Excerpt Reveal | Unorthodox by K.V Rose

EXCERPT REVEAL!

Take a peek inside UNORTHODOX (Sick Love Duet #1), a blood soaked, crime drenched romance that is not for the faint of heart by Author K.V Rose, coming June 9th!.

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BLURB

Max Bennett is worse than the devil. At least you know Satan is going to eat you alive. With Max, he’ll make you beg for it first. Make you think he’s doing you a favor as he rips your heart right out of your chest. Addison London is payment for a job gone wrong. Her life was never her own. Born into crime and raised by monsters, she thinks she knows what she's getting into with Max. But Max is a master at mind games. A crime boss without conscience, he enjoys playing with his prey. And Addison never could pass up a deal with the devil. Their ensuing relationship is unorthodox at best, downright dangerous at worst. Max doesn't bend. Addison refuses to break. But someone's going to take it too far. And in a world like theirs, they were already doomed from the start.

Excerpt Reveal

Prologue

Max

I see Christopher London before he sees me.

He’s standing at the trunk of his black Mercedes, hands in his pockets, trying to pretend the unmarked cop car with the officer inside, parked just across from him in the nearly empty garage, isn’t on his payroll.

The officer, in turn, is trying to pretend he doesn’t have his gun resting against his thigh, finger on the trigger.

I know better.

One of my guys has the cop’s head in his sights. I imagine the inside of the officer’s brains will splatter that pristine windshield before this meeting is over.

At least, I hope that’s how this will go.

Then again, killing cops is messy. The coverup costs a lot more than I’d like to spend.

I’m unarmed when I exit the stairwell, strolling toward Christopher with a smile on my face, Dante at my back.

Dante is armed, a rifle strapped across his chest, but Christopher knew how this would go.

He fucked up, I get to bring the guns.

If I had fucked up—which I never do—he could’ve brought the fun.

Unfortunately for him and his daughter, who is nowhere to be seen, that’s not quite how this is going to go.

When I’m close enough to make eye contact and he’s close enough to feel threatened, he pushes off the back of his car and extends his hand, like I’m actually going to shake it.

I don’t. I don’t shake his hand, and I don’t say anything at all.

I will never understand why people waste perfectly good words when silence and a look can convey most everything.

Christopher’s blue eyes narrow and he drops his hand, smoothing down his black blazer. It’s the same as mine, except I can almost guarantee mine costs more money.

“Look, Max, I thought we could talk this over.”

I slip my hands into my pockets, clutch the matte black playing card inside my left one. The card is a reminder that it’s no fun to lose your shit too early in a confrontation. Then your opponent just dies, and you don’t even get to watch them bleed.

That’s exactly the kind of sloppy I want to avoid.

Not saying a word, I shrug and glance at the cop, who is still looking down, like he’s fucking invisible. I turn back to Christopher, stare at him for a few seconds before I ask, “Where’s your daughter?”

I’ve seen pictures of Addison London. Thankfully, she looks nothing like her father. Which is great. None of my clients would be interested in fucking a female version of this asshole.

Christopher bites his tongue, glances down at the pavement beneath us on the second floor of the parking garage. It’s hot here, as it always is in North Carolina. I drove all the way here from Athena, South Carolina, to pick up my merchandise.

And now Christopher London wants to play games.

I squeeze the playing card tighter, feeling it flex beneath my fingers. It’s worn in places, frayed around the edges. But I need it to last a little while longer before I move on to another king. I’ve already gone through four aces, trying to keep my shit together for nearly two decades, since I was fourteen and started using these things.

At thirty-two, you’d think I’d be better at it by now.

I’m not.

My trigger finger is feeling twitchy just looking at this pathetic excuse for a man. Men do as they say they will, no matter what.

But Addison isn’t here.

Christopher is wasting my time.

When I feel like I might lose my patience, he finally looks up at me and his shoulders sag.

I feel a twinge of something like unease with that motion.

Christopher London operates businesses just like mine. And just like me, he knows how to manipulate people. But I know how to read them. It was a necessity growing up with a father like I had. Back in Pretoria, South Africa, not reading my father’s moods could, quite literally, get me or my brother killed.

So I know Christopher isn’t fucking around when he says, “She ran.”

I hear Dante shift on his feet at my back. He’s also got an itchy trigger finger, but his patience is better than mine. Just barely.

I glance for a second at the cop, and find the fucker is finally paying attention to us now. He must know this isn’t going to go so well.

“She ran?” I repeat, weighing my options as Christopher works out how best to explain this shit to me. Did she run, or did he tell her to leave?

Christopher nods once. “She ran,” he says again. “Last night.”

“Did she know I was coming for her?”

Another nod. “Of course. I wasn’t going to throw my own daughter in the trunk of my car without an explanation.” For some reason, I don’t quite believe that.

I smile at him, running my tongue over my teeth. That playing card is going to break apart in my fucking fingers if this dipshit doesn’t say something that isn’t completely stupid at some point in this conversation. I don’t say a word, waiting for him to do just that.

“I wasn’t thinking.” His voice is calm. He doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t ball his hands into fists. Doesn’t twitch.

