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  HIDING

  Stranger, Book 5

  A Romantic Suspense

  N.M. CATALANO

  HIDING

  Copyright © 2017 N.M. Catalano

  Published by N.M. Catalano

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this work may be copied or reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without the express consent of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental, except in actual circumstances.

  Purely for entertainment purposes for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  ISBN-13:

  978-1544025537

  ISBN-10:

  154402553X

  DEDICATION

  This is for all the survivors. The sensitive souls, the dreamers, the troubadours, the ones with the big hearts, the beaten souls, and an armor made from a river of tears.

  This is for the ones who suffer silently, but give the world the façade it expects.

  This is for the ones who are stronger because they hurt.

  Don’t ever give up. <3

  STRANGER, Book 1 Stranger/Evolution Series

  SWITCH, Book 2 Stranger/Evolution Series

  KINK, Book 3 Stranger/Evolution Series

  PERFECT, Book 4 Stranger/Evolution Series

  HIDING, Book 5 Stranger/Evolution Series

  THE ROOSTER CLUB, The Best Cocks in Town

  BLACK INK, Part I, The Black Ink Series

  BLACK INK, Part II, The Black Ink Series

  BLACK INK, Part III, The Black Ink Series

  BLACK INK, The Complete Trilogy

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Books

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Notes From Me

  About The Author

  Other Works

  Life is a

  Sequence of events,

  Moments

  Strung together

  To make memories.

  Those moments are what

  Define us.

  RICO

  PROLOGUE

  About Twenty Years Ago…

  Rico

  “Come on, baby, you belong with me.”

  Isabelle is going to be something someday, then she’ll leave me.

  Who the hell wants some guy who is no good, a gangbanger, who has nothing to offer but grief?

  “No Rico, you belong with me. At school. So we can get out of this shitty neighborhood.”

  She’s always tried to get me to be a goody-two-shoes and do the right thing.

  She doesn’t understand the gang members would beat the shit out of me, then I’d have to do something I know I couldn’t live with. Something so horrible to some innocent fucking everyday Joe, just to prove my loyalty.

  I’d rather be a piece of shit high school drop-out rather than have some poor civilian’s blood on my hands. Just for the sake of saving face.

  If a gang can’t get something from you, if you don’t offer something of value, some kind of benefit, you’re disposable. Or even worse, a liability. A possible witness and a loose end.

  They hate messy situations. But they love torture.

  They would turn you into a lesson, and entertainment.

  I was smart, I stayed out of anyone’s attention. I kept my nose clean and did what I had to. Isabelle’s brother Carlos is a gang member too. He’s a big reason I joined, just because he’s not blood doesn’t mean he’s not my brother. I had to be close to watch out for him. No one was touching him, I’d kill them first, even if they were from our gang. And there was no way in hell I would let her younger brother Jesús join.

  Over my dead body.

  Isabelle doesn’t realize I can’t do anything I want. I can’t tell her. She believes we have a future. I know better. The only future I have is right here on these fucking streets. And I’m going to spend every minute I can with her.

  Because one day she is going to leave me and get out of this hellhole and start a new life, a good life. With someone else. Someone who can give her everything she deserves. Someone who won’t keep her up all night worrying, afraid if they’re dead or alive. Afraid someone’s going to put a bullet in the back of your head.

  But NO ONE will ever love her as much as I do.

  She is my life. My only reason for living.

  She’s going to leave me, but I will never leave her.

  “Not today. Let’s take the day off, you deserve it. Negro is waiting around the corner.”

  Negro, Spanish for black. Alexander Black, white boy, is Negro. I’m his family, and he’s mine. We’ve done some shit together, things even Isabelle doesn’t know. If she did, she’d never let me touch her with these hands again. Black’s not gang, he’s family, but he’s the toughest son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever known.

  “Don’t you ever go anywhere without him, Rico?”

  Isabelle’s got her hand on her hip giving me a death glare. The bus just left that she had to catch in order to get to school on time. She hasn’t said she’s coming but I know. She never tells me no.

  “We’re all we’ve got. Let’s go,” I tell her giving her the smile that always gets her as I thread my fingers with hers.

  I love the way her hand feels in mine. It makes me feel wanted.

  “You’ve got me, Rico. I’m your girlfriend, and you know I love you.”

  Her words twist my heart until I can’t breathe. I wonder how long it’s going to be that way.

  Taking her hand, I pull her around the corner where Negro’s waiting, leaning against the building, foot propped up against the wall, with a cigarette dangling between his lips.

  “Let me get one of those, Alex,” Isabelle asks as we approach.

  Negro pulls the pack of Marlboro red’s out of his back jeans pocket and tips out two smokes, one for me and one for Isabelle.

  “He making you skip school again, Iz?” Alex asks smirking.

