She grew up in Rochester, New York, and now lives in Florida with her husband and four kids. She’s always had a love for reading books and writing. Being an English major in college, she wanted to teach at the college level, but that was not to be. She went on to receive an MBA and became a project manager until quitting to raise her family. Kim currently works part-time with her husband and recently decided to embrace one of her biggest passions—writing.
Kim wears a lot of hats: writer, book-lover, wife, soccer mom, taxi driver, and the all-around go-to person of her family. However, she always finds time to read. One of her favorite family outings when her kids were little was taking them to the bookstore or the library. Today, Kim’s oldest child is seventeen and no longer goes with her on these now rare and infrequent outings. She finds that she doesn’t need to go on them anymore because she has the greatest device ever invented—a Kindle.
Kim likes to believe in soul mates, kindred spirits, true friends, and happily-ever-afters. She loves to drink champagne and listen to music, and hopes to always stay young at heart.
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AND NOW: A First Look Inside Crush
Chapter 1
DAY 8 CONTINUED
LOGAN
Say you wanted someone eliminated . . .
Killed.
It doesn’t matter who—your mother, your lover, your enemy.
There are guys out there who will do it for you.
It’s a fact.
Not someone from the Mob.
Not someone connected to the Mob.
Not anyone you know.
A hit man.
I’ve heard of ways to contact one. Someone who knows someone who knows someone.
Someone from the old neighborhood. Someone with prison tats. Someone who maybe wears a do-rag. Who the fuck cares—he could look like Motely Crue. Hell, on the other hand, he could be a business man wearing a two thousand dollar suit.
I really don’t give a shit.
What he looks like is irrelevant. It’s what he does that matters.
Sure, there’s a steep monetary price attached to the deed. That’s not what worries me.
I’d give every cent I had if it meant she’d be safe.
It’s what it would really cost me—how big a piece of my soul it would take—that keeps me from making that call.
I reread the note, “That E wasn’t meant for Emily.”
One thing was clear . . .
He knows about Elle and me.
Tommy Flannigan, my enemy, my foe, the mob boss’s son, the one I have been forbidden to make contact with, knows I have someone in my life that I care about. He might even know I love her. And she’s not his sister. She’s not Emily. Because I defied him, because I dared to move on, I know he’ll taunt me, try to break me, try to drive me out of my mind.
For over a decade he’s loomed over me.
He threatened me, mutilated a girl I’d dated, and just last week harmed one he thought was Elle. He was into drugs as a user as well as a cutthroat player in the Blue Hill Gang. He was always crazy, but lately he’d been breaking all the rules. Nothing was safe from him anymore—it was like he had nothing left to lose these days.
Breaking the treaty wasn’t a surprise.
The thing he doesn’t get is I’m no longer fearful. As of right this minute, the rules of the street no longer apply to me. There is too much at stake for me to think about what could happen if I went up against the Blue Hill Gang. I have to think about what has to happen in order to keep her safe. And that’s one thing, and one thing only.
Tommy’s threat has to be eliminated.
Somehow.
Someway.
But murder for hire would have to wait.
I looked over into Elle’s eyes.
Paralyzed.
Frozen in place.
Wide.
Scared.
Still beautiful.
I haven’t even known her for two weeks, but she’s a part of me. I can’t—no, I won’t—let anything happen to her.
“Logan,” she whispered quietly.
Escaping from my thoughts, I wanted to say something. Something profound. Something that would make sense. Something that would make everything okay. But there was nothing.
My eyes searched her face. As soon as they did, I saw the once glimmering green in her eyes was now dull, and her lips were quivering.
It made my chest tighten.
But it was when I saw the apprehension in her body language, the hairs on her arm rise, the unsteady rise and fall of her breathing—the fear she didn’t want me to see, the fear she was trying to hide from me—that I knew what I had to do.
I had to find him.
Now.
I was going to settle the score with Tommy Flannigan once and for all.
Whatever the outcome.
The note crumpled in my fist and I let it drop to the floor. Tugging my shirt on, I once again looked over at her. “Stay here, lock the door, and don’t let anyone in. I mean it, not anyone except me. I don’t care who they say they are.”
“Where are you going?” Fear laced her voice.
“To find Tommy.”