Prologue
Summer, 1998
Denver, Colorado
The man’s voice shattered the quietude. Baylee hugged her stuffed rabbit closer and held her breath. It wasn’t her father’s voice; he was out on business and wouldn’t be back until the morning. She pulled the covers over her head and wished the fear creeping inside her would crawl away.
Silence.
The young girl let out a small breath, closed her eyes, and let sleep replace the fear from a few minutes before.
Crash! Baylee jerked up in her bed, her rabbit clutched to her side, her heart slamming against her chest. Her mother’s sobs pierced the veil of normalcy. Mommy’s in trouble.
Baylee scrambled out of her twin bed and padded to the stairs. From the glow of the fireplace, she saw figures dancing on the walls like shadow puppets. One was tall and gripping, the other was short, curvy, and struggling.
“Please, don’t. Leave now. Please,” her mother said in a voice laced in panic.
“Give me what you’ve been teasing me with for a long time. You think you can flirt with me then turn me off? You know you want this.”
“I don’t. Stop. If you don’t stop, I’m going to tell John when he gets back.”
“Just one kiss and I’ll go. Come on, you know you want it.”
The young child quietly descended the stairs until she was more than halfway down. She sat on the carpeted step and clung to the white-painted wooden dowels, peering through them as though they were a looking glass into a world of shadows and fear.
“Stop it! Please,” Baylee’s mother cried out as she grabbed something on the cabinet next to her.
The scene played out on the walls of the living room: her mother bending her arm and hitting the man’s head, his hand grabbing his head then slapping her mother so hard she fell on the floor, the tall outline then pouncing on her mother. Her mother’s gasps and muffled screams became weaker, and her body stopped moving.
Baylee leapt up and rushed into the room, screaming, “Mommy! Don’t hurt my mommy. Mommy!”
The man, startled, jumped up and approached the young girl, his eyes flashing. She backed up and ran to the front door. Her high-pitched screams rang out through the neighborhood, and neighbors came out on their front porches to see what had punctured the stillness of the night.
A loud thump on the door made the man turn and run out of the house through the back.
“What’s going on in there?” a deep voice asked on the other side of the door.
“My mommy’s hurt. She’s not moving,” Baylee answered, her voice small. The shrill wail of police sirens echoed eerily in the distance, coming closer.
By the time the cops entered the house, the young girl was kneeling by her lifeless mother—Baylee’s eyes unblinking, her body stiff. Even though warm hands touched her, the child had retreated to the world where nightmares lived, where blackness surrounded everything.
From that night on, Baylee Peters’s memory would be filled with shadows and darkness.
Chapter One
Seventeen years later
Summer
Denver, Colorado
Nice ass. Wonder what the front of her looks like. Axe admired the shapely brunette in the pew across the aisle from him in the church. Her celery-green cocktail dress molded over her curvy hips and stopped mid-thigh, revealing long, well-defined tanned legs. Axe’s gaze lingered as he imagined them wrapped around his waist while he slammed his cock into her. His body tightened and his fingers itched to dig into her fleshy hips while he spread her “fuck me” legs wide and rammed into her from behind, watching her hot ass jiggle.
Shifting, he readjusted his pants as he raised his eyes to glossy, dark brown hair falling down her back. The setting sun bathed her hair in warm yellow and red hues as it streamed in through the stained glass windows. The impulse to touch it was strong, and he could almost feel the silky strands wrapped around his hand as he pulled her head back while he pounded his dick in her.
The priest said in a clear voice, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
Axe pulled his eyes away from the luscious creature across from him and watched as Derek, one of his best buddies from childhood, walked down the aisle with his new bride. Axe hadn’t wanted to come to Denver for a wedding, of all things, and he’d made up some bullshit about not being able to go, but when Derek called and told him he had to be there, period, Axe relented and rode his Harley the three hours to make it.
He and Derek had been buds since they were five years old. They had formed an allegiance early on, Axe beating up the bullies who picked on Derek in the trailer park where they grew up. Right from the start, they’d been tight, their time together meaning less time spent in their not-so-happy homes. Derek’s mother was a drunk, and his father was a cruel man who loved to torment anyone who crossed his path. He spent many nights at Axe’s trailer, trying to keep out of his dad’s way. When someone finally shot the bastard late one summer night, the park rejoiced, and Derek changed forever. He was no longer the kid afraid of his shadow, the one whose blue eyes were sad and haunted most of the time. Derek seemed to relax for the first time in his life.