One more (Loose End) Thing
It’s been brought to my attention (thanks K.A.) that I neglected to include Van and Levi’s blurb in the previous post I made about the new series/boys. Some of you might have read/seen it at the end of Save You. But in case you haven’t, I’m here to remedy that shit. Also, to prove just how sorry I am Iincludedanexcerpt.
What she said was… I included an excerpt.
I’d like to say, I have about 30k written on this book already. Like from years ago, back when I swore it would be part of the Sinners. And I battled with writing those words then, because for whatever reason, the story refused to come together for me. Seraphina Cook is here in what I’d written eons ago, she originated here, before my brain thought to give her to Israel and make her his mom. She had always been the villain who fucked with and broke Van, his boogeyman.
So… yep.
The Donovan we have in this book is the Donovan Seraphina decimated. The one Elias rescued. The one Israel is struggling to claim as brother. So the dynamic of Israel, Donovan, and Seraphina is one I’m not looking forward to dealing with, but methinks it will make for some wet eyes.
Read on. Read on.
Loose Ends Book One
Scars and Secrets
Trapped between the past and the present…
After an undercover assignment that changed his life forever, FBI agent Donovan Cintron is barely hanging on to sanity. His new mission is to forget, by any means necessary, so he tries his hardest. Pills. Booze. The warm bodies that could never quite measure up to what he’d had. What he’d lost. It’s almost a relief when his identity is leaked, and a bounty put on his head. He’s ready for it to be over. Except he’s not the only one marked for death. So is the husband he’d never wanted, but can’t stop needing all these years later. He’d been aching to die, but for Levi Nieto, Van will live. To protect. To regret. To remember.
Between love and hate…
Levi knew Donovan was a dangerous man, but he never expected the explosion that rocked his world. The realization that everything he loved had been a farce sent him spinning out of control, and running away from the memories. Time and distance means nothing, though, because Van is back from the dead, hunting Levi, still fully entrenched in darkness and secrets. The truth of who they are to each other is trapped among the anger, violence and lies suffocating them. And the enemies converging from all sides just might realize that before Van and Levi do.
Warning: Includes secret agents, secret identities, secret babies, secret families… There’s a theme here somewhere, but I can’t quite put my finger on what that could possibly be.
EXCERPT
Back at his place, he kept the lights off, stripped, and grabbed his gun, a ten inch knife, and his smokes and walked into the bedroom. In the dark bedroom, he strode to the cramped closet and flung open the door. See, he didn’t need light for this. He knew his way around, he knew what needed to be done. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled into the stuffy closet. There were barely any clothes on the hangers above him, so he had space enough to sit crossed-legged, his weapons on either side of him, cigarettes in his lap. After closing the door, he leaned his head back against the wall behind him and scratched a match, lighting the cigarette.
The only person who’d never made fun of this, of him, was Mel. The only person who knew how deep the cuts went was Mel. If he had any feelings left, any emotions that weren’t long beaten out of him by the government, by Phina, he’d say he loved Mel. As it stood now, they hadn’t laid eyes on each other in three years. His decision, but Mel hadn’t tried to change his mind. They both knew he was to blame for it all. And so here he was, in a closet. Like when he was five years old. And ten.
He picked up his phone, pressing buttons by touch and memory alone. They had this now, he and Mel, this fucked up way to communicate because he’d dropped the ball, made a mess of things and wrecked lives. He took a deep drag on the cigarette then talked.
“Mel.” His voice dropped off on the name. Van swallowed his throat and tried again. Softer this time, a whisper. “Mellie.” She’d know all she needed to know then. He called her Mellie, she called him Donny. Which he hated and even now made him grimace, but he’d give anything to hear her say it. Just once. “I was thinking of you. I was picturing your face. I had to call to tell you that.”
His voice shook, the hand holding the phone did too, but he pretended otherwise, sucking on the cigarette then blowing out the smoke. “Thirty-eight in a week, huh?” He tried to chuckle, it only came out like a grunt. “I didn’t think we’d live to see twenty-one, you know. I didn’t think we’d live long enough to make an impact the way we promised each other we would.”
They still hadn’t. At least he hadn’t. He was in a fucking closet, naked with the lights out, sinking into the depression, welcoming it as the memories ate him alive.
“I’m on a job,” he said softly. “The last place I want to be because, Mel–” he paused. “I don’t think I can keep it together. I don’t think I can hold myself upright anymore.” She would know what he meant. Mel would, distance and time apart didn’t matter. She knew him. “Sometimes I accept that this is all I’m good for and in the bright, lucid moments I ache for more. I ache for you. I wish you were close enough to touch. If you were, I’d pull you close and kiss your hair, inhale you, like I used to do. When I protected you, and you protected me.”
A wave of grief washed over him and he picked up the handgun. “Days like today, I wish you hadn’t done it. You should have left me where you found me, Mel. You should have let me die.” That would piss her off. He could picture the fire in her eyes, flashing. “If there’s such a thing as love, Mellie, I feel it for you. You’re my better half. Enjoy our birthday, celebrate for both of us, because I won’t be.”
He wanted to ask if she was staying away from their father, but couldn’t bring himself to speak that man’s name.
“I miss you, OT.” Older Twin. He ended the call like that. His body was bathed in sweat, itching his skin. Van put down the phone and brought his knees up to his chest, hugging them there. His teeth chattered as he rocked back and forth. He wanted to be quiet, silence was good. Silence was golden.
