by Tonya Brooks
RUTHLESS BASTARD
Rich Ruthless Bastards, Book Two
Tonya Brooks
Copyright © 2020 by Tonya Brooks
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 publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations. Any resemblance to actual persons, things, living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
WARNING
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DEVIOUS BASTARD EXCERPT
OTHER BOOKS BY TONYA BROOKS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
INTRODUCTION
Ruthless Bastard was originally written as a contemporary novel, but it fit so well into the paranormal world that I converted and condensed it into The Big Bad Wolf's Ex. If you have read The Big Bad Wolf's Ex, the characters are the same and you may recognize a few scenes, but the two books have completely different storylines and endings.
WARNING
If you think having sex with another person after a divorce is cheating, please do not read this book.
If you are offended by a man groveling, please do not read this book.
If you dislike the idea of a woman with a heart generous enough to forgive the unforgivable, please do not read this book.
You were warned!
PROLOGUE
Reece
“You’re positive?” Reece Lassiter demanded tonelessly. He listened to the confirmation and without a word, ended the call, dropping his mobile phone on the table. He lifted a cut crystal glass filled with the finest whiskey that money could buy and sipped slowly, savoring the smooth, aged flavor like a true connoisseur.
It tasted like ash in his mouth.
His infamous control began to crack as he stood there staring sightlessly out of the floor to ceiling windows, select phrases from the conversation replaying over and over in his mind, their meaning incomprehensible, their ramifications inescapable. “...test results were conclusive... normal sperm count... recanalization rate one in one thousand...” The test had confirmed that he could father a child. Then that meant...
NO!
He wouldn’t go there. Couldn’t even consider the possibility. Because if he did… and it was true… then he had eviscerated his own soul and shut himself off from the only happiness he’d ever known... for nothing.
The realization sent him to his knees.
“Jolie,” he whispered the forbidden name raggedly, and just like that, the emotional door he had welded shut four years prior sprang open. Reece was bombarded by feelings that had become completely alien to him. The numbness that he had worn like body armor disintegrated as memories of love, hope, and joy shattered his granite heart.
Long forgotten images flooded his mind unbidden. Jolie lying naked in their bed, golden hair splayed around her, blue eyes slumberous, the satisfied smile of a woman well-loved. Jolie dancing in the snow, eyes aglow with happiness, the brilliant smile that could brighten any day. His sunshine girl. The only woman he’d ever trusted.
The only woman he’d ever loved.
She had filled his life with joy and taught him how to love. She had been his everything. Until the day she had betrayed his trust and destroyed his world. Reece had cut her out of his life with a ruthlessness that had shocked even him. He had encased his broken heart in ice so thick and glacial that nothing could ever penetrate it again.
And he’d been wrong.
A searing wave of rage, agony, and grief consumed him at the realization. Jolie had not betrayed him. He had betrayed her and destroyed himself in the process. Memories he'd fought like hell to suppress surged to the surface, invading his mind, shredding his heart all over again as he relived his last minutes with her.
The absolute joy on Jolie's face as she'd shown him the sonogram and announced they were having a baby. The bewilderment and hurt in her eyes when he'd lost his shit and accused her of having a lover. The anguished tears pouring down her face as he'd thrown her out of their home. Her voice calling his name brokenly when he'd had the police haul her away.
The pain.
God, the pain was suffocating him. He couldn’t seem to breathe. One trembling hand reached out in desperation, searching for something, anything, to ground him, and met the cold, hard pane of unbreakable glass. Looking up, Reece saw his image in the tinted window. The reflection of a broken man.
God help him, what had he done?
CHAPTER ONE
Dane
After receiving a Get your ass over here as fast as fucking possible text, Dane Lassiter didn't waste any time. He entered the penthouse and one look at his older brother assured him that something dire had happened. To say that Reece looked like death warmed over would be a gross understatement.
“What’s wrong?” He demanded anxiously.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” Reece asked hoarsely.
Realization dawned and stunned silence followed. After he had kicked her out, Reece had forbidden anyone to even mention his ex-wife’s name in his presence. The one time that Dane had tried to discuss the issue with him, he had knocked him out cold. It had been the only time in his life that his older brother had ever reacted toward him with violence.
Reece had always protected him. Always. From everything and everyone. That single act had assured Dane just how far out of control his brother had been. How deeply he was hurting. So he had kept his mouth shut and never broached the subject again. The knowledge that he wanted to know about the child now was shocking to say the least.
“Damn you, tell me,” he ground out raggedly.
“Boy,” Dane said simply and watched his big brother visibly fall apart.
