Shattered Lives Read online

  Shattered Lives

  (Shattered #2)

  By Alexis Noelle

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2014 Ashley Piscitelli

  All rights Reserved. No parts of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter without written permission from the author, except for inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, establishments, organizations, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously to give a sense of authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be given away to another person except when loaned out per Amazon lending program. If you’re reading this and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then it was pirated illegally. Please purchase a copy of your own and respect the hard work of this author.

  Acknowledgements

  I want to start off by thanking my husband for supporting me, and standing by me throughout this whole process. I couldn’t do it without him by my side.

  To my wife Rachael Duncan, you’re amazeballs. Thank you for keeping me sane, and talking me down from the crazy ledge I am forever standing on. You were a lifesaver when it cam to this book, and I can’t wait till we finally get to see each other again. Maybe you can teach me to make a wreath and stop sucking at being a creative and domestic wife.

  To Christine Stanley I would be lost without you. I know my absentmindedness probably drives you insane but you still love me.

  To Stephanie Phillips, I love you! You aren’t afraid to tell me if I suck, or if you want to kill me because of my endings. Thanks for guiding me since I published my first book, and staying with me through my seventh!

  To Angie Stanton, Ariana McWilliams, and Marisa Shor. You all have been with me for so long and I can’t thank you enough for all of your support. I wouldn’t be where I am without you guys!

  To Brenda Wright, my editor, I love the responses I get from you as you read. Thanks for putting up with my lack of grammar.

  To the readers that love the story and the characters you are my rockstars!

  Prologue

  Nicholas

  A little over a year ago

  I run my hands over my face knowing that at this very moment Jessie is being processed from her arrest. She is walking into a fucked up situation and I’m letting her. Not only am I letting her, but I fucking set her up for it. I bang my fist so hard on my desk that the entire station immediately grows quiet and turns toward me. I lift my head meeting each of their eyes and daring one of them to say something to me.

  This is fucking bullshit. I begged the captain to not do this and to keep her the fuck out of it, but he refused. Jessie was the only credible girl we had, we needed someone to flip and to testify for us. All of the other girls had priors or just shady backgrounds and the defense attorney would tear them apart.

  I can still see her face when she walked out on me. The look of hurt and rejection almost fucking killed me. Now I have to break her heart all over again when I walk into that interrogation room.

  “Lanutti.” I look up to see the officer that arrested Jessie. “She is ready for you.” No the fuck she isn’t.

  I nod my head and stand up from my chair. Taking a deep breath I walk toward the room that holds the only girl I have ever loved, the girl who is about to hate me. I clench my fists in nervousness before pulling open the door and stepping inside. Her head immediately lifts up to look at me. A smile graces her face at first, then confusion sets in and it disappears.

  “Damon?”

  “I’m so fucking sorry.” It’s all I can manage to say right now. Looking at her in handcuffs, with her face and eyes puffy from crying, is breaking my fucking heart.

  “What are you doing here? Why are you not in handcuffs?” She is talking fast, her brows furrowed in confusion, and I know she’s trying to put the pieces together. Her world has just been turned upside down, and she is about to figure out that it was because of me.

  I walk toward her wanting to touch her but knowing that it is not a good idea. “Just let me explain, please. I never meant for this to happen. For us to happen. I couldn’t stay away from you, though. I told myself all along how stupid it was to get involved with you.” Everyone else told me I was an idiot for it too. The cops that had come to my house that time she accidentally called 911 chewed me out when they realized who I had with me.

  Jessie stands up, sending the chair she is in crashing to the floor. The door to the room flies open and the two officers who brought her in are standing there. I raise my hand to signal them to stop moving “I have it.”

  “Sir – ”

  “I said I have it.” These rookies don’t fucking get that everything isn’t black and white. They can probably see that Jessie looks hostile right now, but they have no idea what the fuck is going on. There weren’t many people who knew I was undercover so to almost everyone in the station this probably looks crazy. I look back to her and I see a rage brewing inside her.

  I can tell the moment that the realization hits her. That her world shatters. Her eyes go wide as she looks at me. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” Her voice sounds so weak and unsure, I almost don’t hear the question.

  I walk toward her. I can’t respond though, there are no words or excuses for what I did to her. I understand that she feels betrayed and lied to, there is really not much defense for me because that’s exactly what I did to her.

  “Did you fucking set me up?!”

  I take a deep breath trying to figure out how to explain this to her. I need her in my life so I need to make sure I phrase this right. She steps closer to me and kicks me right in my shin. Shit, that hurt. I grab my leg wincing as I rub the spot she struck.

  “Answer me!” she yells, the vein in her neck popping out.

  The two assholes come charging back in and grab Jessie, attempting to pull her away from me. I stand up straight and stare them both in the eyes. “Get out, and you tell the next person who even thinks of coming in here that they will be on desk duty until they fucking retire!” I shout as I point to the door.

