Alive

by Victoria Johns

  Alive

  Soul Mates Series - 3

  Victoria Johns

  Copyright © 2017 Victoria Johns

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places or events are entirely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-1976439933

  ISBN-10: 1976439930

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Reviews

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Victoria Johns

  Rebecca

  Life throws everyone a curve ball.

  Everyone.

  I try and look upon this with some degree of philosophy. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t appreciate the good. If we didn’t get that ball chucked our way occasionally, we wouldn’t understand our own strength and ability to deal with stuff so we could move on.

  My life until a few years earlier had felt like one big curve ball.

  So curvy and bally that I could juggle, play soccer and boomerang it back at anyone with a moment’s notice, no hesitation and no questions asked.

  I grew up in some shitty places, and as a family, my mom, dad and I would up sticks and move on often, depending on two main factors. The first was how much money my mom owed the local drug dealer. She’d had a problem coping with, well, everything since she was a teenager and that grew into something more desperate in her early twenties. Before she or anyone else around her knew it, she’d progressed to hard drugs. I believed I was the result of a night of hard drugs, and seeing the stuff she was into, it was a wonder she’d managed to carry me to full term, let alone produce a healthy baby at the end of it. During the odd time she’d been up for a lucid conversation, she told me that her pregnancy had held some of her longest clean spells. Whatever. All I ever knew growing up was that nine times out of ten, drugs won and I had to form my own coping mechanism. It was simply known as ‘look after me’.

  She had no idea who my real dad was. He was just releasing sperm into a willing receptacle. That time of her life sounded scary, which meant her recollection was sketchy at best and probably to be avoided. The more she aged and carried on taking on drugs, the more the years from the past faded from her memory. If she made it to old age, I reckoned she’d have about a decade of memories to call upon. By then I’d probably be a figment of her imagination, too. My mom’s brain capacity worked like a trade off deal—she dropped one day from her past just to see another in the present. I never thought of her as having a future. I reckoned she was already on borrowed time. It was bleak, but I’d accepted it a long time ago, and if her life didn’t go on, mine would. I hoped.

  So, my sperm donor was a mystery I had no desire to solve, but the guy who raised me was a contradiction in terms. He had an addiction, but because it wasn’t drugs or alcohol, it meant I had at least one sensible parent around for some of my early years. Bob was a gambler—tables, cards, roulette, dice, sports fixtures, horses, just about anything. I was fairly sure he’d ask for odds on what color car would come around the corner next if he’d thought he could get them.

  As a guy, he was great. He spoiled me when he was on a winning streak and took an interest in my schooling when he was at home. If I considered the alternatives of who my mom could have hooked her needy claws into, I knew I’d lucked out. For some reason, he loved her whether she was high or not, and the guy completely adored me. I often wondered whether that was why she was weak as she was. Bob would be there for her no matter what, and because there was no danger of losing him, she had no incentive to change and get clean. I tried not to think about the fact that the person she’d carried inside her, pushed out of her body and been gifted with was not enough of an incentive to sort her shit out.

  So… Bob’s addiction was the other reason we had to do the moonlight flit. Owing a loan shark was just as dangerous as owing a drug dealer, and it all boiled down to degrees of danger. His desperate need to place a bet meant we ended up in some seedy, horrible places, close to casinos or ‘the action’, as he called it, with a glint in his eye.

  I expected it after a while. The sudden need to move and start again all the time meant that school became just a place to learn and gather information for the next place we’d end up. It was never about settling in or making friends. There was just no point.

  I made one concession in my attempt to be a normal high school girl. I always tried out for the cheer squad. I had moves and a natural gymnastic ability, and my body became shaky when it was wasted. If I was honest, it made me less popular, and in the end, I found it easier to remain alone. The popular girls hated me because I was the new girl who had skills they could only dream of and it always stuck in their throats to give me a spot on the team. The less popular girls hated me. I would breeze into school and take the spot they’d been working their asses off for. The jocks on the football team saw me as fresh meat and a challenge, which just about pissed off every other school class system left. It was all a byproduct of me and I cared less and less the older I got. I was a gifted dancer who could move like a trained professional, and everyone either loved me or hated me. I was marmite. Jealously was a bitch and I learned quickly that life was simpler if I did my own thing and just went home at the end of the day.

  Mom’s addiction threw me a lot of curve balls growing up and I coped with those, but it was Bob’s addiction that threw me what could only be classed as a curve ball bobbing on top of a tsunami wave. His stupid greed landed him in debt with some crazy Mafia crew, and everyone’s answer to this problem was for me to work it off for him.

  At sixteen years old, I found myself luring marked targets into situations where they were open to blackmail.

