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  Carver: Past Lies

  Adair Empire Book 5

  KL Donn

  Copyright © 2018 by KL Donn

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Blurb

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek

  About the Author

  Also by KL Donn

  Blurb

  I saw her.

  She’s mine.

  NOTHING

  Will stop me.

  **WARNING**

  The Adair Empire is a dark and graphic romance that will push your buttons, and maybe your boundaries. Each book contains a new couple but ends with a plot cliff-hanger.

  Series reading order is:

  King: 13 Little Lies

  Luther: 2 Truths and a Lie

  Castiel: With Lies

  Atticus: Secret Lies

  Carver: Past Lies

  Grasping For Air (Coming July 24)

  Dedication

  For Kaci,

  I know he’s your fav, but umm I think I might take him back :::runs away:::

  Prologue

  Meadow

  Sister?

  Drug addict?

  Abandonment?

  How do I correlate those words with the man who has raised me the past ten years? I don’t… I don’t know what to do with this.

  We had a good life. A great one.

  Now, suddenly, it’s gone.

  Everything we had, was going to have. All gone.

  I knew where I was heading with my life until he walked in the door. Until his eyes zeroed in on me like laser beams. Not once straying anywhere but on me.

  He watched my reactions. My heartbreak. All the sorrow that crossed every feature on my face, each tear track down my cheek.

  Carver saw my misery.

  He watched my world crumble as past lies surfaced like a tsunami, sucking the life from our house. Ruining our dreams for the future.

  Carver…

  Carver…

  Carver…

  Like an addiction, he’s everywhere I turn.

  Carver

  One hour.

  Sixty minutes.

  Three thousand, six hundred seconds.

  Small inconsequential numbers. They mean nothing. They are nothing.

  To the average man.

  I’m not your average man. I’m a killer. A righter of many wrongs. On a good day, I’m your judge, jury, and executioner. On a bad day, I’m your worst nightmare. I’ll make you wish for death while praying for the devil. Nothing scares me.

  Not a fucking thing.

  Except for the last hour.

  Meadow…

  Sweet, innocent, perfect Meadow. She’s mine. Has been for almost a year. King told me to back off. He swore when she was ready, I would have her. She would be Meadow-mine. She would be the one and only thing in this world to belong to me, and no one would take her. Hurt her.

  McCray should have been dead. He was left for it. His carcass should be rotting in the wilds of Alaska.

  But he’s not.

  He’s like an annoying rash that won’t fucking go away.

  And right now, he has minutes to live because when I’m through with him, he’ll wish he’d let the wolves tear apart his dying body.

  When I’m done with him, he’ll pray for the end, but I won’t give it.

  At least, not peacefully.

  1

  Carver

  “Carver!” King yells at me as I pace back and forth in the war room. “Are you fucking listening to me?”

  “Not unless you have a fucking address,” I bark, and Lil watches me with pity. It may be her sister McCray has, but we all know it’s my woman.

  “Not with your snapping and snarling,” Luther chimes in.

  Stomping over to him—relaxing in his fucking chair, while my girl suffers—I whip out Mercy from her holster at my back. The blade twinkles in the dim light of the fireplace as I tell him, “I’ll split any motherfucker open who tries to stop me this time.” Levelling King with a hard glare.

  He thinks he can rein me in. He thinks that by throwing me a bone every once in a while, it’ll curb my bloodlust. He’s wrong. This has been building for years and years. Thomas is going to experience every type of deprivation I can conjure up.

  McCray didn’t know it then, but from the first moment he thought touching Meadow was a good idea, his life was over.

  “I’ve got him!” Daniel comes racing in the room, Dimitri on his heels. The two have been inseparable for months.

  I don’t give him a chance to speak further. I grab the paper from Daniel’s hand and walk out to the sounds of Luther and King screaming my name. Atticus grabs his pistol while Castiel gets his keys. The girls stare from their spots at the staircase as I walk past. Lilith nods her head in permission. She knows. I’ll get Meadow back.

  The beast is ready to be unleashed. Foaming from the mouth like a rabid dog, I have one destination, one goal in mind.

  Thomas McCray will die by my hand.

  The only mercy he’ll find is at the end of my blade.

  Meadow

  If I said I didn’t understand what was happening or why I’m here, I’d be lying. I’ve never been one to deceive myself. I like to make sure my head is firmly set in reality, so I’m prepared for anything life throws at me.

  Especially after the past year.

  I lost a father, gained a sister, and became a stranger to my mother. For months, I’ve been struggling with King’s request to stay away from Lilith. I couldn’t understand why he’d asked me to maintain my distance. I think I do now.

  He has been trying to protect me from this monster.

  Even with Carver shadowing me for nearly a year, I never felt unsafe. I knew this man’s darkness was keeping me shielded. No one dared mess with me on campus. Not after he attacked a man for trying to put his hands on me. For trying to push when I pulled.

