Hitched to the Don (Dark Twisted Love Book 3)

  Hitched to the Don

  Dark Twisted Love Book Three

  Logan Fox

  Copyright © 2018 L. D. Fox

  First Edition, License Notes

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This work of fiction is intended for mature audiences only. All sexually active characters portrayed in this e-book are eighteen years of age or older. Please do not buy/read this e-book if strong sexual situations, multiple partners, violence, drugs, domestic discipline, and explicit language offend you.

  Contents

  Exclusive Content

  1. A lead

  2. Warriors have scars

  3. Too many fucking secrets

  4. Shot by a stranger

  5. Tiny little thing

  6. Well, fuck

  7. Thank god for paternity tests

  8. Unreasonable sonsofbitches

  9. Howsabout El Guapo?

  10. Serious shit

  11. Festivities

  12. Queen Cora

  13. That was no dream

  14. Strike two

  15. A pair of kids, fucking

  16. Cora's situation

  17. Circling

  18. Very quick, or very dead

  19. Strong foundations

  20. Strangers

  21. Gabby

  22. Dirty money

  23. White fucker

  24. Not a thing

  25. Boys's talk

  26. Mixed signals

  27. A wedding gift

  28. Another fantastic fucking day

  29. Revenge of the most brutal kind

  30. An unexpected visit

  31. Too far back

  32. Mi casa, su casa

  33. Playing dead

  34. Ten fucking Mississippis

  35. No

  36. We'll teach you

  37. Double Shot

  38. My Capo

  39. Nothing

  40. Agree with everything

  41. What he wouldn't give

  42. Make them watch

  43. I love you, Cora Sw—

  44. For real

  45. Charlie

  46. Five days, chica

  47. A toast

  48. Hisp. F (18-22)

  49. Glad you asked

  50. Strike three

  51. Luck and destiny

  52. Pedazo de mierda

  53. Sleeping Beauty

  54. A pair of horses and a step ladder

  55. Bird of Prey

  56. The puppet master

  57. Too late for breakfast

  58. Drink

  59. A First

  60. Beautiful

  61. Ours

  62. The Beast's Plaything

  63. Safeword: swan

  64. So Fucking Special

  65. Behave yourself, bunny

  66. One of those parties

  67. Breathtaking

  68. Something black

  69. A Black Wedding

  70. Slay the Dragon

  71. Ashes

  72. Epilogue

  Also by Logan Fox

  Thank You

  About the Author

  Exclusive Content

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  For Juan

  You are the sun and moon to me.

  1

  A lead

  Kane Price grimaced as he flicked away the butt of his cigarette. It spat sparks on the gravel road before disappearing between the shale. Jesus, he had to get around to quitting sometime. Five years he’d been smoking, and he could feel tar on his lungs like an oil slick on a puddle.

  He smoothed his shaggy brown hair back from his face, and adjusted the lapels of his work suit.

  There had been police tape on the door, but either a strong wind or a brave kid had torn it.

  This was his third visit in as many weeks.

  His glasses were tinted in the strong sun, but as soon as he stepped inside the white-washed farmhouse, they adjusted to the gloom inside. They were more only for show—at thirty-three, he still had stellar vision—but people tended to remember the fact that someone wore glasses more than a person’s hazel eyes.

  Helpful, when you were trying not to be noticed. People wearing glasses were also less intimidating; geeks weren’t known for their upper body strength.

  The farmhouse stank of spoiled meat and stale air, which was surprising. So many goddamn cops and detectives had worked their way through this place, they’d left smeared footprints over the dusty floor, but their presence did nothing about the smell.

  Floorboards creaked as he worked his way through the now familiar floor plan.

  Dining room with its partially boarded-up windows. Disgusting bathroom. A junkie’s guest room. And the crime scene.

  Decay and mold had long since replaced the lingering scent of roses.

  Kane lit another cigarette as he crouched a foot away from the blood splatter caking the carpet. There was more on the wall and the bed’s headboard.

  By the time he’d been flagged about Plata o Plomo’s telltale MO, he’d arrived barely in time to see them loading the body into the mortician’s van.

  He’d insisted to see the corpse though.

  Which was one of the reasons why his Captain had suspended him. Apparently, barging through forensic guys and then wedging a decomposing corpse’s jaw open with a pen to see if the tongue had been severed wasn’t considered ‘proper police etiquette’. Especially when it happened outside of his jurisdiction.

