5 Words: Paradox Ink Trilogy Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by Melanie Walker

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2019

  ISBN

  5 words

  Book 1 of the PIT Trilogy

  By

  Melanie Walker

  Acknowledgements

  First and foremost, I want to thank my PA Jessika AKA Jess, for all the hard work on my website, my street team and editing. You are my favorite edit nazi. Seriously, you are like a quarter crazy, but I love you for it. Thank you for believing in me and taking this insane chance with me.

  To my street team Melanie’s Rockers, for and all the shares and support. You guys are such a huge support.

  Thank you to my readers for being so loyal and supportive. Thank you for letting me take a break from the sadness of this novel. I promised I would bring it and I hope I make you all happy.

  Lastly, thank you to Sarah Hershman my agent, for all the hard work, for putting up with my rant emails and reminding me that I got this.

  My dude, Jerame Sorenson, my heart… thank you for everything you put up with as I fought to write this book. You saw more sadness than anyone and you held me up regardless. I love you so much, my stars.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my late father, Mickey E. Hettich. You were the one thing that drove me to write. You supported it and were proud of it even when I was defeated. I miss you asking me about my books or what I was working on. I miss hitting publish and calling you first. I miss you telling me, ‘That’s really neat, Mel.’ I miss you. It hasn’t been a year since you passed, but every day as I write, you are my first and last thought. I love you, so very much. I hope you are looking down proud knowing this book was the hardest since your death and that I promised you I would finish it for you.

  Until I see you again pop.

  This book, this trilogy, is for you, my favorite color.

  ~Mel

  Prologue

  Now, I don’t know what to do now that you’re not here

  I don’t know how to love, don’t know how to feel,

  But I don’t want to believe

  I believe in you

  I believe in you

  Sully

  I don’t live in the dark. I know that I have been dealt a shitty hand. I play it though and move forward. I don’t want to own stock in pain. I don’t want my pain to be worse than another’s, or my story to be harsher. I don’t want any of it. It’s just what I was given in life.

  I mourn her every minute of the day. In sleep, in work, and in fun. At every turn, I see the cherub grin and deep brown curls of the love of my life. Kace Deja Sullivan was almost three when she vanished from my life.

  There was never closure, only acceptance. My little girl had become a statistic. Every forty seconds here in the United States, a person is abducted. Statistically, eighty-five to ninety percent of those abductions is a child. Twenty-four percent of that is a non-family abduction. Most common in this type of abduction is females. They sometimes involve use of a firearm or other weapon, and involve sexual abuse. About twenty percent of the children reported missing to the FBI are not found alive. That is an estimate of one in ten thousand.

  Most murders occur within three hours of abduction and those abductions are within 75 miles from the home. I stopped reading the statistics after three years because there wasn’t a double-digit percentage for being found alive.

  My daughter Kace is believed to be one in ten thousand.

  Deja and I became the typical divorced statistic most common to couples that experience the loss of a child. We were on rocky ground before the abduction, so in the end, there was no saving us. Deja was able to go on with life and I resent her for it.

  I can’t sleep and at times it suffocates me. She has moved on, remarried, and even had another child. I was breaking in half by her loss. Ruined by the shattered pieces of that life. I could not rebound or recover from it.

  I tried to get help. I joined a group for mourning parents, parents with missing or endangered children, but nothing helped because I don’t have answers. I was there. It was a party at the shop I owned with Deja. Everyone knew and loved Kace, yet there were no witnesses. I had left after a fight with Deja and went to my folks to cool down.

  Deja left with Cordell, the artist we hired a few months prior to that fateful Halloween, and also the man sleeping with my wife. In everything that happened that night, her affair meant nothing to me. I don’t blame Deja solely. I place that blame on me. I even told the FBI Agent, Sorell, that I deserved to be charged for leaving without ensuring she was safe.

  Nothing was ever charged against me, but I blame myself, I blame Deja… I blame everyone because I lost everything. Now, I coast through life like a zombie. I go through the motions. I feel pain, loss, and sadness. I have also felt laughter, happiness, and the ever-constant love of family and friends. I acknowledge them. I acknowledge the life I live now and try to go on for her. I didn’t ask for this, it was the hand dealt, and my new normal.

  I still contact Agent Sorell every morning. I have a few private investigators that I hired four years ago after feeling that the FBI wasn’t as invested as I was, but nothing ever comes back. I finally moved to Gig Harbor, Washington, three years ago to start over. My closest friends from childhood lived there and had become my biggest support team.

  I promise her twenty times a day that I will find her, bury her, and bring her peace. I feel it in my heart that she is gone forever. I know it, but for the love of God, I need the proof of it in order to go on, and I fear it will never come.

  That is how I survive. I don’t know how to start this story. I am not complete. I am not able or willing to fall in love again. I have issues rivaling Maxim Magazine and there isn’t a woman alive who could penetrate the steel bars around my heart.

  But there is one woman who is determined to try. I guess in there, the story lies. Proceed with caution. Heed that warning because there is no way you will walk this line with me and end up unscathed.