  Carver set him straight, made a point that day.

  I’m untouchable.

  He wasn’t always there. He’d be gone for days, sometimes weeks at a time. But his protection was left as an unspoken rule. At first, I was grateful. It meant I could be left to worry about classes and studying. Until it made me lonely.

  I had become an outcast.

  For as long as I could remember, Harvard had always been my dream school. I’d wanted to be a part of the elite in the world; unfortunately, when Lilith came into my life, everything changed. Harvard had been left behind for Duke. I didn’t care, though. I had only wanted to work the system as a court-appointed lawyer. A decent one with a stellar background, bringing justice to situations when no one else cared.

  I was going to be the difference.

  Now, I’m going to be a pawn.

  A tool used to lure out a man who doesn’t have feelings one way or another about me. And Lilith, I’m not sure if she cares or even knows how to. We’ve spent a handful of minutes together, and each one of them has been strained. I don’t blame her. David—our father—abandoned her, let her mom die and promptly forgot Lilith existed.

  At least, that’s how it seemed.

  Lilith wants nothing to do with him. Neither do I, if I’m
being honest. Not right now. He raised me like his own child, loved me, cared for me. I wanted for nothing, but she needed him so much more than I ever did.

  Our lives, all of them, would have been so much different if he were a better man. If he hadn’t been so selfish. Now, I’m paying for sins that aren’t even my own.

  “You hear me, girl?” This man with the cold eyes pushes me again. As if his abuse is going to miraculously make me know the answers to his questions.

  Struggling to maintain my focus, I blink up at him through tear-filled eyes. “I don’t know anything. I’m nothing to them.”

  He already sent a video to Lilith and the guys hours ago, and nothing. This deranged man has no idea how little I mean to any of them. “I guess we’ll just have some fun before they get here, then.”

  “Please don’t,” I cry out. I can’t handle any more pain. My tolerance is low.

  After the beating he gives me to prove his point, I know unconsciousness is coming soon. I can only pray Carver is concerned enough to come to my aid.

  2

  Carver

  “Mercy,” I hiss as Cas speeds through the streets to an old abandoned boathouse in the Highlands. “Pain.” The feel of the blade as I roll it up and across my forearm helps keep my control in check. “Blood.”

  “Christ, Carver, would you just hang the fuck on?” Dimitri growls from his seat beside me. I’ve felt his gaze shooting from me to Daniel in the back for the last twenty minutes, and I’m sure I’ve made them both nervous. In fact, I’m sure Cas and Atticus are a little worried that I’ve finally flown the nest, too.

  “He touched her,” I bark as Mercy dives into the empty seat between us. She slices through the leather like it’s warm butter. Not a sound, just one complete fluid action.

  “Carve, man, you’ll fucking scare her.” Castiel looks to me from the mirror. He knows me better than most. Understands the demons I carry deep in my black soul.

  “Meadow is mine. She won’t be scared.” I frown when he laughs at me.

  Atticus turns in his seat. “Man, you are, hands down, the scariest motherfucker on the face of the earth. How she hasn’t gone screaming for the hills yet baffles the mind.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “But, dude, she likes you. You don’t frighten her.” I grin at Atticus’ words because he proves my point. “Meadow also hasn’t seen the killer in you. She’s only seen obsessive Carver.”

  “So what?” I may not understand all these fucking social rules, but I know that what’s mine is mine, and nothing will change that.

  Dimitri chuckles beside me. “He’s trying to tell you that Meadow is innocent. She doesn’t understand anything about your life. Your darkness, the killer constantly lurking inside. That is going to terrify her.”

  I don’t fucking like the sound of this shit. “I have to hide who I am so she’ll accept me? Be mine?” Why the hell is this so damn confusing. King and Luther didn’t have this problem.

  “Not hide,” Daniel speaks. “Ease her into it. Don’t expose her to your bestial side until you’re sure she can mentally handle it.”

  “What the kid said.” Cas grins again.

  I don’t say anything else because I don’t know how to digest this fucking shit. I’ve never worried about emotions before. Hell, until the day I laid eyes on Meadow, I didn’t think I had any. King would toss bodies my way when I was spinning out of control, and my bloodlust would be sated. My anger, fueled by some unknown rage, was always calmed.

  When King and Cas found me ten years ago, I was a skinny fucking runt on the streets. They used to say I was squirrely because I could make my way in anywhere, anytime I wanted. I had more dirt on King’s competition than even he did.

  It wasn’t long before I started to pack on the muscle and move up in the ranks to become his most loyal and fierce warrior. I would die for King—any of the brothers for that matter—and I have killed for them.

  What Cas and Dimitri are saying now is that I have to not kill for Meadow. I have to push the beast as far away as I can to keep her sane. I don’t believe that’s within me to do. I run head first into the fire. I shed blood as quickly as a gun fires a bullet. Stopping my true nature is going to be about as easy as taming a lion.

