Wild Cards

  Wild Cards

  R.C. Stephens

  Wild Cards

  Copyright 2015 R.C. Stephens (Irene Cohen)

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or distributed in any form without written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover Design by Sarah Hansen of Okay Creations

  Edited by Ellie May McLove of LoveNBooks.com

  Proofreading by Karen Hrdlicka of Barren Acres Editing

  Formatted by Polgarus Studio

  Author’s Note

  This is a standalone novel and does not need to be read with books one and two of the Twisted Series.

  ***Warning-For mature audiences only.

  As a reader myself, I know how important it is to be aware of 'hot button' issues that could trigger painful memories for some. Wild Cards is a love story of the greatest and most epic proportions. However, this love story faced many bumps in the road to love. In order to tell Luc and Vicky's story I needed to touch on the scene of aggravated sexual assault. I feel it is my job to advise the reader of this violent episode. This aspect does not define the whole story. The novel is not about violence, rather about two dark souls saving each other while finding true love.

  Thank-you

  R.C. Stephens

  DEDICATION

  To all the readers who have loved and supported my stories and to all the bloggers who so selflessly promote the books of authors. Thank-you for welcoming me into this beautiful book world!

  Prologue:

  Luc

  “Luc, it’s time.” My father snuck up behind me and gave my shoulder a strong squeeze. It wasn’t an endearing gesture by a parent that loves you. It was more of a get-off-that-fucking-computer-now-and-do-what-I-say-or-else-you-will-pay-for-it kind of squeeze. I caved under the pain he was inflicting and shut my laptop immediately, standing to his attention the way he expected me to. I wasn’t stupid, I knew my father was a mean bastard, and I knew he got off on feeling powerful. He wasn’t a man you wanted to upset. I followed him out of my bedroom, past the small room that my mother sat in day in and day out, staring out the window with such vacant eyes that if you didn’t know better you would think she had died. If it weren’t for the slow movement of her shoulders lifting up and down with each troubled breath she took that is exactly what you would think.

  My mother hadn’t always been like this. She was once a beautiful and vibrant person that loved life, but as my father’s power grew so did his cruelty. I heard how he yelled at her. How he put her down and worst of all, I heard how he smacked her around. At first my brothers and I would run to her aid. I even threw a punch at the bastard, but I learned quickly that he delivered more than he got. My small punch got me a set of broken ribs, a black eye, and a swollen lip. My father wanted to make sure that my brothers and I understood that he was in charge, that no one defied him and if they did, well then there would be consequences. Sometimes consequences far beyond what we could ever dream.

  I knew this because I went to my father two days ago and told him that I didn’t think the training was for me. At eighteen I was interested in school and girls, I had no need to train to be a mob boss. My father was involved in bad things. I knew this because our estate was filled with goons holding guns. It was a problem that I didn’t want to know more than that. My unfortunate circumstance was that I was the eldest son of Maurice Blanchard, the head of the Blanchard crime family in France, although his ties to crime were worldwide. My father summoned me and I learned to follow. I followed him down the stairs while my stomach began to sink. He warned me after the last conversation that I had with him that there were no outs, that I might as well face the music and accept my destiny, being respected and feared like him. The thought made my skin crawl.

  As we made our way toward the front door my two younger brothers moved like silent mice out of the way, scattering into the shadows of the large vacant rooms in the mansion. I was used to seeing the fear in their light eyes, it was only a matter of years before they would need to endure the training that I had succumbed to. For now they weren’t needed and therefore insignificant. I wished I could be insignificant to my father.

  We walked out the main doors and into a long black limousine that awaited us. I knew better than to ask questions. I would know what my father wanted when the time was right. Today was a test for sure. The question was would I pass it, or would my father put a bullet in his own son’s head like I had seen him do to too many men. The limousine left the grounds of the Blanchard estate and drove for a long while. It felt like an eternity, but it may have only been thirty minutes. My throat went dry and I wanted to run. It was the fear of the unexpected. A bead of sweat slowly trickled down the side of my face, and as I glanced at my father from the corner of my eye, I noticed the wicked grin splayed across his face that looked similar to mine, only aged and cruel. We finally pulled up in front of an abandoned warehouse.

  I unfortunately recognized this place. I had been here before when I had defied my father, when I asked him to let me leave the last time. I had a girlfriend; she got pregnant and I panicked. There was no way I could have or bring a baby around this cruelty. I never gave my father the reason I wanted to leave, but with my luck he knew about the girl and threw me into a hole in the ground inside that warehouse. The hole was dark and maybe six feet wide by six feet long. There was no light and the cement was cold. The place smelt like stale urine and something else that I couldn’t identify. There was no bed and no washroom. I was left there for a full twenty-four hours, while one of his goons dropped only a small amount of water. My father wanted to show me who was boss. He wanted to make sure I understood what happened when people defy him. He said I should consider myself lucky because I was his son, if I were someone else I wouldn’t have gotten the hole, I would have gotten a bullet to the head.

