by Lake, Keri
THE VIGILANTES COLLECTION
Keri Lake
Copyright © 2020
All Rights Reserved.
AUTHOR’S NOTE This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Cover Art © Hang Le
Editing by Julie Belfield
Other Books By Keri Lake
JUNIPER UNRAVELING SERIES
JUNIPER UNRAVELING
CALICO DESCENDING
KINGS OF CARRION
GOD OF MONSTERS (COMING SOON)
SONS OF WRATH SERIES
SOUL AVENGED
SOUL RESURRECTED
SOUL ENSLAVED
SOUL REDEEMED
THE FALLEN (A SONS OF WRATH SPINOFF)
THE SANDMAN DUET
NOCTURNES & NIGHTMARES
REQUIEM & REVERIE
STANDALONES
RIPPLE EFFECT
MASTER OF SALT & BONES
VIGILANTES SERIES
RICOCHET
BACKFIRE
INTREPID
BALLISTIC
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Contents
RICOCHET
Dear Reader
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
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
BACKFIRE
Author’s Note
It Backfires
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
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Epilogue
BALLISTIC
Dear Reader
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
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Epilogue
FREE BOOK!
Other Books By Keri Lake
About the Author
RICOCHET
Keri Lake
Copyright © 2015
All Rights Reserved.
AUTHOR’S NOTE This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Cover Art © Ryan Whalen
Photo © Chris Davis, Specular Photography
Model: Chris Williamson
Editing by Julie Belfield
But from each crime are born bullets that will one day seek out in you where the heart lies.
-Pablo Neruda
SPERAMUS MELIORA
Dear Reader
First, thank you so much for picking up my first contemporary romance. I typically write paranormal, and admittedly, venturing into a new genre was a bit daunting. However, I enjoyed writing about mortals, as much as my beloved immortals, and look forward to crafting more contemporaries in the future.
If you’re picking up one of my books for the first time, I want to caution that I’m one of those show versus tell kind of writers. Therefore, I’m not just telling you that my hero is a ruthless killer and a sexually charged alpha. You can expect to find graphic violence and strong sexual content throughout the book.
Trigger warning for self-harm, and drug abuse.
This book would not have been written without the help of my beloved musical muses. Check out my website for all of my playlists!
Thank you for your interest in my writing.
Much love,
Keri
Prologue
You never forget the sound of gunfire. How the ringing drowns the screaming inside your head. No matter how loud, it's always louder, until the bullet hits its mark in an explosion of pain. Unrelenting fucking pain that sears through the flesh and leaves a gaping hole in its wake. Blackness settles in, and for one fleeting moment of bliss, all is silent.
You become numb, traipsing the fine thread between life and death.
I wish the bullet had killed me.
At least, if it had, I'd be certain of three things:
I could forget the dullness of her eyes as the blood drained out of her body.
I'd no longer hear the promise that I whispered in her ear.
And the barrel of my gun wouldn't be crammed down the throat of a man who'd begged for his life just moments before I cut out his tongue.
But that's what happens when you shoot at something impenetrable.
It ricochets.
1
Nick
Cull: transitive verb
1: to select from a group; choose
2: to reduce or control the size of (as a herd) by removal (as by hunting) of especially weaker animals; to hunt or kill (animals) as a means of population control
According to Newton’s Law, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
You punch a brick wall, your knuckles bleed.
You shoot a gun, it recoils.
You destroy a man’s life, he seeks revenge.
An eye for an eye.
So, there I waited, beside a broken window, ten stories in the air, fingers stretching and clenching to a fist, while the early October winds whipped past the abandoned building where I’d hidden.
The place must’ve been a classroom at one time. Desks stood spaced and lined, some tipped, a few standing. Dirty, weathered books lay plastered to the floor, splayed open like dead crows in a snowfield of papers. Like an apocalypse had stricken the city and the workers had been forced to flee with no warning.
