A man who can’t visualize his future will always return to his past. He’ll play back every moment, every memory and wish for a do over.

A second chance.

Unless that man is me.

Then he knows for certain he’s not worthy.

A man who has made as many mistakes as I have doesn’t get a chance to live life the way he wants. He doesn’t get to choose his path. He gets a sentence for his crimes and is forced to suffer.

My sentence began at a young age, an age when I thought I was invincible—an age when I didn’t understand consequences and still thought the world was a giant fucking playground. A time when I believed in dreams and thought I could make them all come true.

I was born a musician.

Some call it talent but to me, music is food for the soul. It’s as natural as breathing and just as necessary as air. It was my first love and it should have been my only love.

I was foolish.

I was young.

I was fucking hard-headed.

I was eighteen when I met Savannah and she was sixteen. Growing up in Nashville, everyone called themselves musicians. They all thought they had what it took to make it and had dreams of going platinum. But, Savannah needed to create music as much as me. Being young as we were, no one took us seriously. Both, her parents and mine didn’t only try to crush our dreams, but they did everything in their power to keep us apart. They thought our young love wasn’t real and our dreams were invalid.

We knew better.

Or so we thought.

Having had enough, we took off. We ran away with nothing but the clothes on our back and my guitar. We thought we could survive on love and music alone but we quickly learned we were wrong.

Both of us were too stubborn to admit defeat, and we struggled to get by. We lived on the streets, ate leftovers from dumpsters and washed in public restrooms. Every day we’d pick a busy corner, I’d play my guitar, and she’d sing her heart out. Most people frowned at us and few threw us a dime. It was a shit way to live, but we had one another and somehow that was enough to keep us going.

Until one night after I lulled her to sleep with my guitar and her stomach rumbled over the melody. It was then I noticed she was withering away to nothing, and I feared our time was running thin. I had to figure out a way for us to survive. I had to man the fuck up and take care of my girl. Music wasn’t cutting it and so, I took to the streets and left my guitar behind.

My hands were magic.

They not only created symphonies, but they rolled winning numbers. Rolling dice in the basement of some gangster’s restaurant, I found my true calling as a con. There is something to be said about the power one feels when they scam a room of dangerous men and take them for every fucking cent they have.

I earned enough money to rent a room for me and Savi that night. We ate like kings, showered with hot water and fell asleep in a warm bed. After getting a taste of civilization there was no way we could go back to the streets and so my life as a con-artist took flight.

It didn’t matter big or small if I found a way to turn a quick buck I took advantage of it.

A year into it, I played my first major card game and won ten grand. It was my biggest score to date, and the high was incredible, making it easy to forget all about my music. One win and I thought I was unbeatable.

I also thought I was the luckiest son of a bitch to ever walk the earth and I started gambling. We were living large, so large on Savannah’s eighteenth birthday I hired a private helicopter to take us around the city. I promised her this was just the beginning and told her I was going to marry her one day. I’d take her to Hollywood and get her the best agent. She’d sing in front of crowds of people and all her dreams would come true.

I had every intention of fulfilling those promises.

Then I lost.

And I lost big.

I owed over thirty grand to a man who went by the name of Butcher. Back then, I hadn’t read between the lines. I stupidly believed he owned a pork store and chopped up cows. When I couldn’t pay I learned, it wasn’t cows he ground through those machines.

My poor judgment…my greed cost Savannah her life.

The Butcher grabbed her from our room and made me watch as they brutally dismembered every part of her beautiful body. The motherfucker spared me having to watch him dispose of her but before he threw me out on my ass; he made sure I knew what he was going to do and flicked on the grinder.

If I had any balls whatsoever, I would’ve killed myself. I stood on the train tracks more times than I can count but I never followed through with it.

I returned to the streets and wished for them to end my nightmare but of course, it didn’t happen. You see, that’s where my sentence began.

And now, here I am paralyzed in a wheelchair, still paying for my sins.

The doctors say its temporary but, who the fuck knows. Watching my girl die, knowing her life was ending because of me wasn’t enough. God wanted more from me. He’s rooted me to this fucking chair and left me with nothing.

I may have been born a musician but I’ll die a loner.

A loner who has one chance to save his club.

A single chance to bring a cocksucker named Vladimir Yankovich to his death.

And I’m going to use cards to do it.

It’s now or never.

Do or die.

With nothing but my life to lose, I’m all in.

COMING SOON

The conclusion to The Nomad Series

LONER