Shattered by You Read online

  Shattered by You

  Published by Nashoda Rose

  Copyright © 2015 by Nashoda Rose

  Toronto, Canada

  ISBN: 9781987953015

  Copyright © 2015 Cover design by Kari Ayasha, Cover to Cover Designs

  Cover Photo by Invicta’s Art Photography

  Model: James Clippinger

  Content Edited by Kristin Anders, The Romantic Editor

  Editing by Hot Tree Editing

  Formatted by Champagne Formats

  *Any editing issues are my own. I’m Canadian and on occasion I may use the Canadian spelling rather than U.S.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without the permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Except for the original material written by the author, all songs, brands, and artists mentioned in the novel Shattered by You are the property of the respective owners and copyright holders. Any brands mentioned do not endorse or sponsor this book in any way.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Books by Nashoda Rose

  Dedication

  Warning

  A note from Haven

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  To the readers

  About the Author

  Books by Nashoda Rose

  Where to find Nash

  Perfect Chaos

  With You (now free)

  Torn from You

  Overwhelmed by You

  Take (Scars of the Wraiths)

  Stygian (Scars of the Wraiths)

  Books by Nashoda Rose

  Seven Sixes (2016)

  Tear Asunder Series

  With You (free)

  Torn from You

  Overwhelmed by You

  Shattered by You

  Untitled (Kite’s Story)

  Unyielding Series

  Perfect Chaos

  Perfect Ruin (Fall/Winter 2015)

  Perfect Rage (Date TBA)

  Scars of the Wraith Series

  Stygian

  Take

  http://www.nashodarose.com/

  To my incredible beta readers.

  Your insight and feedback are invaluable.

  Each of you have left your imprint

  in my books, and for that I’m forever grateful.

  Know that you’re appreciated and loved.

  Warning

  Shattered by You contains dark elements and may cause triggers for drug use and references to nonconsensual sex. If you are uncomfortable with this or/and explicit sex, harsh language, and disturbing scenes, then this book might not be for you.

  *Mature audiences only.

  A note from Haven

  When I was five years old, my brother taught me how to sing. I practiced all the time as I lay on the saggy cot in the walk-in closet with the tattered sheet pulled up to my chin.

  The whistle of the cold winter air drifted through the rotting windowsills and I’d cover my ears and quietly sing to block it out. My mom once told me the wind was a monster with huge claw-like hands and no teeth. He had a black hole where his mouth was supposed to be; that’s where the whistling came from. She said his arms were like elastic bands and when kids were bad, he’d slide through the cracks in the house and snatch them away.

  The wind scared me.

  I didn’t want to be taken away from my brother, Ream.

  The winter months were the worst and some nights Ream would sneak into my closet and sing with me. But we had to be quiet. Mom didn’t like singing. My brother never worried about being caught, but I did because then I wouldn’t see him for days.

  It wasn’t just the wind. It was the noises; groans of the house, shrieks from my mother and her friends, things breaking and the shouts and laughter.

  Then the silence.

  That scared me the most because I didn’t know if Mom left us again.

  Days alone in the house, no food, nothing to do but wait . . . for what I didn’t know. But Ream looked after me. He never let me go hungry for long. He protected me . . . until he couldn’t any longer.

  We all know the definition of shattered: to break into pieces; to weaken, destroy; to damage, as by breaking or crushing.

  But my story isn’t about being shattered.

  It’s about surviving the pieces.

  It’s about the strength found within the damaged.

  It’s about love. Love found despite the jagged, tainted edges of who I’d become.

  Warning: parts are ugly and dark. But there is beauty, too, and that is why we are here.

  Haven

  July 2014

  MY FEET SLID in the spongey wet grass as the rain teemed. The heavy sludge of mud on the soles of my shoes bogged me down and I fell, landing hard on my hands and knees, panting.

  The wind whistled through the trees, fragile branches snapped and plummeted to the ground, forgotten limbs broken under nature’s fury.

  The monsters lived, but they’d never catch me.

  I’d survived them.

  I crawled to my feet again and ran, fighting against the wind as it tried to push me back. I put my head down like a bull and fought it. Fought nature. Fought the haunting memories. Fought the pain.

  Tonight unravelled me. I’d been able to keep the horrific memories hidden for months, but seeing the news about a mutilated body of a drug dealer named Olaf Gordenski, found washed up on shore, was as if a tornado slammed into me and everything surfaced at once. I didn’t think. I ran. It was the only way to bury the emotions again.

  He was dead.

  Olaf was dead. Mutilated.

  I wanted to feel relief, but my past burned in my chest like a volcano threatening to erupt.

