Broken Read online

  Broken

  Savage Souls Series

  Book 1

  LS Silverii

  Dedication

  This first book in the series is dedicated to my wife. I still love saying that.

  Acknowledgements

  This series allowed the opportunity to incorporate my experiences as an undercover agent as well as what I’ve learned through my studies of human fringe behavior. I appreciate all of my brother and sister law enforcement officers who walk the jagged line daily. Those who keep the faith despite the frayed conditions have my eternal gratitude.

  The writing community is amazing for surrounding each other with genuine support. These wonderful people generously support and mentor me without hesitation. I thank you for your time, talent and truth. Liliana Hart, Jean Jenkins and Danielle Dauphinet.

  Product Warning

  ABOUT THIS SERIES:

  **Please note this book is dark romance and deals with adult themes. Recommended for mature readers only**

  This story unfolds over five volumes that span between 22 – 27,000 words each.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Product Warning

  Copyright Page

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  Links to my Other Books

  Excerpt from Damaged

  Copyright © 2015 by L. Scott Silverii

  Kindle Edition

  SilverHart, LLC Publishing

  Broken: Savage Souls Series

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including emailing, photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance it bears to reality is entirely coincidental.

  Produced by LS Silverii at SilverHart, LLC Publishing.

  Thanks for being a Savage Souls reader. To show appreciation for joining me on this outlaw adventure, I’m giving away Sterling Silver Biker Pendants. Each episode in the series has a unique piece of biker jewelry that symbolizes that book. Enter by clicking the link below and you might become one of the Savage Nations Most Wanted Prize Winners.

  forms.aweber.com/form/32/368041932.htm

  Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is sign on as its accomplice.

  Tom Robbins

  Chapter 1

  “If he flinches—shoot him, Sue,” Justice ordered the sniper. “We’ve worked too hard to have some Vegas playboy dick us over. Just deliver the goods and he can be on his way.”

  “10-4, and don’t call me Sue.”

  Justice’s mouth quirked at the response. He’d taunted his brother, Bobby for years over the nickname given him by their father. Besides being a real asshole, their dad was a Johnny Cash fanatic.

  Justice peered into the high-powered binoculars. His team was in position—he’d made sure of it. Tension clawed its way across his face. The main artery in his neck grew thicker with each pulse.

  “It’s still quiet,” an impatient voice crackled over the radio.

  Surveillance hidden on the northeast ridge had eyes on anything that entered the target area. Howling winds through the shallow Colorado valley swirled around each of the former military specialists, but provided no comfort from the anxiety streaming over this latest operation.

  Justice wandered too close to the edge of their observation deck. Stones from beneath the sole of his worn boot ricocheted down the mountain. He wiped moist palms onto his jeans. His fingers twitched. The physical effects of so much time spent setting up this deal had begun to show, not to mention he worried about the cash dropped for reeling in the target.

  “Y’all sure it’s cool down there? I don’t want anything spooking him,” he barked. Thick, calloused fingers suffocated the radio. Justice’s gnarled beard scratched against the plastic surface held to his chapped lips.

  “10-4, boss. Silent. Except for the coyotes,” replied the former Force Recon Marine. Usually unperturbed by the wilderness wildlife, coyotes were nocturnal hunters—aggressive. That would’ve also described Sue, but this was the coyotes’ territory.

  Justice had carefully sketched the plan—it was fool proof and easy. The Vegas wise guy, Ricky Geneti, would deliver the military grade weapons they’d already test fired, in exchange for cash. Everyone would be happy. Simple.

  Justice flipped on the night vision goggles, but the stars were brilliantly bright and he was too far away for the NVG to be of any help. They clanked onto the hood of his pickup truck.

  “Hey, be careful with those. They ain’t cheap,” Rage cautioned.

  The former Army Intelligence operative shot a glare at Justice, but quickly swept his focus back onto the matrix of computer screens. The black and grey monotone monitors were tailored to prevent detection during night ops. Rage’s collection of rugged notebook laptops showed images from a series of covert cameras he’d set up to alert them the instant anyone arrived. Other than the dust kicked up by the valley’s wind gusts, the conditions were optimum for his technology.

  “Yeah, ain’t like we got extra cash on hand. This damn deal is setting us back on our reserves.” Justice eased the NVG into the hard-plastic case.

  “Eyes up. Jeep approaching lights out.” A voice snapped the radio’s silence.

  Justice peered over Rage’s shoulder to watch the screen’s blip. Like a bat out of hell, the Jeep moved toward the rendezvous point. Rage widened the radar’s scope to show no other vehicles in the area—just as instructed.

  “Looks like little Ricky can follow directions after all.” Justice tried to make light of the situation, but he never relaxed until the deals were done. Just like in his military special operations days, the safety of his crew came first.

  “Sniper one to base,” whispered Sue Boudreaux. “Looks to be alone.”

  “He better be, else I’ll drag his greasy ass all the way back to sin city,” Justice growled.

  He paced the mountain ledge like a lion, and reached for the NVG out of habit before changing his mind.

