Page 1 of True Bastard
Prologue
April 2025, Rapid City, South Dakota...
Something woke me. Not just a sound, but a cold, creeping dread that settled deep in my gut, a familiar companion I’d always tried to outrun. Fear. It clawed at my throat, stealing my breath, leaving me gasping in the suffocating darkness. Sitting up, my instincts screamed at me that I wasn’t alone.
Jake snored next to me, and I reached out and shook him awake.
“What, baby?”
“Someone’s in the house,” I whispered as Jake slowly reached for his gun on the coffee table. I could feel someone behind me, a phantom weight pressing down, the air thick with his unseen presence, like a veil being drawn around me. A shadow, a flicker in the periphery, a silhouette against the faint glow of the stove light. Then it was gone, swallowed by the gloom, but its passage had irrevocably altered the room. The air vibrated, a low hum of menace that seemed to resonate with the frantic thumping of my own heart. My mind, usually a battlefield of anxieties, was suddenly a sharp, clear instrument.
“Run, Kaycee!” Jake roared as he fired at something behind me. His command was absolute, overriding all other thoughts.
I sprang from the couch, a surge of adrenaline transforming me into something desperate, something primal. Like a gazelle, yes, but not bounding across plains. This was a frantic scramble, a mad dash for the illusion of freedom. The front door—my only hope, my only exit. I flung it open, the cool night air a starkcontrast to the suffocating heat of my terror as the sound of more gunfire filled the silence of the surrounding night. My feet hit the driveway. The sheer force of my terror warred with a desperate, ingrained sense of self-preservation.
Don’t look back, baby. Just run. I could hear Jake’s words in my head.
A fraction of a second’s hesitation, a traitorous glance over my shoulder, and that was all it took. Searing pain ripped through my scalp as rough hands seized my hair, yanking my head back with brutal force. My world spun as he flung my body, an unwilling projectile, toward the unforgiving ground.
I barely registered the impact before instinct, raw and unyielding, propelled me back to my feet. The urge to flee was overpowering—a desperate, animalistic need. I lunged again, my muscles screaming, my lungs burning.
But he was faster. And in that crushing moment, as I felt the cold, hard reality of failure settle upon me, a more chilling realization dawned: In my desperate attempt to escape, I had ignored everything he taught me and ensured my capture. I had chosen the immediate path of flight, the seemingly obvious reaction, and in doing so, I had abandoned the faintest possibility of outsmarting him, of finding another way. My regret was a bitter taste, mingling with the dust and the blood already starting to well in my mouth. I had run, but I hadn’t truly fought for my freedom, not in the way he taught me. And the knowledge that I had given up so easily, that I had let instinct override strategy, was a wound far deeper than any physical one he might inflict.
A feral grin filled my vision as he dragged me by my hair back into the house and flung me against the banister. He fisted my hair tighter, pinning me against the hardwood, and I cried out as the spindles bit into my back. I opened my mouth to scream when suddenly cold metal scraped along my teeth.
My heart nearly stopped, and I stilled as he pressed the gun deeper into my mouth. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Jake lying on the floor in my living room. His body prone, riddled with bullets as his black, vacant eyes stared at me.
No, no, no. I won’t scream. I won’t give him the satisfaction.But the instinct was primal, a desperate urge to push back, to shatter the silence with my terror. My mind screamed at me to fight, to kick, to gouge his eyes out, to do anything but endure this humiliation, this violation. But my body was frozen, a coward’s paralysis gripping me.
This is it. This is how it ends.The thought was a poison seeping into my veins. I could feel the tremor of his hand, the cold steel promising violence I knew I couldn’t withstand.
“You scream, and I will fuck your body raw before I blow your fucking head off, then I will gladly fuck your dead corpse.”
I didn’t even drag in a breath. The barrel of his gun sat heavy on my tongue, filling my mouth with the taste of metal. Or was that blood? Sickness twisted in my gut. I’d always prided myself on being strong, on being able to endure. But now, facing this utter annihilation, a tremor of primal fear, so potent it felt like a physical blow, threatened to shatter that resolve.
“I’m going to ask you one motherfucking question, and you will answer me truthfully. Nod if you understand.”
My responding nod was an admission of understanding, of complicity in my own degradation. My body, a vessel of pure, unadulterated terror, betrayed me. This simple act of obedience felt like a thousand tiny deaths, each movement a concession to his power, a violation of the fierce independence I’d fought so hard to cultivate.
“Good girl. Now, where is the fucking brat?”
Karter. He wanted my daughter.
I gasped in pain as my assailant loomed over me. He stretched my arms over my shoulders, straining to the point ofpain. My eyes widened as I finally got a look at him, and I recognized grim determination and death looking back at me. As I processed my shock, the reality of my situation slammed into me, and all I could think about was my little girl and how relieved I was she was with my parents tonight.
A wave of guilt, sharp and unexpected, washed over my fear. I had lied to Karter about what I was doing tonight. I had told her that Jake and I were meeting friends—a small white lie to avoid her worry when all I really wanted was some alone time with my husband.
Just one night to ourselves.
Now, that lie felt like a betrayal, a selfish act that had left me vulnerable and alone.
“Please don’t do this. She’s a baby. She hasn’t lived.”
Every word that left my mouth felt like a confession of weakness, a desperate plea that chipped away at the last vestiges of my dignity.
I was begging. Me, the girl who scoffed at vulnerability, who reveled in her self-reliance.
This was my ultimate failure, not just because of my physical strength, but because of my very identity. I was becoming the person I despised, someone willing to grovel, someone pleading for mercy from a monster. And the worst part? A sliver of me, that dark, unwanted part, wondered if this degradation was what I deserved, all because I fell in love with the wrong man.
