Broken Parts (A Dark Romance) (Parts of Me Book 3) Read online

  Broken Parts

  Parts of Me series, Book 3

  J. A. Wynters

  Broken Parts: Copyright © 2019 by J. A. Wynters

  All rights reserved. This book, or any portion thereof, may NOT be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any form or by any means whatsoever, including photocopying, recording or other mechanical methods, without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other non- commercial uses permitted by copy-right law.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and storylines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Broken Parts, Parts of Me series, Book 3

  Editing by: Sarah Villanueva at Dear Jane Editing

  Cover design: Jo- Anne Walker

  Interior Formatting: Dawn Lucous, Yours Truly Book Services

  This one is for Dawn,

  true by name, true by nature. You spread light and joy where ever you go.

  Contents

  Author’s Warning

  Part XVII

  Part XVIII

  Part XIX

  Part XX

  Part XXI

  Part XXII

  Part XXIII

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by J. A. Wynters

  Author’s Warning

  You are about to continue on this journey spanning FIVE books. If you bought this ticket and are on board this freight train, prepare for it to be a long and bumpy ride as we delve into all the uncomfortable parts of life. These may trigger some readers so be sure you want to continue. These books will end on cliffhangers, have twists and turns and this train is sure to be derailed as it enters a long dark tunnel of depravity.

  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

  Adult themes, strong language, graphic scenes. Enter at your own risk.

  Part XVII

  Simone is dead.

  Gone.

  I suddenly felt like an orphan; alone in the world, untethered, without roots, and in danger of floating away.

  My heart ached in the way only sorrow could understand—bleak and dark and agonising. A piece of it would be forever carved out and buried alongside her.

  Another piece of my heart, maybe the very last I had left to give.

  I slammed the car door and walked.

  How the fuck did I end up there?

  I sucked in the autumn air. Heaped brown leaves decorated the dying grass—everything around me was falling, dying, breaking, or disappearing into hibernation. Autumn was the season that ended all others, sucking away life and warmth, light and colour. It ushered in the bleakness of winter, allowing it to creep in uninvited.

  I wandered along the familiar path, my heavy legs leading my body as numbness gripped my insides and there it was—that fucking bench.

  I collapsed onto it. Maybe I was looking for comfort, maybe I was needing some quiet, or maybe this place felt too much like home.

  I sat staring blankly at the leaves as they rustled against one another in the breeze, clinging to the branches, holding on to the hope of living just one more day.

  I felt it then, the warm trickle as it burned my skin. I wiped away the tear just as another leaked down my cheek and then another; and despite Salvatore’s words ringing in my ears—No emotion, no regret, no turning back—I wanted to shove it all down, force it into the vault of memories and anguish I’d been carrying. Simone always said there was a storm inside of me, and she was right. Now that the grief had begun to spill, it was a tempest that would destroy everything in its path.

  The grief pitched with each of my expelled breaths. The tears poured from me in a deluge that threatened to drown me in my own sorrow and to consume me entirely. They fell with a violence greater than any gale, wracking sobs that tore through me in waves of wretchedness until all that remained was an all-consuming emptiness.

  The gnawing hollowness allowed for the anger to rise, to fill up the gaping hole left by this new loss. It rose slowly, a low simmering fire that grew and bubbled over like a volcano. It spilled into every part of me, filling me with cold fury.

  I sat until I shook, full of hatred and anger until I was full to the brim—no longer empty, no longer hollow. I tore from the bench, returning to my car and slid into the driver’s seat. My bitterness leaked from me, stuffing the car with heat, brewing a storm cloud against the gloomy skies.

  Simone was dead and Emilio Rocco was going to follow her into the grave. But no one would mourn for him.

  By the time I arrived back at The Hill, my knuckles were white. My grip threatened to tear the steering wheel from its place.

  I smashed through the door into Sin, coming through the hidden back door. The likes of me were still unwelcome in an establishment such as this. I bet all those fuckers spending their money and hiding from their wives would shed a few kilos in sweat if they knew I owned this hotel.

  I found Romeo lurking in the shadows; he had the smile on his face that men get when they see a pair of tits. Their brain mostly switches off and their bodies react; they long and ache and need to stick themselves somewhere tight and warm.

  I rushed over to him, pushing him along the wall. His back bounced against it with a thud, and he flinched at the sight of my face, “Where the fuck is Mia?”

  “Salvatore let her upstairs.” He stammered.

  I nodded, “Where did she go today?”

  Romeo’s eyes flicked away from me and his fingers twitched at his sides, “I don’t know?”

  I wanted to pin him to the wall with my hand around his throat and smash his head so far into the plaster that he would disappear into it. But there were people around—paying customers. I clenched my teeth and hissed, “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  Romeo’s restless gaze swung back and forth avoiding mine, “She gave me the slip.”

  “Would you like to say that again slowly?”