“I have a son,” Reece rasped and slid bonelessly down the wall to sit in a dejected heap on the floor. “Tell me. Everything.”
Dane didn’t know what had finally convinced Reece that the child was his, but he could see that it was eating the other man alive. “His name is Bryce,” he replied and saw his brother's shock that Jolie had named him after their father. “He’ll be three in a few weeks,” he said as he knelt on the marble floor and pulled up a photo on his phone.
“He has Jolie’s smile... and your eyes.” Dane held out the phone and Reece took it with an unsteady hand. A photo of a beautiful little boy with his mother’s golden hair and brilliant smile stared back at him through turquoise eyes. No one could see those eyes and doubt that the boy was his brother's son.
“Jesus. Those eyes,” Reece barely breathed as he stared at the image. Something that might have been a sob was ripped from his chest before he buried his face in his hand. Dane gripped his shoulder and his brother raised tormented eyes to meet his somber expression. “I fucked up,” he choked.
“Yeah, you did,” he agreed without heat. There was no sense in kicking a man when he was down, and his big brother was clearly devastated. Reece was an impenetrable wall of granite. Always had been. Nothing fazed him. Nothing slowed him down. And nothing motivated him more than a challenge. “So what the hell are you gonna do about it?”
The familiar light of battle appeared in the bloodshot turquoise eyes and Dane could see the grim determination that filled him. “I want my wife back. And I want… my son,” his voice broke on the words.
“Then you'd better be prepared for a hell of a fight,” Dane warned since the probability of reconciliation was inconceivable. Reece might be an unstoppable force, but he could attest that Jolie had become an immovable object. “The divorce damn near destroyed Jolie. You broke her, bro. She’s not the same woman you remember.”
“I’ll fix it,” Reece vowed as he rose to his feet. “No matter what it takes, I’ll make this right.”
“What made you change your mind?” He asked curiously as he stood because Reece had been absolutely positive that the child was not his.
“Clarice claimed she was pregnant,” he admitted and surprised the hell out of Dane.
His brother had gotten a vasectomy to ensure that this exact scenario never happened. Reece had sworn to never father an illegitimate child. Not after the hell they had gone through as children. The hell that their own mother had intentionally put them through. They had been nothing more than expendable pawns in her sick, twisted quest for financial gain.
“She accused me of lying about having a vasectomy, so I had a test done to refute her claim. It turns out that the procedure reversed itself, which meant that Jolie had my child,” Reece said heavily.
“And Clarice's baby?” Dane queried skeptically since the woman had been all over him like a bad rash a time or two. Unlike Jolie, he did not doubt that the model had slept around. Frequently.
Reece
“She claimed to abort it,” Reece said without inflection. “Although I doubt she was pregnant and if she was, I always used protection so it probably wasn't mine.”
He really didn’t give a fuck one way or the other. Clarice wasn’t important. Never had been. She was as cold and ambitious as she was beautiful. She had looked good on his arm, satisfied him in bed, and knew better than to make demands for more. Heartless and emotionless, they had been a match made in hell.
Without Jolie, his life had once again become a dark, fathomless wasteland void of all feeling. Reece wanted the light to shine on his soul again. To do that, he needed his sunshine girl. And his brother could expedite that since he was certain that the other man had been keeping tabs on her. Dane was the decent one in the family whereas Reece was completely ruthless.
Fixing him with a look that would shrivel a lesser man's balls, he demanded, “Where the fuck is my wife?”
Folding his arms across his chest, his brother returned the look and wasn't the least bit intimidated. They might not have had the same father, but they had both inherited their mother's tenacity. Dane wouldn't tell him a goddamn thing until he was ready. The little shit was going to make him suffer, and he knew it.
“Last I heard she was your ex-wife,” he pointed out.
“Dammit, Dane, don't…”
“You waited four fucking years, Reece. A few more minutes won't kill you.”
Knowing that arguing would just drag this out even longer, he dropped heavily onto the couch and growled, “Go ahead and claim your pound of flesh.”
Dane
Dane shot him a grin as he sat on the opposite couch, leaned back, and made himself comfortable. He knew his brother better than anyone on earth, and he understood how his brilliant mind worked. The last four years had taken a toll on the other man’s already battered soul, though he’d never admit it to anyone.
Reece did not reveal weakness for any reason. Ever. The only time he had allowed himself to open up and let someone in had ended in a catastrophe of epic proportions. His brother had ripped his own heart out when he destroyed his marriage, and he had also managed to annihilate Jolie in the process.