  “Yeah, but it’s the last time. I’m gonna make an honest man out of him yet,” she attempts to look sternly at me, fighting the pull of her lips trying to turn into a smile.

  “Hmmmph, good luck,” Negro mumbles.

  “Shut up, asshole,” I clip him upside his head. “You’re just jealous.”

  “Are you nuts? Jealous your girlfriend tells you what to do? No thank you, I’m good,” Negro pushes off the wall and lights our cigarettes. “You two ready?”

  “Yeah, bro, let’s go,” I reply.

  The three of us head out with nowhere in particular to go, but it doesn’t matter. The city is ours, no place is off limits. We go where we want, when we want, how we want.

  We are limitless, boundless, and free
. For this time, the world is ours, the three of us are invincible, inseparable, bound together by youth, by freedom, and by the façade of a perfect life spread out before us. For this small moment of time, anything is possible. Nothing else exists but this perfect day.

  The first drop of rain hits Isabelle on the eye.

  “Rico,” she looks to the sky, “it’s going to start pouring.”

  “Quick, down this alley. It’ll block the rain.”

  I lead her quickly down the narrow alley that popped up between buildings as Alex pulls up the rear.

  “It looks like the sky’s about to open up on us,” Negro says as he shakes the water from his hair.

  “We can wait it out here. It should be over in a few minutes.”

  I pull Isabelle close and wrap my arms around her. Her face has droplets on it. I lick every one before I kiss her. She tangles her arms around my neck and kisses me back, not the slightest bit embarrassed by Alex’s presence. He’s one of us, we’re like the Three Musketeers, the only time he’s not with us is when I’m making love to her.

  “Well, well, well. Look at what the sewer rats dragged in,” the strange sneer jolts my attention from Isabelle.

  Fuck!

  The rival gang, Los Muertos. Not just one, five guys approach us. Each of them sneering, each of them getting closer and closer as they surround us.

  “What the fuck do you want?” I push Isabelle behind me while Alex moves to stand directly at my side, blocking them from her as well.

  “Seems it’s lucky for us,” the leader of the crew begins, “that we came around. Isn’t it boys?” he turns to his homeboys closing in on us.

  “Yeah, El Jefe is going to be real, real happy,” one of the lowlifes laugh.

  “Wasn’t a couple of your boys over on our turf trying to steal our business?” the pig in front of me cocks his head and gets in my face.

  “Fuck you, man,” I take a step a closer.

  “Yo, Junior, get the bitch, it seems like me and this boy got to have a little talk,” he sneers at me again.

  “You fucking touch her, I’m going to kill you!” I snarl.

  The chubby one with the bad acne grips Isabelle’s arm behind me.

  That’s when all hell breaks loose.

  My fist just misses contact with the side of his fat head before he’s got Isabelle yanked out from behind me. The leader throws himself at me at the same moment, knocking me off balance, before I can grab her back. Isabelle’s a wildcat, kicking, punching, and dragging her nails down his face. Two guys jump me while the other two are pounding on Alex. The sounds of flesh smashing flesh, curses, grunts, shuffling ricochet off the walls of the alley. Spit and blood go flying through the air splattering on whatever’s closest.

  I’m insane with rage, plowing my way through their fists and kicks. I can hear Alex taunting the guys pounding into him next to me, “That all you got, you fucking pussy’s?!”

  I’ve often wondered if the boys got a death wish.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the moment the pimple faced prick’s hand lands across Isabelle’s face.

  I lose it.

  Taking the leader by the neck in a chokehold, he almost passes out as I tighten my arm around his throat trying my damndest to crush his esophagus as one of his little bitches keeps wailing his fists into my skull. I don’t feel a thing, I’m numb on fury and the need to get to Isabelle. The guy’s face is turning blue as he weakens little by little in my grip.

  The rest goes by in slow motion.

  Every sound, every motion, every scent and noise is forever burned into my mind to torment me the rest of my life.

  A gunshot.

  The acrid smell of sulfur.

  All movement ceases as if frozen in time.

  Isabelle’s scream.

  God, the sound cuts through me and rips me apart, instantly gutting me and tearing my heart from my chest. I thought I’d never feel pain like I did when I heard it.

  I was wrong.

  She crumples to the ground as red flows from her like a river.

  “Come on, let’s get the fuck out of here!” one of the attackers grabs the sputtering man clenched in my arms, he wheezes as he drags air back into his heaving body.

  “NONONONOOOOOO!” I scream as I run to her, Alex right beside me. She’s coughing as I gently cradle her beautiful head in my lap. “Baby, you’ll be okay, we’ll get you help, you’ll be okay,” I mutter over and over again.

  Blood trickles from the corner of her mouth as it fills it.

  “No, no, no…,” I wipe it away with my sleeve.

  “Rico,” she rasps out, “don’t cry.” Her fingers flicker at her sides.

  I clutch her hand tightly in mine, trying desperately with every fucking thing in me to hold onto her.

