Damaged: The Dillon Sisters by Layla Frost (young adult books to read TXT) 📗

alternate timeline I never wanted to experience.

Weeks ago, I’d made Alexander promise he was done killing people.

Earlier, I’d asked him to break that promise by killing for me.

And for the others. For Jenna.

Mister halted suddenly, his hackles rising as a low growl rumbled from his body. A moment later, I heard a car come up the driveway. I walked around the house to see Alexander getting out. And then I kept walking until I was up in his arms with my limbs wrapped around him.

“It’s done, flower.”

I exhaled a shaky breath. “Everything went okay?”

“Quick and easy.”

“The…” Bile rose in my throat. “The body?”

“I called in a marker.”

I had no clue what that meant, and I didn’t want to know.

“Nothing can be tied to either of us,” he promised. “Made some anonymous complaints to the center before I unencrypted his hard drive and scrubbed any reference to you. A ninety-year-old nana could access his files. The cops will see, assume he’s in the wind.”

I would have to find a way to tell Aria before it all came out. I knew my sister. She’d feel guilty for pushing me into therapy with a predator. I needed to make sure she focused on the fact I was safe and not the fiction of what could’ve been.

That was a conversation for future-me. Right then, I wanted to savor the win.

My body practically melted into a puddle of goo. Warm and relaxed. “You’re my favorite.”

“I know.” He lowered me down his body. “But I’m still willing to bribe you.”

At the feel of his hardness, I was no longer warm and relaxed. I was hot and needy.

And happily alive.

Epilogue

Two weeks later

Briar

For boxes

“I HAVE A surprise for you.”

Uh-oh.

Or maybe yay.

With Alexander, I was never sure.

Glancing up from the couch, I asked, “Is it alive? Because if so, we might need a bigger house.”

We were the proud pet parents of seven chickens, one pit bull, and, as of the week before, two ornery cats.

Alexander had claimed he was running out for milkshakes. Instead, he’d come home with the milkshakes… and Statler and Waldorf from the shelter.

The chicks.

Mister.

Statler.

Waldorf.

And me.

My handsome stalker had a thing for rescuing the damaged and the unwanted.

“Not alive.” He kept one hand behind his back as he sat on the coffee table in front of me.

“Is it edible?”

“Anything is edible if you’re determined enough.”

I scrunched my nose and rolled my eyes. “What is it?”

He brought his arm forward and opened his hand to reveal a little rectangular box.

Not a jewelry box.

Handing it to me, he prompted, “Open it.”

I did as he ordered. And then I burst out laughing.

Business cards.

He actually got me business cards.

Not just any business cards. Sleek and matte black, there was an embossed flower emblem.

What they said made them even better.

How to contact me:

Don’t

“I know you got these as a joke, but jokes on you, I love them.” In fact, they were the best gift I’d ever received—and it wasn’t a close competition.

“Turn it over.”

I picked the top card off the stack and flipped it over. It took a moment for what I was reading to sink in.

Briar Flower Thornton

Not Dillon.

Thornton.

When I tore my gaze away from the card, Alexander was holding another box. That time, it was a jewelry one.

“Marry me.”

I didn’t think. I didn’t pause. I didn’t wait for my brain to twist thorny vines around my heart in an effort to tear it apart.

My answer was immediate and without a single shred of doubt or anxiety. “Yes.”

He slid a boulder of a ring onto my finger.

Then he stripped me down and slid his finger into me.

And then, when I was writhing and begging and out of my mind for him, he slid his cock into me.

No, I changed my mind.

This is the best gift I’ve ever gotten.

Alexander

One year later

“I NEED A trace.”

I’d figured as much.

Aside from us both being happily tied to a Dillon sister, Brando Vitale and I had a mutually beneficial working relationship. He called me when he needed a trace or information he couldn’t get elsewhere. In return, he made sure the right judge got the information when I inevitably found messed up shit on people’s computers.

Then we sat across from each other at dinners with our wives, as if we were a normal family.

We weren’t.

But that was the beauty of it.

Everyone was fucked up in their own way. We just owned it—secrets and all.

“Is there a time constraint?” I asked, seasoning the salmon for dinner.

“The next few days.”

My gaze went to my wife. I watched as she bent down, aiming her perky ass my way.

She was trying to distract me from the fact she was sneaking Mister extra sweet potato treats.

It didn’t work.

I knew what she was doing. I always knew because I paid attention to everything she did.

But I never called her on it. Partially because I wanted her to keep trying to distract me with her ass or tits. But mostly because I didn’t give a shit that she spoiled him. It made her happy. That was all I cared about.

Anxious to end the call so I could grab that ass she was taunting me with, I said, “I’ll get it to you tomorrow.”

“Appreciated. See you Sunday.”

I’d lost my parents when I was young. Briar might as well not have had any parents to begin with. Now we had family dinners a couple times a month. Sometimes we went out, but usually Brand or I cooked.

Never Briar or Aria. The sisters had a lot going for them, but cooking skills? Not unless we liked our cereal flambéed.

Which Briar had done once when she’d accidentally turned on the burner while pouring a bowl.

We clicked off, but before I could round the island to go to her, Briar was already on her way to me.

And I wasn’t sure I liked the expression on her gorgeous face or the worry in her pretty blue eyes.

I liked it even less when her hand and voice both shook. “Can you put the salmon away?”

I opened the