Page 1 of Guarding The Phoenix: Vol. 1

Chapter one

The Widow

Kylie

Thedoorbell’sdistinctivegongdisturbed the still morning silence, echoing throughout the cavernous mansion.

I startled at the bell, used to being alone in this great big house. My nerves were shot though, a combination of stress and anxiety. Understandable given the life and death circumstances.

I hated the stupid doorbell.

Inhaling a few deep, steady breaths from my seat atop a barstool nestled beside the ivory kitchen island. I did what I could to calm my racing heart. Carlos had thought the damn doorbell made him sound important. But then, my late husband always had a splashy, in-your-face taste.

It’s been five glorious months since the sick fuck’s passing. Every day I counted my blessings that he was no longer in the land of the living. Did that make me a bad person?

Probably.

Not that I gave a shit.

I survived years of physical abuse at his hands. When the police came to the house and rang that stupid bell to inform me that Carlos had been found dead, they thought the tears I shed were because I was heartbroken at his passing.

But that wasn’t why I cried over the news. My tears had been happy tears. They were tears of relief and joy that he would never lift another fist to me again.

In the months since gaining my freedom, I renovated and redecorated significant portions of the house. The estate and all that bastard’s holdings were legally mine. And it gave me sublime pleasure in obliterating any reminders of him until his memory was erased from existence. That blasted doorbell would wind up one of the many casualties in the coming months.

Carlos and I did not have a good marriage. We had a phenomenal courtship. He knew how to woo with the best charlatans. But that’s because he was a con artist—and a criminal, to boot. A decade older, he had been smooth, sophisticated, and a physically abusive, controlling narcissist, on top of the whole criminal element deal.

The house, with all its garish memories, damn near suffocated me the first month after his death. But the redecorating helped. Although, I could always sell the place and move. The sale of the estate would add buckets of money to the sizable portfolio at my disposal. I considered the multimillions I inherited from Carlos’s compensation for all the beatings I endured at his hands.

Although where would I go if I did sell the house?

It wasn’t like I had a family who gave a damn. My birth parents had been stripped of their rights when I was seven. I hardly remembered them. And I grew up in foster care. After my whirlwind romance with Carlos, the few friends I had fell by the wayside. There was no one I could turn to, no friend to call up and visit for a few days or to even ask their opinion of the whole clusterfuck of a situation I found myself in.

I felt washed up and used like an old dishrag at the ripe old age of twenty-three.

Grimacing, I breathed deeply. It was a problem for another day. If I wanted an opportunity to consider selling the estate, I had to survive the threats against my life first.

My number one priority was to continue breathing. Then create the life I had always wanted with all it entailed.

Smoothing my black pencil skirt, I rose from my seat and strode toward the front door. I dressed for the meeting like a businesswoman instead of a widowed housewife who rarely left the property. Dressed in this fashion, I hoped they would take me seriously. Because the police sure as hell hadn’t. It was why I wore a black skirt that ended just above my knees and a powder blue sleeveless blouse. I had kept my makeup light and styled my hair into artful waves that fell over my shoulders. The stately mahogany grandfather clock chimed the ten o’clock hour as I passed by.

At least the bodyguard team was punctual.

Let’s hope they had the skills to ensure I made it to my twenty-fourth birthday. Regret weighed heavy on my shoulders. The whole situation was my fault. I fell for a man and married him inside of a month after a short-lived courtship, only to discover his business dealings weren’t legal.

And that he was an overbearing, abusive monster.

Pasting a serene smile on my face to hide my internal panic at the sad state of my life, I opened the door, trying to act as if I had my life together. When reality was so far removed from normal and together. In fact, my life sounded more like a sad country music song than anything else.

My husband regularly beat me before he was murdered.

The same man who killed my husband wants me dead.

I had no friends or family.

Shaking myself out of my pity party for one, I glanced up. And then up some more.

Holy shitballs, that’s a lot of beefcake!

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