But it’s in his eyes.

The fear.

That’s where it always is.

The eyes can’t fucking hide the truth. And the truth is? Everyone is at least a little bit afraid of me.

In Christopher’s case, and now Addison’s, by extension, they have fucking reason to be.

I nod my head, looking down at my shoes, thinking about all the places this girl could be. She’s the daughter of a crime boss, and obviously, if Christopher is telling the truth about her being a runner, she’s not stupid.

But the last thing on earth I have time for is chasing after a teenage girl who will become nothing more than a whore to grovel at the feet of powerful men.

“Give me something,” I warn Christopher, meeting his gaze once more. “Give me an idea of where she might be. Because if you don’t, when I find her, I won’t keep her.” Not that I ever planned to do that. A blonde American could fetch a fucking fortune. If she’s still intact, even more. “I’ll fucking kill her.”

Christopher’s eyes widen, and he swallows, his throat bobbing. He knows my threat is real.

“She’s with my son,” he finally whispers, and the way he says it, I know he just gave her up. Interesting, how men will turn against their own children in the interest of saving themselves a little pain.

There is no moral code in my world.

Christopher London is a walking, talking example of that.

And so am I.

“Danik?” I ask him.

Christopher’s face goes pale. There may not be a moral code in organized crime, but if there was something close to, it’d be that sons are far more important than daughters will ever be. I’d personally never risk what Christopher is going through right now.

I will never fucking have kids. They’re only pawns to be used against you.

I’ve spent a long, long time half-hoping my brother never turns up, for that reason alone. He could be leverage.

Pushing thoughts of Oliver aside, I focus on the fuck in front of me. “I know where your son lives. Off the coast?” I smile at Christopher, then turn my back on him, head to the driver’s side of my black Maserati, parked two spots down from his Mercedes. “I’ll pay Danik a visit.”

I get into the car, start it up and roll down my window. Dante still stands at the hood of the car, hands on the rifle slung across his chest.

“If he’s not there, and she’s not there, I’ll still find them. And I promise you, Christopher, when I do, I’ll put a bullet in their brains.” I give him a smile, watching his face turn beet red, vein bulging in his temple. “Tell your wife I said hello.”

His wife is fucking dead.

I grab my handgun from the center console, have it out the window before Christopher can blink.

The gunshot makes my ears ring, echoing in the parking lot as he drops to his knee. More, louder shots reverberate in the garage, and glass shatters as Dante takes care of the cop.

In the silence that follows, Christopher London screams, because he went down on the wrong leg after I decided to let him live.

He’s only got one good kneecap now.

He’ll need to figure out how the fuck to kneel correctly.

Addison

Danik is at the beach when he comes for me.

I know it’s him, because the glass of the screen door shatters and only a man that’s in the same line of work as my father would make such an entrance in a sleepy little beach town like this.

He’s coming for me, but I’m ready for him.

Or as ready as I’ll ever be.

Danik should’ve listened. He should’ve driven us to the west coast. He should’ve gotten me the hell out of here, but Danik has been out of the life for five years. At twenty-three, he’s five years older than me, but he’s been sheltered.

Not from everything.

No, we experienced our uncle, Cade, together, but that was when we were kids. The past five years, since he left me?

He’s missed all of that.

Besides that, he’s a boy. In my world, boys get treated with respect. Girls…not so much.

I grab my cell phone from my nightstand, ripping it off the charger. I dial Danik’s number, but I know he’s probably on a wave right now.

Still, I let the call ring, set the phone down, and reach for the knife under my pillow.

It’s not a gun, but I don’t feel comfortable with those.

You get one shoved down your throat as a child and you never really get over it, I guess.

There’s silence in the aftermath of the glass shattering, but this house is small. I glance at my open window, stand to my feet. I’m in grey leggings, an oversized pink t-shirt. I haven’t been able to sleep in my usual shorts and tank for fear of exactly this.

Glancing at the clock on my nightstand, I see it’s six in the morning. Danik left fifteen minutes ago.

They were watching.

He was watching, but I’m sure there’s more than one man.

I take a step on the creaky wooden floors, toward my window. Danik’s house is modest, my bed a twin, barely enough room for him to have squeezed the dresser in.

When you leave the life, you don’t get to take anything with you. If it weren’t for the fact my father thinks Danik will come back and take over the “family business” once he’s “had his fun”, Danik would be dead.

I’d be dead, too.

But my father values Danik, and Danik values me. That makes my life worth a little more than nothing, in my father’s eyes.

Not quite enough to not sell me off for some job that went horribly wrong down in Miami, but still. I’m here, and I’m breathing, and that’s more than a lot of runaway kids of the various cartels throughout the country can say.

The window is free of any furniture because I set it up that way, and when I get to it, I kneel down silently, listening as I press the tip of the switchblade up to the window screen because the sliding gears are jammed in this old house.

There’s nothing but bramble and sand in the backyard, and Danik’s Subaru. He walked to the beach; it’s two blocks from here in Surf City. If I can climb out of this window, I’ll be able to run down to it, and I know, even this early, people will be there.

