CUT (New Adult Dark Romance)

BOOK: CUT (New Adult Dark Romance)
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CUT (New Adult Romance)

 

Copyright © 2014 Ann Cheri

 

All rights reserved.

 

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

Dedication

 

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

 

About The Author

 

Acknowledgements

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This book is dedicated to my best friend. May you run fast, and never let the pain catch you...

 

-Ann Cheri

 

 

 

 

 


   
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For most of my life I wanted to be bad.

 

Everybody rebels against their parents somewhere along the line. They want to be different. My father was the most feared judge in the county, and that left me with only one direction to go. I tried shoplifting with the cool kids, smoking with the bad ones, and started dating the worst of them, a boy named Jude. Dad got me out of trouble when I got caught trying to sneak a CD player and some lacy underwear out of the mall. My mother’s lung cancer made me promise to give up the second bad habit.

 

For better or for worse Jude stuck around.

 

At seventeen years old he was already damaged. His fists were covered in scars and his body already rippled with muscle. It was no secret that he’d spent time in juvenile hall for a laundry list of petty and not so petty crime. Towering over six foot two and sporting several tattoos he was a fearsome sight. Jude was everything my daddy hated. A dropout, a criminal, a badass. Being with him made me feel… Alive?

 

He took my innocence in the backseat of a stolen Chevy Impala. Maybe I should have left it at that, just a crazy story to tell my friends someday. Of course, that’s not how my story goes. I was just a stupid girl too lost to stop.

 

It wasn’t long before the thrill of doing something
bad
was fading… Maybe I should have seen the abuse coming. Jude wasn’t the kind of boy who would treat a girl right. He was only out for what made him feel good. A pusher… A user… It wasn’t long before I realized what he really was…

 

Jude was a killer.

 

It was a fairytale romance, but not the happy bubblegum versions they put on TV. It was the Brothers Grimm kind of fairytale, where death is real and bad things happen to good people… When the beatings started, I blamed myself. A dark and twisted part of me almost wanted it. I kept telling myself I deserved the pain.

 

That’s when I started cutting myself, putting the little lines across my arms to signify the passage of my life.

 

Every single brain cell I had left tried to fight it. The right thing to do was run away. Run to daddy and beg forgiveness. Fear made me stay, and my body betrayed me. I knew what Jude would do if I ever left him. He would come back, he would hurt me and take away everything I’d ever loved… My mind shut down because it was easier. Just give in, let it happen, accept that this is the life you’ve chosen. In the heat of the moment it was what I needed.

 

One year became another, and soon, I was eighteen. There’s supposed to be some magic in that. Everyone talks about becoming a full fledged adult like there’s some special epiphany people have when the earth has went round the sun a sufficient amount of times. For me, nothing changed. I was the same stupid girl I’d always been. A slave to my own dark fantasy.

 

Funny how with practice you can barely notice the pain of the bruises, or the sharpness of the cut. The blade runs across the curve of my shoulder leaving a tiny bead of blood in its wake. I feel nothing. I haven’t felt anything in a long time.

 

I wasn’t ready to admit it, but I needed salvation.

 

I didn’t want to be a bad girl anymore…

 

I didn’t want Jude.

 

That’s when I met Marcus Black.

 

 

 

 

 


   
 ☼
   
 ☼
   
 ☼
   
 ☼
   
 

 

 

 

The warehouse was colder than I would have liked, especially dressed like this. I stared down at my tattered jeans and the t-shirt torn down the middle to show off a little too much of my body. Jude’s arm wrapped around my waist in his usual possessive way. I was on display, but he was making it clear whom I belonged to. It didn’t matter that I had barely turned 18 and most of the men in this room were old enough to be my father. To Jude, I was a piece of meat to put on display.

 

And my ribs hurt.

 

The plume of black and purple wouldn’t show for another day or so, but I refused to show him my tears. I winced as he gripped me tighter, leading me through the sea of leather and thunder. Another bruise, another day, another tiny line to cut into my arm, or my thigh, or maybe the curve of my hip.

 

Jude had graduated from street thug to something more. He’d caught the eye of the Rampant. Everyone north of the border knew exactly who the Rampant were. They ran an underground fighting ring, but really, even that was just a front for their true purpose.

 

The Rampant handled drugs. If you wanted a fix, you knew exactly who to talk to. Just find the man with the leather vest and the skull emblazoned across the back…

 

They claimed they wanted Jude, but I knew the truth. The Rampant were after me. A life living with my big-shot judge of a father had taught me what would happen next. It wouldn’t be long before Jude would be forcing me to mule drugs for the gang, just like he did to me back in Texas. To anyone on the outside, I was a sweet and scared little girl, caught up with the wrong people. Even if I
was
caught, the state would go easy on me. Nobody wants to send a judges daughter to prison. In many ways, I was Jude’s get out of jail free card…

 

The thought terrified me. I wanted to run, but where could I go? I couldn’t run home. My father could never safely take me back after what I’d done to him. Even if he did offer to help me, Jude would follow me there. He would follow me anywhere, and hell would follow with him.

BOOK: CUT (New Adult Dark Romance)
2.45Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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