Heartless: Merciless Book 2

by Winters, W.

  Heartless

  Merciless Book 2

  W Winters

  Also by W Winters

  Sinful Obsessions Series:

  It’s Our Secret - FREE!

  Little Liar

  Possessive

  Merciless

  Standalone Novels:

  Broken

  Forget Me Not

  Sins and Secrets Duets:

  Imperfect (Imperfect Duet book 1)

  Unforgiven (Imperfect Duet book 2)

  Damaged (Damaged Duet book 1)

  Scarred (Damaged Duet book 2)

  Happy reading and best wishes,

  W Winters xx

  Author’s Copyright

  Copyright © 2018 by Willow Winters All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations within critical reviews and otherwise as permitted by copyright law.

  NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author's imagination.

  Any resemblance to real life is purely coincidental. All characters in this story are 18 or older.

  Copyright © 2018, Willow Winters Publishing. All rights reserved. willowwinterswrites.com

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  W Winters Reading Order

  Sneak Peek of Possessive

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Sneak Peek of Forget Me Not

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  About W Winters

  Prologue

  Carter

  Rain is coming. The kind of rain that makes your bones ache. The dark gray sky is streaked with dry lightning that splinters the crack of pain even deeper.

  There’s only so much a man can take. Only so far he can be pushed to the brink and still want to survive.

  First, my mother lost her fight with cancer.

  Then Tyler, my youngest brother, was struck and killed by a car.

  And now, my father has been murdered in cold blood.

  The blame for my father’s death is easy to place. A group of thugs who wanted the highest high, and they were willing to do whatever it took to chase it.

  They didn’t fear my father. Not like they fear me.

  I know that’s why they waited for him to be the one on the street corner, instead of me dealing from the back of the truck. When my mother died, selling drugs was what we needed to do to pay the bills. But months have passed, and it’s more than an income stream now. Dealing, and the fighting that comes with, it is now my obsession.

  I’m not just peddling dope or selling off stolen prescriptions. The drug trade is lucrative beyond anything I could have ever dreamed.

  But Talvery taught me more than anyone else could.

  He taught me where the boundaries were. Taught me what fear is capable of.

  He showed me what it takes to make the pain go away and replace it with something more addictive than heroin. Power is everything.

  And I feel it flowing through my veins.

  Crack! Lightning strikes again, followed by a boom and shaking of the ground.

  Rain is coming, but I’ll stand here for as long as it takes.

  The priest’s voice is a dull monotone and the cries from distant family members, who I’ve only ever seen a handful of times in my life, numb me.

  The casket in which my father’s body lies reflects the first droplets of water. The sprinkling is just the beginning of the downpour threatening to fall any minute now.

  He would still be alive if they’d had the same fear of him that they have of me. If he’d learned the hard lesson Talvery had taught me months ago.

  Revenge will come for the pricks who killed my father. Not because I love him. Or loved, rather. I think I hated him in the last few years. Truly and deeply despised the piece of shit he became when my mother got sick. The realization is freeing.

  That’s not why I’ll hunt down each and every one of those assholes and take a baseball bat to them in their sleep, or a gun to the side of their heads as they creep through dark back alleys, or a knife along their throats in the restrooms of their favorite bars. One by one, I’ll kill them all.

  It’s not because I want revenge or because I don’t want my father’s death to go unanswered.

  No. I’ll murder them because they thought they could take from me. They decided it was worth the risk to take from me. Anger rises in my chest, heating my blood and forcing my hands into white-knuckled fists. I have to clench my teeth in an effort to hide the rage.

  No one will ever take from me again. They won’t take more of my family. They won’t take a goddamn thing from me. Never again.

  The day my father was laid to rest, the demon who had long slept inside of me awakened and destroyed whatever bit of goodness that had lingered in my heart. From that day forward, I decided that everyone would fear me. Simply because it was easier to survive that way, obsessing over the power that fear would bring me.

  I craved their fear the way I used to pray for the pain to go away.

  It was all-consuming and only the tiniest slivers of this new armor ever broke off. Only when painful memories forced me to confront who and what I used to be. But even the smallest shards of my armor were so easily replaced by the blood of those who dared to threaten what I’d become.

  So long as everyone feared me and those closest to me, I would not only survive, I would thrive.

  They needed to fear my brothers.

  And now they need to fear her. My songbird.

  They will. I refuse to let anyone take her.

  No one will take her away from me. No one.

  Chapter 1

  Aria

  I can’t stop shaking. My entire body is consumed by fear and I’m trembling all over. My hands are shaking chaotically, and I can’t make them stop.

