Havoc
Authors: Stella Rhys
HAVOC
Stella Rhys
Copyright © 2015 by Stella Rhys
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Contents
chapter one
I was indecent, the eyes of the street flying to my body.
I’d left my bomber jacket in the bar – the one I’d saved up three paychecks for, that I had promised to give Elle the day she turned thirteen. She used to wear it around the house whenever I visited home, her little frame absolutely drowning under all that leather. The one time I forgot it there, she hung it up on the closet door in front of her bed so she could look at it all week. Apparently, she had refused to wear it out even once, citing the fact that I hadn’t given her explicit permission. I don’t know why, but she worshipped that jacket. And for that reason, I always promised to protect it with my life.
But tonight, I threw that promise out the window. Along with every other one I’d ever made. I didn’t care anymore.
Elle was gone and my ex was marrying my best friend.
On top of that, he was still at the bar, ordering a fifth round of drinks to convince me that I should give him a “last hurrah” before he was officially off the market. He’d shaken his head, murmuring to my legs as he ran his hands all over my shell-shocked body. “I mean Christ, Isla, I didn’t expect you to come in looking
this
fucking good.” He looked straight down my cleavage, digging his fingers into my thighs as he groaned. “Come on, babe… I need to see those beautiful things bounce on top of me one more time. It’ll be like our last secret together. Which is kind of romantic. Right?”
You unbelievable piece of shit
.
I should’ve known something like this would happen, but he’d managed to charm me over the phone. He had mentioned a new job. Paid bills. He looked good as ever when I spotted him through the window, wearing the Jackson Hole T-shirt I’d bought him last year on our snowboarding trip. And it had taken him a full minute to tear his eyes off of my body when I finally walked in wearing a new dress I shouldn’t have bought for multiple reasons – one being that I can’t afford a cup of coffee let alone a twenty dollar dress from H&M, the other being that I really,
really
shouldn’t have been considering the idea of anything sexual.
But I was running on a year without letting anyone touch me and Evan was someone familiar. I wanted sex, yes, but I’d settle for just the warmth of an embrace that could swallow me and take me somewhere else for a moment. Three hundred fifty days later and I still didn’t feel whole. And I knew Evan wasn’t going to be my answer but I wasn’t foolish enough to look for an answer anymore. I was just looking for a second free of heartache.
Instead, I got his bombshell dropped onto my skull.
“Look, I know this is going to be hard for you to process, but Holly and I got engaged last week.”
I blinked. What?
Holly? As in
my
Holly?
No, no, no.
I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Holly McPherson was the girl I’d known my entire life – the girl born on September Eighth, at six thirty-four in the morning, just a minute before me and in the delivery room next to mine. I’d spent entire months living at her house as a kid. From sixteen to eighteen, she drove me to school every morning, despite going to a different one. She blew off NYU to join me at Rutgers.
We’d grown apart as of late. She hadn’t come to Elle’s funeral. But I would never call her anything besides my best friend in the entire world. She had been with me through all the trials and tribulations of my formative years, and both of the screaming, crying breakups I’d had with Evan.
But now they were getting married.
And all I wanted was to disappear.
I couldn’t tell if it was the news or the double margaritas Evan kept ordering, but I felt suddenly sick. I needed to empty the horror churning my stomach and I needed to do it as far from the bar as I could. Because knowing Evan, he’d come looking for me, and the last thing I wanted was for him to see me throwing up. I’d acted calm when he told me about proposing. Perhaps because I hadn’t yet processed his words. Either way, I didn’t want him to see me like this because I couldn’t possibly feel dumber. I was dolled up for him in curls, full makeup, a black dress too tight and sheer to suggest anything but sex – and I was seconds from keeling over to vomit my guts out.
“Isla?”
Fuck.
My stomach lurched when I heard his voice down the block. Panicked, my eyes flew to a narrow alley between two buildings. It was dark as night, protected by a cast iron gate cracked barely an inch. Ignoring the sign, I pushed through it, disappearing into the shadows just as Evan came around. Ducking behind a dumpster, I watched him gaze inside, looking thoroughly intimidated as he pushed at the squeaky gate.
“Isla?” He stepped one foot in, frozen there, his eyes failing to find me even as I began walking backward, submerging myself into the dark. “Isla, if you’re in here, come out! I knew you were going to react like this so I’m not mad. I even paid for the drinks.”
My God, what a saint.
Though with Evan, paying for anything was a miracle.
Standing dead center in the alley, I stared down at him, a sneer curling my lips as I dared him to step foot into the pitch black. He didn’t have the guts to. I knew it. So I stood there watching until he backed away. When he was finally out of sight, I sucked in a deep, quivering breath and willed myself to calm down.
You’re strong. Be strong. You’re fine
. I repeated the words I told everyone in my family when they felt like they couldn’t hold on.
You’re strong. Be strong. You’re fine.
