Blade (The Alpha Elite #11)

Prologue

Seven Years Ago

W earing my only dress, the same one I’d put on five years ago for my father’s funeral, I glanced down the hall as my stomach churned.

“What the fuck are you waiting for?” Henry shoved past me and walked out of my bedroom. “Let’s go.”

“What happened?” I blurted.

“What?” he snapped, pivoting as he buttoned the cuffs of a dress shirt I never knew he owned, let alone seen him wear.

Forcing myself to meet his gaze, I tried to stand my ground. “You’re angry all the time now. I don’t know what I did, but we don’t have to do this.” He clearly didn’t want to.

A year ago, when he’d first made eye contact with me from the front yard of the house across the street and winked, I maybe would’ve been stupid enough to believe he felt something for me. But even then, I knew Henry was that guy.

Seven years older, tattooed and cocky, he hung out with the wrong crowd.

He also had a different girl every night, his parties were legendary, and his reputation went way beyond the drug-dealing rumors.

Everyone knew Henry Ashland was bad news.

Including his own mother, who used to kick him out at least once a week, usually while screaming and throwing one of her empty bottles of alcohol at him as she chased him out of the house. Their dirt front yard was littered with broken glass, and the place looked like a war zone. Or it had until the house was foreclosed on, Henry’s mom took off with some boyfriend, and Henry moved into my basement.

Sort of.

He crashed on the couch down there, left dirty clothes all over, and stunk up the place with weed and alcohol—when he slept here.

Which wasn’t all the time.

Or even half the time.

Sometimes he was gone a week. Other times, it was just a few days or overnight. But the one constant was that he never said where he went, and I never asked. I only made that mistake once, and I had the scar to prove it.

Now I knew.

There were two very different versions of Henry.

One was charm and swagger. I hadn’t seen that version directed at me since he’d carried an armload of clothes over from his house and called me sugar tits before dumping the pile in the basement my grandfather had converted to a den.

Like a cruel joke, the memory played in my head.

“Good news, sugar tits.” Coming in through the back door like he owned the house, carrying a pile of unfolded clothes, Henry winked at me. “I’m your new roomie.” Checking out my tits and smirking, he waltzed toward the basement. “But play your cards right, and maybe when you’re not nursing your old man or being the high school nerd, I’ll find a good use for those tits, and we’ll hang.” He winked.

Color flooded my cheeks. “He’s my grandfather, not my dad.”

Stopping at the top of the stairs, Henry’s expression sobered for a second. “Oh yeah, that’s right. Your old man ate a bullet in Iraq.”

Shocked by how he spoke so bluntly about it, I glanced at all the ink covering both of his arms. “It was Afghanistan. And it was an IED.”

“Still a shit way to go. Stupid fucking war, if you ask me.” He shook his head. “Is that why your Pops lays in bed all day? He sick about losing your old man or something?”

I admitted a truth I hadn’t said aloud to a single other person. “He has cancer.”

“He gonna die?”

I kept the realty to myself. “We all die.”

He smirked. “Ain’t that the truth.” A crooked smile tipped half his mouth up. “Live it while you got it, sugar tits.” With another wink, he disappeared downstairs.

Shaking away the memory, I hated to admit how that version of Henry had been nice.

Well, nice-ish.

Then he’d gotten nicer.

Sort of.

And Grandpa had gotten sicker.

Then one night, after an emotionally draining day of taking care of a grandfather who’d never wanted the burden of raising another kid, Henry resurfaced from a two-day disappearing act while I was doing dishes. After waltzing in through the back door with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth, he grabbed my hand and dragged me downstairs without saying a word. Weak, sad, exhausted, and tired of feeling scared and helpless, I let him pull me onto the couch.

When he lit up a joint, I watched.

When he kissed me with cigarette breath, I didn’t push him away.

When he yanked down my pants, shoved up my shirt, and pinned my legs, I didn’t protest.

He told me I’d love it.

He told me he’d take good care of me.

His skin smelled like alcohol, the den was a fog of weed, and I’d believed him.

He rough-fucked me.

Slapping my tits, gripping my throat, pounding into me so hard that he left bruises, he called me a dirty whore over and over as he choked me. Then he expelled his anger and his release all over my chest. Smirking as he yanked up his pants, he told me he knew I’d love taking it like a slut right before he slapped my face so hard my teeth rattled.

I didn’t love it.

I didn’t even like it.

But I still felt that slap like it was reverb, amplifying every single part of my life—except reality.

Dirty and ugly and chaotic, it’d terrified me.

That version of Henry terrified me.

But Mean Henry had done something no one else ever had. He’d taken me out of my own head.

Now he was my drug and supplier, and he used both as a weapon.

Henry looked at me like he always did now—like I was shit and I deserved his wrath. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

I stood taller, but I was only an inch past five feet. “You don’t have to do this.” That was good. I could make this about him. Henry was always all about him.