  A goddamn, motherfucking honey pot.

  I had a choice—either Bob lost his limbs, slowly and painfully, or I joined the payroll of Guiseppe Acerbi, head of the Acerbi family mob. I worked as an exotic dancer at Sunset Strip, and because of my tender years, anyone who wanted a private dance was lured into a room wired for filming. I worked my ass off, literally, to get them to commit sexual acts with a minor, and these enticed, important people were then extorted for the good of the mob.

  There wasn’t a word awful enough to describe the things I did.

  It was a dark period in my life, and I saw no way out that didn’t end in Bob paying his debt in the worst way. The Acerbi family ruled by fear and had a renowned reputation that rivaled stories Hollywood film directors would have killed to tell. I was a commodity and I knew my place, and even though they never touched me personally, I was never stupid enough to push things to the point where I could end up facing the same fate as Bob.

  When I was escorted to work at night, I never knew who my mark would be. I just did as I was told. I danced in the special room they put me in, did some unspeakable things I was sure I’d never forget, and then went home to scrub
myself clean. I functioned by switching my brain off and powering through the nightmare. I avoided real life, newspapers and even the internet afterwards, just in case I saw a familiar face looking back at me. The first time I saw one, an exploited guy I knew I’d helped destroy, I wept uncontrollably and decided that detachment was the only way I was going to survive.

  Bob couldn’t ignore the fact that I was working off his debt and the guilt was killing him. It must have been hard to watch his innocent step-daughter go to school one day and know the town car collecting her from the house at night was taking her to a shit hole, where she degraded herself to work off his failures.

  It took less than a month for the pressure to get to him. One night, after the heavies had dropped me back home, I walked into the house and found it empty. The odd, threadbare piece of furniture was still in place, but anything that would fit in my parents’ beat up Toyota had been taken. Clothes and drawers had been emptied and packed. Even my own room had been overturned. Praying that my meager savings hadn’t been discovered, I raced to the corner of the room and knew straight away that they were gone. The scrap of carpet I used to cover a hole in the wooden floorboard had been displaced. The few hundred dollars in tips that the club let me keep was gone and now I was left facing no choice but to keep working for them.

  At sixteen, I was abandoned in a shell of a house, and with Bob now missing, I knew I wouldn’t be leaving the clutches of the Acerbi’s anytime soon.

  My life became a series of routine repeats and had I not faced many curve balls as a kid, I’m sure I would have crumbled sooner, but that wasn’t the case. One lucky night, as I positioned a guy into the view line of the hidden cameras, I caught a break. He saw the truth in my eyes and the fear festering in my soul. This guy was different, I could feel it, and for the first time I trusted someone other than myself. After confessing the awful truth, less than a few weeks later I was offered a lifeline.

  The chance to disappear and start over.

  And I snatched it with both hands.

  I put my life in the hands of the stranger, took the envelope containing cash, an emergency contact number and a new identity before physically feeling like the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders.

  Raven the cheerleader, dance mad, forced stripper and Acerbi honey pot disappeared and started her new life over, a thousand miles away.

  Rebecca Monroe was enrolled back in a GED program to finish off her education and she depended on no one. She found a small, safe place to live that she loved and called her own.

  Gradually, high school morphed into a college scholarship, where I studied Dance and Performing Arts. College gave me the chance to put more distance between me and my old life, so I moved what felt like another thousand miles away and became a regular student.

  Being forced into stripping had tarnished dancing for me for a long time and I’d missed it. Having discipline and control over my body, and being able to study it felt like a gift from the Gods, up until I did something stupid.

  I got a job bartending in a popular nightclub.

  Bartending turned into dancing when they were a dancer short, and I was fairly convinced that was where it all went wrong.

  I had a feeling I was being watched and followed, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t shake it off.

  For the first time in years, I dug deep into my shoebox of memories, found the emergency contact number and dialed.

  “Yeah,” the gruff male voice answered.

  “Uh… hi, it’s Rebecca,” I said nervously.

  “Rebecca?” The guy sounded less than impressed about being disturbed.

  “I mean…” I hated saying it. She was dead. “Raven. I think I’m being followed.”

  He was silent for what felt like forever, and the sounds of small children disappeared from the background. “Go buy a burner phone and text me the number. Follow your normal routine, but try not to be alone. Fuck, stay home if you can. Lock your doors and windows when you’re in the house. I know where you are and someone will be with you as soon as I can get them there. Until then, you text me often, like every few hours and let me know you’re okay.”

  It didn’t feel like he was asking me so I agreed immediately. “Will do.” The feeling of nervousness was dissipating rapidly and relief was sweeping through me. I was overwhelmed that he was taking this seriously.

