Wanted: An Outlaw Anthology

by Lane Hart

  They must have found Ciccone.

  Once the guards all disappear inside, I crank the engine, push the shifter into drive and floor it, fishtailing my way down the driveway.

  The gate at the entrance won’t be a problem, because I had a special bumper installed on the front of my vehicle weeks earlier. It can withstand a lot of pressure, so I’m just hoping it will hold.

  I snap my seatbelt in place and press the gas pedal to the fucking floor as I approach the large gate.

  The guard in the shack comes out and stands in front of the gate with his gun raised. But when he realizes that I'm not going to stop, he jumps out of the way just in time.

  The front end of the vehicle collides with the metal and makes a terrible sound as I crash through it. I'm thrown around in the car, rocking back and forth as the SUV swerves, dislodging the gate as it flies over the hood.

  The SUV is in bad shape, but I just need to put as much distance as I can between me and the mansion right now. Then, I can dump the vehicle and worry about other shit later.

  I almost lose it pulling out onto the main road, but I whip the wheel and get it back under control. My front end is almost completely smashed in, but the damn thing is still running. The bumper saved the engine from total damage.

  I swerve going down the road. The front left tire is giving me some problems, but I keep on going, trying to keep it as straight as possible and to not wreck into oncoming traffic.

  Checking my rearview mirror every few minutes, I don't see any suspicious vehicles following me as I drive along.

  After I've put several miles between me and the crime scene, I begin to relax a little.

  I made it out alive.

  I should feel proud or happy or…something.

  But I don't feel anything…except an overwhelming sense of dread over whether Victoria is okay or not.

  Fuck, she could be dead right now.

  I slam my hand repeatedly on the steering wheel and grit out a stream of curses.

  I should have figured out another way to get to Giorgio that didn't include hurting Victoria. The thought of her dying in that house, wearing my engagement ring, her last thoughts of my betrayal, makes my cold, dark heart ache with a pain I've never felt before.

  A feral sound releases from my throat as I roar in agony.

  I wrap my hands around the steering wheel in a white-knuckle grip, my forearms vibrating with anger, before suddenly pulling the car over. I come to a sliding stop, kicking up gravel in the parking lot of a local dive bar. I slam the gearshift into park; and a cloud of dust surrounds the SUV as I sit in heavy silence, my ragged breathing the only sound.

  I want to turn around and go see if she's okay, but I know that's fucking suicide. I have such an overwhelming need to know if she's okay that I'm willing to risk everything.

  "No," I say out loud, shaking my head.

  I have to be smart about this. She was simply collateral and nothing more. I never cared about anyone before, so why should I start now.

  But is that really true?

  I used to care. I cared a lot about my family…my father…my mother…my sister…my Victoria.

  I grip the steering wheel and rock back and forth in the seat, seething. I can't go back. I can't go back now. I had a plan in place, put the wheels in motion, and everything worked out perfectly. Well, almost perfectly.

  What's done is done.

  Nodding my head, having made my mind up, I put the car in drive and pull out onto the road once more.

  I need to focus on the future, on finding out where my sister Sara is and forget all about Victoria.

  But even as I tell myself that, I know it’s much easier said than done.

  And I just don’t know if I’ll ever be able to come back from this.

  To be continued…

  About Angela Snyder

  Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed reading Devious: Book 1 of the Deviant Series, please consider telling your friends and posting a short review. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend and much appreciated. Shouts from rooftops are great too.

  Damon and Victoria’s story will continue in Victorious: Book 2 of the Deviant Series. Victorious is available for pre-order now. Find out how to get your copy on my website: https://authorangelasnyder.com

  And please sign up for my newsletter to be notified of all of my new releases, giveaways, sneak peeks, freebies and more: http://eepurl.com/cNF0o5

  Hard Limit

  The Alpha Antihero Series Book One

  Sybil Bartel

  Copyright © 2018 by Sybil Bartel

  Cover art by: CT Cover Creations

  Cover photo by: Wander Aguiar

  Cover Model: Kaz van der Waard

  Edited by: Hot Tree Editing

  Formatting by: Champagne Formats

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  Warning: This book contains offensive language, alpha males and sexual situations. Mature audiences only. 18+

  Introduction

  One fucking breath.

  That’s all I needed.

  Air in my lungs so I could exhale through the pain.

  My ribs broken, my face in the mud, one leg useless, I tried and failed to lift my head. Mosquitoes swarmed, and the sun dropped. I wasn’t going to die out here. No fucking way. I was Tarquin Scott, and that was a hard limit.

  But then I heard her voice, angel soft and breathless, and I wondered if I had been kidding myself. I didn’t have time to figure it out. A small hand landed on my back, and I fisted my bloody knife.

  I wasn’t going to die tonight. But someone else was.

  *HARD LIMIT is the first book in the Alpha Antihero Series.

  The Alpha Antihero Series

  HARD LIMIT

  HARD JUSTICE

  HARD SIN

  For my mom and my dad, even though I really hope they never read this.

