Heart of the Hunter
Read Heart of the Hunter Online
Authors: Chance Carter
Tags: #Fiction, #bad boy, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Literary, #Suspense, #Womens
Heart of the Hunter
Chance Carter
Copyright © 2016 Chance Carter
Receive updates from Chance Carter and never miss a thing.
This work is presented by the author.
To get in touch please contact:
[email protected]
ISBN 978‐1‐927947‐57‐9
Bonus Book - Most Eligible Baby Daddy
*
“EVERY ATOM OF YOUR FLESH IS AS DEAR TO ME AS MY OWN: IN PAIN AND SICKNESS IT WOULD STILL BE DEAR.”
Charlotte Brontë,
Jane Eyre
*
“EACH TIME YOU HAPPEN TO ME ALL OVER AGAIN.”
Edith Wharton,
The Age of Innocence
*
“I WANT TO DO WITH YOU WHAT SPRING DOES WITH THE CHERRY TREES.”
Pablo Neruda,
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
*
“TO LOVE OR HAVE LOVED, THAT IS ENOUGH. ASK NOTHING FURTHER. THERE IS NO OTHER PEARL IN THE DARK FOLDS OF LIFE.”
Victor Hugo,
Les Misérables
*
“ONE IS LOVED BECAUSE ONE IS LOVED. NO REASON IS NEEDED FOR LOVING.”
Paulo Coelho,
The Alchemist
*
“I LOVE YOU LIKE A MAN LOVES A WOMAN HE NEVER TOUCHES, ONLY WRITES TO, KEEPS LITTLE PHOTOGRAPHS OF.”
Charles Bukowski,
Love is a Dog from Hell
*
“IT DOESN’T MATTER WHO YOU ARE OR WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE, SO LONG AS SOMEBODY LOVES YOU.”
Roald Dahl,
The Witches
*
Note from the Author
Bonus Content
T
HANK YOU FOR READING
HEART OF THE HUNTER
.
I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it. Hunter is by far the baddest bad boy in my series yet. He’s got some real issues, he’s pretty messed up, but he loves Kelly and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to protect her.
As you are probably aware, all of my books are full, stand-alone novels. However, they tie together to build up a series of interwoven stories. While each story stands independently, you will understand the characters better if you read all of the books in order. It is for this reason that I have attached the other books in the series as special, exclusive, bonus content for a limited time.
This means that four books are included in this purchase. They are all the same length, and will finish at around the twenty-five, fifty, seventy-five, and hundred percent marks of your Kindle. I’m just letting you know this as a courtesy because a lot of people, myself included, like to know how far they are in the book and don’t like the ending to come as a surprise.
Please feel free to give me feedback on any aspect of my work. I’m always available and read every email that I receive. My contact details and email address are in the copyright information at the beginning of the book.
If you haven’t read my other books, and would like to read the series in order, the reading order is as follows:
Book One: Bad Boy Daddy
Book Two: Wife Me Bad Boy
Book Three: Most Eligible Baby Daddy
Book Four: Heart of the Hunter
You can navigate to any book from the table of contents. If you would just like to get started with
Heart of the Hunter
, then simply turn the page and the story will begin.
Thank you for your support, love, and encouragement. Without you, I would not be able to pursue this passion of mine for writing. I owe you everything and I never forget that for a single second.
Happy reading,
Chance Carter
Chapter 1
Hunter
I
DIDN’T KNOW WHERE OR
who I was anymore. Maybe it was the rotating set of lies I’d been telling every random person I came into contact with in every shit town I stopped in, or maybe it was that those lies I now lived by made me seem like a stranger to myself. Working nine to five, making small talk, having a beer with some guy I didn’t even like, just because we were at the same bar at quitting time, that wasn’t me. I don’t know that person. I don’t know myself.
For as long as I could remember, I had been part of something. That something was who I was. A Donnelly. A bad seed from a bad tree that stood tall and cast a shadow on the south side of Boston. But that something was gone now. I’d lost it all.
People knew us.
People knew me.
And they left me the fuck alone.
Family? I don’t know if that’s the word for them. I didn’t have my old man’s brains or my brother’s charm. Probably because we weren’t blood. They took me in. I was just some stray that got stamped with the brand because the wife took pity on me, may she rest in peace. They did their best to give me a chance and bring me up as their own, but I never was. Tough as a brick, and better looking than the lot of them combined, I wasn’t one of them.