  “He’s out of the Jeep. Top is down like he was told. I see the trailer behind him.” Sue called out a play-by-play from his crow’s nest. Trained by the United States Marine Corp as a sniper, the Force Recon operative had an eagle’s eye and owl’s intuition about human behavior.

  Justice mentally checked off the next action in his ops plan. “Fury, it’s your play. Check his trailer for the weapons. No test firing, but you can rack the bolt actions and selector switches to confirm they’re fully automatic rifles.”

  “Roger that.”

  “I’ll signal when it’s okay to hand him the keys to the motorcycle. Vengeance will deliver the keys to you. Two hundred and fifty grand are locked inside the saddlebags. Well, minus the twenty thousand I took out for the Harley to transport it out of here.”

  There was silence. Not many of them had had a clue how much money was at stake. That detail was reserved for him and Geneti, need to know. He’d assumed the others would’ve shit bricks because that much cash sat inside an old pair of leather saddlebags for a week.

  “Roger that, boss,” Fury radioed.

  “Keep us informed, Sue. Everyone else maintain radio silence
unless you got an emergency.” Justice’s voice grew strained. His pacing intensified.

  “Dude, relax. You’re fucking with my system’s reception. You’ve covered every angle—it’s a good plan. Just chill out,” Rage implored. Fingers jabbed at mosquitoes and dust as Rage watched his screens carefully.

  Sue broke squelch, “Contact. They’re talking. Patting each other down. Shaking hands.” His descriptions to the rest of the team flowed as Fury and Geneti danced cautiously until the deal was done. “Fury gave the hand signal. All the weapons are delivered as agreed.”

  Justice chewed on his top lip. “Damn, that’s a lot of money to let walk.”

  “No shit, but your call,” Rage added.

  “That’s why we’re here. The Mexicans are willing to pay top dollar for rifles, and the military is stupid enough to let them walk out of armories. It’s our duty to make a profit from it.”

  “Is Vengeance clear to move?” Sue radioed.

  “Go,” Justice snapped back.

  Everyone held their positions as the older model Harley Davidson Dyna-Glide sputtered to life. It left an arid trail as Ricky Geneti hauled ass back to Las Vegas, two hundred and thirty thousand dollars richer.

  “All clear,” called Sue from his northwest ridge position.

  “Hold tight,” Justice said. “Vengeance and Fury clear the deck in case it’s a rip-off play for the guns.” Criminals could be double-crossing assholes. The binoculars were jerked from their strap as a glower pinched his brow together. He scanned the area.

  “Looks clean, boss,” Fury’s tone had lightened considerably since completing the high-stakes transaction.

  Eerily, the silence almost echoed from the endless points of light overhead. The view of the stars from high on the mountain was like nowhere else. Justice couldn’t help contrasting the tranquility of the outdoors against the potential violence contained in the weapons’ metal cargo containers.

  With an extended inhale of fresh mountain air, he bounced on the balls of his feet and pumped his fist. He reached across the pile of plastic computer carrying cases with an open hand to high-five Rage.

  “What the fuck?” Rage’s wooden expression blanked. He bent to within an inch of his computer’s radar surveillance screen. Justice froze.

  A faint hum and flutter became more distinct. The blip on the computer screen made no sense—it wasn’t a motorcycle’s signature. The men looked up as the whirr of rotor wash sounded from a small helicopter cresting the northeast ridge.

  Justice swung his binoculars toward the sound then toward Sue, who was still on the northeast ridge where he maintained surveillance for approaching traffic. The binos flexed beneath the powerful vice of his palms as Justice saw Sue flip onto his back. It looked like his brother had tried to fix the rifle’s scope onto the helicopter, but had been caught off guard by its sudden stealth appearance.

  “What the fuck? Is that the feds?” Justice screamed into the small walkie-talkie.

  The two-seater Bell JetRanger swooped toward the Jeep and, in an orchestrated descent, released a hook that snatched the tie-straps over the weapons’ metal container. Within seconds it fought to climb out of the valley—cargo case attached—and disappeared.

  His fully automatic AR-15 rifle ripping off .223 caliber high-velocity bullets, Justice roared, “You’re fucking dead, Geneti.”

  The truth was, Justice Boudreaux might be the next to die.

  Chapter 2

  Las Vegas isn’t the glimmer and glitz seen by tourists. There’s just a new strip and an old strip, which tried to become a newer old strip. That strip is still just as much bullshit as it was before the new strip. Vegas, the real Las Vegas is littered with working class poor, homeless, and whores.

  Abigail Black had been homeless. She hated it, so she worked three jobs to avoid ever being on the streets again. The run-down stucco apartment where she lived currently was her first real home. She’d spent her junior and high school years bumming places to place. Nomadic, her folks followed the trash bins; the more garbage, the better the pickings, and those glamorous casino resorts threw away the best food.

  Abigail spent years at the glamorous casinos. Actually¸ she spent years diving into the dumpsters behind them. The kindest thing she could say about her parents was that they taught her to pick through the condoms and piss-covered bed sheets to find the tossed out filet mignons.

