The Blake-Lewin Family Cookbook of Traditional Jewish Recipes – @RABTBookTours @MarkMBello

L’Dor V’Dor—From Generation to Generation II
Cookbook
 
Date Published: 02-27-2022
 
Publisher: 8Grand Publications
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Hi folks, Mark M. Bello, author of the Zachary Blake Legal Thriller Series
here. Family, ethnic identity, holidays, and food are vital components of
the Jewish experience. The delightful family recipes contained in this book
have been handed down, l’dor v’dor—from generation to generation by
precious family members from both sides of my family, some still with us,
others of blessed memory. Somehow, despite tremendous adversity and tragedy,
the Jews and Jewish family traditions have survived. Mitch pacha is
important to me—I am who I am because of the influence and
contributions of my family. My Jewish identity is also why I am so
passionate about social justice—as you may have noticed, most Jewish
holidays celebrate events in history when those in power tried to kill or
harm the Jews. They failed, hence, holiday celebrations. Hopefully, these
recipes will now endure, a lasting tribute to cherished family members and
memories. I hope you enjoy this book, the delightful family stories woven
between the delightful recipes, and the recipes themselves. If you happen to
be Jewish, you will, no doubt, recognize many of these dishes. Perhaps your
own family has created a special version of one or many. If you are not
Jewish, hopefully the stories and recipes will, in some small way, help
provide an better understanding of or connection to the Jewish experience.
Either way, thanks for indulging my family memories as transmitted through
my fictional character, Zachary Blake, Detroit’s King of Justice.
L’Chaim—To Life! Let’s Eat!


Review

This cookbook is in a league of its own. Its full of tradition and things you would expect, it has the extra pizzazz of family stories and nuances that just set it apart. It’s really well done.
 

About the Author


Mark M. Bello is an attorney and award-winning author of realistic fiction
and political-legal thrillers.


Retired from handling high profile legal cases, Mark now gives the public a
front-row seat watching victims fight for justice in our civil and criminal
justice systems. Mark’s award-winning Zachary Blake Legal Thrillers mirror
our times and the events that shape our country.


In addition to being an author and veteran attorney, Mark is a member of
numerous trial lawyer associations and a feature writer for the Legal
Examiner and other popular blog sites. He has written articles for numerous
publications and made guest appearances on radio and talk shows and multiple
podcasts.


In his spare time, Mark enjoys traveling and spending time with his family.
He and his wife Tobye, have four children and eight grandchildren. This is
his first cookbook!

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The Girl Who Escaped by Mark Nolan #promo #releaseday #giveaway #crime #thriller #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours @marknolan

Crime Thriller

Date Published: July 29, 2022.

 

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One month ago, four college girls were abducted. Three were brutally
murdered. One girl escaped.

 

Angie Taylor was traumatized and shocked speechless.

The police think she killed her friends, and then had a mental breakdown.

Her psychiatrist believes she has an emotionally unstable personality disorder.

Can she ever speak up and describe the killer’s face to a police sketch artist?

Is the murderer stalking her right now, eager to finish what he started?

Everyone in the city is on edge, fearing the worst, not sure what to believe.

 

A visit from a determined FBI agent shakes things up and raises the stakes.
FBI Special Agent Brenda Reynolds of the VSRT must investigate whether the
mysterious silent girl is a victim, a killer, or has gone insane.

 

Grab your copy of the suspense thriller everyone is talking about, and
start reading right now.

 

 About the Author

Mark Nolan is an Amazon Bestselling Author and Kindle Unlimited All-Star.
His latest book is titled The Girl Who Escaped.

 

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Wolfe by Tory Richards – @RABTBooktours @ToryRichards

The Biker Next Door Series, Book 1

Romantic Suspense / MC Romance

Release Date: July 15, 2022

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Living next door to each other is torture. Wolfe wants Ella but he
doesn’t have time for relationships. He had an MC to run. Anything
permanent is off the table. Ella, a fun-loving extrovert, thinks she’s
okay with a no commitments kind of relationship. But being with Wolfe only
makes her want him more. They should never have given in to temptation. Can
they find a compromise for happiness?

