After the Fall: The Fallen Men, #4

by Darling, Giana

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  If you loved reading about King’s romance with his prim and proper ex-teacher Cressida, you’ll love his father, Zeus Garro’s taboo love story! Discover what happens when the Prez of The Fallen MC saves the life of the mayor’s daughter and their lives become entangled for good…

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  A Top 40 Amazon Bestseller…

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  “Taboo, breathtaking, and scorching hot! I freaking loved WELCOME TO THE DARK SIDE.”—Skye Warren, New York Times bestselling author

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  One-Click WELCOME TO THE DARK SIDE now!

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  Turn the page for an excerpt…

  Welcome to the Dark Side (The Fallen Men, Book #2) Excerpt

  I was a good girl.

  I ate my vegetables, volunteered at the local autism centre and sat in the front pew of church every Sunday.

  Then, I got cancer.

  What the hell kind of reward was that for a boring life well lived?

  I was a seventeen-year-old paradigm of virtue and I was tired of it.

  So, when I finally ran into the man I’d been writing to since he saved my life as a little girl and he offered to show me the dark side of life before I left it for good, I said yes.

  Only, I didn’t know that Zeus Garro was the President of The Fallen MC and when you made a deal with a man who is worse than the devil, there was no going back…

  A standalone in The Fallen Men Series.

  Welcome to the Dark Side Excerpt

  I was too young to realize what the pop meant.

  It sounded to my childish ears like a giant popping a massive wad of bubble gum.

  Not like a bullet releasing from a chamber, heralding the sharp burst of pain that would follow when it smacked and then ripped through my shoulder.

  Also, I was in the parking lot of First Light Church. It was my haven not only because it was a church and that was the original purpose of such places, but also because my grandpa was the pastor, my grandmother ran the after-school programs, and my father was the mayor so it was just as much his stage as his parents’.

  A seven-year-old girl just does not expect to be shot in the parking lot of a church, holding the hand of her mother on one side and her father on the other, her grandparents waving from the open door as parents picked up their young children from after-school care.

  Besides, I was unusually mesmerized by the sight of a man driving slowly by the entrance to the church parking lot. He rode a great growling beast that was so enormous it looked at my childish eyes like a silver and black backed dragon. Only the man wasn’t wearing shining armour the way I thought he should have been. Instead, he wore a tight long-sleeved shirt under a heavy leather vest with a big picture of a fiery skull and tattered wings on the back of it. What kind of knight rode a mechanical dragon in a leather vest?

  My little girl brain was too young to comprehend the complexities of the answer but my heart, though small, knew without context what kind of brotherhood that man would be in and it yearned for him.

  Even at seven, I harboured a black rebel soul bound in velvet bows and Bible verse.

  As if sensing my gaze, my thoughts, the biker turned to look at me, his face cruel with anger. I shivered and as his gaze settled on mine those shots rang out in a staccato beat that perfectly matched the cadence of my suddenly overworked heart.

  Pop. Pop. Pop.

  Everything from there happened as it did in action movies, with rapid bursts of sound and movement that swirled into a violent cacophony. I remembered only three things from the shooting that would go down in history as one of the worst incidents of gang violence in the town and province’s history.

  One.

  My father flying to the ground quick as a flash, his hand wrenched from mine so that he could cover his own head. My mother screaming like a howler monkey but frozen to the spot, her hand paralyzed over mine.

  Useless.

  Two.

  Men in black leather vests flooded the concrete like a murder of ravens, their hands filled with smoking metal that rattled off round after round of pop, pop, pop. Some of them rode bikes like my mystery biker but most of them were on foot, suddenly appearing from behind cars, around buildings.

  More of them came roaring down the road behind the man I’d been watching, flying blurs of silver, green and black.

  They were everywhere.

  But these first two observations were merely vague impressions because I had eyes for only one person.

  The third thing I remembered was him, Zeus Garro, locking eyes with me across the parking lot a split second before chaos erupted. Our gazes collided like the meeting of two planets, the ensuing bedlam a natural offshoot of the collision. It was only because I was watching him that I saw the horror distort his features and knew something bad was going to happen.

  Someone grabbed me from behind, hauled me into the air with their hands under my pits. They were tall because I remember dangling like an ornament from his hold, small but significant with meaning. He was using me and even then, I knew it.

  I twisted to try to kick him in the torso with the hard heel of my Mary Jane’s and he must have assumed I’d be frozen in fright because my little shoe connected with a soft place that immediately loosened his grip.

  Before I could fully drop to the ground, I was running and I was running toward him. The man on the great silver and black beast who had somehow heralded the massacre going down in blood and smoke all around me.

