The sixth book in the #1 iBooks bestselling Gypsy Brothers series.
Juliette and Jase may be out of Dornan’s immediate reach, but as tensions rise, will they end up walking right into the enemy’s trap?
Can Juliette forgive Jase for his devastating betrayal, or will it destroy everything they’ve been fighting for?
This is a series that MUST be read in order – and you can get started with the first book, Seven Sons, for FREE!
My father was most certainly NOT an innocent man. As the leader of the Gypsy Brothers MC, he was guilty of many things. But he died for a crime that he didn’t commit, framed by an enemy within who then stole his club and everything he had ever worked to protect.
Including my innocence.
When Dornan Ross framed my father, he set into motion a series of events that could never be undone. My father was murdered by Dornan Ross and his sons when I was fifteen years old.
Before my father died, Dornan Ross and his seven sons stole my innocence, branded my skin and in doing so, ensured that their lives would be prematurely cut short. That they would suffer.
I’ve just turned twenty-one, and I’m out for blood. I’m out for revenge.
But I didn’t expect to fall for Jase, the youngest brother in the club.
I didn’t expect that he would turn my world upside down, yank my heart out of my chest and ride away into the sunset with it.
Now, I’m faced with an impossible choice – Jase, or avenging my fathers death?
I have lied.
I have cheated.
I have given my body and my life to the man who destroyed my family and left me for dead.
I have killed, I have sinned, and worst of all, I have enjoyed the misery of others.
I have licked the salty tears of a father mourning his firstborn son, and nothing has ever tasted so sweet.
I have died, and I have been resurrected, a phoenix from the ashes.
I know I’m going to hell. I’ll burn in the fiery pits alongside Dornan and his sons for the things I’ve done, and for the things I’m about to do.
But I don’t care. It will be worth every lick of the devils flames on my guilty flesh to destroy Dornan Ross.
One down, six to go.
My father taught me the importance of an eye for an eye—a cardinal rule, ingrained in every club member.
A life for a life.
Seven lives in payment for an unimaginable list of sins.
People might wonder why I’m doing this. If this vengeance is borne from some noble cause. If I’m trying to prevent others from suffering at the hands of Dornan Ross and his sons.
But I’m no selfless vigilante.
I’m doing this for me. I’m doing it because I want to.
I’m doing this because I just want to be able to sleep at night without seeing their faces.
This is the fate they have earned. The penance for their crimes.
Time to send some of these brothers off with a bang.
Love and hate aren’t all that different.
Two sides of the same coin, the yin and the yang.
Once upon a time, Jason Ross loved me. And now that he knows what I’ve done, I see the love and the hate warring within him.
I see the way he looks at me.
The way he wonders how I could do the things I’ve done.
I hear it in the way he begs me to stop, to leave this life and run away with him.
But there’s only one way I’m leaving LA.
And that’ll be when Dornan and the rest of his sons are dead and buried.
Jase might forgive me for what I’ve done.
But will he forgive me for the crimes I’m yet to commit?
**Please note this book is a dark romance and deals with serious themes.*
Every day for six years, I used to pray that I would find my way back to the boy I loved.
Until finally, one day, I did.
But that’s the funny thing about life. Nothing good ever lasts, not for me, anyway. You think you’re the one with the power, at least I did, but then I got careless. One tiny mistake, and now I am powerless to stop what comes next.
People think money equals power, but all the money in my bank account, the dirty notes laundered clean that my father left for me, are useless.
Money does not equal power. Power is held by the one with the knife in his hand, tracing shallow cuts into your skin.
Power is held by the one who owns you.
I had power once.
Now, I have nothing.
He killed my father. I’m having his baby.
He killed my father. I’m having his baby.
Those two sentences are on repeat in my head, the agony of the rolling waves almost too much for me to bear.
And the agony of my nausea slams into me again with the violent rock of the waves that carry us to safer shores. I think. I hope.
But really, how safe am I? I’m suddenly questioning everything, stuck in a vortex of swirling paranoia and doubt. Is Jase on Dornan’s side? He killed my father. He didn’t even try to deny it.
I can’t believe it, I can’t accept it, and I just wish I could think straight for five fucking minutes. I wish I didn’t feel like this. I’ve left one prison, the one Dornan constructed for me, only to be trapped in one of my own making. The one in my mind that goes over and over and over again.
I’m curled as tight as I can get into a ball on a bed in the main cabin of the boat. We must be going pretty fast, or be in some crazy swell, because I swear if the boat tilted a little more, it’d capsize.
The door is closed. I made Elliot promise he wouldn’t let Jase come in here. I’m going to have to face him eventually, but I just can’t face him now. I don’t want to hear his excuses, if he even has any. He killed my father.
I’ve never been afraid of drowning before, but right now, I’m terrified. Drowning in this ship. Drowning in lies and in blood. Drowning in my own treacherous deceit. For so long, I’ve had only one goal – to destroy Dornan. I was too busy focusing on his suffering to notice or care about my own, and now, I feel so damned broken. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to feel normal again.
In fact, come to think of it, I don’t even know what normal is.
I jump as a warm hand touches my shoulder.
“Hey,” a low voice murmurs beside me.
I turn over to see Elliot lying beside me, his pose mirroring mine. I can see water lashing against the small round window that looks out to the cruel sea we travel within.
“You’re shaking,” Elliot says, frowning as he reaches out a hand to me. Without thinking, I shrink back, an automatic response after three months of Dornan’s psychotic hands being the only ones to reach for me. Elliot’s face crumples into something resembling sadness—despair—as he reaches out to me again, slower this time, and pushes my lank hair back from my face.
Am I even here? I’m not sure. This could all be a dream. An elaborate, drug-induced hallucination. The thought makes me reel. Am I out? Or am I still in the basement? Is Elliot in front of me, or is it Dornan?
I scramble away from Elliot, clambering off the bed and backing up to the far end of the tiny room. Behind me, waves pound violently into the thick glass porthole, the only thing separating us from the deadly currents beyond. The movement of the waves catches my attention and I turn, mesmerized, as I press a trembling palm up to the freezing cold glass.
Am I here? Am I alive?
A nudge in my stomach, nothing more than a flutter really, propels me back to sanity.
Yes. I am here. I am here, while Elliot hovers behind me, and Jase and Luis are somewhere beyond the door that keeps me safe in this room.
And I am carrying a baby inside me. A baby that should never have existed.
And I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a terrible thing.
Lili writes dark romance, suspense and paranormal stories. Her serial novel, Seven Sons, was released in early 2014, with the following books in the series to be released in quick succession. Lili quit corporate life to focus on writing and so far is loving every minute of it. Her other loves in life include her gorgeous husband and beautiful daughter, good coffee, Tarantino movies and spending hours on Pinterest.
She loves to read almost as much as she loves to write. Find out more about Lili and the series at her website and sign up for her newsletter to get news and excerpts before anyone else.