  Growing up without a mother’s love, I don’t know how to emote and be tender. My father and his partner used me as a punching bag or a cutting board. I have tattoos that layer my body to hide the scars I bear. I’m sure some headshrinker would have a fucking field day with me and my warped desire to create pain out of beauty.

  “Five minutes out,” Daniel says, and the atmosphere in the vehicle changes from intense to deadly.

  “Carver.” Atticus points a finger at me. “You wait on the go ahead. We need to make sure the building is clear.” My only reply is to snort at his clear command. He won’t hold me back, and I’m sure he knows it. Thomas is mine, and no one is about to keep me from him.

  Parked a mile away from the structure, I only stop long enough to grab a vest from the back. I hear another vehicle pull up as I start the trek to where my future is being brutalized.

  “Carver, wait a fucking minute!” King calls as he runs to catch up to me from the SUV sitting behind ours.

  “Careful, boss man, your suit will get dirty.” I smirk.

  “Stop being a fucking idiot, rein your goddamned self in, and make a plan.” He stops when I ignore him. “You’ll get her killed, Carve.” That stops me. “She’s going to need you, and covered in blood isn’t the way to get her out.”

  My muscles ripple with tension as I breathe heavily, waiting, needing to cause harm to the man who’s tried to ruin our lives repeatedly.

  “What would you have me do, brother?” I snarl the last word like a curse. “When he had Lilith, it was guns a blazing, and we took every motherfucker out.”

  “And we lost McCray,” Luther says, coming up behind us.

  “I won’t let him get away this time. He’ll pay for this. For Meadow, Lil, Tal, Cat.” I stare at Luther coldly. “Ariel.” She was the one most at risk, went through the darkest, deepest, depths of hell. She wears her vengeance like I crave murder.

  “None of them would want him getting away. Nor would they want you losing out on the peace they think Meadow will bring you because you’ve scared her off.” Cas tries to reason now.

  I hadn’t known I was looking for peace, but it’s what she brings me by just being in her presence.

  Stepping forward, all three men part as I get closer. “Then what the fuck is your plan?”

  “Me,” Daniel pipes up from his position by Atticus. Dimitri snarls behind his back.

  “Danny-boy is getting my girl back?” I can’t hide the laughter.

  “Daniel’s the only one Thomas doesn’t know about. He has no idea what he looks like, so yeah, Danny-boy is getting your fucking girl back.” The possessive growl Dimitri displays makes me wonder…

  “Enough! One more bruise on that girl and Lilith is going to have my dick on a goddamned platter. Let’s go!” King barks a command, and from his mood, we all know that while Lil has been aloof in regards to her sister, she cares a little too deeply.

  As the plan is laid out for Luther, Atticus, and two others to go in through the back, Dimitri, King, and Castiel will take the side windows with men at their back. Danny-boy and I will be going from the front. Only, I’ll be in the trees hiding, covering his six.

  From what we can tell, there isn’t anyone with Thomas. The land he’s on is abandoned and just off-shore of a lake that doesn’t get much boat traffic.

  I watch as Daniel approaches the front of the small boathouse that resembles a guesthouse and lightly knocks on the door, calling out, “Hello, anyone home?”

  I have to admit the kid plays an innocent-enough lost tourist as he searches the side windows for any movement. As soon as I see a curtain move from three windows to the left of the door, I know we’ve got him. I can tell his beady fucking eyes anywhere.

  “What do yo
u want?” Thomas pulls the door open, looking exhausted and slightly weak. I’d feel pity for any other man, but he’s got tiny blood splatters on his naked torso, and that’s when my control slips.

  I know that blood.

  The pain-filled moans I imagine from each hit he landed on her.

  Meadow-mine is in there, and she’s hurt.

  In front of me is the cause for all of her pain, and I can’t hold the raging beast back any longer.

  Fuck guns!

  Knives…they’re where my heart lies.

  They contain the pain I aim to dish out. A sharp blade cuts deeper than a bullet does, and McCray is about to find out just how deep.

  “Motherfucker!” I hear the sentiment growled, but I don’t know by whom. I have tunnel vision, and right now, the kid is in my way as I charge my prey.

  My feet carry me forward on soundless steps. My body tackles McCray’s to the ground, and I hear the plunk of metal on the floorboards. Mercy finds her way through his palm, then arm, across his cheek. I’m in a trance as I feed on his fear. I suck the air from his body with a swift punch to his kidney. In the background, noise begins to escalate. Crying, talking, yelling. Words filter through my brain as I feel hands grabbing at my shoulders, trying to remove me from my mission.

  My sole focus is the man beneath me.

  Until I hear it…

  The one voice that soothes my beast.

  “Carver, please, help me.” Meadow’s tinkling voice sounds like a fairy’s that little kids believe in. She has this calming effect I can’t explain, but I don’t want to acknowledge it just yet. I want to kill him. I want to protect her.