 by Lilly Atlas.jpg)
Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 89934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
PROLOGUE
NO ONE PAID him a lick of attention, yet Lock felt the heat of every eye in the room searing into him, peering through his tattooed exterior to his fucked-up insides.
And he hated it.
Hated them.
Every one of these sad junkies who’d hit rock bottom and landed themselves in this hellhole.
“It happened so fast,” the nineteen-year-old who’d ended up on life support two weeks ago thanks to a severe heroin overdose said as she scratched a gouge into the arm of her wooden chair. “My boyfriend was just d-defending me. This drunk guy at the party kept hitting on me. He wouldn’t leave me alone. When he grabbed me and tried to force me to dance with him, my boyfriend, Mike, got between us and threatened the guy.” The lone hitch in her voice served as the only clue she struggled to tell the story. Otherwise, she droned on in a monotone, almost bored manner.
Back and forth, over and over, she scratched her nail on the chair’s arm. The unpolished fingernail would be down to a nub before too long.
She cleared her throat. “The guy sucker punched him. Mike fell and hit his head on the corner of a table. That was it. One punch, and now he’s d-dead.” Her voice cracked again.
Another peek beyond her mask.
Lock breathed out and shifted his gaze from the pale, sullen-eyed teen to the gorgeous Gulf of Mexico view out the long row of floor-to-ceiling windows.
Deanna loved the beach. At least, once upon a time, she had. Who knew what she’d been into in the months before she’d overdosed? Certainly not her twin brother.
He rubbed a tanned hand across the left side of his chest where an ache had taken up residence months ago and refused all eviction attempts. The second Deanna suffered a heart attack, an all-consuming heaviness entered his heart. He’d do anything for a moment’s relief from the constant reminder of his loss and failures as a brother.
Anything.
Even the very same drugs that had stolen his sister’s life. A good high had been the only reprieve from the relentless pain—a few fleeting hours of peace.
Damn, twin sense. They hadn’t been identical, hell, not even the same gender, yet their entire lives, they’d always had a connection that transcended time, space, and rational thinking. The link had bonded them as children, uniting them as best friends. Even through their teen years, their shared connection kept them closer than the average siblings. In adulthood, their link became a burden. Nothing more than a chaos-meter alerting Lock to the next crisis in Deanna’s life.
This final crisis resulted in her death and left her unborn infant orphaned. By some miracle, the doctors were able to deliver Deanna’s son. But Caleb hadn’t been a happy, healthy baby. The first few months of his life were fraught with drug withdrawal and one medical complication after another.
He’d survived, thrived, and now lived with his primary guardian.
Me.
The fucking head case who’d never even held a goddamn baby. Who’d never prepared a bottle or changed a diaper and hadn’t known babies had a soft and vulnerable spot on the top of their fuzzy heads.
He knew now. Now, he knew everything about living with a baby. He knew about the sleepless nights and the cat-like infant cry every time the baby needed any damn thing. He knew about spit-up and diaper blowouts, even fucking nipple flow rates. But he also knew about gummy smiles and how it felt to have a tiny baby fall asleep on his chest, drunk after downing an entire bottle of formula. And he knew about the enormous weight of responsibility and the fragility of the little life the state had assigned to his care.
What the fuck had they been thinking?
His skin itched, and his insides popped and quivered like live wires. He shifted. Christ, this chair was uncomfortable as fuck.
He needed a hit. Just one bump to take the edge off and silence the demons in his mind. The ones constantly whispering that he’d fuck up and destroy Caleb’s life.
But he hadn’t indulged in six days. Six long rounds of twenty-four hours since his club’s president showed up on his doorstep and ripped him a new asshole. Curly blasted him for neglecting his MC club duties, being a shitty member of his patched family, and being responsible for his brother’s ol’ lady getting hurt.
Twice.
But what Curly harped on, what he ripped into Lock over, was his responsibility toward Caleb. His nephew turned son—the baby he’d been tasked to care for and love.
And he’d been right. Lock had done all that shit and more to let down the people he was supposed to love.
Caleb served as a constant reminder of Deanna’s death and how he’d avoided his sister in the months before she died because her constant drama and neediness had become oppressive. She always needed something, and usually, those things drained Lock of money, time, and happiness. So he’d stopped checking in.