Prologue
ELDEN
My brother was holdinga gun to my head.
I’d expected this to happen from the second I laid eyes on her.
The second I touched her.
Tasted her.
She tasted like perfection and my eventual demise.
I knew that this was a ticking time bomb. Thatwewere a ticking time bomb. I also knew that it was a matter of when he found out I was fucking his stepdaughter. Not if.
I could’ve avoided this.
If I’d been strong enough to leave her alone. To say no to her. To get the fuck out of this club and as far away from her as I could’ve.
But that had been beyond my control.
Everything to do with Violet was beyond my control.
And on some level, I’d been willing to die for her. If it was a choice between a bullet and never knowing what it felt like to be inside of her, I’d choose the bullet.
Every fucking day.
“I should blow your brains out right here, right now,” Swiss seethed.
I didn’t argue with him, though I did disagree.
Violently.
I knew my brother was hanging by a thread right now and that there was a reason no one had stepped forward to try to do anything. Even though he was a husband and a father, he was still fucked-up, impulsive and unpredictable when he was mad. He was still very fucking dangerous.
And he’d just found out I’d been involved with his stepdaughter for years.
So he was mad.
Therefore, his piece was pointed in my face.
“There was a time in my life when I probably wouldn’t have fought you,” I told him. “A time when I might’ve just let what happened happen. When I didn’t care much if I was living or dying. Because I didn’t have anything to live for.”
I didn’t stare at him. Nor the barrel of the gun he was pointing in my face.
No, I stared at the indigo eyes of the woman I loved. The mother of my child, tears streaming down her face.
“Now I’ve got somethin’ to live for,” I said, not to Swiss but to her. “I’ve got everything to live for. Not gonna argue with you that this got fucked-up. That I made some bad fuckin’ choices in the midst of this. But you’re never gonna get me to wish away what I did. Because if I did, I wouldn’t be standin’ right here.”
I kept my eyes on her as I tensed, waiting. I wouldn’t go down without a fight. Fuck no. But if he was that far gone and was going to pull the trigger, she was going to be the last thing I saw before I left this world.
ChapterOne
TWO YEARS EARLIER
VIOLET
I was sittingon a roof at three in the morning with a bottle of Jack Daniels in my left hand, a joint in my right.