Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 73043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
The judge that was the foster care father from hell was well known in the community. So well known, in fact, that he was always going to be believed over some delinquent boy insisting that something was wrong.
Raven had been subjected to the same treatment, but on a much smaller scale than me.
And the day that I turned eighteen, I tried to get her out. I’d made it to the next county over when I’d been pulled over by the sheriff of the county.
Then I was charged with kidnapping a minor.
After being thrown in jail on that bogus charge, Judge Paul Pearlman, the man who had ruined my life for the previous six months, informed me I had two choices. One, try to take my sister—his property—again and go to jail for some of the ugliest crimes I’d only ever heard about. Or, two, I could get the hell out and not come back.
He’d allowed me one concession: Raven’s safety.
I’d held onto that promise as I packed my bags, and then walked out on my sister, not looking back as I became the newest soldier in the United States Army.
Life didn’t get better after that.
Not even a little bit.
Raven thought I betrayed her and refused to talk to me. I was sure that Judge Pearlman fed her lie after lie.
What I didn’t know was how bad it really was for her—something that I still wasn’t sure I had the full story on.
Then there was the fact that my father’s shenanigans hadn’t just stopped at our small town. Nope. They’d extended into the military where he’d screwed over about fifteen different men just like Teeterman.
And, wouldn’t you know it, but I somehow found myself with Drill Sergeant Teeterman as my personal torturer throughout my first six weeks in the Army.
But, it didn’t stop there.
Every step I took, I encountered another man my father had screwed over.
At one point, I’d thought about giving up. Especially when I was deployed the first time. Then the second. And the third.
When I was finally able to come home, I realized that things would never be better.
After being skipped over for promotion after promotion, screwed over, nearly killed, and basically treated like a piece of dog shit, I’d decided that was it.
I was getting out.
It’d been years of continuous torture.
The icing on the cake, however, had been when I was shot in the leg.
I’d found out that my doctor was yet another man who my father had screwed over.
I couldn’t prove it, but it was just too damn convenient that he had the chance to fix what was wrong with my testicle and my leg, but conveniently didn’t do his goddamn job?
No, I was far from stupid.
That was when I took the medical discharge that the US Army offered me and then found someone who would help me exact my own revenge.
From that day forward, I was just as involved in the Army—as well as the Navy, Marines and Air Force—as I was before I’d left it, but this time as a private consultant. One who worked with the military to uncover situations exactly like the one I’d been in during my four years in the Army.
Trace and me? We’d both been fucked over. We’d been treated like low lives—battered, bruised, hazed, fucked over and forced to do many things that we’re not proud of today.
But, we’d gotten our men—and one woman.
We’d made the US military a better place to be, and in doing so, I’d found my calling in life.
Shortly after our first few years together, we’d branched out even farther into more global investigations, like the one that led me to Hostel.
After wrapping up the job overseas, I was heading straight to a town that was apparently the central hub of stolen military surplus.
But, while I was down there, I had a few other plans. Plans that centered around the fucking man who had purposefully held off on my surgery and nearly killed me in the process.
Over the years, I’d let go of a lot of my anger.
I’d taken Captain Teeterman’s torture tactics. I’d taken the shit deployments. I’d done just about anything that was ever asked of me.
But, the one time that my life had been in danger for real, a certain Army doc had played God with my life.
And he wasn’t even discreet about it. He’d taunted me for years with it—he still taunted me with it.
I wanted him to know that I was there, and I was watching.
I also knew he had a daughter around Janie’s age, and she was completely clueless to the fact that her father was a total piece of shit.
I was going to love uncovering the lies and deceit of Layton Trammel. I would also fucking love informing Elspeth Trammel that her father violated his medical oath to do no harm and purposely botched my surgery. And once I’d taken Trammel down, I’d be blowing that popsicle stand, hopefully never to look at that scum bag’s face again.