  What he didn’t understand was that when he put me down there, something happened. I broke and I hated my life more than I ever hated it. I began to suffer from nightmares of being locked up. I began to feel like my throat was closing in on me and I had no air. I was only seventeen and this life wasn’t fair. Luckily, my girlfriend had a miscarriage and lost the baby. I then broke up with her. I knew it was cruel, but it would have been worse to stay with her, being with her put her in danger and I would not have her blood on my hands. My father’s cruelty was too much. I vowed that one day I would walk away. I knew the only way was to kill him. In my mind that day would come, and I would pull the trigger. I just had to be patient and I had to persevere.

  Seeing the warehouse felt like a bolt of lightning had struck me. I felt frozen, only I knew my father didn’t expect me to sit in the limousine. I was there to serve a purpose.

  “Well, let’s go,” he ordered. I looked up to him, knowing that I was giving myself away by the fear that took hold in my eyes. I got out of the limousine, hoping that I wouldn’t lose my lunch on the ground. That would be a sure sign of weakness in front of his men, and my father would make me pay for it, dearly. We made our way into the abandoned warehouse. It was dark except for the rays of sunlight sifting in through the broken glass at the top of the building. The place smelt old and dusty. Remembering the stale smell of urine in the hole caused my heart to hammer in my chest.

  As we made our way further into the building there was a group of young men sitting in a line on the floor with two of my father’s goons sitting on chairs in front of them. The men looked like they must be only a couple of years older than me. He clearly brought them here because they defied him in some way, and
he was going to show them what it meant to defy Maurice Blanchard. We walked up to the group of men with our own entourage following in the distance. My father’s men were heavily armed because there was always another family or gang trying to get the power or connections my father had.

  “So what do we have here?” my father asked. All the men stood and looked straight ahead, careful not to make eye contact or any other wrong move that would result in their death.

  “They didn’t follow orders,” my father’s goon, Mauricio, cut in with a twisted smile. “Their idiocy resulted in the Dubois sweeping in and lifting five hundred grand.”

  The Dubois family were rivals of the Blanchard’s, whatever gains or whatever money my father made, the Dubois tried to slither their way in and steal. Unfortunately the Blanchard family was also tailing the Dubois. We had spies infiltrated in their organization, and when something big was happening we always found a way to get a nice cut. Too bad for these men that the Dubois swept in and stole a nice chunk of my father’s money. Money was very important to my father. In fact, I think it was the most important thing in his life. To take his money or be responsible for losing it was, to a normal person, equivalent to killing their child. I now understood what I was doing there and my blood simmered to a dangerous level under my skin. I had threatened to walk away again, and my father was about to give me the ultimate initiation into the organization. I had two choices. Do what my father said and kill one or all of these men or get shot in the head myself. I knew which option I needed to take, it was my only way out of this. A bullet between my eyes and my misery was over.

  “So Luc, lesson number one, no one betrays our family. Family is family,” my father said, giving me a rough pat on the back with his hand. “Mauricio?” he called out and motioned with his hands to give me the gun. Fuck, this was it. My life was over. I never imagined that this was how I would die. The fool that I was, I actually thought I would somehow get away from this life.

  “Okay Luc, you need practice and here it is. Practice shooting and try to hit every single one of your targets.” He nodded his head and urged me on. He was a sick, sick man. These were young guys. They probably came from troubled homes or needed the money to get by and my father was paying well. This wasn’t fair. I narrowed my eyes on my father, wanting to lift the revolver and shoot him instead. For me, for my mother, and my brothers, our life had turned into a living hell, and he was the demon at the root of it all. My father saw my hesitation and grabbed me by the collar of my shirt. I was just as tall as him and my body was strong, but I was still an adolescent and I had not filled out yet compared to his bulky physique.

  With his face a mere inch from mine he spat in my face. “You will not shame me in front of my men. You will do as I say, or I will kill those boys at home you call brothers.” My eyes turned wide and I thought my father had completely lost his mind. Those boys, my brothers, were his sons. Did we mean so little to him? Is that all we were, a means to an end? I knew my father. I knew if he made the threat he would follow through. I already had a picture in my mind that he would shoot them in front of me to teach me another one of his infamous lessons. I faced the revolver at my first target. I closed my eyes and opened them hoping at some point to wake up from this nightmare. This was my reality and I was wide awake. I took a deep breath and prayed for forgiveness before pulling the trigger. I shot the poor guy square in the chest. He fell instantly to the ground. I once again felt the need to lose the contents of my stomach, but I did everything in my power to stay standing on my own two feet while I watched too much blood leave his body. If I fell now, it would show weakness in the eyes of his men. After how I felt shooting the first guy I didn’t know if I could go through with it again. My heart turned cold.

  Loud clapping pulled me out of my daze, I saw my father smiling bright. He walked over and patted me on the back. “That’s my son. You see this, men? It was his first shot and he killed him spot on. This is a Blanchard.” The pride in my father’s voice was crystal clear and his men stood around grinning. I feared having to do it again. I counted and there were nine more men.

