Ruthless rebel black hal.., p.1
Ruthless Rebel (Black Hallows Book 5), page 1
RUTHLESS REBEL
G.N. WRIGHT
Copyright © 2024 G.N. WRIGHT All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the authors imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons and things living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by Dream Echo Designs
Proofreading by Zoe Reading Author Services
This is dedicated to all of my OG Rebels but particularly my girl Sammie.
You were by my side when these characters were created and you have been by my side ever since waiting for this endgame.
I love you girl
People say I am ruthless. I am not ruthless. And if I find the man who is calling me ruthless, I shall destroy him.
Robert Kennedy
CONTENTS
Author Note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Epilogue
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by G.N. Wright
AUTHOR NOTE
This book is a dark romance.
It contains scenes of explicit sex, torture, murder, and death, and is also on page discussion about child and adult victims of sexual abuse. There are also strong themes of struggling with mental health, such as, but not limited to grief and PTSD.
If you would like to discuss any of these themes or ask any questions about the content, please do not hesitate to reach out to me for clarification before reading.
Email - authorgnwright@gmail.com
Instagram - @authorgnwright
Facebook Readers Group - GN Wright’s Rebels
PROLOGUE
LINCOLN
EIGHT YEARS OLD
My dad has another woman in the basement. I know because even through the warmth of my blankets in the comfort of my room, I can still hear her screams. I don’t know who he has down there, I haven’t seen her yet, but the sounds of her cries are echoing all around me. They aren’t always like this, the girls he brings down there. Sometimes they try to go along with his games, or offer him the promise of things if he will just stop. Sometimes they make a little noise, but most of the time they don’t scream at all. They are silent and accepting in the punishment he rains down on them, as if he is some sort of god. You’d think that would be better, that it would make it easier to forget they are there, but it isn't, because like them, I know exactly how their night will end.
Rain lashes against my window pane, the pitter patter of water droplets staining the glass, as thunder and lightning battle across the sky, but the only thing I can focus on are the girl’s cries for help. I should help her, go down there and try to stop him, but I learned my lesson the first time I did that. My presence there didn’t deter my father, no, it spurred him on, and when I tried to run he turned his violence against me. I could barely walk for a month after that, and he told my mom that I fell down the stairs, which she believed of course, because why wouldn’t she?
My father is an upstanding member of society. His friends include police officers, judges and politicians, something he reminds me of constantly. It’s why I keep his secret, why I help him sometimes. Not because I want to, but because if I don’t, it will be my mother strapped to that table he loves so much, and I can’t lose the one good thing I have in my life.
My mom is away this weekend, which I guess is why my dad has been bold enough to leave the door of his workshop open, and it’s not like we have any neighbors around to hear him. No, it’s just me, and him, and whomever he has chosen to be his next little doll.
If I just stay up here, hide under my covers and pretend to be asleep, then maybe, just maybe he won’t come to me for help. Those are the worst nights, not the ones spent here in the comfort of my blankets, but the ones down there with him. The ones where I put eyeshadow on their dead eyes, lipstick on their lifeless lips, and brush through their blood-matted hair until they look perfect for him.
I guess I’m almost as bad as him, no, in fact I’m worse, because I know it’s wrong, know it’s sick, know that other boys’ dads don’t do the things mine does, yet still I help him. I still cover for him, and deep down, I still love him even though he’s a monster, because despite everything he is still my father.
But if he’s a monster, what does that make me?
Lights flash around me again, burning through my blanket, only this time they don’t disappear. I peek my head out slowly to check, and there are no flashes of light, in fact the light is steady and bright, and getting closer by the second. That’s not lightning. Panic swirls in my gut and with a quick glance towards the door, the girl’s screams still as steady as before, I slide out of bed and tiptoe towards the window. The panic turns to terror as the lights disappear and the source of it comes into sight. I was right, it isn’t lightning.
I’m banging on the window before I can even second guess making too much noise, but I have to warn her. I bang as hard and as loud as I can, yet thunder booms out around us once more and she doesn’t even look up, just dashes from her car to the porch in an attempt to evade the storm. I’m running from my room before I even take my next breath, my heart thundering in my chest as I plead for my legs to move faster. I just have to get down there before her, just warn him, then maybe everything will be okay, maybe he won’t hurt her.
The girl's cries are still loud and chilling as she screams the same two words over and over again.
Stop. Don’t.
But I can’t focus on that, on her, not right now.