  “I’m gonna go call for an ambulance,” Alex chokes out. He takes off.

  “I love you Isabelle, so much, hold on baby, PLEASE!”

  Her eyes meet mine. A soft smile plays on her lips.

  Then they go blank.

  “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

  I scream, and scream, and scream.

  That was the moment she turned into what she really was.

  An angel.

  That was the moment my life was destroyed.

  That was the moment hell became my sanctuary.

  Maria

  CHAPTER 1

  I ran.

  I didn’t know where I was going, I knew where I had come from and what I just did, but I couldn’t stop. I was ODing on vengeance, it gushed through my veins like heroin to a junky. Nothing mattered but getting the fix I craved, righteousness and revenge. That’s all I wanted, exactly what I needed, and I wasn’t stopping until I got what my heart screamed for. I was insane with it, fury thundered in my brain and red clouded my vision. I was on the DeKalb Avenue subway station steps in Brooklyn, NY, when my cellphone rang.

  Fuck!

  My mind was such a mess I almost didn’t hear it, wracked with grief and my heart ripped from my chest. After the call earlier in the morning from my boyfriend’s, Rafi, mother, I hated that sound. He’d been shot and killed earlier before daybreak, the latest victim in the gang wars in our Spanish Harlem neighborhood.

  Blinded by rage and heartache, nothing was going to stop me from getting revenge. I was running from my friend’s apartment whose brother is a cop. I’d told him everything I knew about the drug wars and the gangs, and I’d demanded that he record me. I want those filthy scumbags to fry for what they did to Rafi, I’d do whatever it took to make sure of it.

  I was on a mission, my reward their filthy carcasses bleeding and rotting after being gutted open and tortured.

  They deserved nothing less.

  “Mami, what is it?” my voice is tight.

  “Mijita, DON’T COME HOME!”

  I slam into a brick wall of panic and it stops me dead in my tracks.

  “What happened?”

  No, no, no, no more! I grip the metal handrail tightly as terror rises within me.

  “Julio was just here with three other boys,” her voice is trembling.

  Fucking gangbangers, not boys!

  “They wanted to know where you were, Maria…”

  “Why?” I choke out.

  “I don’t know, but they had a gun, baby,” her voice cracks.

  “Mami, it’s okay,” I can’t drag her into this.

  “NO, IT’S NOT OKAY, THEY ARE LOOKING FOR YOU,” she screams.

  OH GOD, MY FAMILY, WHAT HAVE I DONE?

  Deadly talons obliterate my craving for revenge and immobilize me as I’m sucker punched with reality.

  I can’t beat them.

  Their message is loud and clear. They will come for me, and they’ll enjoy every horrendous minute of it.

  “Go to Port Authority, there will be a ticket waiting for you. You’re going to North Carolina with your aunt and grandmother,” it comes out in a painful rush.

  “No, Mama, I can’t…,”

  �
�You are going! A bus leaves in an hour. And Maria?” she cries.

  “Yes, Mama?” I can’t hold back the sob.

  “I love you, but don’t use your phone again. Your aunt will take care of you. I’ll talk to you when you get there.”

  “Okay,” I sigh heavily.

  “Bye, baby,” my mother weeps softly.

  “Bye, Mama, and I am so sorry…”

  The line goes dead.

  I swipe my Metro card; the only time I’ll ever need it again. I’m leaving my life, my family, everything I have ever known. But the greatest pain is that I won’t get to kiss my mother goodbye, and give my last respects to the only man I have ever loved.

  I’m going to a hick town in God only knows where. With no clothes, no memories of the life I’m leaving, to live with people I don’t even know.

  How did life get so fucked-up so fast?

  As the subway car rocks along the tracks, zips around the turns in the darkened tunnels, my mind recounts the meeting with Officer O’Sullivan, an Irish cop, the latest of a long line of police officers in his family. He vowed he was going to get justice for Rafi’s death. “You have to be patient, things take time,” he’d said.

  How much damn time? How long would those low-life’s walk free with Rafi’s blood on their hands?

  Even though that’s all I want, Julio in jail along with his little posse who follow him around and probably wipe his ass for him, I know it’s not going to end with him.

  I’m well aware that my life as I know it is over. I’m absolutely certain I’ll spend the rest of my days looking over my shoulder and hiding.

  As the train squeals at another stop, sadness threatens to consume me, and I wonder if I could change the past five hours, would I? Would I have not insisted making an official statement with all that I know about the Latin gang, Los Muertos?

  No! I would not change a thing! Rafi is dead, life is over for me, I don’t matter. Everyone in the neighborhood loves my mother, they’ll protect her. Killing an old woman would be too much, even for those demons.

  Isn’t it?

  I have to believe that. If I don’t, I’ll snap, crushed by the weight of the horror of Rafi’s death, and the possible threat to my mother.