Ravaged By Them
Descent Into Darkness
Kelli Callahan
Copyright © 2019 by Kelli Callahan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
1. Rourke
2. Anabelle
3. Brody
4. Anabelle
5. Anabelle
6. Rourke
7. Anabelle
8. Brody
9. Anabelle
10. Rourke
11. Anabelle
12. Brody
13. Anabelle
14. Rourke
15. Anabelle
16. Brody
17. Anabelle
18. Rourke
19. Anabelle
20. Brody
21. Anabelle
22. Rourke
23. Anabelle
24. Brody
25. Anabelle
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Rourke
“He wants us to do what?” I raised my eyebrows in shock.
“Kill him.” My best friend, a muscled brute named Brody, nodded as he spoke.
“We’re not murderers.” I stood up and walked closer to the bars that separated us.
“We might as well be.” He exhaled sharply. “What do you think we’re going to have to do once we get to prison? We’re going to be the biggest fuckers in that place, and you know some asshole is going to push his luck.”
It’s been that way my whole life—someone always wants to fuck with the big guy—try to prove they’re a man.
“Yeah, and I’ll do what I have to if it means I wake up in my cot the next morning instead of getting put in a morgue freezer. But murder? We might as well just give away what little piece of our humanity we have left.” I shook my head angrily.
As if what happened a year ago didn’t do it already…
“It’s a lot of money and if we can get out of here—we’re going to need it. It’s untraceable and sitting in an account. All we have to snap that mother fucker’s neck.” Brody motioned across to the man sleeping in the cell across from us.
“Fuck…” I sighed. “What’s his name anyway?”
It doesn’t really matter. I’m sure as hell not going to murder him.
“Josef Weber. He’s some investment mogul fuck, but I guess he decided that he wanted to be a real criminal instead of just ripping people off with his shady business shit.” Brody shrugged. “You remember those two rich assholes that were in here? The ones that got special treatment? He killed their brother.”
“Ah yeah, those guys…” I nodded. “I kept thinking the younger one was going to open his mouth and get my fist shoved in it—I guess they got out before he made the biggest mistake of his life.”
“I heard one of the guards talking. Apparently, this Weber guy set them up.” Brody shrugged. “Now they want vengeance.”
“Don’t we all.” I shook my head back and forth. “Too bad we can’t buy our way out like they can.”
“If we had that money, we might be able to. We could at least track down the bitch that put us in here and shut her mouth before she gets on the witness stand and buries us.” Brody looked over at me, and then back to Josef Weber. “Just look at him—he’s soft as fuck. He’s just going to be someone’s bitch when he gets to prison. He’d probably beg us to break his neck if he knew what hell was waiting on him in the big house.”
“Maybe.” I nodded and walked back to my cot. “That doesn’t make it our problem though.”
I’m not the right hand of justice, nor do I want to kill someone just to make a buck. If I wanted to do that, I could have done it a long time ago—and I probably wouldn’t be sitting in this fucking cell.
I stretched out on my cot and stared at the ceiling. My mind immediately started thinking about her. Anabelle Prescott, the princess in Louboutins. I loved her once—thought she loved me—but that was all a lie. I found out the hard way that she was nothing more than a stone cold bitch with ice in her veins. She’d do anything to save her Daddy—even if that meant pointing the finger at Brody and me when the patriarch of her family was the one holding the smoking gun. Of course, they’d believe her over us. Her lies put handcuffs on our wrists—and our trial wasn’t going to be anything more than a sham, so the state could feel like justice was served.
We were convicted before the body was cold on the floor. I was barely more than a thug—not even a made man because I wouldn’t squeeze the trigger for my boss just because he told me to jump. Brody was from the wrong side of the tracks, and all he knew was violence. Two lowlifes—the scourge of society in their eyes. Fuck my dreams—fuck the things I wanted—it didn’t matter to them. Princess Anabelle’s Daddy dearest just needed a couple of assholes to a hang a guilty verdict on before someone realized he had a lot more to gain by killing his business partner than either of us.
I bet Princess Anabelle got a new pair of those red-soled shoes for doing it too—not like I was ever going to be able to buy her any.
The next day
“Rourke, come here.” Brody walked over and motioned for me to come closer.
“What’s up?” I stood and walked to the bars.
“It’s going down at three o’clock—the guard just handed me this note.” He held up a piece of paper that had the time jotted in blue ink.
“We’re not…” I looked over at Josef Weber. “We’re not killing him.”
“Just be ready.” He nodded. “We don’t have to do anything to him, but if all hell breaks loose, we might get a chance to run—probably the only one we’ll get before they send us to a prison.”