There is a commotion as the front door opens and closes, the tossing of coats, and kicking off of shoes, and then I feel the pause as if I’m right there with her. I know she hears it, I know she feels the violence in the air as we breathe it in around us, yet still my feet don’t move fast enough.
Her wet clothes leave a rushed trail behind her that I follow quickly, but by the time I reach the bottom floor of the house, it’s too late, she’s already here, she sees him.
And he sees her.
“Honey, you’re home early,” he purrs, no doubt a wicked smirk on his face, as my mother gasps, taking in what I am sure is a bloody scene before her. “You really should have called to let me know you were on your way.”
I reach the bottom of the stairs now, staring down the long hallway that leads into my father’s workshop. My mother stands blocking the doorway, her hands shaking as she cries, “Leo, what did you do?”
The girl is whimpering now. “Please,” she begs, and sickness curls in the pit of my stomach, as I hear my father throw down his knife.
“What I was born to do,” my father booms, pride lacing his every word, as I edge closer and closer to them. He’s right, he was born like this, evil, but in his path he made me, and I know what I have to do.
All the nights I spent down here, all the moments he molded me into a shadow of himself have led me to this night right here. This is the night everything changes.
“Where is Lincoln, where is my baby boy?” my mother pleads, and tears gather in the back of my eyes. She isn’t like him, or like me, she is good, pure, innocent, the best thing in my life, and now she will be forever tainted by the sins of my father. The ones I didn’t stop.
“He’s here, and he’s right on time.” My father beams, flicking his stare past my mother to me, and I reach her side just as he focuses the gun at her head. “Come here to me, my son,” he demands, and with the weapon already taking aim, I push myself towards him without pause, my focus only on that long, silver barrel.
Maybe if I just listen to him he won’t hurt her, maybe if I just do what he says, we will all get out alive. That’s a lie I have been telling myself for months now, and I don’t believe it anymore now than I did the first time I told myself that.
My father m
But that’s the problem with my father, he is always one step ahead.
The barrel presses into my head at the same time he curls his free hand around her neck. “Say goodbye to your mother, Lincoln,” he demands with glee, and my entire world stops spinning.
“Dad, no!” I scream, trying to get away from him, but he whips the back of my head with the gun, before tossing it to the ground and gripping me tight.
“Mom,” I cry, seeing both pain and fear in her eyes, which I am sure are a mirror image to my own, because I know I can’t stop him, I can’t beat him.
“You need to run, baby,” she chokes out, gasped breaths falling from her mouth with every word, but I can’t, I won’t, I’m not leaving her.
“Mom, please,” I beg, reaching my hands out to try and get to her, but my father just squeezes her neck even harder, and holds me back even tighter.
“I love you, Lincoln,” she gasps, bringing her own hand up to reach out to mine, but just as I open my mouth to say it back, her stare goes blank, and her hand goes limp and drops back down to her side.
And now, like all those other girls before, my mother is dead.
My father killed her.
1
LINCOLN
The first time I killed a man I was eight years old. It didn’t matter that the man in question was my father, or that in me killing him, I didn’t save my mother. No, the only thing that mattered to me was the feeling of his life slipping away beneath my hands after what he did to her. A feeling I have recreated many times since that first night when I was just a child. So many times in fact, that I have now lost count of the number of people I’ve killed.
Like father, like son, I guess.
Back then I didn’t realize that I was a soldier at war in my own home, defenseless on a battlefield that I barely knew how to navigate. There were no monsters under my bed, no creatures hiding in my closet. No, my enemy was my own flesh and blood, my father, the man I was supposed to look to for everything. The man who was supposed to love me unconditionally, but all he taught me was hate, pain, and how to kill without being caught. A skill that has come in handy since the very night I murdered him, and I haven’t looked back since.
After that night everything changed. My mother was dead, my father was dead, and they had no idea what to do with the little boy covered in blood. I didn’t speak then, not a word, I knew better than that. Even though I was still a child, I remember everything my father told me. They can’t twist your words if they don’t have any, so I didn’t give them any. No matter how many questions they asked, I told them nothing, and eventually they gave up.
