Romance Writers Behaving Badly: Rada - Between Heaven and Hell

Rada

Between Heaven and Hell

By: Serena Simpson

Coming July 8th

Blurb:

Moxie’s skill with a gun was valuable to the demons. Blood-covered bullets and a cold heart are her life.

Rada’s life was about protecting his family and his heart. The thought of finding someone who may be able to touch it scared him.

What happens when a former assassin and a hell beast come together? Fireworks and the shaking of the very foundations their lives were built on.

Together they would learn what it meant to stand outside of time. Would any of that matter when death was stalking them, intending to make their future a double coffin? Can love survive when their lives are on the line?

Chapter One

Moxie adjusted the visor as the sun came in at a different angle. She was keeping an eye on the blue car that stayed behind two others. They, her, and the other cars were all on the highway, but the other car never passed hers. Sometimes it was far enough away that she could only catch a glimpse of it, but it was following her. Why? Because her father died several weeks ago. That meant no one had anything they could hold over her head. If she were smart enough, fast enough, she’d be free. The person or people following her didn’t want that to happen.

She dreamed of freedom from the moment she realized she and her father were slaves. She wasn’t treated too badly initially, mainly because she didn’t know the men in the room holding guns were there to kill her if her father refused to do as ordered.

When she got older, became more aware, they were moved out of their nice house to a monitored place. That’s when she learned somebody had to pay the price. If her dad said no, then she was beaten and threatened with rape. He learned quickly, not wanting to put her life in danger. The physical beatings stopped, but the mental torture ramped up. She never told him about that. He was doing the best he could to make her life easy, and she did the same for him.

Now he was gone. Wrong place, wrong time, or so the cops said. She didn’t believe it. Her father was still great at what he did. It was a set-up; the evil that controlled him wanted to move onto a younger, more lethal model, her.

Her dad taught her everything he knew about putting a bullet in a person’s brain. ‘Always go for the kill shot, Baby, or don’t pick up a gun.’ Yeah, she learned from the best. She also learned to endure mental torture from the best. Most of the time, physical agony stopped but not mental torture. It was always there banging at the back and even the front of your mind, demanding to be let in. It haunted you even when you were laughing with friends. Not that she knew what having friends was like. It would send you to your room paranoid that someone or something was out to get you.

Unfortunately, her paranoia was real. There were people and things out to get her. One of them was in the car that was still following her.

It was time to do what she did best. She pulled over into the empty lane looking for the next exit. When she found it, she saw a hill the was backed up by cars. She merged onto it, knowing her stalkers would follow. She drove until a thicket of trees appeared on the right side of the road. She pulled over, leaving the emergency blinking lights on before she got out. There was a black case in her hand. She never left home without it.

The trees were beckoning to her. She slid between them, doing her best not to disturb any of the leaves. When she found a sturdy tree she could climb, she took the time to assemble her custom-made VSS vintorez high-powered rifle with the built-in silencer before climbing the tree. She might hate the people who tried to control her, but they provided pretty and expensive toys for her to play with. This was one of her favorites. The range wasn’t as long as she liked, but she had always been able to compensate for that. She had a pistol strapped to her waist, too, just for emergency use.

She laid flat on the branch, trying to blend in with her surroundings. Come to mama, she sent out her mental distress call. Two men came crashing through the woods. She almost wanted to laugh. Hadn’t anyone taught them to be stealthy? No, of course not. They believed that she was owned heart and soul. There was no need to be quiet. She would come like a dog when called kneeling at her master’s feet demanding a head rub or a treat.

In all fairness to them, they were almost right. While her father lived, she toed the line. They said beg, and she did. When the master said present, she did. When he said suck my cock and enjoy it, she did. Okay, she didn’t enjoy it, but she was good at faking it. Why? Because her dad’s life depended on it. She was thirty-one years old and had lived in hell since she was five. When she got the message her father was dead, she hadn’t run. She fell to her knees and lost her shit. Then she buried him. After that, everyone was watching her, waiting for her to make a break for it. She didn’t. Grief was a powerful emotion, and it took time to work through it.

Finally, her father’s message, the one he would whisper to her at night as a child surfaced. ‘When you get a chance, you run and keep running. They don’t want your life; they want your soul.’ She never knew if he sold his to keep her safe, but hers wasn’t up for grabs.

They were getting closer; she looked through the scope. When she sighted the first one, she pulled the trigger. There was no remorse or second-guessing. The second one screamed and ducked. She waited patiently for him to reemerge. She could wing him, but she wanted a kill shot. Leaving anyone alive to report on where she was or what direction she was heading was nothing but a death wish.

He was much quieter now as he came through the underbrush, but she still caught the small noises he made. A flash of his shirt alerted her to how close he was. She flung her rifle over her shoulder and shimmied up the tree wanting a better vantage point. Had he realized she was up high when she shot his companion? He didn’t seem to be looking at the tree line, but she wouldn’t put anything past him. Quickly she changed her bullets, not believing for a moment her stalker was human.

When he came into view, he was frothing at the mouth, with wickedly sharp teeth showing. There was nothing human in the eyes that searched for her. When he looked up, she almost froze. Red eyes rimmed in black caught hers. They tried to mesmerize her. She knew that look. He was commanding her to come to him. They promised pain that he was more than able to provide. Her insides melted along with her will. She wanted to give up, to allow her master, the one who controlled her, owned her, to call her to heel.

She breathed through her desire to capitulate even as he let out a high pitch sound that drilled into her ears and festered inside her brain. She needed to take the shot before she couldn’t resist any longer. With shaky hands, she pulled the trigger. Her bullet was off trajectory. It was going to miss; she could see it like it already played out. She coached the bullet to change course with a strength of will she didn’t consciously know she possessed.

It jerked, slowing down, not giving her the velocity she needed before coming to land in his neck. She wanted a headshot. He roared, but she already sent a second bullet at him. This time her hands weren’t shaking. She hit him dead center before almost falling out of the tree as she climbed down.

Her hands were shaking again. It was taking too long to tear down her rifle and pack it away. When you killed something that wasn’t human, there was no guarantee it would stay dead. She took the long way around the two dead men to make it back to her car.

Once inside, she merged into traffic, looking for the first detour she could take that would get her far away from where she was. She traveled for several hours before she saw it. There was a small dirt road that seemed to break off from the main highway.