Made for Breaking (The Russells Book 1) Read online

  Made for Breaking

  Lauren Gilley

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Resemblances to real persons or places is purely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-1491010136

  MADE FOR BREAKING

  Copyright © 2013 by Lauren Gilley

  All rights reserved. The characters in this novel are the property of the author and may not be duplicated.

  Prologue

  “Not everyone has the stomach for killing.”

  Sly had told her that once. “Most people, when they get right down to it, can’t look a man in the eye and pull the trigger. It’s cold, cold shit killing someone. You gotta go away in your head somewhere. It isn’t something to be proud of.” He’d said it on her parents’ front porch while he ate peanuts and tossed the shells into the flower beds. The look he’d skated to her, eyes the blue of a winter sky, had suggested he didn’t think she had the stomach for it.

  He’d been wrong.

  “You can’t do it, Lis.”

  Her hands, small as they were, held steady around the grip of the Smith & Wesson revolver. Her palms weren’t clammy. Her arms didn’t shake. This gun was on old friend: her first time at the range, Dad’s hands clapped over her ears; shooting cans off the hitching rail beside the old barn; the smell of WD-40 and house oil on a stained beach towel at the kitchen table. Holding it stripped away her smallness, her helplessness.

  “How do you live with it?” she’d asked Sly over peanut shells.

  He’d shrugged. “I never put anyone in the ground who didn’t deserve it.”

  “Lisa!” Someone called from the front of the house. Drew. She heard the thump of running feet.

  She only had a moment. If she waited, if he reached her, it would be too late. If she was going to do this, it had to be now.

  “That ‘both eyes open’ thing is bullshit,” her uncle had told her down by the hitching rail. So Lisa closed one eye and centered the sights on the man lying at her feet.

  He screamed.

  She pulled the trigger.

  1

  Six Years Ago

  “Are you sure about this, sweetie?”

  Her dress was ivory and strapless, with a sweetheart neckline that complimented her small bust. It hugged her slender waist to her hips and then the bottom widened into an airy confection of layered tulle.

  In the mirror, her reflection stared back. Calm. Composed. She wore the lightest layer of foundation and powder over her porcelain complexion. Dainty pink blush. Smoky eye shadow chosen to bring out the vivid green of her large eyes. Her mahogany hair was swept back off her forehead with a crystal headband and fell down past her shoulders in a dark tumble of curling iron-created twists. Her grandmother’s diamond solitaire necklace caught the light each time she drew in a breath and her chest swelled above the bodice of the dress.

  Lisa thought she looked like a bride. Even if she didn’t feel like one.

  “Well, you look fantastic,” her maid of honor, Morgan, called from the side table where she was pouring herself another glass of champagne. The hotel suite that had served as the bridal dressing room was still in a shambles from the bachelorette party the night before: confetti, streamers, obscene party favors and liquor everywhere. Morgan had been sipping her hair of the dog all morning, her blue eyes puffy and bloodshot.

  Ignoring the compliment, Lisa turned away from the mirror and faced her mother. Cheryl wore her own dark locks up in a knot at the back of her head. Her gold mother-of-the-bride dress was fitted, low-cut, and heavily beaded with little crystals. “You sure you’re not the sister of the bride?” Lisa’s father had joked.

  Lisa smoothed her hands down her skirts and smiled, anticipation quickening her pulse. “I’m fine, Mom.”

  But Cheryl pursed her lips and fussed with Lisa’s necklace. “It’s not too late, you know. No one would blame you.” Her equally large, thoroughly brown eyes were full of doubt. “This is one of those things people are gonna talk about forever.”

  “Good.”

  “Good!” Morgan echoed, tipping back her champagne flute and nearly stumbling over the hem of her yellow bridesmaid gown in the process.

  “Well.” Cheryl sighed, then a smile touched her lips. She laid a gentle knuckle under her daughter’s chin. “If you’re gonna go out, might as well go out swinging, huh?”