  “Candle was earth. Dark and dirty between your hands, he rubbed across your skin and left marks as his scent soaked into you like a memory. You smelled him after every rain, and you felt him every time you fell. He’d cradle you if you needed to lie down in the woods, but he’d never lift you up to touch the stars.”

  – Kendall, from ANDRÉ

  Chapter One

  Tarquin

  I sucked in a labored breath and swamp mud filled my mouth. Pain shot through my ribs as I choked. One cough and my head spun.

  Spitting, panting short and shallow, I tried again.

  A short inhale, and the stench of rot permeated everything. When I did not choke, I decided I did not care about the stench. My own body was rotting. Bloody, beaten, I used my good arm and leveraged my elbow. Digging it into the mud, raising my chest an inch, pain shot through my ribs and I heaved forward.

  Army crawl. Or so I had been told.

  One forsaken inch at a time.

  I was going see another turn around the sun. I had to.

  Dead people did not get revenge.

  Dead people did not get anything except a hole in the ground.

  That I knew.

  I was a digger.

  I’d had one job on the compound. Bury the bodies.

  Except I was not on the compound anymore.

  Struggling for air, my lungs on fire, I heaved myself another inch. Mosquitoes swarmed, and I cursed. “Fuck.”

  The forbidden word rattled from my conscience and grew larger than the f
orsaken swamp. Then, just as I’d been warned, the sin took hold, and more profanity bled out. “Fuck, fuck, FUCK!”

  Stabbing pain stole my breath as my hoarse voice defiled the swamp’s nighttime chorus, but I did not care. A laugh—half-gurgle, half-hysterical—ruptured from my chest like a rebirth.

  “Born!” I yelled to the alligators, rats, and insects. “Re-fucking-birth.” Coughing, rolling to my side, I blinked back mud until I saw the stars. The same stars I had seen every day on the compound, but I was not looking at them from there now. I never would. Not until I went back to kill every brother who had done this to me. Including him. “I’m coming for you, River Stephens.”

  Choking on my own blood, I coughed, and pain blindsided me.

  I fell back to my stomach and forced the words out on a wheeze. “I’m fucking coming for you,” I whispered to no one as my head landed in the mud. “You’re—” I coughed. “—dead….” My chest burning, my leg throbbing, darkness edged out the night.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus.” Like an angel, the female’s voice floated down over me. “Are you breathin’?”

  Was I dreaming?

  “Can you hear me?” she asked, whisper soft and perfect.

  No female had ever sounded that sweet. It was a trap, it had to be. Fighting an inhale, I willed my body to lie predator still.

  “Oh Lord have mercy,” she breathed, her voice heaven sent. “Please be alive.”

  A small, warm hand landed on my back.

  Part animal, all instinct, my reaction was immediate. Palming my blood-stained, muddy knife, I reared up from the waist. I did not notice her hair was the color of summer sunlight. I did not notice her wide green eyes. I did not notice the freckles ghosting across her face and falling to her chest.

  I wrapped my arm around her neck, pulled her to my chest, and brought us both back down to the rotten mud. The tip of my knife pressed against the vein on the side of her neck, and adrenaline-induced words snarled past my parched throat. “Who sent you?”

  Tiny hands grasped at my muddied forearm in desperation as she struggled for lifesaving air. “No-no-no one.”

  My knife about to break skin, I squeezed her neck harder. “Who do you belong to?” No female wandered out here alone.

  “My daddy owns this swamp.”

  No one owned this land. “Liar,” I accused, putting pressure on the knife.

  “No!” she squeaked. “Please. I’m tellin’ the truth.”

  I did not have time to respond. A water snake slithered over her bare legs and she screamed. Jerking in my grasp, her elbow made contact with my beaten ribs.

  Excruciating pain lanced through my side and bile rose in my throat.

  My knife dragged across her neck as I forced my broken body to twist so I did not choke on my own vomit.

  My stomach heaved, then everything went black.

  Chapter Two

  Shaila

  His death grip on my neck released, and I didn’t pause one single southern second. Jumping to my feet, I stomped my boots in the swamp mud to make sure that snake was nowhere near me. Nothing like a slithering reptile to make you lose all fear of a half-dead man holding a knife at your throat.

  My throat!

  My fingers muddied, I dragged the back of my hand across my neck and held it up to the full moon.

  No blood.

  I glanced down at the blond man with muscled arms almost as big as my thighs. Stock-still and laid out like Jesus on the cross, he christened the muck all around him.

  Damn.

  He looked so pathetic, I couldn’t even be mad at him for the knife. Wasn’t the first time I’d seen a blade.

  My gaze cut to his broad chest, but it didn’t move.

  “Shit.” I dropped to a squat and held my hand in front of his nose. “Don’t you quit breathin’ on me.” Please, please let him be alive. Daddy would have my hide if I told him there was a dead man on his land that he didn’t put there. If he didn’t accuse me straight-off of being up to no good, he’d for sure ask why I was out here to begin with, and I couldn’t let that happen. Not now, not when I was so close. I needed to keep my nose clean and make sure all my ducks were in a row. I was getting out of here soon, come hell or high water, and no funny-talking dead man was gonna stop me.

