by K A Sands
Craving Truths
Book #3, The Razer Series
Chrissie and Warren
K A SANDS
Copyright © 2019 by K A Sands.
Craving Truths is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All Trademarks mentioned are acknowledged by the author.
Published in the United Kingdom by K A Sands.
All rights reserved. This book, or any portion thereof, may not be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Please contact the author at [email protected] regarding any enquiries.
Cover Image – cokacoka (Stock image)
Cover Design – K A Sands. Image Copyright © 2019 by K A Sands.
Edits, Proofreading & Formatting – DeditS.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chrissie
Ryder
Chrissie
Chrissie
Warren
Chrissie
Warren
Chrissie
Warren
Chrissie
Chrissie
Warren
Chrissie
Chrissie
Warren
Ryder
Chrissie
Warren
Chrissie
Warren
Chrissie
Warren
Chrissie
Warren
Shaun
Chrissie
Epilogue - Warren
Also by K A Sands
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Dedication
If you haven’t the strength
to impose your own terms upon life,
then you must accept the terms it offers you.
Only by acceptance of the past, can you alter it.
T S Eliot
For the readers who waited for Chrissie, with bated breath x
Chrissie
A lifetime of habitually sleeping with one eye open, had me lying stock still underneath the warmth of the duvet, barely breathing, while I strained to hear the noise I’d heard a minute before. My lover’s body turned away from me, pulled in deep breaths, then let out stuttered sighs on each exhale. He didn’t stir, lost to whatever depths of slumber pulled him under. Jealousy was a real thing, his sleep was never broken, unlike mine.
Wide awake now, and feeling uneasy, I rolled my head toward the closed bedroom door, the ominous silence punctuated by the odd thud I’d become markedly aware of not too long ago. The sound was one I knew well, should have comforted me, but the pit of my stomach gurgled furiously with dread. His presence in my flat meant nothing pleasant, especially of late, when words between us for the past year had been harsh and infrequent.
Just the way I preferred it.
There was once a time I would have done anything to fix the gaping void that had grown between us. That time had come and gone, there was no traversing the road we’d travelled. I was all out of fucks to give, pretty much the same as him. If he’d even cared in the first place.
Slipping from the bed with cat like sleekness, I softly padded around the mess of hurriedly stripped clothes that lay scattered over the carpeted floor. I couldn’t help smirking at the memory of our two-minute striptease, such was the eagerness to fall into bed and feel some kind of attachment. Even if it had been in the form of a few half-hearted slaps on the arse, and languid, sloppy mid-sex kisses. We were not creatures of affection, simply lust.
Pulling on jeans and an oversized cream jumper, I stopped at the foot of the bed and took a moment to look over the man I’d been sharing my lonely nights with. Well, six months of lonely nights, I was reluctant to admit I was becoming attached.
Who was counting anyway? Not me.
Sex was all it was. I couldn’t offer any more. He didn’t want more either.
Sighing, I turned, and tip toed from the room, hoping my lover’s oblivious snooze lasted until my father left. Charlie was never the bearer of good news; this morning wouldn’t likely be any different. I hadn’t yet decided if I would entertain whatever crap was going to fall from his mouth this time. The man didn’t know a truth if it smacked him in the face.
Sure enough, the erratic thudding proved me right; my early morning intruder was indeed my father. Sitting larger than life at my battle-scarred kitchen table, one that had seen more than its fair share of sexual exploits. I smirked at his fingers drumming onto the wood until he speared me with a disdainful look that had me feeling all of ten years old again. Ignoring him, I slipped past to fill the kettle on the other side of the room.
“Some random fuck buddy you have in there?”
Snorting at his comment, I continued with coffee. My bed partners were none of his business, he was only sour he wouldn’t benefit from them anymore. “What do you want?”
“Now, now,” he snarled. “That’s no way to talk to your father.”
“Why are you creeping around my house at...” I searched the wall above his head for the wrought iron clock. “Quarter past seven on a Sunday fucking morning?”
“Language,” he warned. Again, I ignored, beyond being scolded like a little girl by the piece of shit currently tainting the air of my kitchen. “I have a problem. Well, perhaps problem is the wrong word.”
Refusing to bite the bait, I decided chocolate cake would be perfect with my morning coffee, and I wasn’t extending any gratitude by offering any to Charlie. Childish? Yeah... All out of fucks, remember? Once done fixing my calorie laden breakfast, I reluctantly took the seat opposite him and twirled the mug in one hand while I cut a piece of cake with a knife in the other.
“What is it you want, Charlie?”
Podgy fingers drummed faster on the table, the nicotine stained tips turning my stomach while he took his time to answer, too long for my liking.
“My supplier needs a favour.” Creaking his neck from side to side, he again stared me down. I wasn’t going to like what came next, his uncharacteristic nervousness gave him away. “Actually, I’m due him a favour.”