I hated to admit that Brody was right, but I was terrified that he wasn’t telling me everything. Why would a guard be planning something if we hadn’t agreed to the deal? If they were going to create a distraction, it wasn’t so we could escape—it was so that Josef Weber would be laying on the floor when order was restored.
I understood the need for vengeance—the call of darkness that consumes everything around you, including rational thought. I just wasn’t the type of man that would pay off someone else to handle my business—if I thought someone deserved to be turned into a corpse, then I’d do it myself.
Except I didn’t—not when Anabelle betrayed me. I froze. I saw those beautiful emerald eyes filling with tears and they trapped me.
“It’s almost time.” Brody looked over at me—pacing in his cell like an animal that could taste freedom on his breath.
“Don’t do anything stupid.” I glared at him. “If we get a chance to run—we run. That’s it.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “We run.”
At three o’clock there was some sort of power surge that swept through our cell block, then another one—then darkness. All of the jail cells opened. The emergency lights turned on, but it was absolute chaos. The kind of chaos that would have resulted in a riot if we were actually in prison, but we were just in county lock-up where people got held before trial—or if their sentence wasn’t long enough for them to see the inside of a real prison.
“Come on!” Brody motioned to me. “This is our chance.”
“Fuck.” I exhaled sharply.
This will be our only chance to run. We have to take it. We’re innocent men—but we can’t change our future from inside of a jail cell. Running is the only option we’ve got if we want to find a way to prove our innoc
ence.
Some of the other guys in jumpsuits were taking advantage of the chaos to act like idiots. The strangest part—eerie perhaps—was that no guards had walked down our block to try and restore order. They should have been there immediately, handing out beatings until everyone was back in their cage where they belonged.
I was the first one out of my cell and I immediately headed for the exit. I looked over my shoulder to make sure Brody was behind me—but he wasn’t. He was standing outside of his cell—staring right at Josef Weber. I turned to run back, but other prisoners were starting to come out of their cells. Even if they weren’t interested in chaos, they saw the opportunity.
“Brody—don’t!” I yelled as I tried to push my way through the mob that was tossing mattresses from their cots and making a lot of noise.
It was too late. Brody wasn’t going to listen—he never had any intention of walking out of that jail without collecting the bounty on Josef Weber. I watched in horror as he entered the cell and grabbed the older man by the throat.
I pushed one of the prisoners in front of me out of the way, but that just made him angry—and apparently, a couple of the other guys were his friends. Suddenly, Josef Weber’s last few moments on earth weren’t my biggest problem.
“You wanna fuck with us, big man?” The larger man chuckled, and then he swung.
I had been fighting so long that I didn’t have to think about my response. It was just instinct. I caught the fist aimed at my skull, twisted it in my hand, and snapped the guy’s arm like a twig. He screamed in pain, hit the floor, and then his buddies came at me. I ducked a punch—crushed a rib underneath my knuckle. That allowed the other guy to hit me in the back—three shots—right in my fucking kidney. He had a fast punch—probably would have been a Golden Gloves champion if he had any technique—might have been fast enough to make me bleed if he had a shank in his hand.
“Son of a bitch!” I spun around, grabbed him by the face, and slung him sideways.
I heard the crunch of his skull when it bounced off the cell and several of his teeth rolled towards my shoe. Three bodies on the floor—all clutching something that was not going to heal overnight. The rest of the prisoners backed off, so I turned my attention to Brody. He was no longer holding Josef Weber by the throat. He was looking down at him. Weber was on the ground and Brody looked like a man possessed with rage.
“Brody—what the fuck.” I ran over and pushed Brody, feeling my anger rise.
“Let’s go.” He growled under his breath and started walking towards the exit.
I couldn’t stay, even if I was pissed. We had one opportunity in front of us and we had to take it. Brody kicked the door open at the end of our block and I finally saw why the guards weren’t doing anything. The door that connected our block with the others was jammed—and they were stuck on the other side.
Those two rich assholes must have paid a lot of people off to make sure Josef Weber didn’t see daylight again. Fuck.
Other prisoners were starting to come through the door Brody kicked open—they were heading for freedom too. We ran towards the door that separated us from the outside world and it was unlocked. Convenient—too convenient really, but I couldn’t take time to think about that. I didn’t know how much time we had, and we needed to get put as much distance between us and the jail as possible before reinforcements showed up to help the guards that were trapped.
“Let’s hotwire one of those cars.” Brody motioned to the parking lot once we were outside.
“Okay.” I nodded quickly and followed him.
It didn’t take Brody long to rip open the dash and tap the right wires together to start the engine. Then we were moving—the engine screaming as Brody pushed the pedal to the floor. We needed to find a place to hide out because they would definitely be looking for us. Luckily, there were other prisoners on the loose as well, so we wouldn’t be the only ones they were looking for.
