Chapter One
The rich aroma of coffee filled the little book store. Coffee and books. Those were the two things that always made Morgan feel more at home.
She let out a quiet sigh. They were also the two things that always made her think of Aunt Dee. She’d inherited the store from her, after all.
It was like her aunt was still right there with Morgan, laughing at some line in a story that tickled her or growing angry at some leading man in the romance she was reading.
But Aunt Dee was gone now. Gone forever.
Although it had been a year since Aunt Dee suddenly died from a stroke, in Morgan’s heart it felt like only yesterday the woman was complaining about a headache. The memory of those signs remained etched in her mind.
Morgan stared down at her hands. If only she’d known.
Aunt Dee said they seemed like normal headaches to her. The sort she sometimes got when it was allergy season. There had been no way of knowing that a blood vessel had burst in her brain or that one clot would be all it would take to kill her.
But that was it. One day Morgan’s beloved Aunt Dee was there, and the next a lawyer called to talk about her personal effects.
Morgan never imagined she’d be the one to inherit the book store. Although she’d been living with her aunt since she was fifteen, she always assumed that her mother would be named in the will, despite the problems the sisters had.
The last time Morgan remembered the two even speaking was the night she packed up everything and left home to go live with her aunt.
Just thinking about that night made her break out in a cold sweat. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever get over that sort of fear.
Things had been bad at the house. Even more so than normal, and that was really saying something. Her mother’s new boyfriend had been way worse than the others, or maybe Morgan had just been too young for the others to pay much attention to.
At fifteen, she entered into her womanhood. That changed everything.
She hated her breasts and hated the attention they seemed to be getting from men of all ages. But mostly she hated the attention of her mother’s boyfriend, Steve.
At first he just said how pretty she looked. All the while, he’d stare at her chest.
Morgan didn’t know what to do, so she did the only thing she knew how to do: escape into books.
The more Steve pressed her on her looks, the more she would lock herself in her room and read everything she could get her hands on. Her grades slipped at school, but it didn’t matter.
She didn’t focus on anything but the world she wanted to be living in. A world without Steve and his leering.
Her plan worked for a while. She continued to hide away from everyone, alone in the world of books she’d created.
Then one night, the walls of her world came crashing down.
It was a night like any other, which seemed to be how most of these stories started, as she later learned in therapy.
Morgan came home from school and heard Steve mumbling, her mother nowhere to be found. There was something else, but she couldn’t make it out.
The only thing she could be sure of was that Steve was in her mother’s bedroom, which meant she would have to pass the open door on the way to her own sanctuary.
As she passed, a loud shriek came from the TV, and she looked over on pure impulse. Large breasts filled the screen, bouncing around as a man stood behind a woman thrusting hard.
Her mouth dropped open. Morgan wasn’t naive about porn, but she’d never actually seen any.
Something moved on the bed, and she flicked her gaze over toward it.
Steve lay there, totally naked with his hand fisted over his dick.
He smiled at her and stroked himself.
Morgan felt her stomach roll and bile fill her throat.
“Come over here,” he commanded with a grin.
She bolted, ran to her room, and locked the door behind her.
He banged against her door, trying to get in. His words slurred the more he shouted.
Morgan opened the window and stared at the rickety fire escape. She glanced back over to the door.
It now shook as Steve slammed his body into it. The frame creaked, and she knew it wouldn’t be long before he busted through. She had better odds on the fire escape than with him.
She climbed out and made her way down step by step.
Above her, through the open window, a loud crash erupted: Steve busting through the door. Within moments he was at the window, shouting down threats to her.
Morgan missed a rung on the ladder and slipped down the last three to the landing. Something sharp rubbed against her leg through her jeans. When she looked, she could see the blood already soaking the tear.
On shaky feet, she stood again and climbed her way down to the last landing. She pushed on the ladder, but it wouldn’t drop. She’d have to jump or risk waiting for Steve.
Morgan mustered up all her strength and landed hard on the ground. The pain from her leg now throbbed as she struggled to stand.