  Kane shifted his weight so the rucksack hanging from his shoulder slid off and thumped onto the floor. He glanced around the room before tugging out the bent notepad he kept in his back pocket. It was a tight fit; the edges of the faux leather binding were rubbed raw.

  He flipped through it until he came to a neatly penciled entry that read:

  Noah Green

  Truth & Consequences

  Severed tongue

  Poss P.o.P hit

  Calling them PoP made the Plata o Plomo cartel sound almost cheery. What they did to rats was far from it.

  The severed tongue was their thing, but the gunshot wounds he’d seen on Noah’s wrecked face weren’t. They’d looked not only gratuitous, but almost amateur. His theory that a rival cartel had set this up to look like PoP was too convoluted; Noah Green was a nobody. A cartel thug, perhaps. A halcon at best. Why would another cartel go to such lengths to disguise the origin of the hit?

  It kept him up at night, this hit. It felt too personal, almost vengeful. And one thing he knew about the capo of PoP was that he wasn’t vengeful.

  No…a cold-blooded killer led PoP; he didn’t doubt for a second that Zachary West was a psychopath.

  He’d walked this scene so many times, but he made himself do it again. Most of the significant pieces of evidence had been removed: the bloodstained shards of a methamphetamine pipe, the empty 9mm shells of the Taurus PT-911 that had ended Noah’s life, the blood and semen-stained sheets
of the bed.

  A dark patch had seeped into the mattress. It had dried a long time ago, and even that coppery smell had left the room.

  He got onto his knees, peering under the bed as he had so many times before. Glancing up, he took in the size of the bed with its old-fashioned canopy, and shoved his shoulder against it. It skidded over the carpet after a moment’s resistance, before clattering into the nightstand on the other side of the bed.

  Four perfect circles of green carpet stood out where the bed’s feet had protected them from sun damage.

  Kane lay on his side, ignoring the crunch of dried blood as his shoulder bent the carpet fibers inside the big stain beside the bed. Dust, a lone sock, some chocolate wrappers. A used needle. It wasn’t surprising they’d left it behind—there’d been a fucking plethora of the things for forensics.

  He trailed his fingers along the surface of the dusty carpet. There was a suggestion of something—so slight that it disappeared as soon as he felt it. Kane shifted, freeing blood dust with his shoulder as he leaned forward and reached deeper under the bed.

  Something invisible to him tickled his fingertip. He moved his hand until he found it again, gripped it, and came to a sitting position.

  He held a long, black hair between his fingers.

  It could mean anything, or nothing.

  He got to his feet, careful not to lose the hair as he went to his rucksack. Opening one of the many internal compartments, he drew out a roll of scotch tape and tore off an inch with his teeth. He opened his notebook, turned to a fresh page. Coiling the hair around his finger, he stuck it to the page with the tape and carefully penned:

  Noah Green

  Found under bed

  Anything/nothing

  He clicked his pen and was busy returning the notepad to his pocket when someone knocked on the farmhouse’s front door.

  Kane rose slowly, and peered around the edge of the door. From here, he could see all the way to the front door. He’d left it open, which meant he had a perfect view of the woman standing on the threshold.

  “Hello?” She turned her head, spotted him, and held up a hesitant hand. “Noah?”

  Kane shoved his pen in his jacket pocket and strode up to the front door. He drew his badge with a practiced movement, flipping it open for the woman as he arrived in front of her.

  “Kane Price, DEA,” he said.

  Of course, the badge wasn’t his official one. That had been taken, along with his state-issued weapon.

  But he’d be damned if he went around without a badge. Most people wouldn’t have the moxie to take down his badge number anyway and, even if they did, most of those wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with the information.

  “DEA?” The woman blinked owlish eyes at him. She was pretty, in a frumpy kind of way—no makeup, clothes rumpled and covered in dog hair. “What’s going on?”

  “You’re here to see Noah?”

  “I…I am.” She hugged herself then, and took a step back. “Is he…is he here?”

  “’Fraid not, ma’am,” Kane said, slipping into his best cop impersonation. It was only an impersonation because he was technically suspended, of course. He was still a DEA agent, even if he didn’t have the backing of the US Government behind him right that minute. “Noah Green was murdered a few weeks ago.”

  The woman’s lips slowly parted. She took another step back and then reached out as if she wanted to grab hold of the door frame. But when her fingertips brushed against flaking whitewash, she flinched and curled her hand against her throat instead.

  “Murdered? That’s awful.”

  “How did you know Mr. Green, ma’am?”