  “Be careful. Public places only and stay near people when you go out.”

  I realized he’d ended the call when I was listening to dead air all of sudden, but his social graces didn’t bother me because I knew I’d done the right thing.

  My guardian angels already knew where I was. They’d promised to keep tabs on me. I’d trusted Agent Ross Wilkes and Jonas Drakeson before, so I had to do it again now.

  The fear inside me was abated just a bit because I knew help was on its way.

  Jake

  What in the ever loving fuck was wrong with my head?

  The need to force my eyes open was strong, but I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to do it. I knew the very second I allowed light to seep between the cracks of my eyelids I was going to be begging for someone to glue them shut again, kill me and put me out of my misery.

  I ran my furry tongue over my dry lips and knew instantly that the pain I was suffering was completely self-inflicted. My mouth felt all cottony and I’d have given my left bollock for a glass of cool water.

  I stretched my achy limbs out wide and long, feeling soft, fluffy cotton sheets around me. Without even looking at them, I could tell they weren’t my bed sheets. They were too soft and smelt way too clean. The pillow supporting my banging head was plump, and as I braved the chore of opening my eyes, I regretted it immediately. The shock of blinding light confirmed that there were no drapes drawn in the room, and I had no fucking idea how I’d ended up there. Nothing I looked at jogged my memory, and even though I hooked up often, a slight sense of worry still walked its way through my body.

  The worst part of all this, the same part I always managed to screw up, was that I had clearly fucked someone last night. I just couldn’t remember who. My body knew I’d performed—my abs and thigh muscles were tender and my dick felt well-used and nasty. Yeah, it had that post shag-fest crustiness to it—a sure sign that whoever last night’s lucky lady had been had enjoyed herself and got off, too.

  It had been a regular night out for me in Purps nightclub. It was the one place Hawkstown had that offered me what I wanted—women.

  My routine was tried and tested. Hit the place, turn on the charm and get my hands full of something pert and playful. I’d had to change my game up just a little bit recently, though, as both my wingmen had deserted me, so now I was operating as a lone ranger. I was more than capable. It just took me some time to adjust.

  Lacey, my best friend had got together with an older guy.

  Shit! Did that cause some drama.

  Helping her through that was probably the one decent thing I’d done right recently. Tommy Sevens was a lucky motherfucker—lucky to have her, and lucky he still had his head on his shoulders after all the trouble it caused. Lacey was a diamond, and even though it took him some time to get his head from up his ass, they were now an inseparable couple.

  Jack, my other trusted confidante, was my twin brother. He was my mirror image in every visual way. Only those who knew us on a true base level could tell us apart. Our adoptive parents, Barbara and Harrison Griggs, had raised us from the age of two and were well aware of all our differences. Our foster brother and sister, Jonas and Dolly, had also helped raise us, and even though we were close, we all lived our own lives. Jo and Dolly were now married. Don’t ask. Apparently, you can’t help who you fall in love with. They were good people and quick to figure out the differences between me and Jack, usually because we were pulling some prank, or Jack was covering for me, or we were bored and thought we’d trade personalities for a day.

  Jack had also been dating a pretty girl, Meesha. He’d picked h
er up at some place out of town and went about courting her in the traditional way. You know, dinner, movies and the like before they became official and exclusive.

  That’s where we differed. He wasn’t the rogue lover of women that I was.

  Jack had become more sensitive, a well thought out kinda guy with a manageable temper. We had once treated women the same but it grew old for him quickly. It took a lot to get him riled up, and I had an impulsive streak a mile wide with a temper that was always bubbling somewhere just underneath the surface, ready to rock up and deal with any situation. I was comfortable picking up a woman at the club and fucking her against the outside wall if she’d let me. Harsh, I know, but it was less messy than the fucking stormy waters I’d found myself needing to wade through.

  So, with Jack also out of action, I was a second wingman down. He was wooing Meesha, and I was back to my trusted fuck ‘em and flee method. It had served me well. They understood the deal. I didn’t lead them on or give them false hope. What I gave them was all they were going to get.

  I’d fucked up this time, though. I didn’t usually do the sleepover thing after I’d been with them.

  I glanced around the room, willing the décor, pictures or little cute ornaments to come into focus so I could figure out where the fuck I was. The empty bed next to me was warm and the scent emanating from the pillow was familiar, but I still felt too fucked up to place it. Urging my body to cooperate and shift to the side of the bed, I glanced at the floor and saw clothes strewn everywhere. Mine were intermingled with hers, and the red lacy bra and matching panties stirred up fun memories of removing them, but not, unfortunately, who I removed them from. I could hear a shower running in what I assumed was an en-suite across the room.