I was abandoned into the system and forgotten about completely, because no one wanted the silent and brooding boy with the serial killer father. Talk about daddy issues. I was at the group home for years before Jace and Marcus showed up. They were double the attitude and double the trouble, and I wanted nothing to do with them. They had their own brand of darkness, and I had mine, so I planned to stay away from them, but Jace Conrad has never been good with not getting what he wants. He bugged me for months, following me everywhere until I finally broke my vow of silence and told him to fuck off, but all that prick did was smile and offer me a drink of whiskey. We’ve been best friends ever since. They’re my brothers, my family, and there isn’t anything in the world I wouldn’t do for them.
I was just getting used to having them around and having their backs through everything when Elle King showed up. She turned all our worlds upside down. For them she brought love, family, a reason for living. For me she brought a reason to kill, a reason to fully become the man I was born to be, the man I was raised to be, and just because her war is over, doesn’t mean mine is.
My eyes burn as they stare at the computer screen in front of me. I've been here for hours now, scanning through the fresh files I hacked into earlier today, and now it’s almost 3am and I still haven’t attempted to shut my eyes yet. I let my gaze travel across the room to my bed where Logan is sleeping peacefully, which isn’t surprising considering how we spent the earlier portion of our night, and my cock twitches in my sweats at the thought. I know I should join him at some point, he is only here for the weekend, but how can I sleep when my work is never done?
Not that I mind, it’s not like I ever enjoy sleeping anyway, not when every time I close my eyes I see their faces, all their dead faces. There were just so many girls, so many girls that I didn’t save when I could have, and that’s the reason my mother is dead. She’s dead because of me, because I didn’t save them, because I didn’t save her, and it’s all my fault. And I wish I could say it was just them, that I was just an innocent child that didn’t know better, but I did, and there have been so many more since then.
Elle King was raped, Taylor Kennedy was murdered, Rachel Conrad was raped AND murdered, and countless other women fell prey to the Donovan empire right beneath my nose while I did nothing for years. So it doesn’t matter how many of them I do save now, because there will always be more. There will always be the memories of the girls I didn’t save, and my mother’s last breath as she told me she loved me. So, it doesn’t exactly put me in a rush to ever fall asleep, not until I absolutely have to.
Tonight is one of those nights where sleep evades me completely, where adrenaline rushes through my veins and begs me to find someone to pay for their sins, yet here I sit. Unmoving, watching, waiting. I’ve scanned the fresh files at least a hundred times, committed the new names to memory, and planned their demise over and over, but I don’t move, not while the epitome of light and laughter resides in my bed.
Logan Royton is an unexpected yet welcomed distraction. He crashed into my life almost as hard as Jace did, and he hasn’t looked away since. And I know I shouldn’t, I know he is too good for the darkness that lives inside of me, but I have never been one for following the rules, and sometimes sin tastes just like sunshine. We have both agreed to keep things casual, fucking only when the opportunity arises, yet it seems those opportunities are occurring more often than not lately, though neither of us have commented on it. Yet I do enjoy fucking him, and he knows exactly what I like, so it makes him a welcome distraction.
My cock jumps again as my thoughts begin to stray, and I have to crack my neck to try and loosen some of the tension now lining the muscles in my upper body. I know I need to sleep soon, I definitely need the rest, especially with the wedding coming up, but there is just always something that needs doing, someone that needs saving, and some monster that needs killing.
I’m sure there are a number of therapists out there that would have a field day with the wreckage that is my trauma, but why make them suffer by hearing such atrocities? It’s why I never talked, not just because of what my father taught me, but because I knew nobody would ever understand, so I have never told anyone, except him.
Just as I have that thought, an alert from the house security system hits my phone. Elle has this place locked down tighter than anything I’ve ever seen, and no one gets within twenty feet of the perimeter without our knowledge. There are cameras, sensors, trip wires, motion detectors, biometric scanners, and all of us have access to the alerts whenever we want. There are also multiple escape routes planned out, and countless weapon safes around the house, because even though nobody would get in without a fight, we know what it’s like to have our safe space violated. We had to learn that the hard way, and none of us ever want to experience that again. It’s why the alert doesn’t concern me, not even at this late hour.
I pull up the security feeds and find exactly what I expect to find, the dark prince of my nightmares. The youngest son of the infamous Donovan legacy is pulling up to the front of the house and killing his engine. He’s alone just like always, and like a hunter stalking his prey, I watch as he climbs from the car and flashes his eyes around his surroundings to ensure it’s all clear. It’s a habit of his, because of course he doesn't trust the extensive security features Max and his guys helped install. No, the only person Asher Donovan trusts is Asher Donovan. Not that I can blame him, he grew up in a household as cold as mine.