  The heavy knife is gripped tighter than I’ve ever gripped anything in my life. I don’t even feel like it’s my hand holding the weapon. Another person’s hand, on top of mine, is forcing it to stay in my grip. To hold it tighter and tighter until it hurts so much that my body begs me to fall to my knees in agony.

  I won’t allow my body to betray me. I can’t drop the knife. I can’t stop myself. The fear and rage are mingling into a concoction that’s far too powerful to deny.

  The blood on the blade drips down onto my hand and feels like fire on my skin. The tension, the anger, the pure rage, and terror all boil in my blood as I stare at the dead, milky white eyes of the monster in front of me.

  I can’t look at Carter. I can’t rip my gaze from the motionless stare of Alexander Stephan.

  I’m waiting for him to blink. To jump up and grab me. The fear I feel is paralyzing, but the adrenaline coursing through me is going to burst my veins. He’s limp in the chair, his throat split wide open althou
gh the blood isn’t gushing anymore. It’s only a slow trickle at this point.

  It reminds me of the way my mother’s throat was slit. The way he did it.

  I remember it so clearly. That scene has haunted my dreams for as long as I can remember. How he stood behind her after he’d abused her. How he didn’t do it slowly; instead it was vicious and violent. It was all I could think to do to him here in this chair and at my mercy when Carter handed me the knife.

  “Aria,” Carter’s voice breaks through my terror and the memory as he commands, “Give. Me. The. Knife.” His words mix with the sound of my heavy breathing.

  Carter’s voice is demanding and on the edge of anger. I barely peek at him, the fear of Stephan waking and taking the knife from me is all too real. Blood seeps into his shirt, and his mangled body is unmoving. But I know he’s going to take the knife back. Stephan will take it and do to me what he did to my mother.

  I squeeze the steel handle harder. I won’t let him.

  Tears prick my eyes as Carter yells at me, his voice booming in the silent room and sending a violent vibration through my chest. It hurts. It all hurts.

  My head shakes in defiance. I shouldn’t disobey him. Bad things happen when I do. The cell. At the thought, my shoulders hunch and my knees go weak, ready to surrender and kneel to the man who’s held me captive yet given me this revenge.

  Given me the means to avenge my mother’s death.

  But I can’t move. “I can’t,” I say, and my words are weak and fall from my lips like a pathetic whimper. “I won’t.” Those two words come out harder and I reach out, swinging my arm violently in the air and slicing into Stephan’s throat again. In my periphery, I see a man back away, and then another.

  A small cry slips through my lips unbidden as Carter wraps his hand around mine, his other hand on my shoulder and keeping me steady as he pries my fingers back. The murmurs of the other men in the room barely register. All I can hear is Carter shushing me, and all I can focus on are Stephan’s eyes. The depths of his irises never seemed as dark as they do now.

  The steady shaking of my shoulders turns violent as I try to move backward, away from the monster, away from his grasp. To run and hide like I did all those years ago.

  But I can’t. Carter won’t let me.

  It’s Carter, I tell myself. Carter is holding me. Focusing on regulating my shaky breathing helps steady me back to reality.

  My left knee falls to the ground first and it makes my right knee slam against the ground.

  “Shh,” Carter shows me mercy. Stealing the knife from me but guarding me against my fears.

  “It’s over,” he whispers as he finally pries the knife from my grasp. And I let him. I let him take it, but I won’t move until I know Stephan is dead.

  “He’ll come for me,” the scared child inside of me speaks. He can’t be dead, because then it would be over. And with Stephan, it’s never over. He’s haunted me for as long as I can remember.

  “She’s fucking insane.” The sharp and disgusted voice of Romano cuts through my thoughts. Thump, thump. My heart beats harder as I remember where I am. “This is insane,” Romano says with anger.

  “Shut up.” Carter’s voice once again tears through my body, thrumming through my blood and for the first time, I close my eyes. But then I remember Stephan is only feet from me, and they fly open again.

  The room falls silent, just as Carter commanded. His fingertips are gentle on my shoulders, one hand on each as he lowers his lips to my ear and tells me, “Go upstairs and wash yourself off.”

  My head shakes on its own, my eyes not moving from the body in the chair in front of me.

  “He’s not dead,” I speak softly as if it’s my excuse. Logically, I know he’s dead. He must be. But the fear that he’s not is so real, so visceral that I can’t contain it. I can’t shut it down.

  Carter’s grip on me tightens as I hear him breathe heavier before huffing a low sound mixed with a grunt of anger. The second he moves away from me, all I feel is the chill of loneliness.

