Always Someone's Monster Read online

  Table of Contents

  Always Someone’s Monster

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale

  Blurb

  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

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Make Me Your Villain

  Always Someone’s Monster

  By Lani Lynn Vale®

  Text copyright ©2022 Lani Lynn Vale

  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 permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To those that have been taken and mistreated like Cannel was, I hope that one day you find your happy. I hope that you never suffer another day in your life. I hope that one day, there’s an end to human trafficking, and every single monster that participated in it has karma bite him in the ass. Or the law. Or both. Human trafficking is not okay.

  Acknowledgments

  Golden Czermak - Photographer

  My Brother’s Editor & Ink It Out Editing- My editors

  Alyssa Garcia - Cover Artist

  My mom - Thank you for reading this book eight million two hundred and fifty-seven times.

  Kendra, Lisa, Laura, Jessey, Penney, Brandi, Jen, Kathy, Mindy, Barbara & Amanda—I don’t know what I would do without y’all. Thank you, my lovely betas, for loving my books as much as I do.

  Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale

  The Freebirds

  Boomtown

  Highway Don’t Care

  Another One Bites the Dust

  Last Day of My Life

  Texas Tornado

  I Don’t Dance

  The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC

  Lights To My Siren

  Halligan To My Axe

  Kevlar To My Vest

  Keys To My Cuffs

  Life To My Flight

  Charge To My Line

  Counter To My Intelligence

  Right To My Wrong

  Code 11- KPD SWAT

  Center Mass

  Double Tap

  Bang Switch

  Execution Style

  Charlie Foxtrot

  Kill Shot

  Coup De Grace

  The Uncertain Saints

  Whiskey Neat

  Jack & Coke

  Vodka On The Rocks

  Bad Apple

  Dirty Mother

  Rusty Nail

  The Kilgore Fire Series

  Shock Advised

  Flash Point

  Oxygen Deprived

  Controlled Burn

  Put Out

  I Like Big Dragons Series

  I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie

  Dragons Need Love, Too

  Oh, My Dragon

  The Dixie Warden Rejects

  Beard Mode

  Fear the Beard

  Son of a Beard

  I’m Only Here for the Beard

  The Beard Made Me Do It

  Beard Up

  For the Love of Beard

  Law & Beard

  There’s No Crying in Baseball

  Pitch Please

  Quit Your Pitchin’

  Listen, Pitch

  The Hail Raisers

  Hail No

  Go to Hail

  Burn in Hail

  What the Hail

  The Hail You Say

  Hail Mary

  The Simple Man Series

  Kinda Don’t Care

  Maybe Don’t Wanna

  Get You Some

  Ain’t Doin’ It

  Too Bad So Sad

  Bear Bottom Guardians MC

  Mess Me Up

  Talkin’ Trash

  How About No

  My Bad

  One Chance, Fancy

  It Happens

  Keep It Classy

  Snitches Get Stitches

  F-Bomb

  The Southern Gentleman Series

  Hissy Fit

  Lord Have Mercy

  KPD Motorcycle Patrol

  Hide Your Crazy

  It Wasn’t Me

  I’d Rather Not

  Make Me

  Sinners are Winners

  If You Say So

  SWAT 2.0

  Just Kidding

  Fries Before Guys

  Maybe Swearing Will Help

  Ask Me If I Care

  May Contain Wine

  Joke’s on You

  Join the Club

  Any Day Now

  Say it Ain’t So

  Officially Over It

  Nobody Knows

  Depends Who’s Asking

  Valentine Boys

  Herd That

  Crazy Heifer

  Chute Yeah

  Get Bucked

  Souls Chapel Revenants

  Repeat Offender

  Conjugal Visits

  Jailbait

  Doin’ A Dime

  Kitty, Kitty

  Gen Pop

  Inmate of the Month

  Shakedown

  Madd CrossFit Series

  No Rep

  Jerk It

  Chalk Dirty To Me

  Battle Crows MC

  Always Someone’s Monster

  Make Me Your Villain

  For a complete updated list visit lanilynnvale.com/books.

  Blurb

  A few years ago, when his sister went missing, Haggard Crow turned into something he never wanted to be. A killer.

  Even after his sister is rescued a year after she was kidnapped and sold, Haggard ‘Thief’ Crow doesn’t have any plans on changing. He sort of likes the zero fucks given guy that he is now.

  Bonus points, he saves women and children from extreme situations, along with his club and real life brothers by his side.

  After a horrible marriage, Haggard has zero plans of ever finding a woman again. One-night stands not counting, he adores his life as a single man. There are no expectations. No ‘where are yous’ and ‘are you coming homes.’

