Stay (16 page)

Opening my desk drawer, I took out the picture from my old wall that Alanzo had cleaned of Giano’s blood. Angelina’s dark hair flowed in the sunlight. Her back was to me, as always. My faceless angel always carried me through. When no one else would stay, she was always there.

Classes had taught me that children outgrew imaginary friends. Angelina wasn’t a figment of my imagination, though; she was as real as I was. No longer was I torn between my existence and her loss, but rather, we were one in the same—two little girls with innocence gone. Hers was ripped away in an act of violence, and mine had never existed.

Giano had said he touched innocence, that I was his redemption for seeking retribution. He was wrong, and it cost him everything.

How could he touch innocence when I set him up? In my sick and twisted desires, I had killed the only person who had ever cared to save me. His blood was on my hands, just like my father’s.

No doubt, Giano would have killed him that night regardless, but it was my face he saw last, my body he touched last. I could have cried out. I could have warned him. I didn’t. He got what he deserved.

Giano hadn’t deserved what I did. He hadn’t deserved the lust and want of a young woman to rage so out of control that she got him drunk to let down his inhibitions in order to feed her greediness.

“My baby girl, always so greedy.”
My father’s words came back to haunt me. He was right, and he was wrong. I was greedy, but I was not his baby girl. The day he touched me, he tainted me; he darkened my soul. The day he touched me, I was no longer a baby.

Giano saw his wife and daughter in my eyes. He longed to have his family again and clung to hope through me. He saw an innocence he only wished was there, and in the end, my blackened soul consumed him, too.

While I didn’t agree with love being simply a choice, and I didn’t agree that we as humans all had chemical imbalances, I did hold firm that we all had a choice, and we all were imbalanced.

I had a choice with Giano—to accept our relationship for what it was. I chose to push the boundaries. I chose wrong. I looked too far into things and saw only what I wanted to see, not what was really there. He had paid the price.

Nothing in my life had ever been balanced, fair, or just. I was a black widow of my own making, poisoning everything and everyone around me.

What I had learned in my losses was that solitude was my savior. I had escaped hell with my family and never allowed myself to be the version of Angelina I wanted to be. I had lived in a bubble of my own creation, and it was as twisted as anyone could imagine.

To the outsider, I seduced my father when, in reality, my father had tainted me, and my savior had become my victim. The killer became the killed. Only, it wasn’t by my hands in the literal sense, but in my actions.

I owned that. I lived it, breathed it, and tried to lock it away in my blackened soul. I failed. Therefore, now here I was, studying psychology in the hopes of one day saving myself.

Giano had always told me I needed a man to treasure me. He had wanted me to wait for a man and not a boy. He was right, but he left a part out. See, in order for a man to treasure me, I first had to treasure myself.

I was broken, cursed, jaded, and defeated, yet I also was finding my way back to the new me. I would somehow give Giano the redemption he sought by finding a way to love myself, and then maybe one day I could believe someone else could love me.

When it was all said and done, hope had gotten me through every minute of every day this far, and no matter what the future would bring me, I couldn’t lose hope to break the cycle of pain.

Dare I hope, dare I dream, maybe one day I could believe someone would stay.

About the Author

Chelsea Camaron is a USA Today bestselling author who was born and raised in coastal North Carolina. She currently resides in southern Louisiana with her husband and two children, but her heart is forever Carolina day dreaming. Chelsea always wanted to be a writer, but like most of us, let fear of the unknown grab ahold of her dream. Finally, she realized that, if she was going to tell her daughter to go for her dreams, it was time to follow her own advice. When she’s not spending her days writing, you can find her playing with her kids, attending car shows, going on motorcycle rides on the back of her husband’s Harley, snuggling down with her new favorite book, or watching any movie that Vin Diesel might happen to be in.

Chelsea can be found on social media at:

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/authorchelseacamaron

Twitter: @chelseacamaron

Email:
[email protected]

Other works by Chelsea Camaron

Love and Repair Series
:

Crash and Burn

Restore My Heart

Salvaged

Full Throttle

Beyond Repair

Stalled

Box Set Available

Hellions Ride Series
:

One Ride

Forever Ride

Merciless Ride

Eternal Ride

Innocent Ride

Simple Ride (coming Fall 2015)

Heated Ride (coming Winter 2015)

Originals Ride (coming 2016)

Final Ride (coming 2016)

Roughnecks Series
:

Maverick

Heath

Lance

Box Set Available

The Fire Inside Series:

Co-written by Theresa Marguerite Hewitt
:

Kale

Mason (coming 2015)

Ryan (coming 2016)

Zeke (TBD)

Devin (TBD)

Regulators MC Series:

Co-written by Jessie Lane
:

Ice

Hammer (coming 2015)

Coal (coming 2016)

Caldwell Brothers Series:

Co-written by MJ Fields
:

Hendrix

Morrison (coming December 2015)

Jagger (coming April 2016)

I know this book was a bit of a tease with the whole mafia tie in. For those of you who love a good mob book, my dear friend author Ryan Michele has a new release,
Blood & Loyalties,
coming out in October 26, 2015. I have had the opportunity to read this book in advance, and I loved it. If you love romantic suspense with a tough as nails heroine, you will love this book!

Exerpt Blood & Loyalties By Ryan Michele

©Ryan Michele 2015

Chapter 1—Catarina

“You stupid fucking bitch!” Antonio seethed like a pussy as he looked up from the filthy-ass floor of the bar, holding his throbbing crotch.

I laughed, tossing my head back for good measure. Bitch was the worst he could come up with? I had been called worse than that at work when I lost a client’s millions on a bum deal.