Review

This was a great read.

Perfect characterization that managed to help me as a reader feel even more invested in the novel.

A great writing style that had such a great story line. I’m glad I got the chance to read this book!

About the Author

 Tory Richards is an author who writes smut with a plot. She’s an Amazon
bestselling author in erotic romance and romantic suspense categories. Born
in Maine, she’s lived most of her life in Florida where she went to school,
married, and raised her daughter. She’s retired from Disney and spends her
time with family and friends, traveling, and writing.

 

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Kairn by Fionne Foxxe Farraday #promo #scifi #romance #erotica #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours @MatesofAlliance

Mates of the Alliance Book 1

Sci-fi / Romance / Erotica

Date Published: May 11, 2022

Publisher: Jan-Carol Publishing, Inc.

 

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Fighting to save a primitive planet targeted by the Alliance’s enemies,
Kairn never expected to find the female who haunted his dreams made flesh
and blood.

Daria’s life revolved around her work. She had given up on finding
romance…let alone love. Earth was now under attack by an evil alien
empire—under siege. Daria is trying to do her job as best she can in
an upside-down world. Then the cavalry arrives…in the form of giant,
gorgeous alien warriors.

These aliens are working toward restoring Earth to the pristine beauty she
used to be. In their charismatic leader, Daria finds the most amazing
partner. Laughter and love with her devoted alien, what’s an Earth girl
going to do but grab on with both hands and hold on tight to enjoy the ride?
After all…what could possibly go wrong?

 

About the Author

Fionne Foxxe Farraday the award-winning author of the 2022 INTERNATIONAL
IMPACT BOOK AWARD for “Best Romance” novel. She also is a medical
professional working in the area of pulmonary and critical care medicine.
After years of working with patients, Farraday faced medical issues in March
2020 that put her on enforced medical leave without call responsibilities.
An avid reader, she soon exhausted her list of books and found herself bored
with TV, leading her to begin outlining the story that would become KAIRN:
Mates of the Alliance. Returning to ICU work during the dark days of the
first Covid-19 wave, Fionne continued writing as a way to cope with the
intense demands and the losses of countless patients. The writing took on a
life of its own as Farraday fashioned the fictional happy endings which were
in short supply in the ICU full of Covid-19 patients.

With her own background in medicine and family members who served in WWII
and Vietnam, Farraday’s books are a salute to all of the medical and
military personnel whose sacrifices allow us to do what we do. A mother,
grandmother, and animal lover, Fionne Foxxe Farraday lives in Cookeville,
TN.

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Adam XY by Zach Cassidy #blogtour #fiction #rabtbooktours

Fiction

Date Published: 4-25-2022

 

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In a world where human males were thought to be a historical curiosity, the
first man in centuries is born.

Adam Walsh III, a grandson of Adam, researches the life of his grandfather,
the first human male to be born in two centuries. After the wars of the
twenty-first century, men were wiped out from the population by a virus.
Through the spermification process, women were able to procreate without
males and soon, men were a thing of the past.

Until Adam that is. Science has never been able to explain his birth, but
from the moment he came out of the womb, Adam found himself under constant
scrutiny, equally hated and admired.

Males are now slowly repopulating the planet, but they remain rare and are
the subjects of hate crimes and persistent accusations. Through his
research, Adam Walsh III seeks to end the bloodshed.

REVIEW

I thought this was a great read that really encompasses so many different elements that make it for a complete read for me.
The writing style was easy to follow along with and helped me keep flipping pages steadily til the end.

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The Silent Count by E.A. Smiroldo #promo #thriller #climate #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours @EASmiroldo

Thriller, Climate Change Fiction

Date Published: July 19, 2022

Publisher: Solstice Publishing

She’s determined to stop climate change before it’s too
late…

Nuclear engineer Dara Bouldin’s life is a mess. She’s paying
off her dad’s gambling debts, reeling from a broken engagement, and
practically invisible at the energy research agency where she works.
Meanwhile, her ex Jericho’s latest single is racing up the charts and
her handsome new colleague Dmitri is friendly with everyone but her.

