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  BURN (BAYONET SCARS, NO. 5)

  Copyright © 2015 by JC Emery & Left Break Press

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

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to a reputable third-party website and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Cover Design by Brenda Gonet at Gonet Design

  Timeline created by The Illustrated Author

  Formatting by JC Emery

  Editing by Michele Milburn

  Mature Content Warning: The Bayonet Scars novels are a dark romance series which features graphic sexual content, violence, and foul language that is intended for a mature audience. Each novel features a different couple, though it's not recommended that they be read out of order due to the series story arc.

  SERIES & TITLES BY JC EMERY

  Bayonet Scars

  Ride (No. 1)

  Thrash (No. 2)

  Rev (No. 3)

  Crush (No. 4)

  Vow (No. 4.5)

  Burn (No. 5)

  Ladder Company

  Fall for Me

  Men with Badges

  Marital Bitch

  The Switch

  Praise for the Bayonet Scars series

  “5 HOLY CRAP I couldn't even breathe Stars!!!!”

  Book Drunk Blog’s review of Ride

  http://bookdrunkblog.com/

  “This book is so good. I give it 5 hearts. Oh so goooooood. I want more!!”

  Books, Chocolate and Lip Gloss’s review of Thrash

  http://www.bkschocolateandlipgloss.blogspot.com/

  “Holy crap does J.C. Emery know how to keep readers on edge! This is the 3rd book in the series and it's getting even better and better and.... yep, you guess it...better! Talking about keeping you glued to the reader and sitting up on edge...even at times yelling at character or two... You're really missing out if you have not started this series yet!”

  Undercover Book Reviews’s review of Rev

  http://undercoverbookreviews.blogspot.com/

  “I absolutely fell in love with this series the moment I began reading Ride. The MC and the women they love are great characters, full of humor, sass, ruggedness, strength, love and passion. Crush was no exception.”

  Naughty Moms’ Story Time’s review of Crush

  http://naughtymomstorytime.com/

  For my readers.

  You fell in love with Ian first. Thank you for allowing me to see him through your eyes.

  Tragedy cuts deep. Revenge burns deeper.

  The blood of their enemies coats the leather of their cuts and a trail of bodies lie in their wake, but the Forsaken Motorcycle Club isn't done yet. Carlo Mancuso still needs to pay for his sins. Nobody knows that more than Ian Buckley, the Treasurer for Forsaken.

  Ian prefers his pleasure mixed with pain and he's only ever at peace when he's doling out justice. Convinced that he's too unstable and sadistic to take an old lady, he keeps his trysts, like all of his relationships, brief and anonymous. But with his club at war, and the stakes being so personal, Ian's feeling the events around him more deeply than he expects.

  Mindy Mercer is the sweet daughter of Fort Bragg’s most respectable cop. At least that’s how the town sees her. Very few people know the Mindy who hides her tracks and battles her cravings by lying to everyone around her. She thinks she has control of her addiction until she suffers an attack that leaves her searching for a way out of her own personal hell.

  Mindy has never been more desperately in need of a savior and Ian has never seen a more beautifully destroyed creature in his life. Their attraction is intense, but their damage is extreme. Some scars never heal, and some people never get better.

  Love is never more painful than when it can kill you.

  14 months to Mancuso’s downfall

  Prologue

  The ceramic mug warms from the inside out as I fill it up with freshly brewed coffee. It's my new addiction-- caffeine. The French roast smells divine-- sweet and spicy--and even better when I add a splash of creamer and a teaspoon of sugar. It's not quite sweet enough for me and he's going to object, but I know him better than he thinks.

  Left to his own devices, Ian Buckley drinks his coffee black even though he doesn't like it. I know this because when he makes it himself or orders a black coffee, he never drinks but half. But when there's cream and sugar, he can't drink it fast enough. I don't get it-- his resistance to admit that he likes things a little sweet. It's just one of the many things about him that I don't get.

  That's okay. I have time to learn about him.

  I cross the kitchen, mug in hand, and try to wipe the smile from my face at the sight of his big body at my kitchen table. His back is to me and his shoulders are hunched forward with his arms outstretched on the wooden table. I round the table and place the mug in front of him. He leans back and gives me a small head nod. He's not much of a talker which can drive me a little crazy since I like to talk. He never tells me to shut up though.

  Taking my seat beside him, I drag my half empty coffee mug toward me. The mug is sweating from the ice I dumped in it in an attempt to cool myself down. I should be grateful that my parents have been so good to me, but I can't help the irritation that creeps in every time Mom turns the thermostat up another degree. It's sweltering in here.

  The dampened ceramic is uncomfortable to the touch, stirring up thoughts I'd rather not have. The wooden desk, damp from my tears. The pain. The sick way they speak to one another. The hate.

  My skin crawls with the memory as I try to focus on something else-- anything else-- and wipe my hands on my yoga pants to dry them off. With my eyes cast downward, I take a deep breath and notice that my fingers are shaking.