  His bike lay discarded on its side behind him and he was standing straight and so tall he seemed to my young mind like a great giant, a beast from another planet or the deep jungle, something that killed for sport as well as survival. And he was doing it now, killing men like it was nothing but one of those awful, violent video games my cousin Clyde liked to play. In one hand he held a wicked curved blade already lacquered with blood from the two men who lay fallen at his feet while the other held a smoking gun that, under other circumstances, I might have thought was a pretty toy.

  I took this in as I ran toward him, focused on him so I wouldn’t notice the pop, the screams and wet slaps of bodies hitting the pavement. So I wouldn’t taste the metallic residue of gun powder on my tongue or feel the splatter of blood that rained down on me as I passed one man being gutted savagely by another.

  Somehow, if I could just get to him, everything would be okay.

  He watched me come to him. Not with his eyes, because he was busy killing bad guys and shouting short, gruff orders to the guys wearing the same uniform as him but there was something in the way his great big body leaned toward me, shifted on his feet so that he was always orientated my way, that made me feel sure he was looking out for me even as I came for him.

  He was just a stone’s throw away, but it seemed to take forever for my short legs to move me across the asphalt and when I was only halfway there, his expression changed.

  I knew without knowing that the man I’d kicked in his soft place was up again and probably angry. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and a fierce shiver ripped down my spine like tearing Velcro. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I started to scream just as the police sirens started to wail a few blocks away.

  My biker man roared, a violent noise that rent the air in two and made some of the people closest to him pause even in the middle of fighting. Then he was moving, and I remember thinking that for such a tall man, he moved fast because within the span of a breath, he was in front of me reaching out a hand to pull me closer…

  A moment too late.

  Because in that second when his tattooed hands clutched me to his chest and he tried to throw us to the ground, spiraling in a desperate attempt to act as human body armour to my tiny form, a POP so much louder than the rest exploded on the air and excruciating pain tore through my left shoulder, just inches from my adrenaline-filled heart.

  We landed, and the agonizing pain burned brighter as my shoulder hit the pavement and my biker man rolled fully on to
p of me with a pained grunt.

  I blinked through the tears welling up in my eyes, trying to breathe, trying to live through the pain radiating like a nuclear blast site through my chest. All I saw was him. His arm covered my head, one hand over my ear as he pulled back just enough to look down into my face.

  That was what I remember most, that third thing, Zeus Garro’s silver eyes as they stared down at me in a church parking lot filled with blood and smoke, screams and whimpers, but those eyes an oasis of calm that lulled my flagging heart into a steadier beat.

  “I got you, little girl,” he said in a voice as rough and deep as any monster’s, while he held me as if he were a guardian angel. “I got you.”

  I clutched a tiny fist into his blood-soaked shirt and stared into the eyes of my guardian monster until I lost consciousness.

  Sometimes now, I wonder if I would have done anything differently even if I had known how that bullet would tear through my small body, breaking bones and tender young flesh, irrevocably changing the course of my life forever.

  Always, the answer is no.

  Because it brought me to him.

  Or rather, him to me.

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  Get it now for FREE on Kindle Unlimited!

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  I knew the moment I finished writing Lessons in Corruption that King and Cressida deserved more story.

  Even though there is an eight-year age difference between King and Cressida, they were both still so ‘new’ to living at the end of their first book with so much growing and life left to live. In After the Fall, I wanted to explore not what it means to fall in love, but what it means to stay in love with your chosen partner every single day. It means sacrifice, compromise, passion and logic, endurance and spontaneity. It means prioritizing your loved one and showing them how much you love every moment you can because life is short and fragile. I wanted to explore the little intimacies of life with an established couple that are so beautiful and so under-appreciated in romance because we are usually all about the journey of getting to ‘I love you’ instead of what of what it means to live those words every day after first saying them.

  A note on Paradise Lost and The Prince; both characters are consumed by their love of literature so it was only too natural and important to weave these two important works into the narrative. If you haven’t read them, I high encourage you to do so!

  Now, on to the crew who keeps this boat afloat.

  Allaa, I wish I had better words to describe what you mean to me. You are my spiritual twin, my sister, my friend, and my confidante. I love you unspeakable amounts and appreciate the role you play in my creative process more than I could ever say.

  Michelle, thank you for stepping up for me, for always supporting me and loving me as if you were born to do it. I admire you and love you to the depths of my soul.

  To my sunshine, Annette, your positivity and love bring light to my life every day.

  Sarah from Musings of a Modern Book Belle, thank you for being my cheerleader, my critic, and my friend. You always make me a better author and your friendship makes me a better person.