All around them, wildfires, floods, and other natural disasters have become
the norm. But Dara has an audacious plan to reverse climate change, if only
someone would listen.

Little does she know, someone at the CIA has been paying attention. And
when the public demands action, Dara gets the chance to turn her dream into
reality, with the blessings of Congress and the President. Things are
looking up.

That is until she discovers a secret that thrusts her into the center of a
global conflict that could rewrite history, in dire ways she never intended.
Things are going to change, big time. And the countdown has already
begun.

Be careful what you wish for, Dara.

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The Bones of Amoret by Arthur Herbert #blogtour #mystery #rabtbooktours @herbertwriter

Mystery

Date Published: April 1, 2022

Publisher: Stitched Smile Publications

Narrator: Victor Warren

Run Time: 10 hours, 59 minutes

 

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“Great action, well-told, and authentic with all the nuances and
spirit of small town Texas. Don’t miss it.” -Lone Star Literary Life
Reviews

In this enigmatic follow up to his critically acclaimed debut novel The
Cuts that Cure, Arthur Herbert returns to the Texas-Mexico border with this
chilling mystery set amidst a small town’s bloody loss of
innocence.

Amoret, Texas, 1982. Life along the border is harsh, but in a world where
cultures work together to carve a living from the desert landscape, Blaine
Beckett lives a life of isolation. A transplanted Boston intellectual, for
twenty years locals have viewed him as a snob, a misanthrope, an outsider.
He seems content to stand apart until one night when he vanishes into thin
air amid signs of foul play.

Noah Grady, the town doctor, is a charming and popular good ol’ boy.
He’s also a keeper of secrets, both the town’s and his own. He
watches from afar as the mystery of Blaine’s disappearance unravels
and rumors fly. Were the incipient cartels responsible? Was it a local with
a grudge? Or did Blaine himself orchestrate his own disappearance? Then the
unthinkable happens, and Noah begins to realize he’s considered a
suspect.

Paced like a lit fuse and full of dizzying plot twists, The Bones of Amoret
is a riveting whodunit that will keep you guessing all the way to its
shocking conclusion.

 

INTERVIEW

Of all the stories you could have told, why THIS one?

 

We all have ghosts from our past. This book was an attempt to deal with some of mine.

That’s a pretty cryptic statement.

 

Yeah, I suppose it is. It’s hard to get into without giving away spoilers, but the book is one long speculation on the question, “What if certain events in my life had gone a different way?”

Years ago, my wife and I went to go see the play “Constellations” in Dallas. It was incredibly well done and prompted me to seriously think for the first time about the theory that there are an infinite number of universes, with every possible action and reaction actually existing. That theory holds there would be a universe identical to ours in every way except that I ate oatmeal instead of scrambled eggs for breakfast today as well as universes where JFK’s assassin missed or Japan hadn’t surrendered after the atom bomb or Nixon refused to resign. That means a universe exists where you had the idea for and wrote “Silence of the Lambs” while simultaneously your significant other was in the military where he/she won the Congressional Medal of Honor.

In some part, this novel was an indulgence of that way of thinking.

 

Sounds highbrow?

 

Meh. I don’t think that’s an adjective that’s going to come to mind when most folks read the book. I never, ever lose sight of the fact that my job first and foremost is to spin a good yarn. I’ll leave it up to the VerySeriousPeople™ to “hold a mirror up to society” with their prose. I like to think of my writing as being a lot more like the purpose of the movie “Groundhog Day.” If you’re just in the mood for a fun story to distract you for a period of time, The Bones of Amoret will do you just fine. But for folks who want to dig deeper, there’s something there for them too.

You don’t sound like you take yourself too seriously.

Nope.

Why is that, do you think?

 

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I think it stems from the fact that, working in an ICU, I deal with death and dying every single day. First of all, doing that for a living gives one perspective on what a real problem is, you know? When I hear someone complain about crappy WiFi the first thing that comes to my mind is, “Hey, at least you’re not on a ventilator as we start dialysis on you.” Goddamn first world problems. Second, at the risk of sounding morbid, I think about the eventuality of death a lot. I mean, a LOT. That thought reinforces how trivial most of the things people get fired up about are. So it follows from that the best you can do is enjoy the moment.

