by KD Robichaux
Blurb
Dr. Neil Walker, M.D., M.F.T, Ph. D.
I’m not your average therapist. As the founder of Imperium Security—the cover for my mercenary team—I’ve dedicated my entire life to helping heal those who’ve had their power unwillingly taken from them and avenging the ones who didn’t survive.
A decade after creating the perfect team, I’ve now watched as every one of my brothers-in-arms has met and married their perfect match, the special women who were meant for them—because not just any woman is cut out to be the wife of a mercenary. And it was through one of these matches I finally met The One, the woman of my dreams, the one I’ve sworn to help heal and protect above all others.
Astrid Quill, Makeup Artist
It was only supposed to be for the weekend, but then all hell broke loose, and I went from just staying with Doc so my sister could have a worry-free romantic getaway with her honey, to living with him for an entire year.
Oh, boo-hoo, poor me, trapped in this amazing, state-of-the-art mansion with a dog who loves the hell out of me. And not trapped because Neil won’t let me go. Heavens, no. Neil is dreamy and a real-life hero, and he tries everything to help me step foot back into the world. It’s a self-imposed prison, because nothing good ever came of me being out in the wild.
I made a promise nearly a decade ago that I’d never let myself fall in love again. Love brought pain, both emotional and physical, and the last time I was in love, I barely escaped with my life. But I’m finding it harder to resist this magnetism between us, especially when he makes it perfectly clear he wants me and only me.
No, Doc isn’t your average therapist.
So is he the one man who can not only save me from my past, but also heal my heart?
Doc
a Club Alias Novel
KD Robichaux
Copyright © 2020 by KD Robichaux
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.
Also By KD Robichaux
All Links Available *Here*
THE BLOGGER DIARIES TRILOGY
Wished for You
Wish He Was You
Wish Come True
THE CLUB ALIAS SERIES
Confession Duet (Before the Lie & Truth Revealed)
Seven: A Club Alias Novel
Knight: A Club Alias Novel
Doc: A Club Alias Novel
ALSO AVAILABLE IN THE CLUB ALIAS WORLD
Mission: Accomplished (Knight Novella Boxed Set)
Scary Hot: A Club Alias/Until Series Crossover
Moravian Rhapsody: A Club Alias Novella
A Lesson In Blackmail (A Black Mountain Academy Novel)
STANDALONES
No Trespassing
Dishing Up Love
COWRITTEN WITH CC MONROE
Steal You
Number Neighbor
Contents
Trigger Warning
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
Epilogue
A Note From the Author & Acknowledgments
Also by KD Robichaux
Trigger Warning
As with all of my Club Alias novels, please be aware this story may contain triggers dealing with sexual assault.
If this is your first Club Alias book, don’t worry—all of them are completely standalone and can be enjoyed in any order.
My mercenaries were created as a form of my own therapy, my fictional heroes exacting revenge on those who were never brought to justice. So if you are triggered by such things, hopefully Corbin, Seth, Brian, and our beloved Doc will bring you a sort of peace it helped bring me while I was writing.
Love,
KD
Dedication
For my Facebook reader group, KD-Rob’s Mob. For three and a half years, you’ve begged for Doc’s story. I hope I did you proud.
Prologue
Doc
18 years old
“Neil Walker?”
I hear my name, but I can’t seem to make myself acknowledge the voice.
“Neil Walker?”
There it is again, but once more, I can’t lift my arm to show the doctor my presence, and everything around the waiting room suddenly seems to morph.
“Neil Walker? Neil Walker? Neil… Walker? Neil… Wal… ker?” The voice starts out like a bad rendition of that scene in Ferris Bueller, when the teacher, in his infamous monotone voice, checks for attendance. But as my name is called several more times—or maybe just once, only the sound continues to reverberate in my head, spinning out of control until it’s unrecognizable as belonging to me anymore—my world suddenly starts to narrow, the sides, top, and bottom of my line of sight closing in as I get tunnel vision before the world just goes completely black.
“Neil Walker?”
Jesus Christ, after this day, I’m changing my name. I never want to hear it repeated ever again.
I open one eye, and immediately I see all white, then am blinded by a pen light. I try to shove it away, but a soothing hand comes to rest on my arm.
“Honey, let the doctor check you out.” My mom. At the sound of her voice, I relax a fraction and do as she asks. I’d do anything for the woman, including face the most horrible day of my life.
“Can you tell me what day it is, son?” the doctor prompts, and I try to speak, but nothing comes out.
I clear my throat. “Th-Thursday,” I get out.
“Very good. Do you know why you’re here?” he asks.
Of course I fucking know why I’m here.