  Kim, thank you so much for working with me! Your patience, resolve, and understanding have made this crazy process so much easier on me. I hope I didn’t give you too many grey hairs and I cannot wait to get you to edit for me again.

  Jenny from Editing4Indies, you are my saviour. Thank you for polishing this manuscript from a diamond in the rough into a polished gem.

  Thank you to Kim to editing this and putting up with my creative chaos. You truly are an amazing editor and I am so pleased we finally got to work together. 2

  Candi from Candi Kane PR, you make releases ten times less stressful and any author knows that’s worth everything. Thank you for your endless hard work on my behalf and for providing me with essential advice. I love you so much.

  Najla Qamber from Najla Qamber Designs, is the only woman I have ever worked with on a cover. She is my wizard and the creator of all my gorgeous graphics.

  I love thanking my Review Team because without them, the good word of Giana Darling wouldn’t spread nearly as far and wide.

  Giana’s Darlings, each and every one of you mean so much to me. Thank you for giving me a loving, supportive corner of the internet to call my own.

  Ashlee, you are such a badass Slytherin and I am so grateful to have your creativity, friendship, and humour in my life. The day we became friends is I day I will always be grateful for.

  Ella, my love, your strength and friendship inspire me every day.

  To Sarah Green, the newest addition to my inner circle but someone who I feel as if I’ve known forever. Thank you for punctuating my day with your witticisms and stories. I love you so much and can’t wait for you to visit.

  I have so many friends in this amazing community that I cannot possibly pay tribute to all of them, but you all know who you are and you know how much I love you.

  There are countless bloggers who made this release shine like the North Star in a sky filled with innumerable book releases and I’m so grateful to each one of you. My most special thanks has to go to Jessica @peacelovebooksxo, Lisa @book_ish_life, Ashlee @ashob1229, @b.b.lynnreads, @insanebooklover, @krysthereader, @totallybookish28, @gianadarlingfans and @kerilovesbooks for always sharing and supporting my posts.

  To my sister Grace. This book is for you because I wouldn’t be here without your lifelong support and encouragement. Thank you for always wanting me to be exactly who I am inside.

  To Fiona and Lauren, you two have provided me with enough solace, adventures, laughter, and love to last me a lifetime in the decade plus that I’ve known you two, and it thrills me every day to know we have so many more decades of fun and friendship together. I can’t wait to one day dedicated a book to Mrs. H and Mrs. A, because that’s obviously going to be one of my wedding presents to both of you!

  To my Armie. It seems ridiculous that we’ve only known each other for three years, yet we have enough shared memories to last a lifetime. You make each day even more beautiful to me simply by existing.

  My Albie, I’ve never singled you out in my acknowledgements before, but of all my boys, you are the worthiest of my gratitude. Thank you for putting up with my needy, moody cat-like behaviour and for being my best friend since middle school. I can’t imagine how much poorer my life would be without you.

  As always, to the Love of My Life. In every book I write, I try to find the words to explain how deeply one person can love another. In every book, I fail to bring to life the complexities of a love like ours. I’m so grateful that I have a lifetime to try to do justice to that emotion and commitment. You inspire me every day.

  The Evolution of Sin Trilogy

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  Giselle Moore is running away from her past in France for a new life in America, but before she moves to New York City, she takes a holiday on the beaches of Mexico and meets a sinful, enigmatic French businessman, Sinclair, who awakens submissive desires and changes her life forever.

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  The Affair

  The Secret

  The Consequence

  The Evolution Of Sin Trilogy Boxset

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  The Fallen Men Series

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  The Fallen Men are a series of interconnected standalone erotic MC romances that each feature age gaps love stories between dirty-talking, Alpha Males and the strong, sassy women that win their hearts.

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  Lessons in Corruption

  Welcome to the Dark Side

  Good Gone Bad

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  The Enslaved Duet

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  The Enslaved Duet is a dark romance duology about an eighteen year old Italian fashion model, Cosima Lombardi, who is sold by her indebted father to a British Earl who’s nefarious plans for her include more than just sexual slavery… Their epic tale spans across Italy, England, Scotland and the USA across a five-year period that sees them endure murder, separatio
n, and a web of infinite lies.

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  Enthralled (The Enslaved Duet #1)

  Enamoured (The Enslaved Duet, Book 2)

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  The Elite Seven Series

  Sloth (The Elite Seven Series, #7)

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  Coming Soon:

  Inked in Lies (The Fallen Men, #5)

  AhiL (Dante’s Book)

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  Giana Darling is a USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Top 40 Best Selling Canadian romance writer who specializes in the taboo and angsty side of love and romance. She currently lives in beautiful British Columbia where she spends time riding on the back of her man’s bike, baking pies, and reading snuggled up with her cat, Persephone.

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