You sound like the nihilists in The Big Lebowski.

 

Not at all. I think I’m probably one of the happiest people I know. I’ve got my health, the greatest wife in the world, and a job for which I’m both appreciated and well compensated. To 99% of the world, that’s the trifecta. I’m just saying I’m hyper-aware of the fact that it could all disappear tomorrow, so that makes me enjoy today even more.

Great movie by the way.

Speaking of cinema, of what movie would you say The Bones of Amoret most reminds you?

 

Hmm. I’d say probably All the Pretty Horses, what with the trips into Mexico and the informality of the border, where to go across both gringos and Mexicans just waded back and forth. Personally, several times while hiking in Big Bend I’ve just splashed through the thigh-high waters into the foothills of Mexico with my pack just like John Grady Cole and Lacey Rawlins, and I think those experiences lend verisimilitude to the scenes I wrote.

Interestingly, my brother told me the book reminded him of the feel he got from watching Hell or High Water. Both movies have that Texas desert feel, that grittiness as well as the atmosphere of small town Texas. I think it’s actually testimony to the unchanging nature of the landscape and the townships out there that movies set some fifty or more years apart both give off that same vibe.

 

Are you planning on sticking with the Texas desert and border regions in your upcoming works?

 

That’s a good question. I’ve tentatively set book 3 in Fairbanks, Alaska during the depths of winter. I’ve fallen in love with the wilderness as well as the mindset of Alaska over the last couple of years. Whether it’s the rugged individualism of the people, the stop-and-stare beauty of the landscape, or the total sense of isolation one gets when in the wild up there, I could actually see myself retiring up there except that my wife won’t even discuss it. In the way some people call themselves “outdoorsman”, she calls herself an “indoorsman.” But I have her standing permission to go visit the place as much as I like, so this last February I spent two weeks in an austere cabin in the woods banging out the start of a manuscript for book 3. I’m 15,000 words in, but both my publisher and my writing mentor, NYT Bestseller Nick Russell, have encouraged me for financial reasons to start writing a series. It wouldn’t take too much work to adapt the book to West Texas, but I’m still up in the air about it. I’ve thought seriously about creating a universe in Amoret where subsequent stories take place, sort of like what Stephen King did with Castle Rock. Hopefully you and I’ll be discussing that book about a year from now! In the meantime, if any of your readers would like a free sample of my writing, they can download my collection of short stories called Lockdown HERE. No sign ups required! Turns out there is a such a thing as a free lunch.

About the Author

Arthur Herbert was born and raised in small town Texas. He worked on
offshore oil rigs, as a bartender, a landscaper at a trailer park, and as a
social worker before going to medical school. For the last eighteen years,
he’s worked as a trauma and burn surgeon, operating on all ages of
injured patients. He continues to run a thriving practice in New Orleans
where he lives with his wife Amy and their dogs.

 

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To Snare a Witch: Sisterhood of Evil by Jay Raven #promo #releaseday #darkfantasy #gothic #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours @JayRavenAuthor

To Snare A Witch Book 2

Dark Fantasy, Gothic Horror

Date Published: 26th July 2022

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Terror as a reluctant sorceress discovers that once you enter the deadly
world of magic, there’s no turning back…

Elizabeth Fiennes thought her troubles solved with one desperate act of
enchantment, rescuing her wrongly accused husband Jack from the gallows. But
she soon learns that, in mystical 17th century England, magic is a cruel
mistress and for every spell cast there is a devastating price to be
paid.

Now both face a future of damnation, Elizabeth dragged deeper and deeper
into the mystical life of curses and invocation, while Jack is forced to
abandon every moral belief he once held sacred.

As dark act follows dark act their love and innocence is stretched to
snapping point, projecting them into the heart of a demonic conflict between
the coven who seek to harness Elizabeth’s extraordinary witchcraft
skills and the ruthless magistrate determined to destroy all her kind.

But who will live and who will die?