It’s June in North Carolina. Tourist season on the coast. Someone would help me.

I think.

Holding my breath, I try to still my trembling hand, try to get myself together.

I don’t like that I can’t hear anyone moving in the house. Since the glass shattered, it’s just been…nothing. I almost wonder if maybe it was just a regular robber and not someone coming to drag me to hell, but…that’s a stupid thought.

I take a deep breath. Press the blade against the window screen.

Then I see him.

A man with a fucking AK slung around his chest, his eyes on mine as he stares up at me from just a couple of feet down below, in the backyard.

My heart nearly beats out of my chest and I have to bite down hard, so I don’t scream. I don’t know if it’s him him, or if it’s one of his men, but either way… Holy shit.

Max Bennett isn’t fucking around.

I stumble away from the window, my palm sweaty as I clutch the knife tighter in my hand.

The man doesn’t move, and that unnerves me. He just watches me through the window, and I know that means there’s probably at least one other person in this house.

I flatten myself to the floor, army crawl my way toward the door, trying to breathe with every shuffle of my hips and swing of my elbows, knife still tight in one hand.

Even if it is useless.

My father never taught me how to fight.

Fighting was for men.

A lot of things were for men in my house. Including beating women.

“Women were made for men,” my father used to say. “Men were made to take on the world.”

But I’ve always felt I wanted a piece of the world, too. Fuck the men.

It’s why I ran, after I overheard my father telling his right-hand man what was going to happen to me.

He wasn’t going to give me a head’s up. He was going to let me be taken.

Fuck the men.

I hold onto that thought as I crawl toward the door, straining my ears. Funny how every night I would yell at Danik to stop getting three a.m. snacks because I could hear him chewing in the house and now, I can’t even hear a man coming to kidnap me.

Kidnap me.

I shove the thought aside. Growing up, I always knew it was a possibility. It’s why I was always so heavily guarded, protected like the Virgin Mary...from things on the outside.

At first, I thought my protection detail was because my father loved me, but it didn’t take me too long to figure out he doesn’t know the meaning of the word.

No, he protected me for reasons like this: my appeal as a ransom. No wonder he always hated me.

I was a tool to be used against him.

When I reach the door without gunshots flying through my window, I feel a flicker of hope expand in my chest. Danik has cut his surf time in half since I came here two days ago, so he’s reminded me again and again as he mocked me about fearing for my life.

Maybe he just didn’t want to believe it. Maybe he thought our father and his problems wouldn’t follow me, like they didn’t follow Danik.

Either way, it won’t be long before he gets back. And Danik might be a stereotypical stoner-surfer, but he also has a gun in his car and a hot temper when he’s provoked.

I’d consider someone coming to kidnap his little sister a provocation.

I hold my breath as I stop at the door, still on my belly, knife in hand, listening. I need to get to my knees to twist the knob, but I don’t want the guy outside my window to have a clear shot at my back, either.

Every second will have to count.

I close my eyes tight, think about my mother. What she would have wanted for me.

Not this, certainly. But she’d at least want me to survive. Make my own path.

Maybe I just tell myself that to make myself feel better.

She died when I was seven.

What the fuck do I really remember about her, aside from the fact she despised my father and defied him at every turn?

It got her killed, in the end.

Thinking of her death—an aneurism, so proclaimed by the doctor on the payroll of London Pharmaceuticals, my father’s legitimate business—makes me start to panic. My stomach churns and a sour taste coats the inside of my mouth.

I close my eyes and force that memory back.

I cannot afford to panic.

I count to three in my head, like I always did when Danik dragged me to the deep end of our pool to jump. I was terrified of heights and horrified at the thought of drowning. Having my toes on the ledge sent me spiraling.

Counting to three helped.

And Max Bennett? If he gets his hands on me, I think that might be worse than drowning.

One.

Two.

Three.

When I open my eyes, I quickly get to my knees, reaching for the doorknob, holding my breath.

A floorboard creaks outside of my room.

I jump back, landing on my ass, the knife still in my trembling hand.

The door slams open.

A man stands in the doorway dressed in all black, holding a black handgun, aimed at my head.

I make out steel and sky-blue eyes, dark hair. Nothing else before my own eyes are drawn to the barrel of the gun.

“Addison.”

I swallow at the accented word, and I know immediately who this is.

It wasn’t the man outside my window.

It’s this one.

The one holding a gun in my face, his finger on the trigger.

Max Bennett.

South African drug lord, notorious sex trafficker, and the man my father sold me off to.

My mouth goes dry, and my entire body trembles, but I don’t put down the knife.

“Get up,” Max says, his words sharp and low. “If you don’t, I’ll put this gun in your hand, and we’ll pull the trigger together while we aim it at your fucking brother.”

About K.V Rose

KV is an author of dark romance. She's a little depraved and hates writing about herself in third person and will stop immediately.

Phew.

I enjoy copious amounts of coffee, long walks through cemeteries, and listening to music every waking hour. I believe in ghosts, being as weird as humanly possible, and getting possessed by my own characters.

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