He caught on. Quick. “ I don’t have to do this?” Anger flared hot in his crazed eyes, and he gave me the glassy but somehow meaner gaze he had when he smoked the hard stuff. “You think this is about me? You think I’m doing this shit for myself?” Suddenly seething, his nostrils flared. “You fat fucking pig, you think you can get someone else to do this shit for you?” Taking the step between us, he leaned down to my face. Then, jabbing his pointer finger into my chest so hard it would be another bruise added to the landscape, he fumed with the quiet version of his rage that he reserved for whenever someone else was within earshot. “You’re lucky I’m doing this, you fucking cum whore.”

“Henry,” my grandfather yelled from his bedroom.

Glaring at me, Henry stood to his full height, then called out in a cordial tone he never used when it was just me and him. “Coming, Pops.” Scanning the length of me, he shook his head in disgust as he lowered his voice to unfiltered disdain. “You don’t even fit in that ugly-ass dress. Get some fucking control and lose weight, you pig, or I’ll tape your mouth shut and tie you to the radiator in the basement.”

“Henry!”

“Coming!” Henry abruptly grabbed one of my nipples through the offending dress and twisted so hard, my body contorted.

Opening my mouth with a soundless scream, bending into the punishment to try to staunch the pain, I did what I’d become an expert at.

I didn’t cry out or shed a single tear.

Releasing me only to aim a silent pointer finger at my face in warning, Henry then turned toward my grandfather’s room. “We’re coming, Pops!”

“Then get in here!”

Henry disappeared into the bedroom that smelled like Vicks and stale body.

I sucked in a breath.

“Where is she?” my grandfather demanded loudly.

“Fixing her dress.” Henry chuckled. “You know how women are.”

“Don’t you ever have a laugh at my granddaughter’s expense, young man, or I will haunt you from my grave.”

My stomach dropped.

Henry’s voice sobered. “Never, sir. I don’t disrespect her like that.”

“You better not,” Grandpa warned before addressing the other man in his bedroom. “Reverend, go see if she’s got cold feet or just dragging ’em.”

“Yes, sir.” A second later, the minister popped his head into the hallway and glanced at me.

I quickly dropped my gaze and brushed my hands over the dress that was too tight around my boobs, hips and ass, but in all fairness, it was purchased when I was twelve years old. “I’m sorry.”

“For what, child?”

I looked up. “I’m not a child.”

The older man’s face softened like it had at my father’s funeral. “No, I suppose you’re not anymore.” His expression turned impassive as he stepped all the way into the hall and lowered his voice. “Though you are only seventeen, young lady. In the eyes of the law, you aren’t an adult yet.”

But I was old enough to become emancipated, drive, and get married—with written permission. “I know my rights.”

“I would imagine you do,” he said not unkindly.

Henry stepped out in the hall. “Reverend, Pops wants you.”

“Of course.” The minister smiled at me, then went back into my grandfather’s bedroom.

Henry’s expression hardened with an unspoken threat, and he jerked his head toward the open door before walking back through it.

Six months , I silently chanted.

Six months and I would be eighteen.

Drawing in a breath, I started toward the bedroom, and the back door banged open.

“Lynnie? Is everything okay? I know you said not to bug you, but I saw the minister’s car and wondered if everything was…” Xander, the boy next door, stopped in his tracks as he rounded the corner and saw Henry step out of my grandfather’s bedroom. Except Xander wasn’t a boy anymore. “…okay,” he finished, glancing from Henry to me. “What’s he doing here? Is this why you told me to go away?” His throat bobbed like he was swallowing something painful. “Please tell me you’re not messed up with him.”

Tall and lanky, looking like he hadn’t grown into his shoulders yet, Xander was everything I avoided—genuinely nice, honest, and concerned. After my father died and my grandfather got sick, I saw the writing on the wall. I knew I was on borrowed time, but I’d just been trying to get through high school unnoticed. Because if the authorities knew I was taking care of my last remaining, terminally ill family member, they’d intervene. The last time I’d taken my grandfather to his doctor, the oncologist had gone from threatening to call Child Protective Services to saying it was his obligation to call. And that would be bad. Like take me away from my grandfather bad.

Irrationally, even though I knew deep down my grandfather resented my presence, it was my biggest fear.

It had been since he’d told me he was sick, handed me a copy of his will, a Do Not Resuscitate form, and told me to run away and not come back.

I didn’t leave.

I couldn’t bring myself to, but I also wasn’t stupid. If anything happened to my grandfather before I turned eighteen, I was screwed. Which was why I’d started avoiding people.

Especially people like Xander.

And especially since I’d grown boobs.

Xander’s cheeks turned red when he talked to me now, and that wasn’t the kind of attention I needed. Not from someone who’d also started bringing over food his mother had cooked for us. I didn’t have a mom, at least not one I remembered, but homemade meals by a concerned adult were also a hard pass.

So I’d told Xander to stop bugging me.

Publicly.

In a shitty move straight out of a scene from Henry’s life, I’d stepped onto my front porch one night as Xander was bringing over another homemade meal and I’d raised my voice.

The look of hurt on Xander’s face still bothered me.