  I knew who was responsible. Deck. Or one of his ex-military men who worked for him at his not-so-legal company, Unyielding Riot. Deck was friends with my brother and after I escaped my hell, I told him about Olaf. My brother had already given Deck information on him, but what my brother didn’t know was about the club, the illegal club, with girls who didn’t want to be there. Girls like me who were taken there and forced to strip and keep men happy in the backrooms.

  Anything I told Deck was confidential, him and his men only. ‘Nothing touches me,’ were his words. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust anyone, but I had no choice. Olaf had to die. Not only because he deserved it, but because he had always threatened to come after Ream.

  He’d kept me prisoner for over a decade. He kept
other girls too, although I was the only one who lived, or rather existed, in his house. Even at the club, I was kept separate, never allowed to talk to them.

  There was an alarm on the house preventing me from escaping, although that wasn’t all that stopped me. I stayed to protect my brother. But that reason detonated the moment Alexa, Olaf’s psycho bitch, kidnapped my brother and his fiancée, Kat, a few months ago, which led to my escape. Alexa had been so focused on getting Ream back that she made the grave mistake of not locking me up.

  I grunted as I fell again and my hands dug into the mud. The wind eased as if it were giving me a reprieve or maybe it was merely out of breath from laughing at me, knowing I was weakening.

  My thighs quivered and my chest hurt as I struggled to breathe. I had to go farther. A little longer. My past would never have me again. Conquer. Destroy. Bleed the memories.

  Bang.

  Bang.

  Bang.

  I shot to my feet and ran with the memory of the vibration in my hand as I pulled the trigger. But it wasn’t a gun now; it was mud clenched in my fists. I’d killed. I’d ended three lives and I had no remorse or regret.

  I’d watched blood leak into their clothes, eyes widen with shock and then the light fade from them as they died. And still my hand remained steady. The satisfaction of killing them lost to the numbness in which I’d encased myself.

  But that was months ago and now . . . now my pores leaked poison and tried to unlock the pain I’d kept veiled.

  Strength and resolve. I had to be strong. Fight harder. Do whatever it took. No one would ever control me again. The wind was my proof. If I defeated it, it wouldn’t slip through the cracks and let the monsters in.

  I stumbled as the ground dipped and my ankle buckled. I crashed to my knees, and a sharp pain shot through me as my right knee landed on a rock. I remained still for a second as my chest heaved in and out while I hung my head low.

  My blonde hair curtained my face in thick wet strands as the rain pounded harsh, relentless pellets into my body, over and over again. My shirt and sweatpants stuck to me like heavy cool blankets; blankets of pain and a weight of memories that refused to die.

  I raked my fingers into the wet earth and crawled. I had to get the numbness back, kill the emotions, but there were so many faces, so many monsters. Gerard. Alexa. Olaf. The men, who grabbed and pulled at me, touched me, ripped me apart. Even their whistles and hollers haunted me, just like the wind.

  Nature tried to defeat me, but I wouldn’t break under its rage.

  My knees suctioned into the earth as I continued to crawl up the hill. With each ragged breath, my chest burned as if it had been set on fire. But pain drove the body to do more than you’d think possible. I knew about pain and anguish. I knew if I pushed hard enough, the pain would fade into the darkness again.

  It made you stronger.

  It made you do things you never thought you could do.

  It made you fight harder.

  The skies lit up in a flash of forked lightning, and then a few seconds later, a thundering boom crackled. My trembling thighs buckled and I lay flat on my stomach. Blades of grass tickled my lower lip and I tasted wetness mixed with soil on the tip of my tongue.

  The rhythmic drum of rain hit the surface of my body, a comfort as I lay heaving on the ground. I needed this to drive my pain back so no one would see it.

  Especially Ream. I saw the way he watched me and it was with fear, afraid of what I’d suffered while we were apart for twelve years. I’d never tell him. I’d never tell anyone. That was mine to own, bury and destroy.

  Ream was leaving with his band, Tear Asunder, to go on tour and he’d refuse to go if he knew what stormed inside me. Even after being separated since we were sixteen, Ream still wanted to protect me. But there was nothing of me to protect anymore. And it was my turn to protect him—from me.

  The memories had tried to weed their way back into me, but running trapped them. At that moment, it was all I had. I could keep the brewing storm at bay and make my way to normal. I had to find normal.

  “Jesus. What the hell?”

  I jerked and my breath hitched as the voice sounded behind me. I knew who it was and leapt to my feet, but the mud gave way and I slipped as I tried to get my footing. I didn’t bother to look at him as I finally gained traction and took off up the hill for the maze of the woods in the distance.

  “Haven.” Booted feet came after me.

  Shit. No one could see me like this. Crisis was my brother’s best friend, his foster brother and bandmate. He’d tell Ream.

  I heard a loud thump, a grunt and then, “Fuck.”

  I ran faster, while putting my hand in my coat pocket and touching the familiar hard metal. Even if Olaf was dead, I needed this. My control. My safety. My protection. I gritted my teeth, fighting the urge to yank out the gun and make him stop. Make everything stop.