  “That’s what I figure.”

  A light knock sounded at the door and Lisa’s father, Ray, poked his head in the door. “We all set in here?”

  “Yes,” they all said in unison.

  They rode down in the elevator together, Morgan holding a hand against the side of the car, listing hard to the left. When they reached the lobby and the doors slid open, Lisa felt another tingle of excitement as they crossed in front of the expansive front desk and her skirt whispered over the sleek marble floor. A summertime Saturday at noon, the Atlanta Ritz Carlton was full of tourists moving in and out of the glamorous hotel. Eyes and smiles followed the foursome as they progressed through the lobby. Lisa answered congratulatory wishes from strangers with smiles and thank yous.

  When they reached the hall that led into the ballroom, her cousin Johnny and Uncle Mark were waiting, both looking ridiculously dressy in their dark suits. “We know we’re supposed to be sitting down already,” Mark said with a sun-lined smile so much like his brother’s it made Lisa want to chuckle. “But I wanted to see you one last time while you’re still a Russell.” Mark and her father had the same green eyes, the same strong nose. But Mark was quicker to laugh, more apt to find the humor in life. She hugged him and then her cousin who’d been raised almost as her brother.

  “I love you, baby,” Cheryl said, pulling her daughter into a hug. And then she whispered, “Good luck,” in Lisa’s ear.

  Mark took Cheryl’s arm and led her into the ballroom.

  “Knock ‘im dead, girl,” Morgan said, a drunken smile plastered on her pretty face as she handed Lisa her bouquet of white roses. “Literally.” Then she let Johnny lead her inside.

  The string quartet struck up “The Bridal March” and Lisa offered her dad a smile as she slid her arm through his. “Alright, Dad, let’s hear it,” she said with a little laugh.

  Ray Russell’s hair was thinning on the crown of his head, and the sun had pressed lines in his tan face around his dark eyes and mouth. He had one of those thin, straight, aristocratic noses and deep-set eyes that made him look stern, foreboding. His stoicism had made him a legend in the courtroom. And his dark scowls had made him an adult to be avoided by her friends growing up.

  But when he smiled – like he did now, when the deep grooves between his drawn brows smoothed and his dimples popped in his cheeks – he was no longer Raymond Russell esquire; no longer the defense attorney who left prosecutors sweating in their bad suits, but her daddy, and on a day like today, she was praying he continued to support her decisions the way he always had.

  “Lisa-baby,” he said with a sideways twitch to his grin as he stared down at her. “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to do something we’re all gonna regret?”

  She smiled back at him. “’Cause I probably am.”

  He sighed. “I was afraid of that. ‘Kay.” He covered her hand with his and began to tow her forward. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The wide double doors of the ballroom were open and through them, Lisa could see the spectacle of ivory and yellow that stretched before them. Bamboo chairs flanked a white carpet that had been sprinkled with rose petals. Gauzy sweeps of tulle decorated the end chairs of each row that were closest to the aisle, clusters of lilies,
daisies, and roses secured with silver bows serving as the focal point of each bundle of fabric. Overhead, the chandeliers dripped with crystals that fractured the light into a million dancing points of color, and ornate candelabras on heavy silver stands flanked the walls, their flames adding a rosy warmth to the room.

  One hundred and fifty guests in their cocktail finery twisted in their chairs as Ray and Lisa stepped onto the carpet. Murmurs of approval rippled through the crowd. Women dabbed at their eyes with tissues.

  Lisa’s eyes went to the front of the room, to the altar that was a white rose trellis surrounded by dozens of potted ferns and flowers and more candelabras. She saw her lone bridesmaid swaying dangerously on her heels, fanning herself with her bouquet. She saw the five groomsmen, her betrothed’s pack of smiling, idiotic friends who were whispering amongst themselves up in front for all the guests to see. Nick had a big zit coming to a head in the middle of his nose and it looked beet red and oily under the chandeliers. Kevin had a hickey peeking out from the neck of his white dress shirt that could have been seen from space. Will looked her up and down, sneering. Steve was staring at a girl in the crowd, making what he thought were sexy faces at her. Damon was drunker than Morgan.

