by Barb Shuler
The moment the words were out of his mouth I threw my head back and laughed so hard, I snorted. He laughed at my watching “Gone with the Wind” so much, yet he was the one reciting its lines now. “Oh... that’s... Priceless…”
“What? You don’t like my southern charm, darlin’?”
“Hmm… I happen to love your southern charm.” Smirking, I kissed his lips and rolled over on top of him. My hands pressed on his chest as I pushed myself up. “Now… how about you show me some of those charms?”
“My pleasure, ma’am.”
Just as we stood up and he pinned me, yet again, to the wall there was a loud banging at the door. I cursed when I heard Tyler start to cry from the other room. We both moved in opposite directions. “You get Tyler, I’ll get the door,” he said as he made his way towards it. When he swung it open Charlie was standing there.
“I need Dani Lynn. It’s my sister. Please, hurry, Dani Lynn, she’s flipping out.”
I ran to the door, grabbed my bag and kissed Drew’s lips. “Call ya when I know what’s going on.” Then I was out the door following behind officer Charlie McKenna. Hopefully his sister Anna wasn’t too far gone by the time I got back to her. I hoped I could handle this by myself. So much was going on there… may God give us all strength.
MY OWN NIGHTMARE ~ PLAYLIST
All I'm Living For - Evanescence
Bitter Taste - Three Days Grace
Bodies - Drowning Pool
Broken, Beaten & Scarred - Metallica
Cochise - Audioslave
Come As You Are - Nirvana
Crying Out - Shinedown
Daughters of Darkness - Halestorm
Enter Sandman - Metallica
Falling Away From Me - Korn
Get Out Alive - Three Days Grace
Haunted - Disturbed
I’d Come for You - Nickelback
Iron Man - Black Sabbath
Lithium - Nirvana
Lose Control - Evanescence
Made of Glass - Trapt
My Last Breath - Evanescence
My Sacrifice - Creed
Nightmare - Avenged Sevenfold
Nobody’s Listening - Linkin Park
Pain - Three Days Grace
Paranoid - Black Sabbath
Save Me - Shinedown
Scars - Papa Roach
Show Me How to Live - Audioslave
So Cold - Breaking Benjamin
Sound of Madness - Shinedown
Still Frame - Trapt
Taking Over Me - Evanescence
The Monster - Eminem ft Rihanna
The Threat is Real - Megadeth
The Vengeful One - Disturbed
Through Glass - Stone Sour
Until it’s Gone – Linkin Park
You Don’t Belong - Daughtry
You’re Going Down - Sick Puppies
Somewhere I Belong (Book 2)
SNEAK PEEK
PROLOGUE
FOR AS LONG as I can remember, I was taught to be kind and respectful to everyone. Yes, those are two entirely different things. Well, in my world they were. I was taught to say thank you, you’re welcome, and to address everyone older than me as ma’am or sir. There was no one in the small town I grew up in that didn’t have that same value. Good ole’ country folks were like that. They worked hard for their money, they respected themselves and the land. But when I decided to move away, I lost that. It was ripped away from me and I was tossed around like a rag doll in a cyclone. Each place I visited was different, but it was the flashing lights of Vegas that caught me. It was a beacon I could not look away from. I was a fly on the sticky paper. That sticky paper was controlled by the eldest son of none other than former Senator Grant Wainwright. Yep, you heard that right. Jacob Wainwright became a man I couldn’t escape.
When Grant decided Capitol Hill was no longer his cup of tea, he came back to Vegas where his family had a ‘vacation home’. Seems he hit it big in ‘underground activities’ that led him into the money pot of Vegas. Casino’s. And here is where it gets interesting. In some circles, the Wainwrights are like royalty. They have prestige, honor, and of course, class. But their son… oh, now, that boy is just trouble. He wears Armani by day, and by night he thinks he is a big shot biker. The only thing that Harley riding douche canoe is good for is pushing drugs - the drugs his daddy pretends aren’t being siphoned through his casino - and working the whores in the back room. Some of those skanks have more mileage on them than an international jet has in a year of flight. I’d had to watch them paw at Jacob, doing anything they could to get a little of the white stuff he’d slip into their hands when no one was looking.
As it tends to do, though, all good things must come to an end. There was a raid on the casino and Jacob was lucky to not be there. I take that back, I had the unlucky fortune that he wasn’t there. When he heard, he flipped. All of his whores, some of his customers… the cops got it all. That was when Daddy stepped in and told him to fix it, get his money back however he had to, and shut the door in his face. I paid for this simply because I was there. The moment I spoke, telling him he could get out now, be productive other ways - legal ways - the hit came. Hard and fast. He, of course apologized and cried over it. The douche thought that was good enough.
As I started to work on a way to get out, I found out there was someone else working to build a case against him. I didn’t know who the ‘other’ was, but I made sure to leave things laying around. In plain sight, even a snake can be overlooked. Then the unthinkable happened. They found the ‘spy’, and I was between a rock and a hard place. That was, until I was caught.
This time the hits and screams faded away as they had the last time… but I changed this time. I’d had enough and I fought back. I had been too scared the last time. Shocked, really. I’d never had a man hit me before. It happened in front of some crackpot bikers, the kind that give real bikers a bad name. He got praise for ‘handling his bitch’, as if that was a good reason to hit someone. Just as last time, he ‘handled’ me, but I broke his nose. I tried for more, but I was in ‘cause as much damage as possible and run like hell’ mode. Unlike the last time, his goons were not here to help him. However, he had gotten lucky. The stab wound I could deal with, as long as I could fight my way out. My oldest brother Charlie was always joked I was scrappy. Scrappy had nothing to do with it. I was in for a fight of my life and I knew it. It was time to get the hell out of dodge before I became like the body... bodies on the floor. I ran. As fast as I could, to the only place I knew I’d be safe. Home.
Copyright © 2016 by Barbara Shuler
This is a sneak peek into the unedited version. This is not the final copy as some things may change.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I’m a Carolina Girl by right and a Texan by birth. Best of both worlds. I have the brass sass to keep up with my Texas sized temper. Living and working in both states I’ve learned a lot about hard work, adapting to your surroundings and making the best of the path that you have been led down. My grandma Dollie once told me I would know what I was meant to do when it happened. She was right, as always.
As with most book lovers, I am an avid reader. Reading has always been a hobby - a passion, really and a way to get lost in other people’s lives, their drama and other worlds. It’s a private movie in your imagination that you get to cast and navigate through, at your own pace. Reading helps to expand the perimeters of one's mind. That is what got me into writing. Writing has been something that I have done since I was a kid. If I had paper, I was writing. Nine out of ten times it made no sense but what are words if they are not to be used to your advantage? Words are a part of us all. Why not use them, right?
During the day I work as a ‘desk jockey’ and help the residents of my county navigate themselves around our little, but not too little, country town. By night I am either blogging with my best friends, doing PA work for some of my favorite authors, or fighting with the voices in my head. They
can be stubborn at times. It’s a blessing and I am cherishing every moment. Tomorrow is never guaranteed so I want to make sure I live the day as fully as possible. For what is my creation, can become someone else's treasure.
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