  But I had splinters of sanity still inside me and that would lead down a path far from what I was searching for.

  It was as if I ran in slow motion, the weight of the rain, the mud, my exhausted limbs, and the wind attempting to push me back down the hill. Vulnerability. It led to pain so horrific that it bled your insides into a sea of poison. Weakness killed. Weakness destroyed.

  I heard his heavy breathing and a tremor of fear shot through me as the flash of men panting, eyes glazed with alcohol and lust.

  God, the lust. I hated that the most.

  His body hit hard as he crashed into me, sending us both to the ground. He took the brunt of the fall as he rolled at the last second, so I landed on my back on top of his chest.

  Still, the wind knocked out of me and it took a second before I was able to breathe.

  “What the hell are you doing out here?” he shouted above the roar of the storm.

  “Let. Go.” I twisted to escape him, but his muscled, tatted arms were unmoveable as they curled around my chest. I’d been in his arms once before a couple months earlier, when he grabbed me at the cottage and jumped off the cliff into the water. It had been two months after I’d escaped and I hadn’t wanted to go to the cottage with the band, Kat and Emily. But the only way my brother would go was if I went with them.

  I didn’t know how to swim though and when Crisis snagged me around the waist laughing as we sailed through the air and submerged beneath the cool surface, I clung to him. I’d had no choice.

  Now, I did.

  But as I lay against his chest, both of us breathing hard, his arms like a cocoon of protective warmth . . . I wanted to stay here and forget why I carried a gun. Why I was better alone. Why I had to run to keep the memories away.

  I wanted to feel protected and safe for one moment before I had to fight again. Because that was what I did every single day—fought. It was just a different fight than it was before.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Maybe not, but he was a threat to my numbness, my cool exterior I’d taken years to build. Because when I looked at him, the brilliance of his bright blue eyes often filled with laughter, mesmerized me.

  “Why did you run from me? Fuck, why the hell are you running in a goddamn thunderstorm in an open fuckin’ field?”

  I tried to elbow him in the ribs, but he was quick and tightened his arms so I had no momentum.

  “Just stop for a sec,” he growled. “Haven, seriously, what the fuck?”

  My voice vibrated from the cold. “I want to be alone. Get your hands off me. Now.”

  “You’ve been alone for months.” The thunder drowned out the force of his words, but I felt the deep rumble from his chest sink into my back.

  The intensity of the rain picked up as we lay silent and still for a minute, as if both of us were deciding our next best move. Physically fighting against those who were stronger was pointless. All it did was weaken you. Instead, I made it an inner battle, taking my mind to another place. And that was how I won. That was how I survived.

  But Crisis holding me, the wind whistling
around us, horrific memories looming but unable to touch me as I lay protected in his arms . . . it made me want to stay. To be that little girl who sang to herself in the closet, her brother always near to protect her.

  Yeah, well, singing didn’t hack it anymore. It hadn’t in a long time.

  “How did you find me?” It was close to midnight, in the pouring rain, the only light offered from the lightning and . . . my reflective jacket. Shit, that’s how he saw me.

  “Saw movement out in the field as I drove up to the house. I thought one of the horses freaked in the storm and escaped the barn. If I let you go, are you going to run?”

  Was I? Maybe, but I wouldn’t tell him that. I also didn’t lie, so I stayed silent. Few people realized what a powerful weapon silence was. I knew.

  Our chests rose and fell in perfect rhythm. I parted my lips and wetness slipped into my mouth. I relished the sweet sensation of the cool rain sliding down my throat.

  “Haven?” He squeezed me. “Is this what you’ve been doing when you disappear all the time? Running?”

  I waited for the flash of light to fork across the sky, the power in its grasp able to kill, maim or set fire. I had that in me. The ability to kill without remorse, without thought. It was beauty and destruction, like me.

  His fingers linked with mine on my abdomen, just above where the gun sat hidden in my jacket. “Open field. Thunderstorm. Not the smartest time to be running.”

  No, but the power it conveyed sunk into me with every roar of thunder, every flash of light lending me its strength to fight the memories.

  He sat up, bringing me with him so I was between his bent legs, his thighs caging me in. “Don’t take off,” he whispered as his arms released me, but not completely. Instead, he slid his hands down my arms to my hands that now rested on my thighs. “Jesus, you’re freezing. We need to get you out of the rain and dried off.”

  But I wasn’t ready yet. I still had monsters lurking. The memories and emotions weren’t shoved away in the little compartments of my mind. “Not yet.”

  “Yeah, yet.” He shuffled back and came to his feet, then moved around to stand in front of me.

  I remained sitting on the ground, watching him, assessing what he was going to do next. I’d learned to read people, guess their next move before they made it.