His admittance was a weakness, one he hated showing. Charlie never owed anyone anything, never admitted to any vulnerabilities. For him to sneak into my house this early was not boding well for me.
“I can’t help you,” I said, not caring one bit about who or what he owed.
“Ah, but you can, and you will.”
“Nuh uh.” Shaking my head at him, I continued eating my cake. Terrible breakfast food but a comfort, and it gave me something to do to keep up the pretence of not being bothered by his visit. “The days of me doing your bidding are done, dearest Daddy.”
“You can, and you will, Chrissie,” he repeated. “What I gave you, I can take away faster than the way you’re shovelling that shit down your throat. All this,” he waved around my meagre kitchen. “Poof, gone. The club... Thin air.”
“Your threats don’t scare me.”
“My supplier needs a mule. You get a free holiday. Take a girlfriend, or better yet, the piece of arse that’s lying in your bed. All paid for. You just have to bring back what he wants.”
“No.”
Pushing both the coffee and cake from in front of me, my stomach turned sour. He wasn’t fucking around and the fact he was here in my flat telling me what I was going to do, said this was going to get nasty. There was no way to stop his temper from escalating, I’d
seen it too many times before. Charlie didn’t take kindly to being told no.
“You don’t get to say no, Chrissie.”
My next words were forceful, I was done with being the one to do his bidding, fuck the consequences. “No. I said no. Time you left.”
Hobbling up on his cane, he rounded the table and leered down at me. “I’ll give you a few days to think on it. I’d make it more than worth your while, Princess.”
His relaxed voice and the use of the pet name I’d once loved, threw me for a loop. I hadn’t heard it in so long. Closing my eyes, his words enveloped me in a long-forgotten emotion I’d constantly craved, softening some of the hardened shards of my heart. When his lips connected with the top of my head, and his breath whispered through my hair, the sob that tumbled from my mouth was loud and unapologetic.
My head whipped back unexpectedly, as quick and as painfully as the tears that rolled down my face. The chair legs scraped across the linoleum and my head was forced forward and battered onto the table in front of me, the mug crashing to the floor as I cried out in shock.
Charlie, with a handful of my hair, yanked my head backwards again and glared menacingly at me. “You don’t get to say no.”
Another head smash against the table, my nose smarting painfully, blood spurting down my face causing another loud cry to erupt. Grappling for purchase on the table, I was tugged back yet another time, my father holding defiant eye contact. The flow of blood from my nose had me coughing and spluttering, disbelief coursing through me. He’d never struck me before, never once laid a hand on me. Yet here he was, battering my head into a table because for once in my life I’d dared to refuse him. As much as the man disgusted me, I was heartbroken at his treatment.
“I’ll kill you myself, Chrissie. Daughter or not, I need that favour fulfilled. You will do it and you’ll do it with a smile. You understand me?”
The tips of my fingers fumbled over the wood of the table, groping for something, anything that would help get the fucker off me. Charlie’s hand gripped tighter in the long strands of my hair and his other hand snatched at my throat, his fat fingers squeezing the breaths from me.
“Make your choice, dearest daughter,” he growled, an inch from my face.
So, I did.
Him or me.
I swung the serrated cake knife between us, up through the arms he had holding me down and plunged the blade blindly into his chest with as much force as I could muster. The grunt from my father’s mouth told me I’d at least done enough damage to catch him by surprise and pry myself free from his cruel hands.
“Get the fuck off me!”
Rattling in the chair, desperate to get away, to get his hands from me, I withdrew the knife. The blade dropped to the floor the same moment his grip on me loosened and his arms fell away. Staggering backwards, he never took his eyes from me, finally leaning against the opposite counter.
“What did you do?”
My mouth gaped open and closed, like I had an answer for him on the tip of my tongue, one with no sound. All the while I watched my father slump to the floor in terrifyingly slow motion as crimson flowered across his chest.
Fuck... Oh, fuck.
Reality pressed in quick. Springing from the seat, I was on the floor next to him in seconds, my hands attempting to stem the flow of blood. Short wheezes came minutes later, his blood thick and sticky through my fingers, his life leaching from his body. As much as I hated my father, I’d never wished harm on him, especially by my hands. The scene rapidly unfolding was beyond my comprehension, and I kneeled on the floor in bewilderment, hands over his chest, watching the only family I’d ever known take his last breath.
There were no parting words for me. No apologies, no words of wisdom or love, none that would have mattered anyway. His silence told me all I’d ever needed to know, finally a truth.
Falling next to him, I lay my head on his stiff shoulder, my red, bloodied hands in my lap and stared at the soiled knife under the kitchen table. It was a long time before I had sense enough to move and understand the implications of what I’d just done.
I was fucked.
Utterly and gloriously fucked. You can’t kill a crime boss and walk away scott free. How could I kill my own father and hope to ever have a moments peace in my life again?
Panic.
It was time to panic. Then I remembered the man lying in my bed and panicked some more. Phone. I needed my goddamned phone.