  Then my father stood and glared at the nine men standing and waiting for their lives to end. They looked pale and they were shaking just as hard as me, only I was doing my damndest to hide it.

  “You men better be careful the next time you are in charge, or else, you will end up the same way as your friend did here. I am sure my son will get you in between the eyes next time.”

  I blew out a huff of air, I had the blood of one man on my hands, but I didn’t know that I would have made it through nine more shootings. My father smacked me on the back and I jolted forward. He then ordered his men to take care of things. We entered the limousine and drove for a while, until we stopped in front of a local strip joint he owned. I could barely walk as I made my way inside, my legs felt like they would give out on me. He sensed my unease, got me a drink, and asked one of his girls to show me a good time. I thought I was going to be sick. I wanted to get home to my brothers and my mother and make sure they were okay. I wanted to ensure that my father hadn’t tricked me and ordered their death anyway. I also needed a shower because I felt dirty after I killed that man.

  My father never took me on another shooting mission again. He said to leave the shootings for the goons that worked for him. He liked to keep his hands clean, although I don’t know how he could think they were clean. He wanted me to kill the guy to teach me a lesson. I wasn’t leaving. I would never be free and I needed to face that fact.

  My last year of high school I spent less and less time in school and I didn’t graduate. I was stuck learning “the business.” I was lucky when my father took notice of my superior computer skills and hired some famous hacker to teach me the trade. It was for the benefit of the organization. I was lucky that I became an asset for laundering international money transfers because it meant no more taking me to beat up men or even worse, shoot them. In my early twenties, I was responsible for transferring money, amounting to hundreds of millions, without a trace.

  This is my story, but my words are not proud. Every day I lived with a burden put upon me by a man that I loathed. I lived with PTSD and I had to hide it because the danger of being weak would result with a bullet to my head. My father knew I wasn’t happy, my father knew I didn’t have what it took to run the organization, but he didn’t care.

  Henri, my middle brother, grew up and proved to be very brutal. I honestly think he behaved that way to gain my father’s acceptance, which meant the world to him. I didn’t understand it and I couldn’t accept it. My mother got worse and worse over the years. I think it was the thought of her sons being so cruel that sent her off to that dark place where she couldn’t return. My family disintegrated in front of my eyes, and yet I only craved the simple things.

  I had women at my beck and call, but I wanted a woman to love and cherish. Two things I knew my father didn’t know anything about and would never let me have. The problem was like a fool I kept hoping…

  Chapter 1

  Vicky

  2013

  “Hey, beautiful, I’m so glad you agreed to come home with me.” The hot man driving the fancy car turned his head to give me a sexy smile, showing those cute dimples of his. His teeth were sparkling white and his dimples made him look like a sweet boy. Only looking at his body, I knew that there was nothing boyish about him. His wide set shoulders and strong arms, along with his defined veins on his hands, let me know that he was all man. I couldn’t wait for him to lift me up in those strong arms and do naughty things to me.

  After a short drive, he pulled into an underground parking garage and we exited his snazzy two-door Audi. He must be rich. “Here, why don’t you put this on,” he suggested, offering his large wool coat. I didn’t have a chance to respond and he’d placed the oversized coat on my shoulders. It was too big and heavy for my small frame. He clearly didn’t approve of my outfit, or maybe it was just deemed unacceptable for such a nice building.
I inwardly huffed and was slightly insulted, but I didn’t let it show. My thoughts killed my libido and I inwardly cringed. I didn’t always dress like this, but after drowning in an incomprehensible amount of pain, this was me surviving. I couldn’t believe I left the club with a stranger, but things had gotten so bad at home, I felt like I was spinning more and more into a dark place I feared I would never escape from. Maybe this guy could numb some of my pain.

  “Come on, beautiful.” He took my hand, guiding me to a set of elevators. I’d agreed to go home and have sex with this guy, and we hadn’t even exchanged names, something about the mystery excited me. As he led me through a lavish hallway in his fancy apartment building, I took in the ornate dark grey carpeting, exquisite wallpaper that had a silver sheen, and dimmed crystal lighting. I definitely was not in Kansas anymore. In fact I was almost 500 miles away from home. Home, the simple word hurt my heart. It hadn’t felt like home in a long while. He released my hand and unlocked his front door. My heart ricocheted in my chest as excitement spiked through my veins, reminding me I was still in the land of the living. He swung the door open and extended his hand for me to walk in first, a gentleman. My eyes widened as I took in my fancy surroundings, his place was huge. I wondered if his dick would measure up too. The black marble flooring was extravagant, with floor to ceiling mirrors and crystal chandeliers that gave the place an iridescent sparkle. His furniture was white, white leather to be exact. My prediction was right; he was filthy rich and good looking.

  “Would you like a drink?” he asked with a devilish grin as his eyes roamed my body. His face flushed, as his lip tugged up on one side, his dimple was revealed, and his square jaw looked that much sexier.