  He cleared his throat, “I erm…lost her…for just a while.”

  I inched closed, my larger body closing over him, “What the fuck does that mean?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck, “It means she went into a ladies shop, and I didn’t want to follow her in there. You now, stick out like a sore thumb? And well, she never came out. When I went to look for her, she was gone.”

  “What were your orders?”

  “To follow Mia.”

  I eyed him.

  “Wherever she went.” He mumbled the rest like a scared school boy.

  “And did you?”

  “I tried. I mean…”

  I raised my hand and he flinched away, the back of his head meeting the wall with bang.

  “I’m sorry boss, it won’t happen again.”

  “How long?”

  “Boss?”

  “How. Long. Was. She. Gone?” I hissed the words through gritted teeth.

  “About three hours.” He cleared his throat again, trying to become one with the wall.

  My fists clenched at my sides, my eyes bored into his for a few moments more, “This conversation is not over. Find Salvatore, we have work to do.” I backed away and turned towards my private elevator.

  The walls closed in around me as it rose upwards. Flames of anger and confusion licked at my skin, beckoning me to burn and destroy everything and everyone.

  I stalked out of the elevator and found Mia sitting on the couch. Her short shorts peeked from below her long, black t-shirt, her hair cascaded down her shoulders—wild and untamed—and her long legs were crossed
over as she stretched across the couch with a book in her hand.

  All my anger had turned to white fury, an iceberg—worried and desperate below the surface of the choppy water above.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” My voice was cold and her shoulders stiffened at my demeanour.

  “I went shopping.” She huffed at me, her forehead creasing.

  “And lost Romeo in the process.”

  “Not my fault he couldn’t keep up.” She shrugged and the casualness of her answer fanned the flames that burned inside me.

  “Couldn’t keep up?”

  She shrugged again and it took all of my will not to erupt into a menacing beast. I grabbed the book from her hand and flung it across the room.

  “Hey—” She started, but I was on top of her. My hands pinned hers above her head, my face an inch from hers.

  “Simone is dead, your apartment was ransacked and you were kidnapped. I am trying to keep you safe, and you just go off and disappear?”

  “Simone is dead?” Her eyes grew wide and her mouth fell.

  I ignored her, “Where the fuck did you go Mia?”

  “Gabriel you’re hurting me.”

  “Where?”

  “I just went shopping.”

  “The truth,” My grip tightened around her wrists as the grip on my sanity slipped away.

  “I just wanted to get something—a surprise.”

  “And that took three hours?” I growled.

  “It does when you have eyes all around town and everyone reports back to you.”

  I released her hands and leaned my forehead into hers.

  “Gabriel?”

  “I can’t protect you if I don’t know where you are. I can’t lose you Mia, not you too.”

  I felt the surge of sadness as it crashed through me like a tsunami. The tears welled in my eyes and fell onto Mia’s face, they rolled over the side even as her own eyes watered.

  “It’s ok Gabriel.” Her thin arms wrapped themselves around me, giving me permission to fall apart, allowing me to be vulnerable and broken—to shed tears, to shed skin, to prepare for war. “It’s ok, it will all be over soon.”

  Of course she was right, but there would be so much more pain before it did.

  Part XVIII

  “Wake up.” Simone’s face was tight, crowfeet puling at the edges, green flames burning coolly behind her fierce eyes.

  “Wake up Gabriel,” she shook me again and I uncurled, my body aching from another night on the floor. Spots whimpered beside me and I reached for him.

  “It’s ok buddy, go back to sleep.”

  “You can’t keep sleeping here.” My body tightened at her words, and I sat up looking at her face.

  “I told you, as long as Spots is here, I’m not leaving.” We locked eyes, I’d hoped she heard the threat in my tone. She ignored me.

  “I didn’t say you couldn’t stay. I said you can’t sleep here anymore, on the floor, in the cold. I will arrange for something more suitable for a…” she appraised me for a moment, “a man your age.”

  “Oh right.”

  “Now get up and get yourself cleaned up, it’s breakfast time.”

  I nodded, stretching my aching muscles but, despite my attempts, the tension remained winding me up tight like a spring. In the last two weeks I had watched Tony die, lost Rita, murdered a Judge and seen my best friend get hurt. I was anything but ok.

  I made my way to the toilet and washed my face in the basin. I looked almost as shit as I felt, dishevelled hair and dark rings under my eyes, but I was too worried about Spots to worry about myself. Now that I had Tony’s files, I had a job to do. I had vowed to cleanse the souls of those children by burning those of their fathers, and that was what I intended on doing.

  When I walked out, the lights were on and a cacophony of sounds greeted me. Simone was dressed in green overalls with her Paw Prints Rescue logo embroidered over her left breast. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail and light, white-blonde hair twirled around as she moved.