  With one heavy step, Carter kicks over the chair, sending Stephan’s heavy body to the floor with a thud, and again the men back up while Romano says something I can’t hear. It all turns to white noise as Carter kicks the limp body. Stephan’s head falls to the side and I have to move to my right, my knees rubbing against the unforgiving floor as I look into his eyes. Still open, still staring aimlessly.

  “He’s dead, Aria. He’s fucking dead!”

  My head shakes as my pulse quickens, the palms of my hands sweaty. “He can’t be,” I say but my words are weak.

  Carter leans over the dead body, gripping my chin in both of his hands and pulling me closer to him, but I react quickly, terrified that Stephan could reach up. That he would get me if I dared to take my eyes from his.

  “Un-fucking-believable.” Carter’s mutter sends hatred through me. Hatred toward myself and my cowardice. How many years have I woken in sheer horror at the vision of the man lying dead at my feet? Enough that logic betrays me, making me think there’s no way that he’s dead.

  “I’ll give you his head,” Carter says and not understanding, my eyes lift to his for only a moment, but he’s already crouching down, the knife in his hand. He lifts it high in the air and strikes it against the open wound in Stephan’s throat. His muscles tense in his neck as he hardens his jaw. Anger is evident in his strained expression as he strikes again and again, taking his frustration out on Stephan’s neck.

  He holds the knife in place, sweating and panting with both anger and exertion. Carter’s shoe slams against the slick side of the knife. Over and over each thrust of his leg is accompanied with more power, more anger—no, outrage, that Stephan’s neck doesn’t split beneath the blade. My body jolts with each impact, and the awe of watching Carter destroy Stephan by tearing his head from his body slowly helps restore my sanity.

  A crunch that makes my gut twist and turn echoes through the room, as does the deep growl of irritation that rumbles from Carter in a snarl. As Carter lifts his bloodstained shoe, Stephan’s head rolls backward, parted from his body.

  My erratic heartbeat settles as Carter stands tall in front of me. His usually impeccable suit is a wrinkled mess against his tanned skin. He drops the jacket to the floor and rolls up his sleeves one by one, taking his time as he steadies his breathing. I watch every bit of him morph back into the controlled man I know him to be. With blood splattered on his shirt, his hard jawline seeming even harder in the light from the chandeliers above us, Carter has never looked more dominating as he towers over me.

  Men talk around us, but they don’t exist in this moment. Not when Carter’s dark eyes pierce through mine and the shards of silver in them hold me hostage.

  “Upstairs.” The word slips from my lips before he opens his mouth. I watch as his tongue wets his lower lip and he considers me. His eyes leave mine to trail down my body and then back up, and it’s only then I remind myself to breathe. “Upstairs to wash myself,” I repeat Carter’s command from a moment ago, letting my gaze move to Stephan’s beheaded body.

  When I raise my eyes back to Carter’s, I know he was waiting for me to look back up at him.

  I’ve left him waiting.

  I’ve disobeyed him.

  Everything moves around me slowly as I regain what little composure I have left.

  Carter steps over Stephan’s dead body and grips my chin forcefully in his hand. I can’t breathe as he lowers his lips to mine, his eyes never leaving mine and tells me calmly with a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, “He’ll never have power over you again. The only thing you have to fear, is me.”

  Chapter 2

  Carter

  “What the fuck is this, Cross?” Romano feigns anger in his voice, but the terror is unmistakable.

  Picking up Stephan’s untouched and still neatly folded cloth napkin from the table, I wipe the blood from my hands and arms.

  My shoulders rise and fall as I go over the last ten
minutes. So little time for so much to happen. Romano isn’t meant to die tonight, but I lost my composure. If he doesn’t pull his shit together over Stephan dying, I’ll have no choice but to kill him.

  Or, if I think he’ll speak a word that could ruin everything I’ve built and everything I have planned.

  I can’t hide what she does to me. I can’t disguise the power Aria has over me when she doesn’t listen.

  Romano knows too much.

  The thought forces my neck to tilt to the side and crack. And then to the other side as Romano asks again, “You set me up?”

  The indignation in his voice is sickening. As if I owe him any loyalty. Dropping the napkin to the floor, I walk toward Romano, my shoes crushing fallen glass underfoot as I near him.

  “He’s a traitor,” I say simply. “He was a traitor.” Romano swallows and his hands ball into fists and then loosen. His gaze shifts to each person in the room. All of them with me, and none of them with him.

  I could so easily destroy him. Take him out and be done with him. And then I wouldn’t have to worry about the impression I’ve left him with. I wouldn’t have to worry about him telling anyone else what Aria means to me.

  But at that very thought, I know I’ll let him live and walk out of my home unscathed. I want them all to know.