 

About the Author 

Jay Raven is the author of Gothic chillers and historical horror reminding
readers that the past is a dangerous place to venture, full of monsters and
murderous men. He blames his fascination with vampires, witches and
werewolves on the old TV reruns of horror classics he watched as a teenager,
but living in a creepy old house on the edge of a 500-acre wood may have
something to do with it.

If you would like to be informed of new releases, enjoy bonus short stories
and exclusive behind the scenes material, simply join the Jay Raven VIP
Readers Club. It’s free and you can unsubscribe at any time.

For more details, visit: http://www.jayraven.com

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Snowball the Sherlock Rabbit and the Case of the Missing Humans by Constance Meccarello Gerson #promo #giveaway #releaseday #childrensbook #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours @Meccarello

 

Children’s Book

Date Published: 07-26-2022

 

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Snowball the Sherlock Rabbit is on the hunt again. This time, Snowball is
asked by his birdie friends for help to find their missing humans.
Snowball’s fellow rabbits join into search.

 

 

 

 

About the Author

Constance Meccarello-Gerson was born in Poughkeepsie N.Y.  She is a
graduate of Florida Southern College with a BA in Acting. She also attended
the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. HB Studio, Actors Studio, in
NYC.  She is a member of SAG, Alpha Gamma Delta, Alpha Si Omega. Her
MFA in Acting is from Brooklyn College.  She has appeared on TV, film,
and on stage in NYC. For 20 years she taught as a mentor and teacher of
English and Theatre arts for the New York City Department of Education and
for the University at Santa Cruz. She also taught for ten years as a Speech
Coordinator at Touro College. She was an executive at Bloomingdales. Her
writing as appeared in Reflections, also in the Best American Poets
series.  Her Hassle High cozy mystery series is on Kindle and Amazon.
Currently she lives in NYC with her husband Alain, a parrot named Benji, and
lots of fish.

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Styx by Marteeka Karland #promo #comingsoon #excerpt #mcromance #romanticsuspense #rabtbooktours @changelingpress @marteekakarland @RABTBookTours

Salvation’s Bane MC

Motorcycle Club Romance, Age Gap, Suspense

To Be Released: August 5 2022

Publisher: Changeling Press

 

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Jolene: I’ve lived my entire life in the shadow of a feud that ended
over a hundred years ago. But try telling that to my family. To them, the
Hatfields and McCoys were never met to mix. Or be in the same town really.
So when I gave my virginity to a Hatfield, my McCoy family disowned me
entirely. And that Hatfield I trusted? He set me up to be raped by his kin.
So yeah, my life’s a shit show. Then another Hatfield picked me up out
of a ditch and saved me. I thought he’d hurt me, too, but he turned
out to be the kindest man I’ve ever met. Now I need to shake him long
enough to get the revenge I need from those who hurt me. I just hope when
I’m done, he’ll take me back.

Styx: I just came for the car — a rare Mercedes Maybach the club intends
to sell for a good chunk of change. I long ago left any family I had in this
little hick town in West Virginia and only came back because I knew the
area, and the man who had the car was my family’s rival, Marshall
McCoy. So when I found his daughter in a ditch on the side of the road,
beaten and bloody, my first instinct — and that of my MC brothers –
was set up. But I can’t leave her to the mercy of her family. I know
there will be hell to pay. I just didn’t count on my sweet little
hillbilly being hellbent on revenge. As I fall deeper and deeper under her
spell, I find I can’t deny her anything. Even if what she wants might
break her.

Warning: Styx includes scenes of sexual abuse and vigilante justice that
may be triggers for some readers. Guaranteed HEA.

EXCERPT

All rights reserved.

Copyright ©2022 Marteeka Karland

Styx

How could one place be so God-awful redneck? Always had been. Every fucking
neighborhood in town had at least one car up on concrete blocks and numerous
pink flamingos in the front fucking yard. Nothing had fucking changed since
I was a teenager.

Red had a tip on a Mercedes Maybach that was supposedly being held in
storage until the right buyer came along. In this fucking hick town. I had
my doubts, but Red said it had been confirmed by our intel guy, Ripper. If
Ripper said that’s the way it was? Well. I’d gotten on a plane
to fucking West Virginia, hadn’t I?

