Whiskey: A Reed Security Romance (Reed Security Series Book 7) Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Who's who

  Who's who

  Chapter One - Chris

  Chapter Two - Alison

  Chapter Three - Chris

  Chapter Four - Slasher

  Chapter Five - Alison

  Chapter Six - Chris

  Chapter Seven - Reed Security

  Chapter Eight - Alison

  Chapter Nine - Maggie

  Chapter Ten - Chris

  Chapter Eleven - Alison

  Chapter Twelve - Reed Security

  Chapter Thirteen - Chris

  Chapter Fourteen - Alison

  Chapter Fifteen - Chris

  Chapter Sixteen - Alison

  Chapter Seventeen - Chris

  Chapter Eighteen - Reed Security

  Chapter Nineteen - Chris

  Chapter Twenty - Alison

  Chapter Twenty-One - Chris

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Alison and Chris

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Chris

  Chapter Twenty-Four - Alison and Axel

  Chapter Twenty-Five - Chris

  More To Come

  Whiskey

  A Reed Security Romance

  by

  Giulia Lagomarsino

  Whiskey

  A Reed Security Romance

  Copyright @ 2018 Giulia Lagomarsino

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2018

  ASIN: B07HFP11B5

  Self published through Kindle Direct Publishing

  To Katy and your brother. Thank you for helping me with this book while serving our country.

  Who's who at Reed Security

  Sebastian "Cap" Reed- owner of Reed Security

  Maggie "Freckles" Reed- Sebastian's wife

  Caitlin Reed- Sebastian and Maggie's daughter

  Training:

  Hudson Knight

  Kate Whittemore- love interest

  Team 1:

  Derek “Irish” Cortell- team leader and part owner of Reed Security

  Claire Grant- love interest

  Lola “Brave” Pruitt

  Hunter “Pappy” Papacosta

  Lucy Grant- love interest

  Team 2:

  Sam “Cazzo” Galmacci- part owner of Reed Security and team leader

  Vanessa Adams- love interest

  Mark “Sinner” Sinn

  Cara Donnelly- love interest

  Blake “Burg” Reasenburg

  Meghan Magee- love interest

  Team 3:

  John “Ice” Peters- team leader

  Julius “Jules” Siegrist

  Chris “Jack” McKay

  Team 4:

  Chance “Sniper” Newman- team leader

  Gabe Moore

  Jackson “Huey” Lewis

  Team 5:

  Alec “Wes” Wesley- team leader

  Craig “Dev” Devereux

  Florrie Younge

  CHAPTER ONE

  Chris

  17 YEARS AGO…

  “Ali, I have to do this. My brother joined the Blood Devils and he got into some bad shit. I have to get him out.”

  “You can’t get him out, Chris. Once you join, there’s no leaving. There’s nothing you can do for Will.”

  I grabbed the gun Will had given me and put it in the back of my pants. He had always told me that he was going to take me and teach me to shoot. He hadn’t had the opportunity yet and now I wished he had. I was going to need to know if I joined the Blood Devils and sold my soul. The initiation was to kill someone. I had never even fired a gun before and now I was expected to kill another person. I had already met with Slasher, the man that initiated my brother into the gang. He had informed me that if I failed, I would be killed and so would my brother. There was no going back once I walked onto their turf.

  “I can’t just leave him, Ali. He’s my brother, the only family I have left.”

  “I thought…you said that we were going to get married. You said you wanted to start a life with me.”

  “I wanted that, but it’s not going to happen now.” My dad left us and my mom wasted away. There was no one to watch out for us. Will made sure that I didn’t starve. He did things that no one should have to do to make sure that I didn’t get taken away from him. “I won’t abandon him now. I have to do this.”

  She took a step back from me, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t do this with you. I won’t be a part of that life.”

  “I’m not asking you to. I’ve made my choice. It’s time for you to move on.”

  “I can’t believe that you’re choosing a gang over me. We’ve been together for two years. We’ve known each other since we were kids.”

  “I’m not choosing the gang. I’m choosing my brother and I always will. Ali, let’s face it. We’re seventeen years old. You’ll forget about me in a month and move on to some college kid that will bring you to parties and show you a great time. Then you’ll meet the love of your life and get married.”

  It killed me to say that. I was the love of her life. I was the one that was supposed to marry her. I was the one that was supposed to give her the world.

  “This was never going to work anyway. I have nothing to offer you, Ali. I’m just the kid from the wrong side of the tracks.” I huffed out a laugh and looked away. “Your parents will be happy to be proven right.”

  “This isn’t you. You’re doing this out of some kind of loyalty to your brother and I get that, but he wouldn’t want you to join that life. He only did it so that you had a chance.”

  “And I won’t leave him behind.”

  The tears were pouring down her face, but I couldn’t let it get to me. I had to get to my brother and try to help him out of the trouble he was in. I didn’t know how I would do that yet, but I’d do everything I could to get him out.

  “Goodbye, Ali. Don’t contact me again.”

