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  Abrupt

  Kathy Coopmans

  Abrupt

  © 2020 Kathy Coopmans

  Cover Design- Jill Sava with Love Affair With Fiction

  Editing done by- Ellie McLove with My Brother’s Editor

  Proofreader- Cat Parisi with Cat’s Eye-proofing

  Formatting- HJ Bellus/Small Town Girl Formatting

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real.

  Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved.

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission by the author. All rights are reserved.

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Dedication

  For Xavier.

  “You’ve got a Friend in me.”

  Randy Newman

  Toy Story.

  Prologue

  Lane

  “Do I look like a man who gives a shit that’s a two thousand dollar bottle of bourbon? I told you to give me the whole damn bottle.” A breath of disgust passes through my clenched teeth. More of it’s about ready to slip out of my lungs if I don’t get the hell out of this room to breathe some fresh air.

  I’m two point five seconds from causing a scene at this farce of a wedding by reaching across the bar and crushing the bartender’s windpipe the minute he turns back around. All the while shouting to everyone that the bride will never love the groom the way she does me.

  “Sienna.” Her name leaks out of my aching chest in a barely-there whisper.

  “And I told you Mr. Ricci said to cut people off if I thought they had too much. You’ve had enough, pal.” He spins on his feet, daring to stare me down.

  I’m not this asshole’s pal. I’m nothing but a miserable man who needs to drink myself into a stupor. He happens to be in my way.

  I contemplate jumping over this bar to take my frustration out on his face or scare the shit out of him.

  Either way, I will have that bottle.

  “I’ll show you, pal, when I ram this down your throat. Do you have a problem with giving me the bourbon now?” I flash my gun, not bothering to thank him when he raises his hands in surrender, grabs my drink of choice, and slides it across the smooth top of the bar.

  I hated guns about as much as I hated having to attend this wedding. The problem was, tonight, I wanted to strap it to my side in case I decided to pull the trigger and shoot the groom in the back of the head as he stood at the altar. Now, I wish I had.

  Sienna is married, my life, my girl is married.

  Fuck.

  “Wise choice, asshole.” I snatch hold of it, fingers itching like a bitch to walk up to the groom, dump it over his head and light him on fire.

  Yeah, I had a problem with the groom.

  I hated his guts. He has my only regret, my life, my everything in his arms.

  At twenty years old, I had a list a mile long of regrets, most of them having one thing or another to do with the bride.

  Regret number one, she was as much the forbidden fruit as tempting, and I was that much of a dumb ass like Adam was with Eve to take a bite. I knew the commandments and broke them anyway by touching the woman with hair the same color as the apple.

  Flaming red.

  She’s poisoned me for life.

  The woman should be mine instead of some made man’s in her father’s mafia. Bastard jumped at the chance to slide a ring on her finger within two months after I made the biggest mistake of my life.

  I might be able to handle it if he wasn’t a piece of scum, I think, to be a traitor. If only I had the proof to back up my instincts. The only thing I have is how my blood boiled every time he shook my hand and smiled with a sinister look in his eyes.

  If I find out he’s fucking with my family or trying to destroy what they’ve built, I’ll blow a hole right between those demonic looking eyes.

  Taking a swig, I spin around, keeping my eyes on the door, determined to not only look at the bridal table but to take my pity party for one as far away from the glam, glitter, and the celebration as I can get. I need to be drunk and forget about watching the gorgeous woman dressed in white walking down the aisle toward a man I know damn well she doesn’t love.

  No. That love will always belong to me.

  I need to forget the hurt on her face when she found out what I did at Behind Closed Doors; the sex club me and my brothers own. I need to forget how I should have never fallen for a girl years ago when I knew I couldn’t keep her.

  I need to learn how to live my life full of regrets. I need to forget Sienna Ricci ever existed and move on.

  If I don’t, I’ll likely get us and a slew of other people I care about killed.

  Chapter One

  Sienna

  “Welcome to Texas, Sienna. Sitting behind that desk suits you. I bet you’d look better spread out on top of it. In fact, I know you would.”

  I jump, my heart thumping wildly, my finger lifting off the trigger of my 9mm at the sound of that voice. God, talk about deep, as in, confine my heart in a destructive web of delicious sin. I remember it all too well.

  It belongs to none other than Lane Mitchell. The man who grabbed hold, seized, and still owns every part of me. It’s been over a decade, and I still feel him in my soul. From the first time he spoke to me, he spun a piece of himself into me.

  I won’t tell him that. Ever again.

  Biting my lip, I wondered how long it would take him to make an appearance back into my ungrounded world to tremble it under my feet all the more.

  An earthquake that will rattle me before it splits me in half.