  The life he chooses to live is a simple one. Until he makes a huge mistake, and he steps over that line between ‘daughter’s best friend’ and ‘a woman he desperately wants.’

  Before long, he can’t stop thinking about her. Can’t stop wanting her. Can’t stop feeling things for her that a man twenty years her senior should never feel for a girl he watched grow up.

  After one lapse in judgment, he decides she needs to go. But the funny thing is, he never expected Sophia Madden to fight back. And dirty at that.

  CHAPTER 1

  Do you know what Texas weather is like? That’s what dating a Texas girl is like.

  -overheard coffee shop conversations

  SOPHIA

  “Can you please, please, please do it for me?” Clementine, my best friend, begged.

  I looked over at her and frowned. “I can, yes. But I have to work tomorrow early. That means I’ll have to get up at five to leave your dad’s place by five-thirty to get to work by six.”

  I’d just started a new job.

  My first ‘big girl’ job, as my dad liked to say.

  A job that I hated.

  No, loathed.

  I’m talking, if there was another job available in Paris, Texas, even if it paid half of what I was being paid now, I’d take it in a heartbeat kind of hated it.

  The first day as a sales rep at Paris Motors, I’d done really well. I’d actually sold my first car before I’d even really been on the clock.

  Unfortunately for me, having done that, I’d taken the commission out of another woman’s pocket. A woman that’d been on the phone with a client who hadn’t purchased a car like my client—the one that I got a thousand dollar commission off of—she hadn’t been very happy.

  From that point forward, I’d spent the majority of my time at the car dealership trying to keep my head attached to my body.

  Each morning, I’d get there and find out that I was assigned to work with Blakely, and I seriously wanted to commit suicide by bus.

  Or maybe golf cart.

  Whatever worked at this point…

  “I do hate it,” I admitted. “But I can’t quit. Quitting means admitting that she’s right, and she’s fucking not. So I’m going to keep working there, and I’m going to show up in my fucking short dress and cleavage-baring top and get my fucking commission.”

  “You can do all that, still go workout, and get to work on time, while also watching our dog,” she pus
hed.

  I sighed.

  A few years ago, Clementine’s dad had purchased a family protection dog. Honestly, he was great, did some awesome protecting, but the damn dog couldn’t be left alone because he got bored easily.

  When he didn’t have someone to protect, he occupied himself by eating the walls.

  And, since Clementine’s dad was out of town on business, and Clem’s parents had recently gotten an official divorce, that meant that Trista, Clem’s mom, wasn’t there either.

  Leaving Clem the only one to watch Body.

  “I realize that you think that I’m a whore for…” I held up my hand to stop Clem’s words.

  “Clem,” I said carefully. “I never said you were a whore.”

  “You’re looking at me like I’m about to mutate into a disease you don’t want any part of,” she countered.

  I wasn’t.

  Not really.

  I just couldn’t believe that she was going to go to Las Vegas, in a dress that short, with a man she didn’t know, and a friend that I wasn’t sure that I liked all that much.

  If I didn’t have to work, I would’ve forced myself on them so I could go and keep an eye on Clem.

  But Clem was a big girl, I did have work, and I wasn’t going to change her mind.

  “Fine,” I said after a couple more seconds of her pouting. “But please, please, please, will you put on some bike shorts under that? Wearing something that short means that when you bend over, people will see what you’re working with.”

  “What who’s working with?”

  I looked up at my dad and smiled. “Clem’s going to Las Vegas, and she thinks that wearing this black dress will get her laid.”

  My dad’s eye twitched as he turned his gaze on my best friend.

  Clem’s face went a rapid red as she shifted in her seat. “Soph…”

  I knew, just as well as she did, that she harbored some sort of weird crush on my dad.

  I wasn’t sure why, or to what extent she felt it, but I knew that she found my dad attractive.

  Kind of like how I found her dad attractive.

  Attractive in a prematurely silvering, jacked, sexy beast of a bearded man kind of way.

  My ‘attraction’ bordered on ‘intense.’

  Not that Clem knew the depths of my attraction to her dad.

  In fact, I had a feeling she was pretty oblivious to it all.

  Because had she known of my obsession with her dad, she wouldn’t be asking me to go stay at his house.

  She would understand the kind of temptation that would put me in.

  “I would put on some shorts and a t-shirt with some comfortable tennis shoes,” my dad suggested, not even looking my way. “Walking up and down the Strip will be a nightmare.”

  Clem scoffed. “Not any worse than running that half-marathon in heels like the one we ran together last spring.”