  I turned and walked away, leaving her in my mom’s trailer, sobbing and crying out for me. It broke my fucking heart to do that to her, but I couldn’t see a way out. I was fucking seventeen. What could I give her?

  I went to the meet up and immediately felt on edge. My brother was standing between Slasher and another member I hadn’t met yet. Will was beaten badly and looked like he could barely stand. Why weren’t they doing something for him?

  “Looks like you got here just in time, Chris.” Slasher pulled out a gun and let it dangle at his side. I eyed it warily, not wanting to give him a reason to use it. I felt my own gun pressed against my back, but since I didn’t even know how to use it, it didn’t seem wise to pull it out and threaten him with it.

  “In time for what?” I asked.

  “To see what happens to those who betray us. Your brother has been stealing from us. He says that he needed the money to feed your sorry ass.”

  I glanced at my brother, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. I knew he had done some terrible things, but to cross the Blood Devils was a death sentence if caught. I couldn’t believe he had done that.

  “If you want to join us, you have one job.” He held out the gun to me, but I just stared at it. I couldn’t kill my brother. There was no way I could ever do that. I looked at him and saw him shake his head slightly. He wouldn’t want this for me, even though he knew they would make it ten times as wor
se for him if I didn’t do it. They were hoping I would show him mercy and shoot him myself, and then I would be a part of their gang. But my feet wouldn’t move. I wouldn’t kill the one person that was always on my side. I couldn’t.

  “Do it!” Slasher barked, but still I stood there. An evil look crossed over his face. I watched as the other man delivered blow after blow to my brother until he was a bloody mess on the ground. He was no longer moving or even opening his eyes. There was so much blood that I had to look away to keep from vomiting everywhere, but I had to stay and make sure they put that bullet in his head. I had to make sure that he wasn’t suffering anymore.

  After what seemed like an interminable amount of time, they finally racked the slide on the gun and held it to his head. “This is what happens to people that cross us. You go to the cops or even think of saying anything to anyone, I’ll come after you, your sorry excuse for a mother, and that little girlfriend of yours. I’ll make sure no one will ever recognize you. You feel me?”

  I nodded, unsure what else to do. The gun fired and my eyes slid closed as memories of my brother and I washed over me. He had always been there for me and I had failed the one time he needed me. I opened my eyes and stared into the dead eyes of Slasher. He jerked his head in a signal for me to leave. I didn’t want to leave my brother there, but I knew this was my only chance to leave. If I stayed, they’d put a bullet in me and my brother’s sacrifice would have been for nothing.

  I turned and ran as fast as I could, determined to get away from this life and everything that reminded me of it. I briefly thought of Ali and considered taking her with me, but I was a coward. I had just watched as my brother was beaten and executed and I did nothing. I had a gun and I didn’t even try to defend him. What kind of man would I be to take Ali with me when I couldn’t even protect her? I didn’t go back to my trailer that night. I walked the streets, trying to think of how I would escape this life when I walked past a recruiting office for the USMC. I could learn to fight. I could learn to defend myself and never be vulnerable again. I sat outside on the sidewalk until the next morning when the office opened.

  “I’m Sergeant Mills. What can I do for you today, son?”

  “I’m here to enlist.”

  He sat down behind his desk and leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers as he assessed me. I was a tall, lanky kid. I didn’t look like much, but then, I never had regular meals either.

  “What’s your name, son?”

  “Chris McKay.”

  “And why do you want to join?”

  I ran through all the answers in my head. There were so many reasons and I didn’t know which one he wanted to hear, so I told him all of them.

  “I don’t have a home. My dad left a long time ago and my mother is a waste of a human being. My brother joined the Blood Devils to try and put food on the table and take care of me. I saw him murdered last night when they caught him.” I shook my head and looked down. “I don’t have anywhere else to go, and I don’t want to end up dead like him.”

  Sergeant Mills was quiet for a moment before he leaned forward and gathered some paperwork. “When do you turn eighteen?”

  “Six months.”

  “Do you think your mother would sign a paper letting you join?”

  “Not likely. She’s always stuck in a bottle.”

  He nodded, leaning back in his seat. “I’m sorry, but you can’t join until you’re eighteen. You need a guardian’s consent to join at seventeen. You’ll have to wait.”

  “I can forge it. No one would ever know,” I said desperately.

  “There are other things too. You’re malnourished and I’m sure you won’t meet the weight requirements, not to mention you’ll have to pass a physical, which I doubt you would. Have you graduated high school?”

  I shook my head dejectedly. This was it. I wasn’t going to get in. I wouldn’t be getting away from this life. I would end up like my brother, dead on the streets before my eighteenth birthday.

  “I’m sorry. You wouldn’t be accepted.”

  I stood and made my way to the door, wondering if I could steal some food to eat.