My girlfriend. The love of my life. The woman I planned on marrying, who I fell in love with the moment I saw her in the second grade when the teacher sat her next to me after getting into trouble for talking to her friends too much. Little did the teacher know it wasn’t just her friends she liked to chat with when she wasn’t supposed to. She’d hold a conversation with anyone who would listen. She never met a stranger. And so she just talked to me instead. About anything. And eventually, with all her questions and stories, she got the shy, quiet boy who had no friends to open up. After that, we were inseparable.
Inseparable for almost ten years.
Until ten months ago, when I was sick with a stupid fucking sinus infection and stayed home from the party one of her friends was throwing while their parents were out of town. I thought I was being a good boyfriend, telling her to go have fun without me. I trusted her, knew I had nothing to worry about. We’d already named our future kids. Already had the acceptance letters to the same college, where we were going to have an apartment of our own near campus. I only had two thousand dollars more to go before I paid off the entire four grand it would take to get her engagement ring out of layaway.
Inseparable until the one night she’d needed me the most.
To protect her from the drunk motherfucker who thought he could do anything he fucking wanted, just because
he was the captain of the football team. Elias Randolph had a god complex, and the girls who threw themselves at him only spiked his narcissism.
He didn’t understand what the word no meant.
Didn’t get the fact that my sweet Shelly wasn’t just playing coy or hard to get.
I don’t know anything about S&M shit, but I’m pretty sure that even people who like it rough don’t actually fight with all their might. They most likely don’t leave claw marks across their lover’s face even in the throes of passion. Certainly, they don’t bite down on the hand over their mouth so hard they take out a chunk of flesh.
Not like my girl did.
She fought as hard as she could, with all her strength, against a guy twice her size. A guy two inches shorter than me. I could’ve taken him had I been there. I know I could’ve.
Who was I kidding? I might be taller than that fuckstick, but I’m a beanpole compared to his footballer’s muscles. But adrenaline would’ve been on my side. And sobriety. I’m a stickler for the rules. I’m not twenty-one yet, so I don’t drink. Simple as that.
Ten months ago.
She immediately called me after he left her there, bleeding from her nose, eye swollen, because he’d hit her when she scratched and bit him. I’d stumbled out of bed, dosed up on NyQuil. At the time, I thanked God I had put my phone on the loudest setting on my pillow right next to my head in case she got a little tipsy and needed a ride home. She never got drunk, but always sipped on a Smirnoff. And she was such a tiny thing, such a lightweight, that just one was enough to make her all giggly.
My mom heard me falling down the stairs as I tried to get my shoes on at the same time I was making my way to the front door, still on my phone. One look at the panic in my eyes and she took my keys out of my hand and we hurried to my pickup. I slurred the address to her, and we got there in record time, all while I stayed on the phone with my sweet Shelly, who cried quietly on the other end of the line.
When we reached the house, the effects of the medicine had mostly worn off, and I ran up the front porch steps, my mom behind me, as we burst through the open door. The house was packed, loud music playing, everyone dancing and laughing, cups and bottles in their hands. I looked around, yelling into the phone so Shelly could hear me over the insanity, asking her where she was.
Mom and I found her in one of the bedrooms, hiding in the closet. When my eyes landed on her, the blood, the bruises, the flesh under her fingernails, her ripped and disheveled clothes, I saw red. I would kill the motherfucker. I swore on my life I wouldn’t stop until he wasn’t just six feet under, but obliterated to the point he wouldn’t even need an urn.
We took her straight to the hospital.
And for ten months, she’d been in therapy.
Apparently, it wasn’t enough.
Because as I lie here in a hospital bed, trying to come up with a “simple” answer to give the doctor in reply to his question of why I’m here…
All I can see are Shelly’s slit wrists and her lifeless eyes.
Chapter 1
Astrid
I was always in love with the idea of being in love. From a very young age—kindergarten, I think—I had crushes. My first boyfriend was Nick, when we were five years old. I can remember us sitting next to each other on the carpet at our teacher’s feet while she read a book to us before naptime, when the boys would then have to go to their side of the room and the girls to the other before lying awake on the blue and red foldable mats. I was restless, longing for the hour to be over so we could then run outside to recess and I could play with the sweet dark-haired boy who was always nice to me.
He moved… or maybe he just had a different class the next year. Our parents weren’t friends, and again, we were five, so it’s not like we knew how to keep in touch. One day, he was my whole reason to go to school, and the next, he was gone.