  Chapter one

  Your words still serenade me,

  And your lullaby’s, they won’t let me sleep

  And I’ve never heard such a haunting melody

  Oh, it’s killing me

  You know I can barely breathe….

  Three months ago…

  Mya Dorian

  I took my seat next to my brother, Cal, in the dining hall of the most extravagant building I had ever seen. The humanitarian assembly was honoring a good friend of my brother and his friends, Raleigh Fairchild, and his work in the LGBTQ community. I hadn’t known him long, but I loved him the second I met him. Our friendship grew from there.

  I had grown up with my brothers’ friends as mine, Ral was an addition to that.

  He was like a pseudo kid for Noah and his wife Bright, who happened to be my sister in-law’s BFF’s. I had moved home after college and my rich, Rockstar brother was kind enough to put me up in his guest house. He is the lead guitarist for the band, “Thick as Thieves,” known as TAT. Noah was the bass guitarist. The other two members were; Chad Blake, rhythm guitar and vocals, as well as Shamus James, the drummer.

  They were family to me. I had known Chad and Shame since I was born. I met Noah when I was twelve and he joined their band. Being in the limelight was a new normal for me. I have met more musicians than most twenty-one-year old’s, but TAT made it big when I turned thirteen. TAT was the firs
t band I saw live, from the side of the stage, as I watched in awe while my brother was thrust into the spot of coolest guy ever in my mind.

  I would be leaving soon though. They bought a big mansion on the harbor and I was moving into my own apartment at the end of the month. Our big brother, Jace and his wife Krissy, offered to let me live there, but I needed my independence. Jace is in business with our dads’ firm. Cal and I were the artistic ones in the family. Cal lives, eats, and breathes music. I don’t have a single memory of him not pushing himself to be the best.

  I dance. I started dancing around three and never stopped. I eat, breathe, and sleep dance. It has taken me all over the world. For two summers after school, I helped assist with choreography at CSU, my alma mater.

  The members of TAT all stood to take the stage with a special guest, my bff and my brother’s protégé, Lexington Cherry. They were one of the twelve bands that were invited to play the benefit concert a week ago, as was Lex, and tonight they are doing a cover of Macklemore’s, ‘Same Love’.

  I watch as they clear out when Jenny, my sister in-law, excuses herself to go side stage and watch with everyone else. I had planned to go watch, as well to cheer on my two-favorite people, but my crush was at the table watching. I am nothing if not an opportunist.

  Sam ‘Sully’ Sullivan…. Swooooooon!

  I met Sully when he moved to Gig Harbor to be close to Noah after his fiancé, Candey, died in a tragic car accident. Noah had fallen right off the cliff of self-hate, free-for-all, and Sully showed up to bring him back.

  He is part owner of Paradox Ink Tattoo Parlor that he shares 50/50 with Noah. The shop was world renowned and they were booked out months in advance. Sully was seriously intimidating. He radiates cool in a way nobody could follow. He is covered in tattoos, from the top of his head to his toes, I am sure. He has these crazy huge gauges in his ears, his tongue is pierced, probably his nipples and dick too, though I will probably never know for sure.

  I stare openly, unconcerned he would ever notice me. He has this weird graffiti looking tattoo that covers his jaw line. From a distance it looks like a beard, but up close you realize it is ink. That tattoo is what set him apart from the rest.

  It isn’t the tattoos. Hell, both my arms are sleeved and I have a back piece. My brother, his friends, even my friends have tattoos, but nobody is as devoted to ink like Sully, other than Noah.

  It is a part of him. Combined with his careless jeans and T-shirts style, I guarantee there is a different girl in his bed every night. Tonight though, he looks different. Like honestly, he is the only guy I know who can wear a three-piece Armani tux, with a black bandana on his head, and a black fedora over it.

  Christ, it’s deadly how hot he is.

  My brothers and friends tease me endlessly on my desire to tame a bad boy, but there is something about Sully that tells me he is a great man with a hellish burden on his shoulders.

  My thoughts are interrupted when a text to my phone vibrates against the base of my champagne glass.

  Tayla: You might be drooling.

  I look toward the stage and roll my eyes at her. I hate being so obvious that she can see it from the side of the stage.

  “Sully…” I stumble trying to find the right words to break the tension I feel when I’m alone with him. I feel it, but I doubt he does. I am probably not as memorable to him as he is to me. That is how crushes work though, they are toxic to the confidence.

  I put my hand out even though he has met me a million times. There is still a chance he hasn’t acknowledged it. “I don’t know if you remember me. I am Mya Dorian.”

  “I think so…” he says, rubbing that tattooed jaw as he tries to place me. Ugh, nothing worse than placing a memory of my teenage self.

  Awesome.

  “We met after you moved here.” Yeah.... At my brother’s wedding, my brother’s concerts, Noah’s wedding, more concerts and the various parties, and other important shit the last few years, but whatever. I figured I was forgettable to someone like him, but the truth of it sucked.

  “I was teasing, Mya,” he says and smiles. Perfect white teeth glisten like a GQ model and I get chills from how sexy he is. “I know who you are. I haven’t seen much of you since you moved back though. I saw more of you when you were in school.”

