Smooth As Whiskey (As If… #3)

Prologue

Sutton

With my butt at the base of the tree, I hunkered in for a long-ass night.

The fourth long-ass night I would be spending with animals that made the forest their home.

Normally, I would try to find somewhere that would offer me adequate coverage. But there was no way I was going to be able to walk another couple of miles.

Much less another couple of feet.

Not after everything I had endured and not after I had pushed my body well past its limits.

Luckily, this tree had some thick leaves and low-hanging branches, so it offered a dry spot.

Just as I settled in and thanked the heavens for the dry spot, that was when the rain that everyone had been talking about for the past week hit.

Big fat raindrops poured down.

The sounds of them hitting the leaves.

Little critters doing the same thing I was, trying to get to a dry place.

I knew I was safe, at least for tonight.

Because no way was that man going to be caught out in this and risk getting his shoes ruined.

Oh no. Not Raymond Frederick Stanton IV.

Him and his Italian loafers.

His pants that had to be dry-cleaned.

His shirt that was never allowed to bore a single wrinkle.

The vest he wore always had to be pressed.

And don’t even get me started on the cufflinks.

Oh, what the hell.

I needed something to keep my mind off the cold that was going to hit my bones here in just a few short hours.

His cufflinks? I had to clean them all every morning and wear white gloves when I held them.

Because heaven forbid, I leave a single fingerprint on them or even a little speck of dust.

Trust me, I made sure I cleaned those bad boys within an inch of their lives.

Feeling the back of someone’s hand, well, you learned quickly to make things work so you don’t ever have to feel that again.

Or, at the very least, you freaking tried to.

Now, are you asking why I have put up with his stuff for so long?

Simple.

He held the one thing I treasured most in this world in the palm of his hand.

The one thing my mama gave me before she died.

A beautiful ruby red tennis bracelet that my father had saved up every penny he could to buy for her before he deployed.

And he had planned to make my mother his wife when he got back.

Only... he left the world behind with that bracelet, and me still inside my mother’s womb.

Why did Raymond Frederick Stanton IV have it, you ask?

Well, that was quite simple. He married my mother when I was nine and won her over because she had told him no on a date.

So, like all assholes with a micro-sized penis when their egos get bruised, he made it his mission to get my mother.

Did he punish her for the three years they were married for telling him no? Yes.

If I say he was the best thing that ever could have happened to my mother, I would be a liar.

A straight-up, no-holds-barred liar.

So, why was he holding my mother’s bracelet over my head?

Simple. With her gone, he couldn’t use me to make her do the things I knew she didn’t want to do.

Because I was that amazing lady’s one weakness.

And she was that, an amazing lady.

I could go on and on about her, but unfortunately, I needed to stay vigilant.

I needed to stay vigilant because even though Raymond Frederick IV would never be caught dead out here unless he was glamping in a five-star resort... that didn’t mean he didn’t have men that he could send after me.

And he did.

And because of one man he had working for him... after the conversation I heard in his study... well... needless to say, he could keep that bracelet for all I cared.

Well, I used the word keep, extremely loosely. He could borrow it until I found a way to get it back.

And I would get it back, even if it was the last thing in this world I would ever do.

But first, I had to make sure I always stayed one step ahead of him and his men. Sadly, I didn’t know how to go about that when all I was able to take with me were the clothes on my back and nothing else.

And the little material I wore... well, it was torn in places. I would get to that part of the story in a moment.

Why did I decide it was time to flee?

That centered around the heinous crime that took place in his study... minutes... hours before I fled.

He had guards posted up around the house, which was normal for him, but the number of guards he had stationed was to make sure that I didn’t leave the house.

Apparently, he had a wealthy businessman coming to the house, and we were getting married that night. A man I had met before when he came to the house. A man who had a wandering eye. And wrinkled hands.

But not before he gifted me to the meanest son of a bitch I had ever met.

Gerard was his name.

And he made Freddy Kruger look like he was nothing but a happy fairy. Going merrily on his way.

He was cold. So cold it was a wonder that the room he held in my stepfather’s house wasn’t made of anything but ice.

Ice that never thawed even on the hottest day of the year in Mississippi, which could reach one hundred and seven degrees.

The man he was marrying me to wasn’t much better.

Still, if I had to choose, I would have chosen him over Gerard any day of the week.

Hell, I would choose to marry the worst criminal known throughout history over Gerard.

Especially after the heinous crime he had committed against me once the word gifting had fallen from Raymond Frederick Stanton IV’s mouth.

The most important thing you can do if you are no match for your attacker after you’ve said the word no so many times that your voice is hoarse after you’ve screamed for someone, anyone, to help you is to retreat as deep into your mind that you could go.

Mine was when my mother and I accidentally added salt instead of sugar to a batch of cookies we made.

But sadly, that memory didn’t extend as far as when he pulled out of my battered and bruised body, and Raymond Frederick Stanton IV was still sitting in the same chair when Gerard walked in behind me and locked the door.

I shook my head, trying to get those memories to disappear from my mind for even just a little while.

The man he wanted me to marry... well... he was closing in on fifty. And I was eighteen years old as of four days ago.

I don’t mind age differences in people. Ten years? Okay. Fifteen years? Sure. But someone old enough to be my father had he had me at thirty-two? Umm, yeah, no, I’ll pass.

It was all so Raymond Frederick Stanton IV could get a new piece of territory that he desperately needed. New territory for what I didn’t know.

I also didn’t know what he did for work, but I knew that he left every morning at eight twenty-five and returned home around five forty-five, and then he would either stay home while men came to see him, or he would leave with a large contingency of men.

But whatever the reason, I didn’t care.

I was eighteen years old... and ever since my mother passed away when I was fifteen, I had been dreading that fateful day.

The day he had been waiting for.

But... what he hadn’t known about, and none of his soldiers had surmised, was that I had an ally in the house.

Someone who only worked for him due to a blood debt from her father that she was trying to fulfill.

My heart broke for Rebecca, but sadly, even though we had talked about why she didn’t forget about the promise she made to a dying man and leave... Tulane’s don’t break their promises, she had told me.

And I admired her for that, I really and truly did.

That was the last thought I had before I gritted my teeth, shoved myself closer to the base of the tree I was huddled against, and thought about the warmest place I could muster.

Because I was getting cold.

But what I didn’t know... was that everything I had been praying for ever since I stared at the coffin that was lowered into the ground that held my mother was about to come true... or so I thought anyway.

Irish

“Yo!”

Every head in the main room of the clubhouse turned at Charlie’s voice.

When he tilted his head to his tablet, Asher, Coal, Whit, Stoney, and I stood up and walked over to where he sat.

“See that?” He was pointing at something huddled against the base of a tree.

It was hard to see it with the rain pelting down in sheets.

I squinted my eyes, trying to make it out.

And when whatever was huddled there shifted, and their face was revealed, I felt something in my gut tighten.

Unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.

But I was the stupid son of a bitch that ignored that gut feeling.

And I wouldn’t know until years later… when I looked in the mirror, I would only have myself to blame.