Page 1 of Brutal Legacy

PROLOGUE

Georgia

The shots rang out in the restaurant, sending panicked cries and screams up from the patrons. People hit the floor, and I was no different. Broken glass littered the tile, cutting into my knees.

I crawled under the table. Someone was crying, and someone else shushed them. Whimpers of fear filled my ears. A room full of people desperate to live.

A hard crunch sounded.

Footsteps over shattered glass.

Crunch.

Which way were they going?

Crunch.

Were they getting louder?

Crunch.

Dark dress shoes appeared in front of my hiding place. Shiny, leather brogues. They looked expensive. Handmade for sure. My terrified brain fastened onto the mundane to keep me from screaming. I clamped my hand over my mouth to muffle any sound from escaping.

The shooter shifted, taking a step to the left, and I nearly fainted with relief as they walked around my table to the side.

He’d gone. Moved away to terrorize another table.

The relief had barely hit when the table above me scraped hard over the floor. One second, I was cocooned in reassuring darkness, the next, I was crouching in a pitiful, cowering ball while the table shielding me flipped over and crashed on the floor.

Light stung my eyes. I was totally exposed. I could feel the gunman standing over me. His presence sent goosebumps over my skin… like Death himself had come to collect me.

This is it, Georgia, the end of the line.

Maybe I should have gone to church once in a while in the last fourteen years, or believed in something… maybe then, kneeling before my end wouldn’t feel so desolate.

What did I have to show for my thirty-three years on the planet? A shitty apartment with half a dozen unfinished designs? A broken heart that had never healed right, and a grudge the size of the moon? So big, that fourteen years of carrying it had destroyed the possibility of anything else good in my life.

Silence had fallen and stretched out endlessly. Was this when your life flashed in front of your eyes? Was this like in the movies when everything moved in slow motion? Or was the man with the gun really just standing over me, staring down?

Did he want me to glance up at him before he killed me? Just in case that was true, I kept my chin tilted mulishly down. I was nothing if not stubborn as fuck.

“Get up,” a deep voice commanded.

I tensed even more. Everything screamed at me to refuse.

“Get up, now, or I’ll shoot a person in this room every ten seconds until you do,” the deep voice continued, unbothered. Like he wasn’t just threatening to kill people.

“Ten, nine, eight…” he started.

I pushed myself to my feet, fighting a gasp as my hands ground into the jagged glass on the floor.

“I’m up. Don’t hurt anyone else.” My voice was surprisingly stronger than I’d thought it would be.

“I won’t as long as you do what I say, but every second we waste here, their lives are in danger.”

His odd wording sent my eyes up to his face, finally.

He was tall, well over six feet, and dressed like he’d been in a stock portfolio meeting and decided to step out and shoot up a restaurant. A custom-made black suit, crisp white shirt. He had that aura of power that only emanated from the truly wealthy.

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