  It was early fall now, and it was on the verge of switching from summer one to summer two heat temperature-wise.

  We were at a balmy ninety-seven degrees, and it wasn’t even eight in the morning yet.

  Today was going to suck.

  Especially seeing as how I had to sit outside nearly most of the day to actually get to talk to a customer. Blakely, who now had to conduct all of her business outside, couldn’t move indoors without being forced to give me a customer to work with every now and then.

  “No,” my dad agreed, filling his thermos up for work. “Guess I’m headed to work. Shout if y’all need anything.” He paused next to where Clem was pushing some applesauce around on her plate.

  “For what it’s worth,” he spoke softly. “I think you should wear what I suggested. You never know what could happen on those streets. And you in that dress? Something is bound to happen. You just have to be able to control the situation.”

  Before Clem could say anything more, my dad moved to me and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I’ll be home around eleven. If you need me when you’re there, just text or call.”

  My dad knew me so well.

  He also looked rough today.

  Almost a year ago to the day, my brother had lost his life at an event he was working for a popular country singer. During that event, a bomb had exploded, taking my brother and nearly the country singer with it.

  My dad was obviously devastated when news of Jasper’s death arrived, leaving us all to struggle a bit as my dad checked out. As in, checked out, checked out.

  The only thing I’d seen that actually made him ‘participate’ in his life the last couple of months had been just last week when about twenty-five officers from the state highway patrol for Elliott County constables showed up in his parking lot thinking that he’d been shot.

  It was only the last couple of weeks that I’d started to see slivers of the man that he used to be.

  “Do you need any eggs?” Clem asked.

  I blinked at her odd, random, off-the-wall question. “For what?”

  Clem never ceased to surprise me.

  “To donate,” she said. “I’m running by the women’s shelter on the way to the airport.” She paused and looked at me over her shoulder before leaning in and asking, “Are you sure that I’m fit enough to do this one?”

  I had no clue what the hell she was talking about.

  “Clem…” I started. “What are you talking about right now?”

  “Sorry, I think I’m having half of this conversation in my head.” She paused again. “I want some of your eggs from your chickens to donate to my women’s shelter. Do you have any extra, not do you need any. Also, do you think I’m fit enough to do this marathon?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course, you are. And yes, I have some eggs you can take. About six dozen that I wasn’t able to sell at the farmers’ market on Saturday. My girls should give me plenty more by Saturday morning.”

  Clem did an exaggerated air fist pump, then stood up. “Go get them. I need to leave if I’m going to make my flight on time.”

  I did as she asked, coming back out with not six, but five dozen.

  She frowned at the pile. “Not six?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m going to take a dozen to your dad’s place since I’m going over there.”

  Clem rolled her eyes. “You spoil him.”

  “Giving him eggs is spoiling him?” I asked curiously.

  She started walking toward her car, and I followed her at a slower pace, my bare feet already burning on the concrete of the driveway I’d learned to ride my bike on.

  “Giving him as many eggs as you do, since he has an egg obsession, is spoiling him,” she corrected me. “I’ll text you when I get there. Bye, love you!”

  I waved at her but moved over to the grass to do that, realizing rather quickly that I should’ve put on shoes to make the trip down with her.

  When she was gone and I couldn’t see her car anymore, I used the edges of the grass that needed mowing about a week ago to walk back inside on.

  Once inside, I packed my bag and then got ready for work. When I was done with that, I slipped my chicken boots on and walked outside to let the girls out.

  They all came, flapping and excited, making me laugh.

  “Y’all are going to have to go up on your own tonight,” I said as I fed them. “Because you know that Dad won’t bother counting all of you to make sure you’re inside. Capiche?”

  They didn’t answer me, too busy enjoying their food to give a fuck about the state of their lives later when my dad would shut the coop for me.

  My dad just last year built it for me with Haggard, after I’d all but begged him to let me have chickens.

  He hadn’t wanted them. But eventually he’d given in with Haggard teasing him about being afraid of birds.

  Though he’d given in, the very last thing he wanted to do was deal with them.

  Even if he loved me unconditionally.

  “Bye, girls!” I called out and headed to my car.

  It wasn’t until I was there that I realized that I’d forgotten to change out of my rubber boots that sported cute little chickens on them from Tractor Supply.

  “Shit,” I said as I looked down at the stained and dirty boots.

  I looked up at the dealership and knew that Todd Tracker, the owner, wouldn’t care one bit what I was wearing.

  And honestly, the boots were rather comfortable.

  I just had a feeling I would never hear the end of it from Blakely.