  The man sputtered up a cough.

  Relief exhaled through my own lungs, and I took his switchblade from his open palm. For a second I weighed having my prints on what could very well be evidence from whatever had happened to him, versus having him coming to and pulling the same stunt twice.

  It wasn’t even a choice.

  I wiped the knife on his muddied pants as best I could and closed the blade before tucking it in my pocket. “Okay, mister, you need to wake up.” I patted his cheek. “Come on, now. It’s feeding time for the no-see-ums, and I’m fixin’ to get inside.”

  He didn’t move.

  I upped the ante and slapped him.

  Bright blue eyes popped open, and his hand went unerringly to my throat. “Who tends to you?” he barked.

  Holy shit, he has some kinda grip. “Mister,” I choked out. “If you don’t let go, there’s gonna be no one here to help you.” I grabbed his wrist and dug my thumb and forefinger into the webbed skin of his hand.

  He instantly let go. “No female should be out here alone.”

  “Glad you’re chivalrous, but we can talk about that later. You need to get out of the mud and indoors before the no-see-ums suck whatever blood you have left.” I stood up, but held my hand out. “C’mon, get up. Then you can crawl back under whatever rock you came from.”

  For one long moment, he studied me like I was the fish outta water. Then his scratchy voice, deep and rough like half-rotten wood, filled the night space between us. “I am not going back.”

  Huh. “Then you can go somewhere new.” I wiggled my hand. I didn’t have time for this. I needed to get back home.

  He stared at my hand but didn’t move. “Why would you help me?”

  My hands went to my hips, wondering if I was biting off more than I could chew. If trouble arose, I knew how to shoot. But my shotgun was inside the house in the hall closet, and I didn’t particularly want to trudge all the way back to get it, only to have to come right back out here to shoot his sorry butt. “You see anyone else willing to take on the job?”

  “You should be afraid of me.”

  I laughed. “Mister, if I was afraid of every muscled man with an attitude, I’d have no business callin’ myself Daddy’s girl.” Not that I did it often, but if the need arose, I wasn’t beyond using it to my advantage.

  The stranger’s eyes narrowed. “Who is your father?”

  “Who’s yours?” I countered.

  He hesitated only a second, but then a sneer formed on his full lips. “I do not have one.”

  I couldn’t figure out if that made him lucky or cursed. Glancing at his shoulder that was bent at a funny angle, I decided on the latter. “Well, that’s unfortunate, because right about now you’re lookin’ like you could use all the help you can get.”

  “Leave.”

  This time my laugh was more an unladylike snort than a chuckle. “And let you die on my land?” I shook my head and reached for his good arm. “I don’t think so.” My hands wrapped around his shockingly hard bicep and I tugged. “Come on, swamp boy. You’re getting’ up.” With no little effort, I pulled him into a sitting position.

  He hadn’t flinched when I pinched his hand, but this time, he let out a pained howl that rivaled a wolf on a full moon as he sat. Short breaths cut in and out of his lungs, and for a second, I wondered if I should’ve left him lying.

  Still holding his arm, I squatted back down and risked putting my arm behind his shoulders. One of his legs was limp, his torso, where I could see past the mud, was all bruised and bloody, and his face was a roadmap for what looked like the wrong end of a fist, or three. Saying he’d been through the wringer was an understatement. “Maybe I should just call for an ambulance.�
��

  “No,” he barked with surprising strength. “No doctors.” He shrugged away from my arm.

  “Fair enough.” Who was I to judge? I’d never been to a real doctor in my life. “But you’re gonna have to work with me then. In good conscience, I can’t leave you out here, and I can’t carry you back to the house, so you gotta move.”

  His gaze scanned the swamp. “How far?”

  I nodded in the direction of the house. “Just past those trees on the other side of the clearing.”

  “Kilometers?” he asked, as if the amount of actual distance would make a difference.

  “I don’t know ’bout nothin’ fancy like kilometers, but if a yard’s three feet, then I reckon we got a good few minutes’ walk ahead of us. More if you’re slow.”

  “I cannot walk,” he stated without emotion.

  I frowned. “Then how’d you get clear in the middle of the swamp? Someone dump you here?” Which, if it was one of the guys from Daddy’s club, then I wasn’t covering for him. I was telling Daddy, and he could deal with whoever thought they could leave their trash on his land.

  His head turned, moonlight hit his face, and I got the full force of his unwavering stare. “I crawled.”

  Mud covering most of his face, one eye almost swollen shut, his lip split, I was still taken aback. Broken and dripping trouble, he was the most handsome man I’d ever laid eyes on.

  Swallowing past the sudden dryness in my throat, my voice wavered. “You crawled? From where?”

  Staring at me, he tipped his chin over his shoulder, indicating the land behind us.

  I tried and failed to shake off disbelief. “There’s nothin’ out there for miles and miles, and past all that nothingness is a whole lot more nothingness of defunct orange groves that run along the perimeter of the Everglades. And if you ask me, those old groves only lose more footin’ each year to the wild of the glades. They should just give up already. Ain’t nobody out there to pick ’em anyway.”