Clambering up from the floor, I ran into the hallway, using the wall to steady myself and sought out my bag. Grabbing it from the floor by the front door where I’d dropped it the night before in haste to get to the bedroom, ignoring the blood on my hands, I dove inside, my fingers slipping when it connected with the plastic of the phone casing. With shaking hands, it took several attempts to slide the screen lock over, eventually requiring a wipe on my jumper before I managed. Searching for a number I’d never had the need nor desire to call, I pressed the green button with relief. He’d answer. He had to answer, there was no one else.
The call connected, and I released a cry, my words jumbled and senseless, even to my own ears.
“Chrissie? Is that you?”
Ryder saying my name caught me short and I silenced instantly. With tears streaming down my face, my heart beating a quick tempo tango in my chest, I clutched the phone to my ear. Raising my head, I glanced up the hallway. My heart swooped in a nauseous manner the same time I begged my brother to help me.
“Ryder? I need help. Please.”
The phone fell from my hand and clattered to the floor as I watched my lover standing aghast at the kitchen door, his face as pale as I’d ever seen it.
Warren had woken.
He was standing there in just his boxers, hands against the wooden door frame, leaning as if trying to catch a breath. He blankly surveyed the scene I’d never wanted him to see.
The sound of my phone ringing and vibrating across the wooden floor snagged his attention and his head whipped around in my direction.
“What the fuck?” Warren zeroed in on my bloodied hands. “Chrissie...”
He took two steps toward me before I shook my head emphatically, stopping him in his tracks. “Don’t come near,” I pleaded.
“Who’s coming? Who did you call?” He looked sick to his stomach, who could blame him? Not everyday you saw a dead man on your lover’s kitchen floor.
“My brother.”
Sounding foreign on my lips but comforting, it was the first time I’d said the word out loud. I didn’t know him; only knew the kind of man he was from the things I’d heard. There had been no one else to call.
“Jesus.” He shook his head, hanging it a moment later. “I can’t be here. I can’t be involved with this.” Warren had the decency to sound regretful. I reserved no anger for him wanting to get the fuck out of here.
“I know.” I wanted to get the fuck out of here too.
Who in their right mind would want to be involved in the shit show that was my life? Not someone who was only looking to get his dick wet, that’s for sure.
Hands on hips and head tipped back, he blew out a breath. “Ryder’s my boss.” I knew that. He was right, he had to leave. This was such a mess. “I can’t be here, not like this. I have a kid, Chrissie”
That I didn’t know. His confession sank in deep and I bowed my head, refusing to look at him. I felt shame at having dragged a decent man into my life of bullshit. “I’m sorry.”
When I finally looked up, Warren was hunched in front of me, his hands covering mine. “I have a son. Things with his mother are ugly. It’s me who should be sorry for not having said anything sooner.” He seemed to war with himself for a moment, coming back to his senses when my phone rang again. Leaning in, he laid a soft kiss against my lips then nodded his head. “Okay...” he said to himself. “Okay.”
Moving away, he picked up the vibrating phone and sat with his back to the wall opposite me as he placed it to his ear, his eyes never once wav
ering from mine. “Ryder. It’s Warren.”
Ryder
The number lighting up my phone wasn’t one I recognised. Eight thirty on a Sunday morning and as the saying went - good news waited until lunch. I answered the annoyance and as much as I’d hoped and prayed she’d call one day, I wasn’t prepared for the distress pouring down the line into my ear when I connected the call and realised who it was.
Chrissie was making no sense whatsoever. I got the words blood, Charlie and help through the garble of sobs and not much else.
“Chrissie? Is that you?”
The deadly silence that ensued sent chills down my spine. She was in trouble, big fucking trouble if she was citing Charlie’s name and calling me, of all people.
“Ryder? I need help. Please.”
The call disconnected, the silence abrupt, and I was up and out of the bed in the next second, dropping the phone back on the bedside table. Taylor sat up with a questioning look, it was all I could do not to climb back into bed and reassure her. I didn’t, it wouldn’t help me get to Chrissie any quicker.
“She’s in trouble.”
“Shit!” Taylor climbed from the bed. “What can I do, baby?”
Pulling on the previous days jeans, I turned my back on her while searching for the t shirt I’d flung on the chair at the other side of the room. “Call Lucca, tell him I’ll pick him up in five minutes.”
Once dressed, I snatched up my phone and rang the number back Chrissie had called me on, getting no answer. Making my way around the bed, I grabbed my wife in a crushing hug and told her to get dressed, I was taking her and Emily to Lucca’s. I didn’t want her and my kid alone, not when I had no fucking clue what was going on, she’d be better with her sister, Laura.
“Lucca’s getting Shaun up too.” She glanced down at her phone then back up to me.
“Okay, baby. Hurry up.”
She smiled and rested her hand on my chest. “Whatever it is, bring her home. Be the family that young woman needs.”
My better half was a smart woman. “I’ll try, I promise.”