“Why did you have to kill him?” I looked over at Brody. “Why couldn’t we just get the fuck out of there?”
“I couldn’t leave a million dollars on the table—no fucking way.” Brody shook his head back and forth. “He was guilty—he got what he deserved.”
“Are you sure about that?” I exhaled sharply. “There are a lot of people that would say the same thing about us if we were laying on that fucking floor with that cold-dead look in our eyes.”
“What do you think we’re going to do when we find Anabelle? Do you think we’re just going to scare her so much she keeps her fucking mouth closed? Josef Weber won’t be the only coffin on our conscious, Rourke—he’s just the first.” Brody’s lips twisted into a snarl.
Maybe he’s right.
Maybe we’re not so innocent after all.
But at the end of the day, there’s only one person to blame for everything that has happened to us—everything that’s going to happen now that we’re free.
And her name is Anabelle.
Anabelle
“Stop following me!” I turned towards the man that was walking a few paces behind me and stomped my foot. “I don’t need a bodyguard!”
“Sorry, Miss Anabelle. I don’t take orders from you.” He shook his head back and forth. “Your father says I have to go everywhere you do.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m about to walk into this store and buy some sexy lingerie. Are you going to watch me try it on?” I tilted my head to the side.
“I guess I am,” He chuckled and shrugged.
The man following me had a name—Steve. He was a reformed bad boy in a suit—as reformed as anyone could be when they worked for my father. He was hot, but I didn’t like men that fell on their knees in front of my father like submissive dogs. That’s all Steve really was. He would probably even bark on command if he was told to do so.
“Good morning, Miss Prescott.” The woman behind the counter greeted me with a smile as I entered the store. “It’s good to see you again. How can I help?”
“I want to try on a few things.” I looked toward the back of the store. “I’ve got a date this weekend and I’m looking for something sexy in case things go well.”
“Of course.” She nodded quickly and walked out from behind the counter. “Let me show you what just came in.”
“Perfect.” I looked over my shoulder at Steve, gave him a wink, and then followed the woman towards the lingerie section.
I doubted my date was going to end with my dress on the floor, but I liked any excuse to shop—especially when I got to buy stuff that would make my father lose his mind. A few charges on his credit card for sexy lingerie would definitely do it. It wasn’t like he could say anything about it. He lost that right the moment he became the submissive dog at my feet—the night he begged for my help. The night he forced me to choose my family over the man that I loved.
“This one was designed by Kim Kardashian.” The woman turned around with a pretty black negligee in her hands.
“That means everyone has it.” I rolled my eyes. “I don’t want my date to see something he saw on the last girl he coaxed out of her dress.”
“Absolutely, of course.” She nodded and put the negligee back on the rack. “How about—one of these? They’re probably not designed by anyone you’ve heard of, but they’ll be all the rage in a few months once they hit the runway.”
“You got them early?” I tilted my head as I looked at the selection.
“We did—the only store in Chicago that has this line in stock right now.” She beamed with pride.
“Okay.” I nodded quickly. “I’ll take them all—I assume you still have my size on file.”
“Of course.” Her smile got wider. “You don’t want to try anything on?”
“Nah, I don’t need to. Those are perfect.” I smirked and turned towards Steve, who was waiting by the door. “Make sure your label is prominently displayed when you have them delivered to my house.”
“Yes ma’am.” She walked towards the register. “We’ve got your father�
��s credit card on file, so if you’ll just sign here…”
I considered trying on a few of the pieces just to make Steve uncomfortable, but it wasn’t worth it. The real reaction I wanted would happen at home—when all of the boxes got dropped by the front door and my father saw them. He’d have to wonder what kind of slut his little princess had turned into—and whether or not it was his fault.
Tormenting him had become my only real source of pleasure because he couldn’t say a damn thing to me anymore. All he could do was internalize that anger—until the trial—until my testimony put the two men that had been accused of killing his business partner in prison.
But they didn’t, and I was the only one who knew who really pulled the trigger that night—the only one that anyone would believe at least.
“Are we heading back home now?” Steve followed me as I exited the store.
“No, I’ve got some more shopping to do.” I looked over my shoulder. “Keep up if you can.”
I planned to do a lot of damage before I returned home—I guess you could call it retail therapy. It took my mind off of things and I certainly needed to think about something besides the trial. If I let my mind wander—or took the fake smile off my lips—I would see Rourke’s eyes again—that look of pain when he stared betrayal in the face. It haunted me enough when I was able to close my eyes and the nightmares had a grip on my soul. I certainly couldn’t face it in the daylight—so I wore my fake smile, pretended to be happy, and torment those around me just so I could be surrounded by other miserable people.
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