My job was to scout. Using the little gizmos Red’s woman, Rosanna,
had developed, I had no doubt I could steal the car. The problem was getting
it out of storage and into the enclosed trailer. Again, Ripper was on the
issue.

Poison and Lock pulled up to the designated area about half a mile from
where the car was being stored. They’d driven a nondescript Ford with
a beat-up-looking trailer, and another, smaller car to act as lookout for
the payload on the way home. Smokey and the Bandit style. The car was rough
looking, but souped up under the hood. Hopefully, the extra horsepower
wouldn’t be needed, but better to have it and not need it than to need
it and not have it. Neither looked new, nor did they appear in disrepair.
The vehicles were designed to blend in. To not stand out anywhere they
went.

The plan was to load the car and get out of this place as quickly as
possible. Use the app to give the thing a new VIN number and program our own
FOB. Lose ourselves on the interstate, then the lesser traveled highways off
the interstates on a roundabout route back to Salvation’s Bane and
Red’s underground garage. Once that was done, we’d ditch the
truck and trailer and begin the rest of the cleaning process on the car.
Which was the easy part.

I studied the area around the storage building from the remote screen
provided by a drone. It wasn’t more than a barn on the outside, but
the reality was, inside the barn was a climate controlled warehouse with
state-of-the-art security. I knew the place well because it was owned by
Marshal McCoy. I’d been poking my nose in the business of the McCoys
since I was a kid.

McCoy was well off, having a legitimate business of some sort in the
community. But his real money came from smuggling. This barn and a couple
others like it were the reason for that success. From the outside, it looked
like a big tobacco barn. Inside, the place was locked down tighter than a
snare drum. Which was the beauty of it, I supposed.

Security outside the building was just as tedious. There were cameras all
over the place. And traps. Thankfully, McCoy believed in electronics.
Heavily. Always had. All the scouting we’d done had turned up a few
rudimentary things, but nearly every single safeguard relied on electricity
and electronics. Ripper had scoffed and told us it was too good to be true,
that we needed to really recon the hell outta the place. We’d found a
few pits and spikes and other simple shit that looked like it hadn’t
been well maintained. We’d left that part until the evening we’d
planned to do the job. Just in case someone did a manual security
sweep.

Our planning was meticulous. Starting two months before we were ready to
make our move, Ripper had messed with security at the same time he kept
anyone interested in the car off the scent. If McCoy was going to upgrade
things or do an extensive check, we’d know it well in advance. Ripper
had the guy’s entire place bugged. House, office and every car they
owned. McCoy thought he was the smartest man in the room, but the fact was,
he was on the verge of losing everything to a rival. Montgomery
Hatfield.

Made me snicker to think about it. Generations of Hatfields and McCoys.
They’d officially ended the feud in the eighteen nineties,
symbolically in the early two thousands. But here in Appalachia, it was
alive and going strong. Just… more civilized. At least on the
surface.

Which was why we were here. Montgomery Hatfield was a half brother to my
father, the bastard. While I didn’t associate with that side of the
family — other than my half brother in Black Reign, Shotgun — I did enjoy
taking them down a peg or two. If I could take down Marshall McCoy while I
was doing it? So much the better. Call it a character flaw.

“How’s it going, Ripper?” I’d been touching base
with the tech guy regularly. If there was a problem, we needed to identify
it before we backed the trailer in.

“All’s quiet. Same as always. They raised a fuss the first few
times I blacked them out, but once they got used to their network coming
back up, they quit worrying about it. Made a couple calls to the company,
who charged them a bunch of money to go to each site and check on things.
After that, they sent one of old man McCoy’s boys out, and he’s
not the most thorough tool in the box. Last three times it’s gone out,
no one bothered to check.”

“Good. Where is everyone now.”

“Far enough away you’ll have at least an hour before anyone
could possibly show up.” The man snorted. “Bit of a ruckus
goin’ on with one of his girls. Not sure what, but it’s keeping
everybody busy.”

“So, we ready?” I was anxious to get moving. While I had
confidence in the operation, something else was bothering me.