  One week after graduating from Rancho High School, Abigail marched away from her shit-bag parents and found a job. Over the next few years, the gangly blue-eyed girl developed into a tall, slender, sun-kissed blonde. Some even considered her stunning. Most of those people were strip club owners and pimps.

  She’d seen what selling pussy got since Abigail’s mother worked as a whore. Just because Nevada made prostitution legal, didn’t make it right. And her heroin-shooting father wasn’t even her biological dad. His limp dick would nod out while her mother rode the erect ones for cash. Abigail’s DNA belonged to some other John, not John Black.

  Hard working and loyal, she’d established a solid reputation among her employers. Never failed a surprise drug test. Always returned cash if the customer miscalculated the totals. Soon, she was able to apply for an apartment with one month’s rent down as a deposit. But it wasn’t so much the deposit that prevented her from finding a place to crash, as it was the apartment managers who always wanted their sweat-soaked cocks sucked before considering letting a vacancy. She’d rather stay homeless.

  Like anything good in a woman’s life, men fucked it up. And then along came Ricky Geneti. Straight from Brooklyn, he’d been stationed out of Nellis Air Force Base. Young, dumb, and full of big ideas to hit it big in the world, his passion energized Abigail. His dreams extended beyond the incorporated city limits of Las Vegas.

  He’d travelled across the country after all. She still felt like the lanky teenager compared to his worldliness. Abigail loved that he didn’t make her feel stupid. He promised her the moon—and she already had stars in her sweet, wet baby blues.

  Her apartment set atop a pawnshop and a liquor store. The rooms sucked, but it was clean—there’d be no garbage cans serving as her pantry. The place was safe because it was high off the filth-infested streets, and the owners of both stores carried weapons for their personal protection.

  Ricky sneaked off the military base as often as possible. His older brother’s borrowed Z-28 Camaro made it from his base to her home in under thirty minutes. His enlistment would end soon, and their life—together forever—would begin.

  Soon after Ricky was dishonorably discharged by the Air Force for being habitually AWOL, Abigail got knocked up. When she shared the wonderful news with her burgeoning entrepreneur, Ricky’s Z-28 Camaro somehow couldn’t seem to find the pawnshop apartment anymore.

  Forced from the safety of her elevated abode, Abigail moved further outside of the incorporated city limits and into a minority housing area made up of mostly Hispanic families and migrant American Indian workers who shuffled on and off the Paiute Tribe’s reservation to live in the adobe-looking flats lining Highway 578.

  Named after Abigail’s favorite actor, her son, Jack, had grown up in that housing area. Mother and son were befriended by many of the families; wives often babysat Jack so Abigail could continue working two of her remaining jobs. It wasn’t until his third birthday party that Ricky arrived in his brother’s borrowed Z-28 Camaro to play daddy.

  Chapter 3

  Eighteen-wheelers dusted along Highway 578. The created rush of wind jerked at the three helium Happy Birthday balloons tied to a knotted fence railing. Twenty small kids chased each other until one fell down then nineteen scurried for parents to offer alibis. It was a wonderfully mixed community. Still the only Nordic-looking resident, Abigail and her Sicilian-toned boy blended into the polychromatic culture of transient living.

  The late afternoon sun relaxed to allow Jack and the community kids to enjoy a fun birthday celebration. Abigail squinted against the brightness, and her
broad smile etched a few lines across her otherwise smooth face. She busied herself holding down a borrowed tablecloth that flapped each time a vehicle zipped past the vacant lot adjacent to the highway.

  She’d finally found a small slice of dingy heaven she could call home. It was better than what she’d known growing up, and the only dumpster on the property wasn’t for diving into after meals. Abigail chuckled as she watched Jack try to keep up with the older kids. She swatted away flies that dive-bombed the off-the-shelf birthday cake. The ice cream was melting fast, so she tried to rustle the gang over to the rickety picnic bench to begin the celebration.

  Swiping long, twisty strands of blonde hair off her face, she watched the slow roll of the old sports car. It crunched across the hard-dried mud and pea-gravel highway shoulder until the faring scraped against the entrance to the beveled-bottom parking lot.

  Ricky was alone, but she saw the silhouette of a baby’s safety seat in the rear. Her heart quickened. Shit, she had no way of defending herself or Jack. The nightmare that had kept her awake for years had just become a reality.

  He smiled like a jackal as he walked up. “Happy birthday son, your daddy’s back.”

  “Please go, Ricky.” Abigail pressed both hands against his chest.

  “No way in hell. I love that boy. Which one is he?” His slitted gaze darted from child to child.

  “You got no right to be here. You ain’t got a legal order.” She looked him dead in the eye and said the words as if she knew what the hell she was talking about. In actuality all she knew about the law was to not break it, and what she’d learned by watching Judge Judy.

  He shoved his hand deep into his back pocket and yanked out a crumpled piece of paper. Purposefully taking a long time to unfold it, he flapped it in her face.

 
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