  “Wait,” Sergeant Mills commanded. I turned and looked at him, lost and completely alone. “I have a proposition for you. You can come home with me. My wife, Cheryl, is an excellent cook. We’ll get you healthy and you’ll study for your GED. While you stay with me, I’ll teach you everything you could ever want to know about the Marines. We’ll train every day and I’ll prepare you for boot camp. You’ll also have to pass the ASVAB, it’s the military entrance exam. I’ll help you study for it. If in six months, when you turn eighteen, you still want to join, I’ll get you signed up. If you don’t want to, you can get a job to support yourself. Until then, your job will be to get healthy and prepare for the next stage of your life. If that’s something you’re interested in, you’ll come home with me tonight. If you don’t want to, I’ll give you $20 and you can go get yourself a hot meal. What’s it going to be?”

  “I’ll go home with you.” It wasn’t even a difficult decision to make. This man had just saved my life and I wouldn’t waste it. I would do everything possible to ensure that his faith in me didn’t go to waste.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Alison

  TENNESSEE- PRESENT DAY

  I walked out of the hospital like I did every night to see Gimpy waiting for me on his bike. I threw my messenger bag over my shoulder and climbed on back. I hardly ever touched him if I didn’t have to. He was a disgusting man who smelled like he never showered and his teeth were yellow and falling out. When he first started taking me to work and picking me up, I clung to him because I had no other choice. I had never been on a bike and I didn’t have much of a choice in whether or not I got on. Slasher made sure that I was watched around the clock. I was lucky that I got the freedom to go to work. Not that I kept any of my money. Slasher took everything from me and used my skills to fix up his guys when they came back bloodied. I was only a nurse, but he seemed to think that was the same as having a medical degree.

  When we got back to the rundown house I called home, I hopped off the bike and ran inside. The only good part about coming back to this place was seeing my son. Every day I walked out the door, I wondered what Slasher would do to him when I was gone. I had tried to run in the past, but it had never worked. When Axel was younger, it was too hard to get away with him. He wasn’t fast enough and I would always get caught. As he got older, Slasher kept a tighter rein on me and threatened me daily with killing my son if I ever tried to run again. I had taken enough beatings, and so had Axel, for me to know that he wasn’t bluffing. But Axel was sixteen now and I was almost ready.

  When I got to my room, I changed quickly and went to check on Axel. He was doing homework in his room and appeared fine. I homeschooled him because Slasher wouldn’t allow him to attend public school. Probably because social services would be called on us if anyone ever saw him after a beating. At this point, there were days that I prayed someone would call DCFS on us just so that Axel could escape this life. Sadly, most people didn’t actually care about their neighbors.

  “Alison! Where the fuck is my food?”

  So much for spending some time with my son. I quickly went downstairs and pulled out some things for dinner. Slasher was leaning against the counter, drinking a beer and staring at me. He was one of the ugliest men I knew. At one time, he hadn’t been a bad looking guy, but years of smoking and doing drugs had aged him drastically. His brown hair was long and stringy and his brown eyes looked dead to me. His once muscular frame was now lanky with a pouch where he now had a beer belly. The worst part was his mouth. His teeth were rotting and his breath was always horrid.

  I did my best not to make eye contact with him. I didn’t want to see what he was thinking right now. As I stepped around him to take out some meat for dinner, he grabbed onto my arm and swung me around to face him.

  “Why the fuck are you ignoring me?”

  “I’m not,
” I said, refusing to meet his eyes.

  “Don’t fuck with me. What’s going on with you?”

  “I’m just making dinner,” I said quietly. “Gimpy just brought me home. I went right upstairs to change and then I came down.”

  “Something’s up with you.”

  I finally looked up at him and saw the questions in his eyes. There wasn’t anything up with me, well, no more than there had been over the past two years. For some reason though, he was questioning me now. I blinked quickly, trying to hold back my panic. Had someone followed me? How had he found out? I took deep breaths trying to hold in the terror. He shoved me backwards, causing me to hit my head on the corner of a cabinet before I hit the ground.

  “The problem is, you’re not scared enough anymore. Why is that? Have I not given you enough lessons?”

  I couldn’t think of a good response. I wanted to tell him that I was plenty scared of him, but the truth was, I wasn’t as scared of him as of getting caught. That would be a death sentence for me and then no one would be there to protect Axel.

  He grabbed me by the hair, pulling hard as he jerked me closer to him. “Make my fucking dinner and don’t forget who owns you. If I have to give you reminders, you won’t be making it into work for a while.”

  He threw me backwards and stormed out of the room. I stood quickly and got to work on his dinner. By the time I finished, I was a nervous ball of energy. I wanted desperately to call Adam, my one true friend at the hospital, and check on him, but I had no way of doing that without giving myself away. I would have to wait and talk to him tomorrow.

  Slasher left me alone that night and I helped Axel with his homework. He was a really smart kid and if he had actual teachers, he would probably be further along with his classes. I had been a good student too, but I wasn’t a teacher. There was only so much I felt I could bring to the table for him. I just needed a little more time and then I could get us both out of there. I was close to being ready, but I had to be sure that I could succeed.