Preview Keeping Lily （Disciples 1）
My husband traded me away to save his own life…
And now I belong to the devil.
One night and everything in my life changed. Two words and my world turned dark.
“Take her.”
Owing the most ruthless crime lord in Garden City five million dollars, my husband chose to trade me and my children away to save himself.
I was on the cusp of freedom, so close to divorcing that scumbag I was married to.
Now I’m enslaved to a man who is obsessed with me. A man so wicked and beautiful they call him Lucifer.
So alluring, he makes the angels weep with envy. He’s so powerful, I can’t stop myself from bending to his will.
He’s determined to master me, and he won’t rest until I give him all.
He wants my light, and he wants my dark.
He wants my body, and he wants my heart.
But most of all, he wants the one thing I can’t give him. The one thing I can’t bear to part with…
My soul.
Chapter One
Lucifer
Motherfucker!” Comes out of my mouth in a growl as I shake my hand.
The punch to this piece of shit’s jaw sent tingling sensations up my arm.
Mickey Dalton sputters gibberish out of his busted lips. “I… I… Swear I will pay… just gotta…”
I’m tempted to keep this up, but fuck it. I have bigger fish to fry than this small time fucking gambler.
Looking over the man’s shoulder, I nod to Andrew. “Ensure he fully understands how much he owes. Remove his pinky.”
“Yes, sir.” Andrew nods.
“Wha… No!” Mickey shouts as Andrew heads to the table where he keeps a black bag stowed.
Turning around, I look at Simon, my right-hand man. “Where are we at with the other three files?”
“Two have been collected on, the last I was waiting on your judgment.”
“Marshall Dawson.”
“He has flat out refused to cooperate with any of our attempts to collect. He believes his status is untouchable. He will give us no answer on where he was or what has happened to our money.”
“Is he finally home?” I ask.
“Arrived earlier tonight.”
A metallic snip rings out into the room followed by a high-pitched scream. I turn to see Andrew wiping the blood on the guy’s t-shirt.
Andrew raises his voice only slightly as he grabs the man by the throat. “Stop fucking squealing, asshole. Lucifer doesn’t like hearing pigs fucking about.”
Walking out through the door and into the hall, I look to Simon. “How are the spreadsheets with Bart coming along?”
“Clean, with everything accounted for…”
“Yet, you still have doubts?” I ask him as we walk.
“I do. I just can’t explain why.”
“Keep an eye on him then.”
* * *
Simon holds an umbrella over my head as we walk out of the abandoned hotel. The shattered glass door slams shut behind us as he ushers me into the sleek black Mercedes SUV.
Getting comfortable in the backseat, I reach over and pull the file left on the other seat for me. The name Marshall Dawson is neatly typed on the tab.
I let out a quiet sigh to myself. I knew this one was going to come back as a thorn in my side.
Marshall Dawson is a waste of breathable air. The man used the connections he had with my father and another city boss to secure a loan from us. Five million in cash .
Five fucking million dollars with nothing to show for it.
Five fucking million dollars down the drain.
I took this on as a favor to Sean O’Riley. A favor to a now dead and buried man.
Shit like that doesn’t sit well with me. But when I went to the top to seek retribution, I was stonewalled. I was told the man who killed Sean, and all the surrounding issues, have been dealt with.
Fuck that. I want my pound of flesh.
Shaking my head, I open the file. It’s no use going down that train of thought right now. I can pursue it another time if I need to.
I slowly flip through the pages we have on Marshall.
It’s funny how we can put a file together on a person where he is reduced to twenty or so pages. I can see every payment he has made on his mortgage to how many times he has been in the overdraft with his bank.
I look at his legal outstanding debts, and I look at the five-million-dollar debt he now owes to me personally. Anger is slowly creeping through my veins.
Flipping through the pages, I look at his family life. Since he borrowed the money I have had one of my men keeping close tabs on his family. He is married to Lilith Merriweather, aged twenty-seven, and has two children, a boy and a girl. Both children under the age of seven.
I look at the picture of Marshall for a long time as we drive through the late-night rain. The man is closer to my father’s age than mine. How did he marry a woman so young? Money and his slimy charm must have played a large part of it.