  My throat goes dry, stomach queasy at the thought of shooting a man who is physically harmless to me. It’s the emotional part of me he’d ripped thousands of moons ago into shreds that concern me. No matter what he has done, I’d never want to shoot him, and I could have.

  My heart palpitates with the thought.

  “Look at me, Sienna,” he demands, causing me to clench my teeth as well as my legs, the man dragging out the ‘n’s in my name as if he’s waited years to say it.

  It makes me want to burst out in laughter. A sound that would be so alien coming out of me, I’d up and pass out onto the floor.

  I’m relieved and scared at the same time as I holster the gun I keep stored under my desk back where it belongs. I’d pulled it out a few minutes ago when I heard the near soundless footsteps coming down the hall. When you grow up believing boogeymen lives under your bed, then turn around and marry someone far worse than you pictured the Devil himself to be, you can hear a pin drop.

  I knew it wasn’t my husband, Joseph, coming back to claim the little of my spirit he’d left me to survive with, his footsteps, whether light or heavy, I can hear in my sleep. They’ve haunted me day and night for years as well as the man standing in my doorway. If I knew I’d be able to get past Lane
without the slightest of touch, I would, and then I’d disappear. It wouldn’t be by choice either. It would be so I wouldn’t have to crush his heart along the same, yet a different reason as he’d done mine.

  “When someone receives a compliment, they say thank you while looking the person in the eye. I’m sure your father wouldn’t be pleased if he knew his Bell’ Angelo was cowering away from me. I have a list of regrets that have trailed me for years when it comes to you. They need rectifying. Look at me, La Mia Vita. I’m not going to ask again,” he commands with such a dominant tone. One that hasn’t changed a bit. I swear the intensity of it along with the sweltering energy swirling from his presence ricochets from the walls, bouncing right into my chest.

  Bastard.

  I, too, have a list. The first, how dare he use the two terms of endearment that are permanently attached to my heart. Bell’ Angelo means a beautiful angel in Italian. My father has called me that for as long as I can remember. The other? La Mia Vita translates to my life. Sometimes I swear I can still hear Lane whisper it in my ear before I fall asleep at night all these years later. It and the things he used to promise, along with doing pleasurable things to my body, do not have a place in this now stifling room. I refuse to show how it’s tugging at the strings of my heart.

  “He also taught me not to be a hypocrite. When you don’t particularly like, nor want to acknowledge someone, you don’t. Both apply to you. It’s a little too late to right wrongs, Lane.”

  Trust me, I should know.

  Keeping my head down, a hopeless chill raises goosebumps on my arms as I glance at my phone while struggling to wrap my head around that distinctive voice from a past I wish would have gone differently.

  It’s unforgettable. It is deeply planted in the very pit of my core, and no one in this lifetime will ever uproot it.

  “As you can see, I’m busy. What do you want?” I blow out a shaky breath and still my trembling fingers over the keyboard of my laptop.

  Closing my eyes, I try to block out the times I’ve seen Lane’s brothers Seth and Logan since I moved to Texas. The heartache is constant after hearing from his brothers that he’d changed. It’s what I deserved to hear when I was naïve enough to fall for him long ago, believing he loved me the way I did him when he didn’t.

  The worst thing about it, I know the hidden truth. Lane might have changed in some ways; in others, he hasn’t. Those ways I have to stay clear of, or he’ll suck me right back in.

  Over the years, I’d ask about him when I’d come home to visit, pretending I wasn’t a mixed ball of emotions when I’d walk through the door of my father’s home wondering if that would be the time he’d be there.

  He never was. I was thankful and disappointed.

  What’s even harder to think about is when I was fifteen, my father sat me down, along with all three Mitchell brothers, and told them I was forbidden. He made them swear they understood while I sat there mortified and shaking like a leaf. He threatened to kill them and any of his other men if they ever broke his loyalty. Lane did right along with my heart. What my father didn’t know then and still doesn’t is that Lane and I were already involved.

  Breathe, Sienna. It’s okay. You knew deep down you’d see him again. Look him in the eyes and get everything you should have said years ago off your chest.

  I do as my mind says. Well, the breathing part and all I smell is the scents of citrus and control that to this day slay me.

  I hate that Lane’s scent comforts me when it shouldn’t.

  I let out a sigh, everything inside of me trembling.

  There are two people I’ve told about the secret teenage affair that started when Lane and I were fourteen. My husband, who beat it out of me until I gave in, and the only real friend I’ve ever had, Victoria Hughes.

  “I’m not above making you look at me. It’ll allow me to touch that silky skin. I can see how soft it still is from here. Snowy white perfection.” Oh, God, he is still a smooth-talker.

  Arguing sits on the tip of my tongue. I bite it down, knowing all too well the man is trying to get under my skin. If he only knew he’s always been there, Lord knows what he’d do. Probably slam me against the wall, please me in ways my body hasn’t been in a long time.

