Booted (Trails of Sin 3)

He might be old and destitute, but that didn’t stop him before. The motherfucker is resourceful. If he wants her badly enough, he’ll find people and ways to make it happen.

What if he already found her? He could have her shackled somewhere right now.

I grew up under his thumb, and I know how he operates. He’s selfish, greedy, and indulges in whatever he wants, whenever he wants. I bet he wants Raina for no other reason than because she’s the sexiest woman to ever step foot in Sandbank.

Hell, even with her face swollen and bruises discoloring her body, she’s so goddamn gorgeous I can’t breathe when I look at her.

But I haven’t forgotten she stole from me. Christ, I’m angry. Fucking enraged. I can’t blame her, though. She has nothing to her name, not even a shirt on her back. She wants revenge, and she did what she had to do to go after him.

It’s a strange contrast, these feelings she stirs in me. I want to punish for her stealing and reward her for being so tenacious. A spanking would accomplish both. Ruthless strikes to teach a lesson. Erotic swats to arouse hunger. Fucking hell, to see her naked, bound, and trembling…

I adjust myself, hard and annoyed by the direction of my thoughts.

She shouldn’t have gone after John alone. But if she waited, would I have helped her? At the risk of losing my freedom?

I was arrested, convicted and incarcerated in a maximum-security state penitentiary a month after my eighteenth birthday for second-degree murder.

I pleaded guilty because John and my father promised me that Conor would be safe as long as I was locked up. Any other eighteen-year-old kid would’ve pleaded self-defense and gotten off.

To say I’m carrying a massive fucking grudge is an understatement.

I served eight years of a ten-year sentence, because I kept my head down and my ass squeaky clean. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I lived with seven-hundred violent men who were ready to kill me at the drop of a hat, and I know that mentality rubbed off on me.

But would I kill again at the risk of returning to that hell? Even if I had proof that John murdered my mother?

My stomach hardens at the thought.

I know prison changed me, but it’s difficult to remember who I was prior to incarceration.

I lost my adolescent innocence the night I watched two men violently take my little sister’s virginity. Vaginally. Anally. I can still hear her muffled screams.

I’ve slept with those demons for eight years.

That said, it’s possible I came out with more emotional trauma than I went in with. PTSD is unavoidable. No one leaves prison without it.

I received an education in human depravity and criminal behavior that can’t be learned in a school psychology course. I survived by mastering indifference, by forcing myself to become numb to things that would bring the average person to tears.

Now that I’m out, I don’t know how to be un-numb.

What I do feel, however, is a strong attachment to common things. A cup of coffee, a starlit sky, a sexy song, a woman’s smile—the tiniest things are luxuries behind bars.

I twist the leather rope around my wrist, where it wraps twice to make a bracelet. As far as I know, this necklace is the only thing Raina owned. Her sole possession. And she left it behind.

For me.

A strange warmth shifts in my chest as I run my thumb over the wire in the dream catcher pendant. It looks handmade and lovingly worn, and Christ, it smells like her. I lift the leather strap to my nose for the hundredth time and breathe deeply. Sweet, botanical, feminine.

It’s the damnedest thing, but when I wrapped the necklace around my wrist, I knew I would never take it off.

The door to the strip club opens, and a middle-aged man stumbles out. He ambles across the parking lot and stops beside a red sports car. His hands lower to his zipper, and he proceeds to urinate on the concrete.

Every muscle in my body turns to stone. It’s an instinctual response, one I acquired in the Gladiator-like environment in prison. There’s a level of respect inside that doesn’t exist out here. Pissing on the ground or hacking loogies at the dinner table would get a man killed in there.

This jackass doesn’t think twice about it, because the world he lives in is a disrespectful free-for-all. As he climbs into the car, I’m tempted to chase him down and teach him a lesson with my fists.

But I didn’t come here to pick a fight.

I need to get laid. Because I’m a man, and I’ve gone eight years without. That’s the only thing I should be thinking about.

Given the half-empty parking lot and dearth of traffic coming in and out of the building, it shouldn’t be crowded inside.