  They scurry out of the room like two dogs who just got yelled at for pissing on the floor. I look over at Jessie and she is leaning back against the wall. I move toward her again, but the look in her eyes stop me.

  “Don’t you fucking come near me.” She holds up her hand to stop me.

  “Jessie, you have to let me explain!” She can’t push me away without letting me explain. She has to hear me out. I’m starting to panic, to realize how bad I have fucked this up.

  “I don’t have to let you do shit! You fucking lied to me! You led me on! I can’t believe this,” she says while shaking her head. “Was this your plan all along? Get close to one of the hookers and get the inside details?”

  I can see the tears threatening to spill out of her eyes. She is holding back though, her walls are up and I lost any trust that she had given me. I never thought of her as just one of the hookers. I can’t believe that’s what she thinks. “Jess, you know it wasn’t like that.” I move toward her but she side steps me. The fact that she won’t let me touch her is killing me.

  “I don’t know shit! Everything I know was just ripped away from me! I hate you!”

  This time when I step toward her she backs up into the corner. She has nowhere to go now. “Don’t say that.” I run my hands through my hair. “I fucking love you, Jess.” For just a second, the fact that I just said that out loud causes me to pause, but it’s the truth and I can’t hold back anymore. She needs to know that this wasn’t all one big ploy to bring down the escort service. Sh
e needs to know that I care for her deeply, and the only way to do that is to lay it all out in the open. Not able to control myself another second, I kiss her. I know this may not have been the smartest decision but I don’t know what else to do. I need to show her it was real.

  She pulls her mouth back. “Damon.” Maybe it worked. Maybe she gets it.

  That’s when her clasped fist jam into my nose. “Fuck!” Blood gushes and spreads all over the floor. The room is now filled with officers and Jessie is being dragged away from me. She isn’t crying, she isn’t screaming, she is just looking at me with this cold dead stare. This look will haunt me, because I can tell I have stripped everything from her.

  I broke her.

  * * *

  Six months later

  As I watch Jessie take the stand I notice how much she has changed. Her face is thin and I can tell she has been doing just as bad as I have. I can’t sleep without waking up and reaching out for her. I can’t walk around town without seeing someone or something that reminds me of her. I can’t close my eyes without seeing her face.

  The defense attorney is questioning her about our relationship, and she is completely avoiding my gaze. I need her to look at me, to see that after all this time I still fucking love her with every inch of me. It pisses me off the way he is going after her. I get that it’s his job to discredit her but it doesn’t make me want to knock him the fuck out any less.

  Luckily her testimony is only today, and she doesn’t need to do this again. As soon as she is dismissed she is practically running out of the courthouse. I follow her, clutching the letter I wrote her last night. She hasn’t let me near her since that day and I need her to know the truth. I see Lo waiting in her car and run to catch up to Jessie. I grab her arm when she is about ten feet from the car.

  “You are not allowed to have contact with me.” She is looking everywhere but at me.

  I still can’t believe she served me with a fucking restraining order. The day that it came, I destroyed half of my house. It was like the final nail in the coffin. “Jessie, please talk to me. You don’t understand the hell I have been in since you left.”

  Her head snaps up, and the expression on her face tells me she is about to kill me. “I don’t know the hell you have been through? You betrayed me! You lied to me! You broke my heart! Don’t fucking tell me I don’t get it!” She turns to walk toward the car. I can’t let her leave yet though, I need to try to get through to her.

  “Please. I love you.” It’s all I can say. I have never said those words to someone who wasn’t family. It’s true though. I love this girl so damn much. I just wish I was telling her under different circumstances.

  She opens the car door and then turns to me. The love I used to see in her eyes is no longer there; there is nothing but hurt and emptiness. “Deception isn’t love. How could I love you? I don’t even know you.” She sits down and slams the door closed.

  My chest constricts as the thought of her not loving me sets in. I realize I’m still holding the letter and force my legs to move as I run to Lo’s car and knock on the window. She looks up at me and I can see the tears she is trying to hold back. When the window rolls down I offer the letter to her. “I know that you may not be ready to read this anytime soon, Jessie. Just promise me that you won’t throw it away. Hold onto it and when you are ready, read it.”

  She rips it from my hand before putting the window up, and driving away. I watch the car disappear from view, knowing that in it is the best thing I have ever had. I fucked up. I let my heart make the decisions instead of thinking with my head. My head knew it was wrong to get involved with someone so close to the case, but damn if my heart gave a shit.

  At least she has the letter now. I just hope she reads it and understands.

  I hope she reads it before it’s too late.

  Chapter One

  Jessie

  It’s been three months since I lost Damon. Since my entire world fell to pieces and I haven’t been able to take a full breath. Lo keeps promising me that it will get easier but it isn’t. It is tearing me up everyday more and more.

