Bullseye (The Monsters Within Duet, #1)

by Monica James

The rules on the inside are easy: Don’t trust anyone. Don’t show emotion. Don’t snitch.

I’ve almost forgotten society’s rules, because when doing time, you abide by an entirely different law. Inside, it’s survival of the fittest, and unlike real life, the difference will cost you your life.

see that Detroit hasn’t changed an iota. It’s still a piece of shit wasteland where dreams go to die.

I’m thirty years old, and I have no idea where I’m headed. Not just literally, but figuratively as well. I have no skills, no trade, and no special talents. I was just a punk ass kid who should have studied harder in school.

I don’t blame my parents for the way I ended up because it wasn’t their fault. It was mine.

I’ll forever be imprisoned to the day I picked up a gun and shot a man in cold blood. However, the only regret I have…is that I got caught.

and I was no longer Cody Bishop. I was Bullseye.

Prison taught me how to lie, cheat, and steal. I wasn’t interested in being anyone’s bitch, so I transformed from the gangly teenager to a six-foot-four, two-hundred-pound fighting machine.

Bloodlust and revenge drive my demons, and all they want to do is cause pain because misery loves company. I want to watch the world burn with me. But the monster inside me has always lingered. It was just waiting for the right moment to slither out of hell.

Like a butterfly, she is so beautiful, but all I want to do is tear off her wings.

But I wanted my club to be different. I wanted my girls to be empowered while working here, not enslaved to the sexist bullshit we have to endure because we have a pussy and tits.”

“You go out there and don’t allow anyone to make you feel worthless ever again. Underneath this fancy façade,”—I toe Derrick’s limp body—“is a weak, pathetic coward. But you, you’re real. Never forget that. Never lose sight of who you are. And what you want.”

can be whatever you want me to be. I just can’t be your forever. I do what I want, when I want. I don’t do romance. This is who I am. Don’t try to fix me because I was broken long ago.”

“You’re pathetic. You act all big and tough, but deep down, you’re afraid. You think I’m unlovable, but you’re the one who can’t even love yourself. You’re a fucking coward.”

Yes, all I’ve done is hurt her since the moment we met, but she is mine to do with what I please. Mine? Holy fuck, I have a problem. But it’s too late. I’ve tried to deny it, and I can’t. I know she hates my fucking guts, yet her hatred only has me wanting her more.

“I want you to grow a pair and stop running away. You’re either in, or you’re out. I won’t accept you straddling the line with a foot on either side. I know you feel this too,”

She looks at me like I’m nothing, and I am. What I did to her, to her son, unmasks the monster within me. And I like it. This depravity makes me feel alive. I’ve orphaned three children, and if I had the choice…I’d do it again. I may be in bed

with the devil, but the finale will be worth the burn.