Page 1 of Mine to Hold
PROLOGUE
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO…
The smell of death filled Rumor Crimson’s nostrils. It reminded her of three-day old fish mixed with sour milk. It was a scent she wouldn’t soon forget. It clung to her throat and imprinted on her brain.
She blinked but couldn’t look away from the dead body. She hadn’t killed the man, but his blood was on her hands.
Tony, her boyfriend, with plastic gloves on his hands, lifted the dead man’s cell. He tapped the screen. “Oh my God. Help. Help. There’s a gunman in—” Tony dropped the phone to the floor.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
Tony wiped the sweat from his brow with his bloodstained T-shirt. “When people steal from the boss, lie about it, and then try to run, this is what happens.”
She swallowed. In the four months she and Tony had been out of foster care and on their own, her life had turned into a living hell. Worse than being abused and abandoned by her biological parents.
Worse than the system fucking her in the ass.
She’d trusted Tony and thought she loved him, but what a mistake it had been to follow him through life. He was nothing but a loser and a criminal.
And now, a murderer.
“Not what I was talking about, and you steal from Tom.”
Tony raised his arm. The back of his hand landed on her cheek with a thud and a crack.
Her head snapped.
A sharp pain shot through her system like a lightning bolt.
She groaned. “That wasn’t necessary.” She wiped the blood that trickled from her face. It wasn’t the first time he’d hit her. But it sure as shit was going to be the last.
“Don’t fucking talk back to me, bitch. You don’t know shit. Now, go get the drugs. I’ll carry the money. We have to roll. The cops will be here in ten minutes.”
“I can’t do this anymore,” she whispered.
He grabbed her by the hair and yanked. “You and me, babe. We’re in this now, together.”
“I told you I didn’t want to be part of the drug business. You can do whatever you want, but when I moved in with you, I said?—”
“Shut up.” He gave her a good shove.
She stumbled backward, nearly tripping over the dead body. Bile smacked the back of her throat like a rocket launch. She’d do this one last thing, and then she’d run. She had no idea where she’d go, but she was done. Tony wasn’t the man she thought he was and she sure as shit wasn’t cut out for this kind of life. She hadn’t endured years of suffering to end up in a cell.
Turning on her heel, she raced off toward the kitchen and dumped the cocaine into the duffel bag and quickly followed Tony out of the apartment.
“Get in the car,” Tony commanded.
She sank into the front seat. Tears burned the corners of her eyes. But she wouldn’t cry. Not now. Not in front of him.
Sirens blared. Two cop cars came charging out of nowhere from the other direction. This was it. She was going to be arrested as an accomplice to murder.
During her short life, she’d learned to distrust cops and most authority figures. They never did what they said they were going to do. She’d been pushed around from one foster family to the next since she’d been eleven.
That was after two cops came into her home and took her away.
Of course, she’d been living alone for six weeks.
Even she knew that was wrong, but she still resented the way the police had gone about yanking her from the only home she’d ever known.