  My days are filled with nothing but regrets. My regret that I never gave him the time to explain himself. My regret that I never told him that I love him. Most of all my regret that I never read his letter. After crying and hyperventilating for almost a half hour on the floor of my bedroom the fact that I had destroyed my last link to Damon tore me apart. There was no way to piece it back together and now I’ll never know what he had to tell me.

  While I know I had every right to hate him for what he did, I still love him. I know in my heart that he meant it when he told me he loved me. That doesn’t matter now. Nothing does. You can’t change the past, you can only look toward the future. For me the future looks pretty shitty so I choose to just stay in the present. Not that the present looks any better.

  Damon is gone and I’m still trying to find a way to live. I go to work in the morning, put on the façade of being happy and try to keep it together for my students. Then I come home and hide in my room to grade papers or stare blankly at the walls. Some days I come out to eat dinner, most days I don’t. I go to bed around eight or nine o’clock and then wake up the next morning and do the same thing. Nothing changes and I have no motivation to do anything different.

  Lo let me wallow in my sorrows for a long time, but lately she has been on my ass about ‘getting the fuck over it’. Lo has always been a no-nonsense type of person, but these past couple of months she has really tried to dial it down. But now she’s probably thinking that being blunt might snap me out of it. I know she is trying to help me and she doesn’t want me to be miserable, but I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. There is no light, no happy ending, and no prince charming.

  It is almost Valentine’s Day and if you thought that day was depressing when you were single, it’s devastating when the person you love has been ripped from you. I need a reprieve, but I honestly don’t think anything will be enough to make me happy the way that he did. I have considered calling out of work numerous times until this God-awful holiday passes just to avoid the talk of love. Love sucks.

  It is Saturday morning and I have no plans to move today. I would rather stay here in my bubble where I can daydream that I didn’t completely screw up my one chance at happiness. My mind goes back to his damn letter and what the hell could have been in it. Sometimes I try to convince myself that maybe he was just telling me that he was over it, and that he didn’t want me anymore. That thought is easier than thinking it was him pouring his heart out, telling me that he loved me, and maybe explaining to me why he chose to completely deceive me.

  My door flies open slamming into the wall and when I look up Lo is standing there. Her hands are on her hips and she is looking at me like I’m an obstacle to tackle. “You are getting the fuck up today. I cannot take this shit anymore. You are Jessica Fucking Evans. You are so much stronger than this.”

  I pull the covers over my head hoping if I pretend she isn’t there she’ll leave. That’s not the case though. The covers are ripped off of me and I look up at an even more pissed off Lo.

  “I mean it, Jess.” The bed dips as Lo sits down next to me. “You didn’t let me sit around and drown in my self-pity when all that shit happened to me, and I’m not going to let you do it either. You need to get up and start to heal. You know damn well that he would not want you to give up on your life. He would want you to fight, and to be able to live. Your spirit, and your feistiness are what drew him to you. I can’t see that girl anymore, Jess, and it’s starting to fucking scare me.”

  I look into her eyes and see the hope she has that this will work. “Okay.” I need to try something, because lying in bed all day certainly hasn’t made me feel any better.

  Lo’s face lights up. “Okay, I am going to wait for you in the living room.”

  She walks out and I grab the first outfit I see. When I slide the pants on I notice how much looser they are on me. I guess n
ot eating will do that to you. I haven’t stepped onto the scale but my guess is that I’ve probably lost close to twenty pounds. I walk into the living room and Lo turns toward me, looking me up and down.

  She shrugs then says, “Hey I’ll take what I can get at this point. We can work up on how to match outfits later.” I roll my eyes at her before I grab my keys and we walk out to the car. There is a piece of paper stuck under my windshield and I assume it is some restaurant menu. When I read it though my heart stops.

  I miss seeing your smile.

  Lo must have seen my face and comes rushing over. “What kind of sick weirdo shit is this?” she asks after reading it over my shoulder.

  I can’t move, it’s like I’m frozen. Who would do something like this? I open my car door and sit down.

  “Jessie, this is fucking weird. You should call the cops.”

  I look over at her. “What would I say to them? That letter isn’t a threat and doesn’t say anything wrong. It’s creepy but that’s about it.”

  “Whatever, just make sure the doors are always locked.” She shakes as if a chill runs through her.

  I pull out of the driveway. “Where are we going?”

  Lo shrugs her shoulders. “I just wanted to get you out of the house. I really didn’t put much thought into what we would do once we were out.” Lo puts her finger on her chin. “Let’s go to the mall.”

  I groan. I am so not up for an all day affair.

  “Oh stop, you owe me like two hundred best friends days and I’m going to cash in on every single one of them.”

  I don’t answer her, maybe some mindless activity will help me. No, it won’t but it will give my best friend and my rock some hope that I’m okay. I would say that I’ll just put on an act, but Lo would see right through it. I need to give her today, even if I have to force it. I can go back to being miserable when we get home.