  “Right, well time to make yourself useful then,” she pointed at a large green bin, “Grab that and start scooping. One scoop for the little dogs, two for the medium, three for the large.”

  I stared at her and swung my gaze to the bin. This was not what I envisioned when she said breakfast; but as I started scoping dried food and distributing it into bowls and feeding all the dogs, I felt comfort—something akin to usefulness. For a short time, my mind was pulled away from the numbers that haunted me.

  One dead boss.

  One dead friend.

  Two long weeks of watching Spots suffer in pain.

  Seventy-three children—children whose fear and pain had been forever captured on polaroids, whose hunted expressions where inked into my brain.

  Seven hundred and two videos—crimes, weights on my shoulders.

  Numbers, so many numbers. Now, I only had to think about three.

  One scoop for the small dogs, two for the medium dogs, and three for the big dogs. One, two, three. It was easy, simple, and refreshing.

  When we were done with feeding the animals, Simone invited me upstairs. The wooden staircase— once painted black—showed its age, chipped and worn by years of ascending and descending. She pushed a green door open and we entered her apartment.

  It smelt different than the floor below; the sterile hospital-grade smell had become more neutral, more fragrant, but the smell of wet dog followed us everywhere.

  Two outdated, floral couches sat atop a tattered, lined carpet platted together with every colour of the rainbow. She led me through the cluttered lounge housing boxes of dog food, towers of folded towels that leaned precariously against one another, bottles of dog shampoo, and laundry detergent. Framed pictures of dogs covered every available surface. The back of the door was decorated with leashes hanging like a mismatched bead door curtain.

  On the wall, an oversized picture hung, mounted in a decorative white frame. In it, two men stood on either side of a woman, she wore a white shirt and her youth and joy spilt out of the picture. The two men looked almost identical, except the one on the right had a day’s worth of growth on his chin, while the other looked about my age. He had the same eyes as the woman, green and intelligent. They were all mid laughter, a perfectly captured moment frozen forever in time—a beautiful happy moment.

  I wondered what happened to the men in the picture.

  The round dining room table was barren, as if an invisible barrier stopped the clutter from spilling over from one room to the next. The cheap plastic table was covered in a see-through plastic sheet, and two foldout plastic chairs sat around it. It almost didn’t surprise me. Simone stepped into the small kitchenette and gestured that I sit at the table. I obliged as she tinkered about, opening and closing decade old cupboards.

  “Coffee?” She studied me as if trying to figure out if I was old enough to drink the stuff.

  “Yes, please.” I cocked my head at her and she nodded to herself then pottered around the kitchen pulling out plates, cups, knives, and teaspoons.

  She placed two steaming cups of coffee on the table and came back with two plates heaped with toast. She grabbed some jam, marmalade, and butter from the fridge, and went back for a jar of peanut butter. Once she had placed everything on the table she sat and gestured, “Help yourself.”

  As if on cue, my stomach grumbled and I grabbed a piece of toast, lathering it with strawberry jam. I stuffed the toast into my mouth and suddenly I felt like that nine-year-old boy Alice sold to Tony—the one that Salvatore fed.

  I shovelled three more slices of toast into my mouth and washed them down with coffee. It was too weak and tasted too much like sugared water, but I didn’t complain.

  “Thank you.” I licked my fingers clean and sipped on the obnoxious drink.

  “When was the last time you ate?”

  Two days? “I don’t remember.” I lied. It didn’t matter, the truth was that some habits died hard. I could’ve been sta
rving or this could’ve been my third meal of the day. When it came to food, it went down as quickly as I saw it. I learned early on that it was me or them. If it wasn’t going into my mouth, it would go into someone else’s.

  Simone just nodded and hugged her mug, holding it close to her mouth and blowing. The steam rose up like a veil over her green eyes.

  “How old are you Gabriel?”

  “Twenty.” I straightened my back and sat against the chair as if my posture gave weight to my age.

  Her mouth stretched into a thin line before she started talking again, “Your friend from the other night was very…serious.”

  “Salvatore? He’s harmless.”

  “Is he? “

  I shrugged.

  “Are all your friends that serious?” I knew what she was asking.

  “Some more than others I guess.”

  “And these friends of yours, would they be coming to look for you? Here?”

  “No one knows I’m here—no one but Salvatore, and he’s not a big talker. It’s why we get on so well.” I hoped she’d take the hint.

  “What kind of trouble are you in Gabriel?”

  “Nothing too serious.” I tried to shrug off her question, but her eyes bore into me.

  She put her mug down and sighed, “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine as long as you understand two things: my dogs come first and if any harm comes to any of them because you’re here, there will hell to pay.” She stared directly into my eyes, waiting for me to acknowledge her statement.

  I tipped my head and she continued.

  “Secondly, you earn your keep here. You don’t just get to sit around all day.”

  “I can pay you.”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s no good here.”