“Get into position. Once you’re ten minutes out, I’ll
throw the switch.” Ripper had everything bugged at Salvation’s
Bane, including all our vehicles. He said it let him know when one of us was
in trouble. I figured he was just a control freak.

“Guess we’re good to go then.” I signaled to Poison and
Lock. “Move it out.” My two MC brothers were in the truck
pulling the trailer while I was in a separate truck we’d had waiting
when we started scouting two months ago. Last thing we wanted was for the
two vehicles to be seen together before the heist.

It was just past four in the morning. The darkest part of the night. The
moon was covered by clouds. The night was still. Even the nocturnal
creatures were settling down for the day to come.

There were two routes into the place where we were going. Poison and Lock
had taken a different route than me. Mine took me past the McCoy family
home. Remembering that place from my early childhood made me want to fire my
gun at the windows as I passed. I hated that fucking place. Old man McCoy
was a fucking bastard. Always was. Being a Hatfield, I’d never
actually been in the house, but I knew some of his kids. The boys were all
bullies. Some of the girls, too. His wife had died a few years back,
I’d heard. And now he was starting a whole new brood of kids to mold
in his image. That massive house represented everything in Williamson I
hated.

I’d gotten about six miles away from the house when something caught
my attention. A small form huddled on the side of the road. I almost missed
it. Looked like a boy or a small woman wearing a backpack. The figure was in
an orange jumpsuit, which was the only reason I’d seen it.

I started to just go on. We didn’t have a lot of time here. But,
Goddammit, I couldn’t just pass this person by.

“Guys, I’ve got a problem. Keep to schedule. If you don’t
hear from me in five minutes, abort.”

“What’s going on?” That was Ripper’s voice. Of
course he was monitoring.

“Not sure. Switching on my body cam so you can see what I’m
seeing. Get an ID on the guy.”

“Guy? What guy?”

“There’s someone on the side of the road. Could be someone in
trouble,” I said.

“Could be a fuckin’ trap. What the fuck, Styx?” Ripper
didn’t get upset too often, but when he did, he tended to go
nuclear.

“Just keep an eye out. Give me five minutes. I’ll either leave
him or load him in the truck.”

“Fuck!”

“Don’t give yourself a nosebleed, Ripper. If it’s a trap,
I’ll fucking kill the bastard.”

“Take an earwig. I want to stay in communication every fuckin’
second, Styx.”

“Roger that,” I said, putting the truck in park and stepping
out. Though the truck’s headlights shone brightly, I snagged a
flashlight along with the gun at my hip. If this was an ambush, I
wasn’t getting caught with my fucking pants down.

The figure held up a trembling hand, blocking the light of the vehicle from
her face. And I could tell by the small, delicate hand it was a female. I
shined my light around the area but didn’t see anything. Just to be
safe, I turned my body, letting Ripper get a good look around in case I
missed something. With his computer enhancement shit, he’d see danger
long before I did.

“Don’t see nothin’,” Ripper murmured. I could hear
him typing and flipping switches. “Can’t say a hundred percent,
but I think you’re alone.”

I eased toward the figure huddling in the ditch. “Hey, there,”
I called. “You good?” No response. “Girl?” Still
nothing. The hand blocking her face from the light still fluttered
violently. That’s when I noticed the blood on her fingers and
streaking her hand. “You OK?” The hand dropped, and there was a
slight whimper as she lay still once more.

“Ripper?” I had a sinking feeling this girl was in a world of
trouble. There was no way I could leave her. At this point, I was praying
for an ambush, because I absolutely could not afford to be held up by
someone in real distress. And I was certain that, if this woman was as hurt
as I thought she was, she’d need medical attention.

“You’ve got four minutes. Get her in the truck.”

 

 

About the Author

Erotic romance author by night, emergency room tech/clerk by day, Marteeka
Karland works really hard to drive everyone in her life completely and
totally nuts. She has been creating stories from her warped imagination
since she was in the third grade. Her love of writing blossomed throughout
her teenage years until it developed into the totally unorthodox and
irreverent style her English teachers tried so hard to rid her of.

Author Contact Links

Instagram & Twitter: @marteekakarland

Publisher’s Instagram/Facebook/Twitter: @changelingpress

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