“What the fuck?”
She turned and was surprised to find three college-age guys who had stepped out of the back door of the pawnshop next door.
Although they might be old enough to be in college, she knew the guys were far from students with their slicked-backed hair and chains. Morgan knew trouble, and that’s exactly what they were.
She struggled to stand. Now she really had to get out of there.
Her leg shook as she took a step, and then she was falling.
Strong arms wrapped around her just before she hit the gravel and glass.
“Woah,” one of the men spoke softly in her ear. “I’ve got you.”
She shouldn’t have found comfort in this stranger’s words, but when she turned to stare at his bright green eyes, she knew he meant what he said.
“Morgan!”
She shook as she looked down the alley and spotted Steve standing there in just his jeans.
Instinctively, her hands balled into fists against the shirt of the man holding her.
Relief flooded through her when his arm tightened around her side as they stood. Her body leaned heavily against him.
“Get your fucking ass back upstairs,” Steve shouted. “I didn’t tell you that you could leave, you ungrateful bitch.”
Morgan looked up at the man holding her. His bright green eyes fixed on her.
“You know this prick?” the man said.
She nodded.
He frowned. “You want to go with him?”
Morgan shook her head.
The man looked back to Steve with a vicious grin. “Looks like she doesn’t want to go with you, buddy.”
His words were light, but there was a threat hidden in there. Subtle, but there nonetheless. Even though she felt safe with the man, he radiated menace toward Steve.
“I don’t give a shit what that little bitch wants. She’s going to get her fucking ass upstairs, or I’m going to beat the living hell out of her.” He slammed his fist into his palm. “Shit, at this point, I might do that anyway for making me have to run down here.”
The man holding Morgan dropped his hand from her shoulder, and for a moment, she thought he might actually send her back. Instead, he moved her behind his body. The man stepped forward, a smile plastered on his face.
“Now listen good,” he said. “I’m giving you one chance to leave, prick. That’s more than I usually give, and that’s just because I don’t want to scare her more than she already is. So I suggest you leave before my boys and I show you how we treat trash like you.”
The two men who had previously been standing near the wall walked over and stood next to him. One lifted his jacket a little. Metal glinted under the dim neon lights of the pawn store.
Morgan watched Steve from behind her protector’s body. For a moment, it looked like he was going to protest, but instead he flipped them off and stomped back toward the front of the apartment building.
The man standing in front of Morgan turned and pointed his all-seeing eyes back in her direction. “You’re going to come home with me, and we’ll get this all sorted.” Morgan opened her mouth to protest but stopped when he held out a hand. “I’m Davin.”
Now, years later, his name remained burned into her heart and mind.
Even now, just thinking about him still made her heart ache. He had been the one to bandage her cut. He’d gone with Morgan and Aunt Dee when they had collected all her things and stopped by to check on them for the next couple years. Davin had been her savior in more ways than one.
And then one day he was just gone. No warning. No reason. He and all his men just packed up and left. It was almost like they’d never existed.
His absence broke her little seventeen-year-old heart. Although Davin never showed any romantic interest, Morgan couldn’t stop the way she felt. Even now, six years later, that twinge was still there, desperate for a man who obviously didn’t view her that way.
Of course, she’d heard the rumors. That he was involved in the Irish Mafia. That the trouble she’d first sensed in him was real and that more so, he was dangerous.
Given the way he’d acted that first night, she had no reason to doubt the stories. She just didn’t care.
Morgan shook her head, and let out a long sigh. It was silly to think about this sort of thing now. Davin was gone. Aunt Dee was gone.
She needed to concentrate on what she did have left: her little book shop and her friends. Though, she was still waiting on those friends to start their book club meeting.
It’d be better to sink herself into a good book. Books didn’t leave you. They were always there, welcoming her back with open arms.
Morgan sighed and pulled the book she had been reading from the counter and sat down in her oversized chair. There was just enough time before the meeting for her to lose herself in a few chapters.