  I sit perfectly still, ignoring his loads of bullshit. In between my legs? Well, it pulses with need, remembering how Lane knew my body better than I did. But then reality confronts my mind, recollecting how he used me. Hurt me in ways I’ve long forgiven him for, yet I haven’t been able to forget.

  Of course, my despicable husband did the same thing only months after we married. Except he didn’t sneak his secret sex-life behind my back. He paraded his whores around if only to humiliate me, broke many of the mafia’s codes, as well as the ones set forth when he asked my father for my hand, and throughout the years, I kept my mouth shut out of fear and protectiveness. Letting my father believe his trusted right-hand man running his dirty and criminal dealings in New York was loyal and faithful.

  The man I married has a cold-black heart that I hope once he’s found, it’s cut right out of his chest. The bastard vanished into thin air after he took away the only thing that has kept me from killing myself.

  After what my husband did, my uncle and father will castrate him before slicing him from head to toe. I don’t care how they kill him. I want him dead.

  If only I would have told them what kind of man Joseph is before it was too late. If only the boy I fell in love with didn’t come along and break me enough that I ran right into Joseph’s arms after I caught Lane balls deep in a woman while another rode his face.

  Those thoughts have me glancing at my phone again. It’s a habit, wishing for it to ring and the person on the other end being the one I need to survive. I carry my phone with me wherever I go. I sleep with it close to my ear. It’s my lifeline, and one of these days, it has to ring because despite the hell I’ve lived in, I still believe there’s a God out there who will grant me this one blessing. If he doesn’t, I don’t know how to go on.

  “Do you know what I want from you, Sienna? The truth. Let me take you to lunch, and we’ll go from there.” He sounds completely shattered.

  He cannot know the truth, can he? No, he would have tracked me down long before this if he did. I swallow around a ball filled with a treacherous lie.

  Lane will find the truth soon enough. When he does, he won’t think me anything but the scum of the earth that I am.

  “I can’t afford you to spend time with you. How did you get in here, Lane?” I reset the alarm when I came into work. I always double, sometimes triple check. If I don’t, even knowing that there’s security outside, I wouldn’t be able to work by myself.

  Then I remember just who this man is. He’s clever. After all, he’d sneak past my father’s soldiers and right into my bed, and I was the stupid girl who spread her legs and gave everything to him.

  An infinite amount of emotion rolls through me, approaching the dam surrounding my chest I painstakingly built over the years. They were already close to breaking the walls and drowning me before Lane thought he could waltz back into my life and make demands, bringing emotions I can’t afford to harbor when I’m barely afloat. If I cave before screwing my head on straight when it comes to him and the secrets I hold, I will surely drown in the undertow.

  “We’ll get to that once I see your gorgeous face. Don’t play games with me, Sienna. I said lunch, not sex. I haven’t taken money for it in years.”

  That wasn’t the afford I meant. I’m talking about what will shift the lives of so many people if it’s not done the right way, especially if Lane and I were to be seen in public when I haven’t a clue where my husband is.

  “Of course, we’ll get to it at your convenience. How could I forget that the Mitchell brothers always get what they want?” That’s something that will never change. I used to like it that way. With Lane, I got the things I wanted too. We were equals. Or so I thought.

  “In most cases, we do. In t
he one I’ve always wanted, I didn’t. I lost it, and now I want it back.” Lane’s tone is under control, but his words? They are intense and hungry, hitting where he meant them to, right between my unsatisfied quivering legs.

  Don’t give into him, Sienna. He’s a master at manipulation and lies.

  What’s left of my heart thumps frantically, as if fighting to find a place to hide. I shouldn’t have listened to my uncle and father when they practically dragged me out of my house in New York and gave me a choice to stay at my childhood home or move here where my father bought a house for him and me. I couldn’t live in New York any longer, any more than I could sleep in a room in New Orleans that held memories of Lane. I would have died a little more every day than I already am. I chose to move here knowing I’d run into the man who mutilated my heart.

  I should have never let excitement get the best of me when I interviewed and got the manager’s position at The Grill House. One of Houston’s newest five-star steak restaurants in the heart of the city. It’s been open a month, and we’re booked six weeks out already.

  How my father was able to get me in for an interview, let alone, how I got the job when I have no experience whatsoever except spreading my legs, playing the part of a loyal wife to my husband’s power, is beyond me.

  Once power, I remind myself. Thanks to what my husband did, it was stripped away by my father. Without it, Joseph is left wide open for any mafia member from all the families to capture and be rewarded once I have back what he took from me.

  Now that Lane is a few feet away from me, I’m regretting my decision. As well as so many more I’ve made.