They always worked on my mom, albeit temporarily, and I could almost feel them slowly lifting me out of my hole.
I’ll be okay.
But the second I believed myself, my body hurled forward.
“
Get the fuck out of here!”
A growl and a shriek – the latter was my own as I felt a hard grip on my shoulder, controlling my body and shoving me away. Gasping, I stumbled to the ground, gravel scraping my knees. Panic clenched in my throat as I scrambled onto my back, ready to bolt the fuck out with no questions asked.
But I froze when I saw what stood before me.
Breathless, chest heaving, I stared ahead at two long legs in dark jeans and leather boots, my heart slamming faster as my eyes traveled skyward, realizing the sheer height and size on the man who’d roared for me to leave. His sweat-drenched T-shirt clung to the tapered V of his torso, every muscle flexed and rigid like those shoulders wide enough to break a doorframe.
Holy fuck.
I scrambled backward when my darting eyes saw his fingers wrapped around a metal pipe. His grip crushed it, the vein in the back of his hand bulging, traveling up his muscled forearm and all the way to a lean bicep my hand wouldn’t wrap around half of.
“Get on your feet now.”
I’m going, I swear
, my lips tried to utter. But then I looked up at his face and the breath snatched from my throat.
Despite a warrior’s build, he had the looks of a royal – piercing blue eyes under strong, dark brows. A long, straight nose. The squarest jaw and most sculpted lips I’d ever seen. He was stunning. The kind of unreal beauty I was used to seeing on billboards, red carpets – not in dark alleys, gleaming with sweat and flecked in what I hoped to God wasn’t blood. My pulse jumped into my throat when he spoke again, his low voice rumbling like a mounting storm.
“You have two seconds to walk away on your own.”
His wolfish glare blazed into me, paralyzing every inch of my body. My lips parted but said nothing and when I failed to move, he dropped the pipe and started forward.
“
No
– ” I managed something like the word as I cowered from his imposing frame. But just as he lifted me like a ragdoll, another voice rang out in the alley.
“The fuck we do with this now?”
I turned around, my wide eyes landing on a blonde man in a suit, dragging something heavy that he dropped to the ground when he saw me.
A body.
I heard its lifeless leg fall with a
thud
before my eyes traveled to his head, still pouring thick, red blood. My stomach turned as I then fixed my stare on the gash of white gleaming above his eye.
His skull.
My hair was yanked back the second before I keeled over and heaved.
I jerked awake once my eyes opened. My resting pulse spiked.
This wasn’t my room.
My room was a small, windowless square big enough to fit one twin-sized mattress and IKEA shelf. This room was twelve times the size with arched windows and a wrought iron chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Sprawled with me on the mattress was a plush duvet and a half-dozen pillows cased in ivory silk. Everything in my vicinity screamed money. Opulence. But despite the luxury comforts, my heart was pounding out of my chest. A million awful things had happened last night but my mind was taking too long to catch up and recall.
The second it did, a gasp ripped from my throat.
Evan. That dark alley. The warrior of a man gleaming in fresh sweat and blood. I’d wound up in his car last night. I’d let a stranger who’d
split another man’s head open
take me back to his home. “
Fuck
.” My heavy limbs scrambled to get out of bed but the second I moved, the door swung open. I froze.
Holy shit
.
Pressed against the leather headboard, I couldn’t do a thing but stare at what stood taking up the doorframe – the six feet and four inches of walking, breathing danger that I
should
fear with every fiber of my being. I’d been drunk last night but I was sure that I’d witnessed the brutal aftermath of something he’d been responsible for. His presence alone should have had me running and screaming for my life. But I was doing neither. It was as if I’d been hit with a tranquilizer. Staring at him, I couldn’t think. I could hardly breathe.
“Good morning, Isla.”
His greeting sounded nothing like his voice from last night. It was velvet compared to gravel. He looked different too. His wet hair was almost black, his long eyelashes spaced into perfect triangles too sweet and boyish to match that Spartan build. As he came closer, I could tell he was fresh out of the shower. He smelled good and his T-shirt, struggling to stretch across his chest, was flecked with a million little droplets of water. I couldn’t stop staring but suddenly, my eyes narrowed.
I’d lost my driver’s license weeks ago and no longer kept my credit cards in my wallet. I wouldn’t have the cash to pay off the charges and the last thing I needed was more debt. Knowing this, I peered up at him.
“How do you know my name?”
He was unapologetic. “I read it off the back of Elle’s notes.”
Fire lit my eyes.
It was sudden, uncontrollable, and while I tried to calm myself down, possibly for my own fucking safety, I couldn’t. “You went through my things?” Fury shook my voice. I couldn’t help it. There was nothing in my wallet but sentimental value – a dozen school portraits of Elle and the series of silly notes she’d written me before she died. “There was no reason for you to touch any of that,” I seethed, embarrassed on my sister’s behalf. Scribbled behind those photos were a million secret fantasies of the girl she would’ve been had she lived to see high school.