But Henry’s smirk as he’d stood watching from his front yard had been the first nail in my coffin. The next morning when Henry intercepted me as I left for school, then walked me the entire way, that was the second nail.

They’d been pounding in ever since.

And I still didn’t know if Henry just happened to be coming home that morning or was up early or if he’d planned the whole thing because he knew his mom’s house was going into foreclosure.

I didn’t want to know.

“ Messed up with me?” Glaring at Xander, Henry threw an arm over my shoulders. “You looking to get your ass kicked?”

“Henry, don’t,” I warned, praying— praying —he didn’t tell Xander why the minister was really here.

“Oh, now you don’t like violence?” Henry smirked.

Xander cast a furious glance at Henry before looking at me with alarm. “What’s going on, Lynnie?”

“Yeah, Lynnie , what’s going on?” Henry taunted, digging his fingers into the soft flesh of my upper arm.

“Nothing, Xander. Go home.”

Xander glanced frantically from Henry’s hand on my shoulder to me. “You want me to go get my mom? She’s home. Or I can call my dad.”

Henry laughed. “That’s fucking rich.”

“What the hell’s going on out there?” Grandpa yelled. “Get in here!”

I fought tears, and for the second time in my life, I ignored my grandfather. “It’s okay, Xander. Just go.”

“I’m not leaving you.” Xander looked at me like I was the insane one here.

Maybe I was. No, strike that. I definitely was. “You have to go.”

“Nah.” Henry dropped his arm. “I got a better idea.” Grabbing Xander by the front of his shirt, he shoved him into the bedroom. “You can be our witness.”

Looking like he’d been punched in the stomach, Xander stumbled back.

Aiming a cruel stare at me, Henry lowered his voice. “Since you’re so intent on protecting the nerd, maybe I’ll make him do the deed of fucking my fat whore of a wife while I watch. How’d you like that, you dirty slut?”

“ Henry !” Grandpa yelled.

“Coming!” Henry yelled back before yanking me toward the door, then pushing past me to stride into the bedroom first.

Frozen where he’d left me, wanting to throw up, I stared at my grandfather’s hospital bed while Xander stared at me.

Henry nodded at the minister. “We’re ready.”

The minister looked from me to the nightstand that was littered with too many bottles of medications to count. “My apologies, Gerry, but I have to ask. Are you of sound mind to make this decision?”

Rooted in the doorway, I thought about running. Just turn around, grab the car keys, and go.

“Course I am. Don’t I look it?” Grandpa coughed, then waved an impatient hand. “But I don’t have all day. I already gave these two permission to get married, and you’ve got a job to do, so do it.”

“ Married? ” Xander practically yelled.

Grandpa looked at Xander like he was just noticing he was there. “What are you doing here, son?”

“He’s our witness.” Henry slapped Xander on the back. “He’s even gonna hang out and celebrate with us after. Aren’t you, nerd?”

“What? No!” Xander shoved away from Henry and looked at me as words started tumbling out of him like dominos. “Lynnie, what are you doing? Don’t do this. Just—just wait, okay? I’ll marry you. I mean, I want to marry you. But we’re only seventeen. Please, don’t do this. Don’t do this .”

“Xander,” my grandfather snapped.

“Yes, sir?” Xander replied, instantly straightening his back like he was in formation.

“Aren’t you going into the Army?” My grandfather coughed. “Don’t you leave for basic training soon?”

A pile of bricks landed in my stomach, and I couldn’t keep the hurt out of my voice when I had no right. “You enlisted?” And my grandfather knew?

“Yes, sir, after graduation,” Xander replied to Grandpa before looking pleadingly at me. “I was going to tell you. I was just waiting for the right moment, and then you told me to get lost. But now….” He glanced briefly at Henry. “Don’t marry him, Lynnie. Please .” He dropped his voice, but we all heard him. “I know what you’re doing.”

Henry smirked. “Yeah, she’s marrying me.”

“How are you gonna take care of my granddaughter if you’re shipping out, son?” Grandpa didn’t wait for a reply from Xander. He gave the minister an order. “Let’s get this show on the road. I’m tired. She’s marrying the Ashland kid.”

“Gerry, I think your granddaughter needs to be allowed to speak for herself.” The minister looked at me like only a man of God could—with holy judgment. “Do you want to go through with this, child?”

I hated that he called me child.

I hated how Xander was looking at me.

I hated Henry.

And I hated this world.

The doctor had told us to call hospice weeks ago. My grandfather refused. He said he wasn’t allowing the death brigade into his house—not unless I ran away or got married.

So this was my choice.

I looked the minister in the eye. “I’m not a child, and I’ve already made my decision.”

The older man’s gaze held mine for a moment that lasted an eternity, then he nodded. “All right, then.”

Xander tried to push past Henry and walk out.

Henry stopped him with a hard shove to his chest and a fake smile. “You’re staying, nerd. You’re now my best man.” Then he grabbed my hand in a punishing grip and spoke under his breath. “Wipe that fucking pathetic look off your face.” He yanked me toward the minister. “Make it official, Reverend.”