But that was okay, because in second grade, I met Kevin. And he was just plain dreamy. We were big, bad seven-year-olds, grown as could be, and we—gasp!—exchanged phone numbers. I sat in the kitchen talking on the phone with its long cord stretched across the space so I could sit beneath the table and pretend I had privacy to discuss important matters, like whether Kim Possible or Powerpuff Girls was better. I even saw him once outside of school. His house was on the same road where the town’s little Fourth of July parade was held, and we sat on the sidewalk together and watched all the homemade floats drive by before getting my first hug from a boy and saying goodbye.
I loved him.
I was going to marry him for sure.
But alas, it wasn’t meant to be. He really did move. His dad got a job in some other state, and he was gone.
My next crush came in the fifth grade. That was a weird one for me. He picked on me, and for some reason, it made me like him. I guess because people would tell me “If he’s picking on you, that means he likes you!” And just the idea of a boy liking me made me like him too. Me? You like little ole me? The idea now makes me shake my head… and makes me want to shake eleven-year-old me. But my fifth-grade crush really didn’t like me back. I know this, because I wrote him a note asking him to check the box yes or no if he wanted to be my boyfriend. But after that, at least he stopped picking on me. God only knows why.
Sixth grade came. A whole new school. New people I didn’t just spend the last six years with. New boys to crush on.
First there was Edward… and then Frankie… and then Greg… all so very different, but all of them gave me butterflies and made me try out my signature with each of their last names. And I finally had my first kiss. It was a fast, terrifying peck on the lips in the stairwell after school.
Suddenly, I was addicted. That adrenalin rush… or whatever it was from kissing a cute boy. Man. I wanted more. I wanted like… three kisses back to back. Phew! That would be super exciting.
Seventh grade brought my first real boyfriend. Meaning he asked me to be his girlfriend and we even went to the school dance together. Jed was missing part of his right middle finger up to the first knuckle. An accident from when he was little. It was barely noticeable, but when some bully finally did catch sight of it, he made some weird joke about Jed losing it inside me. I must have teeth down there and bit it off. I didn’t get it at the time, not understanding he didn’t mean my mouth, so I didn’t realize why people thought his dumb joke was so funny. Like, har-har, I bit my boyfriend’s finger off… you’re so funny. I didn’t understand everyone else knew he meant I had teeth in my pussy that bit his finger off while he was fingering me. I didn’t know what fingering was back then, so it went right over my head. It was also very confusing when Jed dumped me because of the bully’s teasing. I loved him. Shouldn’t we have stuck together? Shouldn’t he have taken up for me and told them he’d never done that to me before?
But again, twelve-year-olds. Face… meet palm.
At the end of seventh grade came Henry. I don’t really remember why I liked him. He was the weird quiet kid who always wore a black trench coat all day. He was an amazing drawer. His art was dark, and he liked drawing guns and stuff. Nowadays, that would be a super bright red flag. And who knows, maybe the same thing was going on for him, and because I was sweet to him and basically demanded he be my boyfriend, and sit with me at lunch, and walk me to my classes, and made him be my partner during assignments and projects, that changed the course of action he might’ve taken without someone like me.
I loved him.
We stayed together until the very last day of school, but lost touch over the summer. And when we came back the next school year, we didn’t have any of the same classes. We were still friendly in the hallways, and waved at each other at lunch, but neither made a move to rekindle our “romance.” Years later, I found out he made a name for himself doing custom artistic stocks on rifles. Beautiful work.
Eighth grade brought Zach. Whoooooo-wee. He was super smart, and super cute. He was in my science class, and the teacher sat us together. I didn’t know a damn thing abou
t him, but goodness, he smiled, and it lit up the room. Especially after he got his braces off. He asked me to the dance, and I said yes. Little did I know, his parents were stupid rich. He picked me up in a limo… for the eighth-grade dance.
I loved him. But… I don’t think Zach liked me very much. In fact, I don’t think Zach liked any girl very much. I think Zach liked boys a lot though.
Ninth grade. High school. That brought a whole new batch of boys.
There was Jared. And he’s probably who I would say was my first real boyfriend in the more grown-up sense. We did things after school together all the time. We went to each other’s house, went to movies, even spent New Year’s Eve together at his parents’ friend’s party. This was when I learned a lot more about hormones and physical experimentation. Up until then, I still had only had a couple of pecks on the lips. And I was Jared’s first kiss. But at this New Year’s party, we went to the park next door, where I sat on his lap. And that’s when I discovered what happens to a fourteen-year-old boy when a girl sits on his lap. I also discovered it felt really good when I faced him while sitting on said lap and that hard part of him nestled up against the seam of my jeans and rubbed a part of me I didn’t know existed. Add in my first french kiss, and I was going to marry him for the feelings he sparked inside me.