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Prologue
LAETH
Christ,I fucking hated mornings.
My eyes felt gritty as I blinked them open, like my eyelids were made of sandpaper. The bright morning sun streaming through the opened blinds pierced my eye sockets while a high school marching band—and not a good one—did a shitty rendition of “Uptown Funk” in my skull.
Usually I considered a hangover like the one I was sporting to be the sign of a successful night, but I was starting to think maybe I was getting too old for this shit. That was a whole different problem.
I needed something to blur the memories and numb the pain that came with them, and, as unhealthy as it was, booze granted me that reprieve. Unfortunately, that reprieve came less and less, and the hangovers were kicking my ass. The few hours of numbness were no longer worth it, and it took longer and longer each time to get back to normal.
I could already tell the one I was currently battling was going to have me on my ass for days. Which was why I was going to murder the asshole beating on my fucking door barely after eight in the morning on a Sunday.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A raspy growl rumbled from my roiling gut up my throat as I forced myself up and threw my legs over the side of the bed. I scrubbed at my face, hoping it would help me feel a little more normal, but the marching band in in my head was now using those goddamn crash cymbals.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“I’m coming, goddamn it!” I barked, setting off an explosion inside my skull. I instantly regretted it when I had to reach up and cradle my skull, pressing the heels of my palms into my temples to stop the spinning.
I managed to push to my feet and trundled out of my bedroom and down the hall toward the front of my house just as the pounding resumed. “I said I’m fucking coming! And someone better be actively bleeding to death already, or I’m going to make it happen.”
My threat ended just as I twisted the knob and yanked the front door open. “What?” I clipped, the sun beating inside the open doorway feeling like it was melting my eyeballs.
The woman standing on the other side curled her top lip up in a sneer. “Real nice.”
She looked familiar, but there wasn’t a chance in hell that my whiskey-soaked brain could put together where I knew her from.
“Who the hell are you?”
Instead of answering, she rolled her eyes and declared, “Why am I not surprised you don’t recognize me.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Not exactly answering the question, darlin’. Just spit out why you’re here already so I can take my ass back to bed, would you?”
“Deanne Davis? We met at a bar over in Ashland a few years back.”
I vaguely recalled that night and the woman I picked up and brought home with me, but the memories were fuzzy as hell. Iblinked. “Okay.” I waited for more of an explanation that didn’t come. “Why are you here, Deanne Davis?”
Just then, a little voice spoke up, and I looked down for the first time. “Momma. Potty?” The kid clinging to her hand couldn’t have been more than two years old and was staring up at me with curious eyes I swore I’d seen before.
“What’s going on?”
What she said next was something I would have never expected to hear in a million years.
“Cash, say hello to your daddy.”
“You aren’t gonna puke again, areyou?”
I sat on the edge of my sofa, elbows braced on my knees and my head clutched in my hands. To say I hadn’t taken Deanne’s little announcement well would have been the understatement of the century. I had a feeling the hangover I’d woken up with had nothing to do with the fact I’d just hurled up the contents of my stomach, and everything to do with the woman currently sitting across from me in my living room.
Forcing my head up, I glowered at Deanne as she kicked back on my sofa, the picture of comfort, while her—my?—kid sat on the floor a few feet away, scooting around a little toy police car and making noises that were piercing my eardrums.
“No,” I grumbled. “And can you make him be quiet?” I rubbed at my temples, the pain in my head suddenly so much worse. “My head is fucking killing me.”
“Momma, bad word!”
“He’s your kid too,” Deanne spit back, her tone almost accusing. “Youmake him be quiet.”