  "You're in your kitchen with Ian," his deep voice says so quietly and so calmly that I barely hear it. I know where I am. I haven't forgotten this time, but helping me seems so important to him that I can't bear to take that away.

  When I raise my eyes, I take a deep breath and offer him a small smile. He doesn't relax. His brows stay pushed together and that scowl is still on his face. The raised skin of the scar that runs from his ear to his eye has caught a drop of sweat that has yet to slide down his cheek. He's beautiful in a way I can't make sense of and don't want to.

  Without taking his eyes off mine, he brings his mug to his lips, tilts his head back, and gulps the contents then sets the mug down and reaches across the table. He grabs two napkins from the stack that I have yet to put away. I should have gotten to it already. He drops one napkin on the table and uses the other to wipe my mug free of the condensation. He wraps the other around my mug to keep my hands dry.

  "Thank you." The words feel so empty in comparison to what he does for me but they're all I have. No nod, or smile, or even a flicker of his eyes tells me he's heard me. Just because I didn't slip into the rabbit hole this time doesn't mean I won't and it doesn't mean I don't need him.

  I need Ian Buckley more than I need the breath in my lungs, more than the blood in my veins, and more than a shot of whiskey.

  He's everything.

  “You’re getting better,” he says. It’s an obs
ervation, not a question, but I nod my head anyway. When my hands have stopped shaking, I bring my mug to my lips and take a sip. It’s watered-down now, but a sense of comfort washes over me instantly in a way that I’m sure isn’t healthy.

  “I won’t,” he says and his voice trails off at the end. There could be a million things he won’t do, and he hasn’t even finished his sentence yet, but my stomach sinks and fear seeps in. I force deep breath after deep breath in order to stop the shaking.

  I’m losing him.

  “Fuck, are you okay?” He shoves the empty coffee mug out of his way and leans across the table, taking my hands in his in the process.

  “I’m fine.” It’s a lie. I’m anything but fine, but lying has become my new normal. The way his eyebrows crease together and his brown eyes implore mine, I know he knows I’m lying.

  “I won’t be around tomorrow,” he says steadily. He leans in just a tiny bit closer and takes a deep breath as he says, “The club needs me.”

  “I get it,” I say quietly. And I do get it. It just sucks and I feel absolutely defeated by the news that he won’t be here tomorrow. What does that mean for the next day and the day after that then?

  I’m not losing him. I’ve lost him. I guess it’s time. I mean, he’s been hanging out with me for months now. Every day he’s here. Every day he’s been here. He leaves after coffee in the morning, but he’s here and if I’m being honest with myself, his presence is the only thing I look forward to every day.

  “Hey.” His voice gets quieter, somehow. Softer somehow. “I’m right here. I just got to take care of some club bullshit that I’ve been avoiding.”

  “That’s where you should be, not babysitting my lame butt.” I try to sound strong and confident, but I don’t think I succeed. “I’m fine here. Really.”

  “Tell me anything but that you’re fine because we both know what fine actually means.”

  I guess we do, but that doesn’t mean I’m up for telling him how I really feel. I spent every waking minute and most of my sleeping ones as well trying to avoid feeling anything, and being sober, that’s fucking hard. I could make it better.

  I could.

  I want to.

  “Nic’s about to have her baby,” I say. Counting down the days to Nic’s due date has been excruciating. Aside from Ian’s daily visits, I don’t have a lot to look forward to. But this baby is something special and I like Nic a lot. I have to be there when she gives birth. I just can’t miss it.

  “I’ll still take you to the hospital once Duke gives the all-clear for visitors. I’m not disappearing, babe.”

  I lower my head and take a deep breath to force the blush from my cheeks. I hate how he affects me like this. It’s just a word, but it makes me do crazy stupid things.

  Babe.

  “We good?” he asks and pulls away before I’m ready. My hands clutch his for a brief moment before I realize what I’m doing and I release him. No need to seem as pathetic and needy as I really am. When I raise my head and catch his eye, I nod and try to smile. His jaw ticks just once before he gets it under control and steps away from the kitchen table. He takes two steps back, still watching me, before he turns and strides toward the front door. Ian meets Dad’s eye in the living room and nods toward the door. Dad responds quickly and follows him out, closing the door behind himself.

  I hate it when he leaves. It’s like one moment everything’s fine and normal as it should be and the next the entire world is falling apart again.

  I walk to the front door and press my ear up against the wood. Their voices are faint, but as I move around and find a better position, they get louder.

  “For the best. Tired of havin’ the boys at the station wonder why I got Forsaken at my house every morning,” Dad says in his best attempt at casual conversation with Ian. They don’t really like each other, but Ian hasn’t really given Dad much space seemingly able to deal with his dislike of Dad much better than Dad’s dealing with his dislike of Ian.

  “Any of your boys get to wondering what I’m doing, you tell them to ask me,” Ian says. “None of their fuckin’ business what I do regardless of where I’m doing it.”

  Dad grunts.