I picked up the pointed heel of my black, stiletto boot and plowed it hard into his windpipe, crushing it as he gasped for breath, his eyes wide with fear. He needed to be taught a lesson about fucking over a Lambardoni. It did not come without repercussions, and I wanted to be the one to teach him.

Unfortunately, I knew my bodyguards had called my brother Val. They always did when shit with me happened, and if I didn’t get on with it, Val would ruin all my fun. I was more than capable of handling this weak, pathetic asshole. Val should know that. He and my other brother D had trained me to fight and shoot a target with precision, but something about being “the sister” gave them the right to be overprotective and overbearing, even if I was older than both of them.

As I removed my foot, one of his hands wrapped around his throat as the other continued to grip his aching crotch. The stupid fucker didn’t know whether to grab his balls or neck, his arms flailing in both directions as he rolled from one side to the next, trying to ease the pain. He gasped for breath, the look of confusion in his eyes laughable. I did pack one hell of a powerful knee thrust, though. No doubt his balls were shoved so deep inside he could taste them in his mouth.

Wicked thoughts crept in my head. Using my best weapon of the moment—the hot ass boots Kiera had insisted I wear for the night—I picked a spot on his rib cage and began kicking it over and over again, plowing into him, hoping like hell the blows would crack the fuckers. It was the least he deserved.

I moved with him at each turn he tried to make, hitting him dead in the same spot. He grunted and attempted to bat my foot away from his body with his hands as he tried to hold himself at the same time. His less than stealthily attempts only made him look like a bigger pansy-assed bitch. It was amazing how much actual joy I felt from watching him struggle.

He tried to curl up in the fetal position, the dirt from the floor coating his clothes and both sides of his face. He groaned, taking each hit, but it didn’t feel like enough. The fucker didn’t even have the balls to really fight back.

“Catarina, what the hell happened?” Kiera—my cousin, best friend, and pretty much sister in every way that counts—said loudly at my side, trying to compensate for the music blaring in the distance. Regardless, my focus stayed on the fucker on the floor as I stepped farther back from his withering body.

When Kiera and I had decided to come out to the club to let off some steam from a brutal week at work, I hadn’t realized I would be getting a hefty workout this way instead of on the dance floor.

I stared down at the man I had thought loved me, who had said I was the one for him, the
only
one. Stupid. I should have known by now that the only reason men found an interest in me was because of my father and family. Each one seemed to want that pivotal “in” to the business, and for some reason, they thought I could get it for them.

I knew Antonio wanted to move up in the ranks with his family, but it wasn’t in the cards for him. That right there should have been a huge red flag for me, but I had trusted him when he told me, if he couldn’t move up in his own family, he didn’t want to move up at all.

Lies. All fucking lies. One would think I had learned this lesson over my twenty-nine years on this earth, but I kept falling for it: hook, line, and sinker. The word sucker was plastered on my fucking forehead, and that life that I craved so much was completely unobtainable. Not anymore. This would be it. This fucker would be the absolute last.

Being the daughter of a very powerful man came with a stiff price, the biggest being whom to trust, which I had learned, mostly the hard way, wasn’t many. Family was about the only ones I could, and damn if that didn’t suck ass with finding a love life.

Even women had proved too scarce in the honesty department, mostly wanting to fuck my brothers rather than actually get to know me. That was why Kiera and I had stuck together over the years. It was safer for everyone. No one else understood this life.

I wasn’t and never had been a weak person. Growing up in the Lambardoni family, it was not an option. Between my father, uncle, brothers, and cousins, both Kiera and I had been taught with an iron fist—a loving iron fist, but still, a strong, gripping fist.

Glancing down at the floor, I couldn’t believe I had wasted my time on this man. I would have to thank my brother Dominic—D for short—for teaching me kickboxing. It proved very handy, even if my technique was shit at the moment, but it was kind of hard to really show technique when the guy was on the ground.

The asshole growling under my feet thought he could profess his undying love for me and then go fuck some blonde whore in the bathroom. Mistake. Big mistake.

When he told me he was going to get drinks then headed in the opposite way of the bar, every flag in my head stood to alert. Val had taught me how to observe one’s surroundings, promising me it would come in handy one day, and that day was definitely one of them.

Throughout Val’s teachings, my eyes became sharper in viewing my surroundings and noticing those key things that were out of place: a car parked somewhere it shouldn’t be or a person walking a bit to closely. I would see it, and it would keep me on my toes.

Realizing Antonio turned down the hallway in his quest for drinks, I motioned for my full-time guard, Scraper—yes, that was his name—to follow him. He took off, only to report back minutes later that Antonio had a piece of ass in the women’s bathroom.

The pained expression on Scraper’s face sent me into action. I knew it was pained because of the betrayal to me, and I would be putting Antonio’s ass on a stick.

I rushed through the crowd with Scraper on my heels, trying to get through the crush of people. I knew Scraper would stay out of the confrontation until or if he needed to intervene. He had been my guard for the past six years, and while at first we couldn’t stand the sight of each other, he had grown on me over the years.
After growing up together, I even liked him, and he knew when to step back and let me take the lead so I could prove myself capable to my family, which was a must.

I caught a glimpse through the crack in the door of that piece of shit, confirming he was in fact balls deep in pussy that wasn’t mine, and then I waited. I was exceptionally patient, one of my many redeeming qualities. As I stood back in the shadows of the darkened, narrow hallway that led to the bathroom, I tried reining in my anger. It would get me nowhere and cause me to make stupid mistakes. Having a clear head was the only way to go. Hurt had already gone out the damn window, so there was no need for that or any emotion.