  “Me? I…I didn’t.” The woman leaned to look past him, as if wondering if Noah’s decomposing corpse was still somewhere on the premises. “I mean…I’m here for an inspection.”

  “What inspection?” Kane asked as he dug his notepad out of his pocket and flipped it to a clean page.

  “For…from the pound. For his adoption. The dog.” The woman pressed a hand over her eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry, I’m probably not making any sense.”

  “Just start from the beginning, ma’am.”

  “It’s Tracey,” she murmured, taking her hand away. She looked a shade paler than before. “Tracey Highmore.”

  “What’s this about a dog?”

  “Noah. He wanted to adopt another pittie. We always come to do an inspection first, even if he’s adopted before. That’s the rule.”

  “You’re from a pound?” Kane asked, making a note of the woman’s name.

  She nodded. “He’s dead?” she asked, blinking up at Kane as if she’d never seen him before.

  “Unfortunately, ma’am.”

  “What happened to his pittie?”

  For a moment, Kane thought the woman had literally just had a mental breakdown right in front of him. Then their brief conversation played back in his head.

  There hadn’t been mention of a dog on the report. Although…would they have bothered to include it?

  “I’m not sure, ma’am.”

  “Tracey, please.” She gave her head a hard shake. “Did someone take her? Please, god, tell me someone’s looking after her!”

  “The dog?” Kane ventured, as Tracey spun away from him and headed for the back yard.

  “The pitbull he adopted a year ago. He kept her—”

  Tracey stopped as soon as she made the corner of the farmhouse. Kane strode up beside her, scanning the back yard with new eyes.

  There was a pole in the middle of the yard, with a chain attached. By the side of the house stood two dog bowls—one faded by the sun—and a mound of blankets that must have served as the dog’s bed.

  When he turned to Tracey, her eyes had welled up. “I knew it,” she whispered, putting a trembling hand on her mouth. “I told them he shouldn’t have her.”

  “Hey, Tracey? Can you look at me, girl?”

  The woman turned to him, blinking hard as if trying to hold back tears. “We never allow people to adopt if they’re going to chain their dogs up in their yards. This is—” she waved a hand at the backyard, her mouth quivering.

  Kane took her arm and led her around the side of the house again. “Was the dog chipped?”

  “Chipped?” She looked up at him, and then nodded vigorously. “Of course.”

  “You have records of that on your system?”

  Another furious nod. Then more tears welled in her eyes. “You think someone took her in?”

  “I’m sure they did,” Kane said, urging Tracey to the front of the house. “Can I follow you to the pound and get that info from you?”

  Tracey gave him a vague wave as she headed for her dented sedan. He heard her breaking into sobs before she managed to close the car door behind her.

  As he sat in his car, waiting for Tracey to calm herself enough to drive, he flipped open his notebook and began thumbing back through the pages. He tapped his pen against an entry as he drew out his pack of cigarettes and shook one loose:

  Zachary West

  PoP capo (El Lobo)

  Approx 45

  Br eyes br hair

  Southern acc.

  Pitbulls

  It was a connection so tenuous, his Captain would have laughed him out of the office. But it was the only lead he had on a case he’d been working for almost a decade.

  And a lead was a fucking lead.

  2

  Warriors have scars

  Zachary West smoothed his fingers over Lady’s forehead. The white pitbull had fallen into a light sleep with her head on his lap. He didn’t often allow his dogs on the sofa with him, but tonight he’d felt the need for warmth beside him.

  It was the cold.

  The fire blazing a few feet away from him didn’t help.

  The right side of his body was always cold compared with the left. Ever since the burning oil had touched his skin all those years ago, his skin had been aflame. But, in comparison, the right side of his body felt const
antly chilled.

  His fingers toyed with Lady’s short fur, rubbing it the wrong way before smoothing it down again. His fingertips encountered a small nub on the back of her neck, and he toyed with it for a few seconds before moving to her ear. She didn’t like him touching her ears—they flicked for a few seconds until she woke up and turned sleepy eyes on him.

  Sometimes, he wondered what that imbecile had done to Lady before he’d taken her away. She had enough scars on her that he wouldn’t have been surprised if the halcon had been using her in dog fighting.

  Dogs were masters at moving on, though. Perhaps the satisfaction of biting into her old master’s tongue had given her the resolve to forgive and forget.

  Or, perhaps, she’d simply forgiven.

  Animals had an abundance of forgiveness. Humans less so.