Total pages in book: 181
Estimated words: 171979 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 573(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171979 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 573(@300wpm)
USA Today bestselling mother & daughter writing duo, Jamie Begley & Sarah Brianne, have collaborated again to give you Hidden Ties. An interweaved duet that holds two smoldering stories with the most cunning of men.
Creed is loyal to no one, while Salvatore Lastra’s family ties run deep. Not exactly the reputable businessmen they appear to be, both know the deadly consequences of their chosen profession. One false move, and a life could be held in the balance—theirs. Choices will have to be made. Will love cost them everything, or will hidden ties break them apart?
Each character in this brand-new duet has a secret dying to be exposed in their previously written worlds, so you’ll be reconnected with your favorite criminal masterminds and get to meet some exciting new ones along the way
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
PROLOGUE
A BLUE MOON
From the day Sal was born, his mother had told him she knew he had been born special. It had been a full moon the night he’d come into this world, and it only bore significance because there was an old family superstition that every Lastra had been born under one.
It wasn’t until he was around four years old that she mentioned the second part of that story … that every Lastra had also left this world under a full moon.
Why was it that she considered him to be the most special Lastra of all? Because it wasn’t just a full moon he’d been born under.
It’d been a blue moon.
Rare. Unique. Exceptional.
All the things said to those born under one, and his mother swore the old wives’ tale to be true. And since he was an extra special Lastra, who had been born under a blue moon in a special place of Kansas City that was named Blue Park, she said his fate of leaving the Earth would be under one, too.
This was a spectacular story to hear as a boy, and even though he wanted to continue believing the grandness of it, he couldn’t because, well … his mother did drugs.
Yeah, so, special might not be the correct word to describe Blue Park, but maybe more so— hell. But even though his life was shit, as he spent his existence on and off the streets with her, depending on her addiction, he never begrudged her for the habit. He understood why she did it as the only way she could cope after working the corner for hours on end to wake up in a dirty motel bed with a different man every morning. It was to forget. Or to numb. That, at nine years old, he wasn’t yet sure of, as his mother kept him far from the streets after dark.
Every day before a moon could come out, she gave him a couple of bucks just so he could safely stay at a twenty-four-hour Internet café. He never had the heart to tell her that it didn’t even buy him an hour of use, so he always pocketed the cash and saved it until he could buy them something special to eat that wasn’t from the garbage, or a can, or a bag of fast food.
The owner of the café, Terry, had become a close friend to him. Knowing exactly who his mother was, as Isabella Lastra was known as the town whore, he always offered him a warm place to stay the night in the back.
Terry was who he had gotten his love of computers from, and in return for his kindness, Sal never slept much, helping to clean the café at first then finally learning how to keep every device in there running in tiptop shape.
Any free time with Terry, they spent playing video games or doing his favorite thing … searching the secrets of the world wide web. That was only allowed under special circumstances, like when a customer would come in and break the equipment.
Terry would find out where they worked, lived, and even if they had also done another bad thing, then show up and make them pay for the damages. That went on for a while until two men showed up at the café late one night.
One guy who usually stood toward the back and never spoke always wore a brown leather jacket with fur around the collar. His name was Anthony, and the only reason Sal knew that was from the one time the older one of the two told him it was time to leave.
That one was Lucifer Luciano. Sal never had to be told who he was. Everyone on this side of the tracks knew about him. He was the scariest motherfucker in town, or so everyone always said.
If his mother ever knew Lucifer frequented the café, she would have never let Sal step foot in there again, as she had always warned him to stay far, far away from that man, because he ate little children.
He didn’t. Or, at least, Sal didn’t think he did. The first time he saw Lucifer, he got scared to death he might actually eat him, and it wasn’t the crack his mother took after all that made her say those crazy things until Lucifer shooed him away with the wave of his hand.
It wasn’t until they had left that Terry told Sal that whenever they came in the door, he was to go in the back and stay out of sight. So, every time he saw Anthony’s coat come in the door first, Sal ran to the back like he’d been told before Lucifer could see him again.
He never could help but remember before Lucifer had whisked him away the first time they’d met how deeply he had looked into Sal’s eyes. The black, devilish eyes Lucifer held had bored into his as he asked for his name.