Couldn’t even cut it in school like my brothers. Only good that place ever did was give me a chance to pick up pussy and kill time in shop class. I’m sure the old bastard would have kicked me to the curb as a kid if he hadn’t discovered early on that what I lacked in social graces, I made up for in brute strength and complete disregard for rules of any kind. He never saw me as a son and sure as shit didn’t treat me like one. To him, I was more like an animal he’d found and could uncage when the situation got too unpleasant to be dealt with personally. I didn’t know any better so I didn’t care. We’ve all got to make a living.
It was more than that, though. Truth is, I liked it. I can’t remember when I got the taste for violence. Maybe it was just in me. I ain’t ever been much good at anything in my life except hurting other people, but I’m damn good at that. Debts to collect? Some gang of pukes is fucking with the wrong shopkeep? Send Hunter to straighten it out. I usually leave a pretty big mess, but the problem always gets straightened up. Not much of a job, but I’m not much of a guy. Or at least, that’s what I thought.
One day can change your whole fucking life. Take you from beating, drinking and fucking whatever you want in your city, to just trying to blend in somewhere else.
A few months back, my old man was having issues with a business partner, so he sent me and the new kid to put an end to the issue. And the partner. I knew this sad excuse for a man and he wouldn’t be trouble. Good chance for the kid to get his feet wet and for me to show him how it was done. We wheeled up, kicked in the front door, and found the poor son of bitch passed out in his recliner, holding a half empty scotch glass. The kid looked at me with a question in his eyes and the dead he saw in mine gave him the answer. He put two bullets in sleeping beauty’s chest and then one in his skull to be sure. It was a proud moment for me. Turning to leave, we heard a clatter from the kitchen and the kid took off down the hall. No witnesses. He was learning quick.
I checked the side rooms as he made his way toward the sound. I heard fighting. He was kicking the shit out of someone.
I nodded in approval. I’m ashamed to admit it now, but that’s what I did.
When I got to the kitchen, I saw the guy’s wife and kid huddled up in the corner with new guy’s barrel staring them down. He had no question in his eyes this time, just a small smirk that crept across his mouth. I don’t know what it was about the look of terror on that broad’s face as she cradled her son in her arms, but something inside me snapped. I broke the cardinal rule of the Donnelly Clan. I broke the cardinal rule of any Boston crime gang.
I let my heart influence my thinking. For one moment, the first maybe in my entire life, I was human.
I looked at the new kid. He was going to kill this woman and child and get a hard on doing it. I cleared my throat and he turned to me, a crazy, frenzied look in his eyes. I gave him a chance. I shook my head. That was it. That’s all I gave him.
Don’t do it.
But he just gave me back that crazy grin. He wanted to kill them, and he was going to enjoy it. Something inside me broke.
I lifted my arm, pointed my gun at his face, and, well, I don’t want to say what I did next. Just know, before you judge me, that I didn’t do it because of a love of violence. I didn’t do it because I hated the new kid. I’d trained him. I liked him, even. I did it because, for the first time, I saw that someone had to do something. There’s only so much crime and violence that this world can take. Sooner or later, a man, a real man, has got to take a stand.
And just like that, I ended the only life I’d ever known. From that moment on, my days in Boston were numbered. My life was cheap. I was a target to every lowlife bounty hunter in six counties. The Donnelly Clan would see to it.
It was a stupid fucking move. That’s what you get for growing a conscience in my line of work. I had to skip town fast, and I knew it.
Luckily the wheels we took to the job had a duffle bag with a substantial debt collection sitting in the back seat. I knew I was fucking the family over as I drove off, not knowing where I was going. But like I said, they ain’t my family. Family means more than that. Family is something that touches you somewhere inside. I mean, I’ve never experienced it, I’ve never even got the faintest whiff of it, but sometimes you’re allowed to believe in a thing you’ve never seen, aren’t you?
Now, sitting here, living off that duffle bag in a haze of shit beer and the day-to-day grind, I wonder if I lost my mind that night. As it turns out, it wouldn’t be the last time some broad and a kid made me go fucking crazy. One day can change your life. That day began, the morning I met Kelly.