bicep my hand wouldn’t wrap around half of.
“Get on your feet now.”
I’m going, I swear
, my lips tried to utter. But then I looked up at his face and the breath snatched from my throat.
Despite a warrior’s build, he had the looks of a royal – piercing blue eyes under strong, dark brows. A long, straight nose. The squarest jaw and most sculpted lips I’d ever seen. He was stunning. The kind of unreal beauty I was used to seeing on billboards, red carpets – not in dark alleys, gleaming with sweat and flecked in what I hoped to God wasn’t blood. My pulse jumped into my throat when he spoke again, his low voice rumbling like a mounting storm.
“You have two seconds to walk away on your own.”
His wolfish glare blazed into me, paralyzing every inch of my body. My lips parted but said nothing and when I failed to move, he dropped the pipe and started forward.
“
No
– ” I managed something like the word as I cowered from his imposing frame. But just as he lifted me like a ragdoll, another voice rang out in the alley.
“The fuck we do with this now?”
I turned around, my wide eyes landing on a blonde man in a suit, dragging something heavy that he dropped to the ground when he saw me.
A body.
I heard its lifeless leg fall with a
thud
before my eyes traveled to his head, still pouring thick, red blood. My stomach turned as I then fixed my stare on the gash of white gleaming above his eye.
His skull.
My hair was yanked back the second before I keeled over and heaved.