SEVERED
THE TAKEN SERIES
PLAYLIST
Beautiful Girl - Broken Iris
Love Triangle - RaeLynn
The Blackest Day - Lana Del Rey
Lovesick - Banks
When It’s All Over - Raign
Don’t Let Me Go - Raign
Ungodly Hour - The Fray
Heal - Tom Odell
You’re the One That I Want - Lo-Fang
Zombie - Bad Wolves
Sacrifice - Lucas King
Ghost - Bad Flower
Click here for the full list
DEDICATION
Thank you to my ladies who loved Drake so much and asked for more. I hope you love him and all his darkness as much as I do.
PROLOGUE
The sins of the father fall to the son.
Violence has been in my blood since I was born.
Love has never been something I wanted, needed, or thought of. I smile when I think about the one girl who almost managed to weasel her way into my heart, but she was stolen from me. Our link was severed, and I became the monster my father wanted me to be.
I buried my feelings for her along with the memory of her body bleeding out on top of me. The images haunted me each night. They replayed in my mind, but after my search for her came to a dead end, I locked away that damned muscle called my heart. Securing it in a cage, I ensured I’d never allow anyone to ever free it again.
I’m a Savage.
I’m the heir to a throne that was never my choice. It was forced upon me, and even though I shouldn’t want it, I have no choice. The moment my father took his last breath, I knew I was never going to be free.
Dante, my brother, wants me to stop the Savage Organization. He’s begged and pleaded, but what he doesn’t understand is there’s always more to a story than meets the eye.
I’m doing this for him. For me. For our family. If only he can give me time, I’ll show him that the secrets that lie locked within the walls of the mansion hold so much more.
River, my best friend and part-time lover, is the only one who knows why I stay, why I continued the legacy left by my father, Malcolm Savage. And he’s the only one who help me.
Sometimes, we must do things we don’t want to.
We do things that will ensure our morals are challenged.
And, at other times, we do things to keep those we love safe.
CHAPTER ONE
DRAKE
Games.
Sick, twisted games.
I spent my childhood learning how to play them.
He taught me. Turned me into a monster. He played them with me. I witnessed horrors that will forever be stained in my mind. Those vile images I’ve tried so hard to tamper, they rage within me, like a fire taking out a forest. Each night, I close my eyes, and those eyes haunt me. As much as I’ve tried, I can never stop them.
Guilt sits within my gut. It burns its way through my blood. I can never be free from the nightmares, and perhaps I don’t want to be. It’s those memories that allow me to do what I do. To finally attempt to rid my hands of the blood my father spilled.
The dark web my father had built for his organization still runs today. With new clients messaging me daily, I know time is running out. Before long they’ll realize I’m leading them on. I don’t have much longer to keep them at bay. The monsters are beating down the door, and soon, I’m going to have to let them in.
Bit by bit, as the days passed and the older I got, the more I lost myself. I knew if I didn’t get away soon, there’d be nothing left of the boy I used to be. For years, my father got away with what he did. My only escape was my bedroom, where I would lose myself in River, in his touch, his body. And if he wasn’t around, I’d sit silently in the shadows and watch Dante like a fucking stalker. He would have one of his latest conquests around, and I’d dive into the darkness with them. A voyeur to pleasure. It was the only way I could feel again.
I’m broken. I’m a fucked-up monster. And there’s no longer anything that can change me. Four years ago, I thought there was a chance. I believed I could be someone different, because of her. A girl with the most beautiful soul I’d ever seen. She weakened me, and I almost let myself go. I wanted to steal her away, keep her for myself. But in the end, it was she who was stolen from me.
Her blood still stains my hands. The metallic taste of her life essence still coats my tongue. She bled out, her slight frame draped over me. One moment she was there. The next, she was gone.
The video I’ve been watching is on a loop. The body of the girl onscreen is bruised as one of the guards gets her ready for tonight’s show. I’m lost in the darkness as my hand finds my hardened cock. I blame my father for this. He broke my mind, leaving only shattered fragments of my innocence.