  “It’s their business when they think one of their own is compromised,” Dad says after a long pause. Thankfully, he’s checking his temper, I can tell from his clipped words. It makes me nervous having Dad and Ian in the same space so often. Dad won’t hesitate to arrest Ian if he gave Dad even half a reason to; but even Dad knows the hellfire that Forsaken rain down on him if he does—legitimate cause or not.

  “Are you… compromised… sergeant?” Ian says. He has this way of making his voice sound so cold and calculating that the words practically slither from his mouth. It’s the little things like this that remind me that the man who sits at my table in the morning, the man who wakes up to take panicked phone calls from Holly, the man who helps teenage girls out of a jam, is also as disturbed as they come. I see it in his eyes often enough. The light in his eyes dims to almost nothing and his expressions smooth leaving a blankness about him that always saddens me. He knows my damage, some of it at least, and I’d like to know his damage as well. Maybe that’s part of what I like about him. With Ian, it’s entirely possible that I’m not the most fucked up person in the room.

  “You already know the answer to that, Mr. Buckley,” Dad says in reference to Ian’s officer position in the club. As the treasurer, he’s the numbers guy. He once told me that his job is boring, like being an accountant. We both know he’s lying, at least in part.

  “Hmm.” Ian’s voice is followed by the hard clack of his boots sound against the pavement. I close my eyes and take one deep breath after another in an attempt to keep the panic at bay. I hate this part.

  Ten.

  He’s ten steps away from the house now.

  Fourteen steps away.

  My hands shake.

  Nineteen.

  In six more he’ll be at the curb and fifteen seconds later I’ll hear his bike start up.

  My mouth fills with saliva. I’d swallow, but my throat feels so tight like it would be physically painful to try to do so.

  Twenty-one.

  My veins feel like they’re on fire, so hot and itchy. Like the only thing that will make his leaving any better is to shoot up. The thought sickens me.

  Twenty-four.

  Oh God.

  Oh God.

  Twenty-five.

  I slink down to the linoleum, still pressed up against the wooden door. Outside, I hear the guttural sound of Ian’s Harley starting up. When I’m waiting on him in the morning, it sounds like a purr. But when he leaves it’s the most awful sound I’ve ever heard. Every. Single. Time.

  Ian pulls away from the curb and within seconds the sound of his bike disappears. My veins still burn and my lungs now ache from the restricting lump in my throat that makes it challenging to breathe. Everything around me sounds like white noise, a subtle but constant buzzing around me that drowns out everything but the blinding panic that’s set in.

  Vaguely, in the back of my head I know the front door is opening, pushing me along the linoleum. It’s only a foot or two and it stops. My cheek is damp from being here so long. The low-level buzzing dissipates as the voices get louder.

  Holly’s sobbing through her shaky words.

  The men snarl and laugh with every touch, every stroke, and every horrible push and pull against my unwilling flesh. The contents of my stomach rise into my aching throat. My face is pressed against Eileen’s wooden desk.

  Watch, you fucking slut!

  His voice is so loud as he screams at Holly. Loud, raspy, and full of such hate that my stomach rolls. A fresh wave of nausea overtakes me. Somewhere, somehow, I know I’m no longer pressed against the wood. Somehow, I know I’m curling into a ball on the floor of my parents’ entry way. Somewhere in my brain, the rational, logical part of me knows this is all just a horrific memory. A horrific memory of an event that I’ll never move pas
t, never forget, and never get over. And yet, when I smell my dad’s cologne and feel his arms around me all the logical and rationality in the world doesn’t seem to matter.

  Hands touching me, clawing at my skin.

  I’m here, Minds.

  I love you and I’m here.

  It’s Holly. She’s trying to reach out to me—to offer what little comfort she can. It makes no difference, but I don’t tell her that. Halfway through, her words take on a deep baritone and she doesn’t sound like herself, but rather more masculine. She sounds like my dad and I know, despite the fear and sickness, that it’s my dad who’s trying to hold me and provide me with some semblance of comfort.

  “It’s just Dad, baby girl,” he says. I used to find comfort in his words, but not now. Not in this moment. I can’t get my mouth to work. Every time I try to speak, a fresh wave of nausea rises in my throat that I try to force away. It doesn’t work and once I start dry heaving Dad lets me go. Every place he touched me feels slimy and disgusting like it wasn’t him at all, but rather it was them.

  On hands and knees, I crawl hurriedly down the hall and into my bathroom where I kick the door shut behind me. The tile in here bruises my knees but I don’t slow down to avoid the injury. It’s nothing really, more bruises. Maybe with enough battering they’ll look as they did that day, not just in my mind but in reality as well. I shove the toilet bowl lid up and out of the way as I expel the contents of my stomach into the water.

  It’s not always this bad, not anymore at least. I was getting better, stronger, and less dependent on Ian. I was finally in a place where I could watch him leave and instead of the sickening panic, I’d just cry until my eyes hurt. I don’t even try to hide the tears anymore.

  “Want me to call him?” Dad asks from the other side of the closed door. Dad knows how I feel about Ian. He sees how Ian helps me work through the breakdowns which is the only reason, in my estimation, that he even allows a member of Forsaken into his house every morning.