Medium-tall and pretty like you
, she wrote.
My hair would be as long as yours and I’d have a pair of ripped jeans like the black ones you have, but mine would be blue and I would wear them with my cherry Doc Martens. And I’d be badass but not AS bad as you used to be :D so Mom doesn’t go crazy :D :D
Fuck
. My sanity was a house of cards I built before stepping out my house every morning, and it flattened to nothing when I thought of Elle. Three weeks till her would-be thirteenth. Through tears, I stared down at my hands, folding them together and pressing them into my lap to keep them still. I had nothing to say. He indulged my silence for longer than I expected.
“I have no interest in your personal life. I was looking for an emergency contact.”
“I don’t have one,” I muttered. Holly was my emergency contact but I hoped to never see her again, so it was hardly a lie. “And I don’t know what happened last night. I don’t know what I saw, so just please let me go.”
“You can go. I wasn’t holding you hostage.”
I looked up at him, at the smirk I detected despite no curve on his lips. His voice was a low, smooth rumble and tinged with amusement, it made my heart pound.
“You’re here because you passed out in the alley last night and despite my friend’s suggestions, I preferred not to leave you there.”
Right. There had been a friend. He had dragged the body over but it was this wise ass who’d held the metal pipe. I stared at him. “What’s your name?”
“Abram.”
I blinked. A deceivingly nice-sounding name. It matched him and it didn’t. “And you’re telling me that I can just go.”
“Yes.” He leaned back on his heels and slid his hands in his pockets. “I only came in here to apologize about your dress.”
I paused. Only then did I think to look down at myself. Lifting the duvet off my body, I stared.
Are you kidding me
. I’d been stripped down to my panties. The fact that he had seen and touched me naked sent my cheeks aflame. I shot him daggers. “You took my
clothes
off?”
“I had a hunch you’d prefer not to sleep in your own vomit,” Abram said. He looked to the side. “I also preferred you not sleep in your own vomit.”
My face burned. “I wasn’t wearing anything underneath.”
“I’m more than aware of that.” When I glared, he returned with a look of boredom. “And while I recognize stellar assets when I see them, I generally prefer my naked women conscious. So if you’re looking at me like that because you think I took any liberties with your body last night, you can breathe. That’s not an evil I partake in.”
I clenched my teeth
. But killing is
, I thought, indignant. But I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t remember last night. That was my story and I was sticking to it. In fact, I’d already begun turning in what memories I had, hoping my hangover would claim them and leave me with truly no recollection. I wanted nothing to do with this. Any of it. Abram was the most beautiful man I’d ever lay eyes on, but if never seeing him again meant that I could pretend last night didn’t happen, then great. My life was already in need of massive cleanup without this. I’d left my job because the kids made me think of Elle. With her bills paid, my parents were back to denying my existence. I was a month behind on rent and Evan was marrying Holly. So truly, the last thing I needed was to be the sole witness to what I guessed was a murder. I didn’t have the mental capacity for that. Or the time. What little I had left was being used to dig out of the hole I’d buried myself in since Elle’s funeral. I had to work to do.
I blinked, suddenly compelled to look at the clock.
“
Shit
, I’m late,” I hissed, nearly bursting from bed till I remembered that I was naked. I cut my eyes to Abram. “I need my dress back.”
“I trashed it,” he said. And before I could retort, he gripped the hem of his shirt, peeling it straight off his torso. I stared.
Holy. Christ
.
I forgot how to blink. I couldn’t do it even once as I took in the lines of his chest, his abs, every finely muscled rib – they were cut so deep my jaw dropped like a brick to the floor. But I snapped it shut, hopefully before he could notice.
“Take this.” He held out the soft, grey T-shirt. “It should fit like a dress on you.”
I had no other choice. Pulling it on, I tried not to let his scent intoxicate me but it must’ve because I let him take my hand to help me out of bed. On my feet, I looked down to see the shirt just covering my panties. “It’s not long enough to wear out,” I muttered, keeping my eyes off his body for fear that I’d never stop staring if I looked again.
“Fine.” There was a hint of mischief in Abram’s voice and I felt his eyes glued to me as I then heard it – the distinct jangling of a metal buckle.
What
.
Are you doing.
And just like that, I stared again, stunned as he undid his jeans – belt, button, then zipper before pushing the denim down his muscled legs. My mouth parted. I couldn’t break my gaze even when he caught it, flashing a smirk that I could actually see. It touched the right corner of his lips and stole my breath so easily I resented it.
“Here.” In boxer briefs, Abram tossed me his jeans. The world’s most devilish grin twisted his mouth as he watched me look. At everything. “Call it even,” he said with a laugh that set every inch of me on fire. “And get dressed. I’ll have my driver take you to work.”