  Small talk with the hotty was killing me and making me feel insecure. I felt all bubbly, and like I would start giggling randomly and uncontrollably any second. A reaction like this was for grade school girls, not college grads like me.

  My phone vibrates again, so I give a sweet smile in apology for answering it, but I need a lifeline to calm me down.

  Tayla: Play it cool. Fucking obvious much? Breathe, Mya.

  I look at her, panic on my face that I am making a fool of myself and try to breathe through it. “I just moved back in May, after graduation.”

  He smiles at me again. “That’s right, Summa Cum Laude if I remember?”

  I nod and take a deep breath. “I studied business and economics, but I also was recognized for dance.”

  “That’s impressive. I graduated Technical College in business. I sucked at organization, growing up all over the place wanting to be a rebel. Once I started taking my artistic side serious, I took running a business serious.”

  Okay, so this was a normal conversation and the butterflies from it are dumb, but acceptable. “The studio is a powerhouse, so I think you made the right choice.”

  “You should come by and check it out. Get some ink…” He trails off as he stares long and leisurely down my arms at my tattoos. “You don’t seem to be shy of the needle.”

  I feel the blush on my neck from his obvious flirting. Tayla must see it though and laughs as she stands from the table. “Axe and I are going backstage. See you two in a bit.”

  We both nod at her departure, and I throw up a silent thank you to God for blessing me with friends who know how to act accordingly.

  “So, what do ya say?” He says, pulling me from my thoughts.

  “About what? Getting a tattoo?”

  “Yeah. You haven’t been tattooed unless you have been tattooed by one of the PIT crew.”

  I don’t tell him that Noah and Chad both have done some of my work. Noah still does tattoos in his off time for his standing clientele and a few select others. Chad only tattoos on the side as a release, and usually within friends and family these days. “Well, I will if I can get one by you. I am a collector of tats. I have been tattooed only by the best and an original Sully tattoo would be the ideal addition to my collection.”

  I see the recognition at the ‘original Sully tattoo’ comment. His birth name was Sam Sullivan, but he tattooed and built his name as Sully. “I’m sure I can make an exception and find the time. I can’t be the only one left off this canvas.” He leans close, lifting my arm to get a view of each line. “This lace, and the crown and jewels around it here, is Noah Beckett work, as well as the roses and the feathers…” He rolls my arm to see the inside of my bicep where my pinup is. “...that is Chad Blake. By far the best photo realism artist in the world, my opinion anyway.”

  “Very good,” I say and smile. My flirting smile is received when he gives me one back and scoots closer, reaching for my right arm.

  “All the work is delicate. Nothing harsh or too bold, which is appealing on a woman as beautiful as you. ” He doesn’t look at me as he says it. It’s like an afterthought, but I love that he said it. “I could follow the pattern and keep it organic in nature.”

  I laugh as his fingers trail down my arm, tracing the lines softly. “You’re good, I’ll give you that.” I say and sip from my champagne.

  “We should find a spot that sells beer and shots,” he says to me, like I am no longer the beautiful delicate woman he flirted with seconds before, but instead detoured into dude territory.

  It irritates me.

  “Is that how you do it? Get all cozy and sweet talk a woman until you think you have her hook, line, and sinker, then change t
o the uninterested bad boy so she follows like a puppy?” I fold my arms and stare him down, unafraid to call him by his shit. That is the bonus of having big brothers and a protective daddy. I am not afraid to speak my mind to any man.

  He looks at me though, with a droll stare, like I make no sense. “Huh?”

  “You know what I mean,” I say and deepen my voice to imitate him as I grab his arm. “So delicate, I can keep the beautiful organic nature…” I roll my eyes and drop his arm.

  He laughs at my imitation and leans back, watching me with delight. “I don’t sound like that. Ever. I am not some cheesy one liner, Mya. If I wanted to fuck you, I would. I don’t give lines and sure as shit don’t play games. I want a shot and a beer because I hate this stuffy fancy shit. I thought you were cool enough to hang.” He leans forward, close, so close as he whispers in my ear. “And yes, you are beautiful and delicate, but all things can get dirty, Pet. Even delicate things.”

  A stronger woman would slap him. I wanted to get a shot and a beer. “Okay then, let’s get a shot and a beer.”

  Mya

  We said our goodbyes to everyone and congratulated Raleigh on the award. He wanted to go out with us, as did Lex, so we shared an Uber to a small bar a few blocks from the hotel we all were staying at. Within ten minutes of being in the hole in the wall bar, Lex was spotted, and somehow a small area was roped off with her security guys creating a wall from the ambiance that was now noted as the VIP.

  It irritates me, this life. I hated it. Being Cal’s little sister and it’s tenfold, now with Lex. I sit back and sip on my IPA, and look out at the bar as it fills to max capacity with the presence of Lexington Cherry.

  “What’s up, Pet? You look miserable?” Sully asks me, scooting his barstool right next to mine so I can hear him over the crowd and music.

  “Can I be honest?”

  He nods and looks around as if I need privacy, we both know we won’t get.