I look through the pictures of his family quickly. The children are pretty in a child way. Blonde hair and blue eyes, they must take after their mother. Marshall must have married way out of his league.
My fingers stop as the picture of his wife comes up. Emerald green eyes, sensuous pink lips, high cheekbones, pale flawless skin and long blonde hair. All of those parts on their own would make her remarkable. Even if her face was overall plain just one of her features would stun a person. But together they make something otherworldly.
She is beauty incarnate.
Fingers tracing the lines of her lips, I frown. How the hell did that man marry a woman like this? I flip further through the pictures of her. There aren’t many, but what I do see shows me that she is unlike any other woman I have ever laid eyes on.
She is perfection.
There is a rather candid photo of her putting groceries in the back of her red Volvo station wagon. Her hair is all over the place. Her slender legs are encased in yoga pants, feet in Uggs. Her daughter looks like she is giving her problems as she tries to watch her and still put groceries in the back.
Even this… domesticity calls to me.
There is a glamour shot of some type mixed in and I can see just how haunting those eyes are. They are calling to me, pulling me in to get forever lost. I can feel my hands curling into themselves. She is pulling me from where I sit in the SUV.
“Take me to Marshall’s, James,” I say to my driver.
Looking back at me from the front seat, Simon says, “Now? You don’t want to wait until tomorrow?”
“No. We’re going there now .”
The car makes a few turns as we pull off the freeway and then back on again.
My eyes drift out the window for a moment to look at the rain that has been pelting down on the city all week.
Looking back to the picture, though, I see something I haven’t seen before—a light. Inside I feel an ember flaring to life.
My muscles are going taut with expectation.
I need to see this woman; I need to see if what the pictures show me is true.
Lily
My husband, Marshall, is sleeping beside me, snoring loudly, and I have the strongest urge to smack him.
I want to scream in his pale, pudgy face. I want to tell him to wake the fuck up. I want to ask him why he’s back in my bed.
But I just lay beside him and stare up at the ceiling instead.
It’s time to accept reality.
Our marriage is done.
Dead.
Today was the final nail in the coffin.
First thing in the morning, after I get the kids off to school, I’m going to meet with a divorce attorney. I can’t go on like this. This is no way to live, this is just…existing.
And I’m sick of it.
After growing up dirt poor, I married Marshall thinking I would finally have financial security. I would always have a roof over my head. I would never go hungry again.
Foolishly, I believed his lust for me would turn to love. That like an arranged marriage, our feelings for each other would grow after time. If we had children, we could make a real go of it.
But this, the lack of love, the lack of care, isn’t worth it. I rather starve than stay in this loveless marriage.
Marshall has been gone for weeks, traveling on business . He’s gone more than he’s home. Ever since our first child, Adam, was born six years ago, he’s been finding more and more reasons to leave us.
There’s always some client on the other coast that needs his help. Or some corporation up north that has to have his expertise or they’re going to lose millions on… something…
It’s funny, even after almost eight years of marriage I still don’t know exactly what his job title or true profession is. Whenever I ask him about it he just brushes me off, doesn’t have time to explain it, or says I wouldn’t understand.
Like I’m some kind of idiot.
If I was an idiot I wouldn’t know about all the women he’s been hooking up with. I know that’s one of the reasons he’s always leaving us. He has a girlfriend in every city.
Yet, he won’t even touch me when I throw myself at him.
I sigh, looking down at the red nightie I bought from Victoria’s Secret and pull the blanket up to cover my breasts.
He won’t even touch me when I’ve taken great pains to dress up for him.
Suddenly my eyes feel swollen and my nose stings. I have to blink back my tears and take a deep breath. Rolling my eyes back up, I focus on the ceiling.
This shouldn’t hurt, dammit. This isn’t a bad thing, this is good.
This is… freedom .
I no longer have to pretend this is a real marriage. No more keeping up appearances on Facebook. No more making excuses for him with my family and friends.
No more trying to explain to the children that Daddy is sorry but he had to miss their birthday—again.
This is a fresh start, a new beginning.
I’ve been doing everything on my own for years now. Losing him won’t make much of a difference.
Marshall suddenly grunts loudly and rolls over.
The air turns sour and I resist the urge to gag.
Gah, he is such a pig.