Outside the window, broken and abandoned husks dotted the landscape, set against a gray, dishwater sky. Scarred and beaten, the perfect metaphor for the people who lived within its forgotten neighborhoods, Detroit was like an abused kid, just waiting for the day someone would come along and give a fuck about it.
The third world city of America.
In any other part of the country, what’d happened would’ve been an atrocity. There would’ve been a candlelight vigil, stuffed animals set outside the ashes and rubble where my home used to stand. Parents would’ve clutched their kids a little tighter at night, given thanks they weren’t me.
Instead, the murder was never reported. Not even the fucking neighbors bothered to call the fire station to report a burning house.
I tugged the black hoodie forward to conceal my face and tipped the barrel of my M24 below the windowsill, out of sight.
On the streets below, a crowd had gathered around two white vans packed with care packages for the homeless. In the throng, a white couple, casual but too clean-cut to belong so far east, passed out the large clear bags with easy smiles plastered on their faces, pausing every so often for the camera.
Michael and Aubree Culling.
Care packages. The mayor didn’t give a shit about the city, let alone the scum homeless who littered his streets and left a blemish on his blue prints. I wouldn’t have been surprised if those packages had been laced with rat poison by the asshole, or his obedient little wifey, always there to stroke his shoulder and smile for the camera.
I could’ve killed them from my vantage point. Watched their brains paint the pavement, while the crowd dispersed in a ripple of panic.
The arguments for not pulling the trigger seemed to diminish with each day that Michael Culling was able to forget he’d ever given the order to murder my family.
Whereas, my memories continued to churn.
With every nightmare that plagued my sleep, a greater need burned somewhere in the darkest corners of my mind—one that left me questioning my own humanity. I needed to see the devastation on Michael Culling’s face as I took everything from him. I wanted to watch him curl into himself, cursing the heavens, as the pain of watching his entire world slowly drift from his fingertips mercilessly ripped his heart from his chest.
I needed Culling to feel what I’d felt in those final moments. To know that the crushing blow of reality existed behind a thin veil of hope that’d burn down at any moment.
He’d know my pain. My suffering. My desolation.
No quick bullet would deliver vengeance to that bastard. I intended to gift to Culling the understanding of true hell. The realization that what he wanted most, the very reason he lived, was gone forever.
Revenge.
The word simmered in my head, a steady boil of seething that’d kept me from blowing my own brains out the last three years. Like the word held some kind of sanity. A purpose.
The crowd below dispersed, as two men, dressed in rags, fought over one of the packages.
Police guards, who’d maintained a halo of space between the Cullings and the mob of homeless, shifted closer, drawing their guns. Shouts erupted, and a visual of Michael and Aubree being torn to shreds in the shithole neighborhood had the opportunist in me bubbling up from the darkest depths of my soul, urging me to slip the rifle through the hole in the window and shoot.
Done. Over.
I’d never have to see their fucking smiling faces again.
I took a step back from the window just to prove to myself that I could, that I wasn’t stupid enough to be fooled by the chimera of a quick kill. It would be a total suicide shot, anyway. The whole fucking plan would be out the window, and all the men who’d carried out Culling’s orders would remain free.
Alive and free.
Besides, it wasn’t the first time I’d had the opportunity to kill them, and it wouldn’t be the last. For three years, I’d watched Michael and Aubree Culling parade the streets like saints. Both of them smiling those bright, fake smiles that begged to be knocked to crags while handing out promises to the poor, despondent souls who lapped them up and followed like rats behind the Piper.
A glance down at my forearm revealed the iron cross with the snaking scorpion where James Nicholas had been tattooed, as well as the quote below it:
Anyone who injures their neighbor is to be injured in the same manner: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. – Leviticus 24:20
The cross was a reminder that I wasn’t always a monster.
There had been a time I didn’t believe in them—monsters. Sometimes, my son would wake from nightmares, screaming of them under his bed. Like all parents, I told him they didn’t exist.