Dane loved his brother and genuinely hoped he could get his wife back, but he cared about Jolie, too. No way in hell was he going to let Reece hurt her again. She'd never survive it a second time. But Bryce was a Lassiter, and he deserved the opportunity to know his father because Reece really was a good man at heart.
Even so, Dane was going to make damn sure that the boy and his mother had safeguards in place this time. “I want some assurances that you won't hurt her again,” he said evenly and was determined to protect his former sister-in-law at all costs. She may appear to be as tough as nails, but Jolie was fragile on the inside, and he knew it.
“Name your terms,” Reece said without hesitation, the unshakable resolve that had made him so successful firmly in place again.
“She needs to be financially independent,” he stated firmly. “Open a checking account in her name that you can't touch.”
His brother whipped out his phone, placed a call to his lawyer, and began to bark instructions. “George, open a checking account for Jolie and transfer a million into it immediately. Arrange it so she's the only one with access. No one but her can touch it, understand?”
It never ceased to amaze Dane how people jumped to do Reece's bidding regardless of the time. The man was a law unto himself. Which was exactly why he was taking these precautions. The money would handle Jolie's financial needs, but he was also determined to protect her emotionally.
The other man ended the call and confirmed, “Done.”
“Swear to me that you'll never try to take custody of Bryce,” he demanded and saw his brother's resolve waver. Oh, hell no. “This is not negotiable, Reece. You stripped the woman of everything but her child. The child you didn't want. Swear you won't fucking take him from her.”
“Alright, damn you,” Reece snapped. “I swear it.”
“And you can't do anything to force Jolie to come back to you,” he insisted since he knew exactly how ruthless his brother was. “It has to be her decision or not at all.”
When the older man swore viciously and stood up to pace back and forth, Dane just sat and waited patiently. He was forcing Reece to concede to his conditions and if there was one thing his brother hated, it was not having the upper hand in a situation.
Reece
Wanting nothing more than to beat the hell out of his brother right then, Reece prowled like a caged tiger. If he didn't love the little shit, he would. It was bad enough that he'd made him swear not to take his son, now he was tying his hands with Jolie as well. He should have known Dane would pull something like this.
Fucking chivalrous bastard.
“Alright,” he finally growled. “I won't force her to do anything she doesn't want to do.”
“Swear it.”
He swore alright. Reece swore a blue streak in several different languages while his brother grinned at him in amusement. Dane knew that he would never break a sworn oath and was shamelessly using it to get what he wanted.
When they were children, their mother had made them all sorts of promises to get them to do what she wanted, and then she'd broken every one of them without a qualm. Since they didn't trust promises, once the judge adopted them, he had explained that a sworn oath could not be broken for any reason and he'd proven it by keeping every one he made them.
The brother's had adopted the custom so it sounded like he was chewing gravel when Reece finally grated out, “I swear.”
“If you hurt her again, I will break you,” the youngest said and was completely serious for a change. “Brother or no, that woman has been through hell.”
And he was the bastard responsible for it. His shoulders slumped and Reece sank back down onto the couch heavily. This time he didn't need prompting when he vowed, “I swear I'll never hurt Jolie again.”
Dane nodded solemnly. “Good enough.”
“Now where the fuck is she?” He de
manded and was running out of patience.
“Brace yourself, bro,” the other man warned. “It's bad.”
***
Bad didn't even come close to describing the squalor. The neighborhood was a fucking cesspool, even worse than when he and Dane had grown up just a few blocks away. Though they had never stayed in a building quite as bad as this one. From the looks of it, the damn thing should have been demolished a half-century ago.
Just being in this part of town made him break out in a cold sweat and brought back memories better off forgotten. Yet his wife and son were living in something out of his worst nightmares. His self-disgust and remorse grew by the second, as did his determination to get them the hell out of there.
When the entrance door opened, Reece saw his wife exit the building and the breath lodged in his throat. Jesus. Even in the harsh light of the flickering street lamp, Jolie was still the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. When she began walking in the opposite direction, he scowled and wondered what the hell she was doing out at that time of night.
This neighborhood wasn't safe in the daytime and after dark, it was a fucking playground for predators. Getting out of the car, Reece set the alarm and doubted the damn thing would even be there when he got back. He fell into step behind her, incensed that she was putting herself in danger.
Not wanting to frighten her, he followed as close as he dared, moving silently and keeping to the shadows. He may not have lived on these streets in over two decades, but he hadn't lost the survival skills he'd learned while there. Some things were just too deeply ingrained to forget.
They had walked for two blocks when she entered an alley and his gut clenched in terror. Unspeakable things happened to women in alleys, some of them worse than death. Trading stealth for speed, Reece raced after her. When he rounded the corner of the building, Jolie had vanished.