Tyrant by T.M. Frazier
Acknowledgements
I want to thank my readers for being as excited to read more of King and Doe’s story as I was to write it. Every message, every review, every single comment about how much you love them keeps me motivated to write more.
Thank you to Karla, for being your lovely charming self as always. (SARCASM)
Thank you to the agent that has taken me on and all the baggage that comes with me. You are so fantastic and I couldn’t ask for anyone better to deal with my crazy. Kimberly Brower you are a literary agent MACHINE!
Thanks to Vanessa and Manda at Prema Editing for taking me on at the last possible second and talking me off a bridge. You ladies have been a pleasure to work with and I look forward to tackling new projects with you.
Thank you to all who have shared the love for King and Doe on social media; authors, bloggers, readers, friends, and family. I love all of you and appreciate everything you do for me and my books.
Thank you to everyone who has left a review for King, good or bad, on Amazon. Taking the time to leave a review means the world to an author.
Thank you to Jodi, you beautiful British twat, I love your face. Thanks to Aurora Rose Reynolds for being a great friend and support system. Thanks to Milasy and Lisa over at The Rock Stars of Romance for knowing how to represent a release right! Thanks to Aestas for speaking up when you find a book you love so others can love it too!
Thank you to Julie Vaden for your support. For being a great beta-reader and for doing the work of an employee without a single one of the benefits. You are a rock star to me. Love you.
Thank you to my parents, Anne & Paul, for all that you do for me and for others. Every day I realize more and more how extremely lucky I am to have parents like you.
Thank you to my husband. I cannot express my gratitude to you enough. Some days I wonder why you love me so much. You make every single day an easy one to exist in. Thank you for taking good care of me, and not just with every day things so I can write, but for taking good care of my heart too. I know it will always be safe with you.
Thank you to baby Frazier. I’ve done nothing in this life to deserve you or your father, but I promise I will try each and every day to be worthy of you. Mommy loves you to the moon and back.
Dedication
For my Popop.
And for everyone who has to live each day
without the love of their lives by their side.
When the love of your life passes on,
the person may be gone,
but the love rages on.
–T.M. FRAZIER
Prologue
King
The average time spent between incarcerations for a career criminal is six months.
I’d only been out three.
I’d expected to find Max in that car. Instead, cold metal clinked around my wrists, and the asshole pig had the audacity to laugh when he tightened the cuffs to the point of pain.
I didn’t wince, though. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. He pressed down on my head roughly and shoved me hard into the back of the old police cruiser. I landed on my side, and my cheek slammed against the sticky seat. It smelled like vomit and bad decisions. My hands tingled from the loss of blood flow.
The motherfucker was lucky I was in cuffs.
Three years. They already had me for three fucking years, and they were going to have me for a whole lot longer.
Kidnapping wasn’t exactly rewarded with a light slap on the wrist, especially for someone whose record was as long as mine. I promised I was never going back, but keeping my promises is just another thing I was never very good at.
I was all out of fucks to give though. The system could have me. I belonged to them, but they didn’t fucking own me. They would NEVER fucking own me.
She owned me.
Heart and black fucking soul.
I will walk to the fucking chow line with a shit-eating grin on my face wearing my scratchy orange jumpsuit every motherfucking day. I will play cards with the worst of the worst and make nice with the guards who are willing to cut me some slack. At night, when I’m alone in my windowless cell with my dick in my hand, I will remember what it was like to have her in my bed; how her innocent wide eyes stared up at me as I moved inside her. The way she arched her back into me as I made her come over and over again.
I kept telling myself I didn’t have anything to offer her, but that wasn’t true.
I had love.
Pup. Doe. Ray. Whatever the fuck her name was. I loved her more than what was normal, rational, or sane, and I would gladly rot in fucking prison with a smile on my face if I knew my girl was going to be okay.
But I didn’t know that. I couldn’t know that.
I should have known that motherfucker was going to fucking cross me.