  And then, standing beside the pastor, his hands clasped loosely in front of him, his lean, handsome face split with a dazzling white smile, there was Tristan.

  For one moment, just one, Lisa’s stomach lurched and she tightened her hand on her dad’s sleeve as anxiety spiked inside her, squeezed the air out of her lungs.

  Before Tristan, she’d never told a man she loved him. Before Tristan, she’d never entertained the thought of marriage. They’d met at the gym a year ago and as she’d hopped off a treadmill, her sweats clinging to her damp body, her hair falling out of its topknot, he’d given her a wolf whistle and charmed his way right into dinner with her.

  Before Tristan, no man had told her how beautiful she was, how sweet she was, how lucky he felt to be close to her. Cheryl had worried herself into a frenzy over the notion that Tristan was newly divorced, but Lisa had tried to make her understand that his ex-wife had been scheming and heartless, had cheated on him, and that in the wake of that devastation, he needed Lisa. He’d told her he loved her feisty side; that she always kept him interested.

  Before Tristan, she’d thought that someday, someone might fall in love with her. And when he said as much, she’d fallen hard: a base jump off a daring cliff with no chute.

  He smiled at her now, his dark eyes full of pride, of admiration…for himself.

  Before Tristan…she’d been stupid as hell.

  Lisa felt her father’s head come down close beside hers as they stepped up onto the dais and Tristan moved to her other side. “We love you, little girl,” Ray whispered into her ear, and it was the shot of courage she needed, the fortifying knowledge that chased her nerves away; smoothed her pulse and left her breathing evenly.

  “Who gives this woman?” the pastor asked in a deep, strong baritone that resonated throughout the ballroom.

  “Her mother Cheryl and I do,” Ray said.

  Lisa turned to press a kiss to his cheek, to give him one more smile. The close-lipped grin he offered said the same thing it had every time he’d boosted her up into the saddle as a little girl: Don’t let me down. She didn’t plan to.

  With one last squeeze of his hand, Lisa let her dad go and a perfect calm settled over her as she faced forward again and put her hand in Tristan’s. She didn’t feel nervous as the pastor began to welcome the guests and laud the significance of the day, the ceremony. She stared at her fiancé, her partner, her lover, and felt a cold prickling at the back of her neck, an iciness that seemed to spread, to pour through her veins until she may as well have been a marble statue in front of him. When he moved this thumb in slow circles against her palm and smiled a warm, intimate smile that had once made her melt, she felt nothing behind the iron veil she’d pulled down around her mind and heart. Never again, she thought to herself.

  “At this time,” the pastor said, “if there is anyone who feels that there is cause for this man and this woman not to be wed – ”

  “Can I say something?”

  There was a collective intake of breath out in the audience. Tristan’s hand tightened on hers in an almost punishing way. Lisa met his gaze with a challenging one, and for the first time since she’d met him, she saw his suave calmness give way to uncertainty.

  “Uh…” the pastor stumbled. “If you…”

  “Thanks,” Lisa drawled. Just the act of opening her mouth had sent another electric jolt of boldness through her, and with deliberate movements, she withdrew her hand from her fiancé’s and reached down amid the delicate white roses of her bouquet. “Tristan. Baby,” she said, fingers closing over the scrap of lace she’d hidden amongst the stems up in her bridal suite. “Something fell out of your jacket pocket at the house the other day.”

  His eyes followed her hand as it withdrew from the bouquet, and then they goggled out of his head when he realized that the pink lace between her fingers was a pair of panties.

  Another, louder gasp filled the room.

  “Oh, shit!” She was pretty sure she recognized Johnny’s voice.

  Tristan reached toward her, but she stepped out of range. Something like panic creasing his handsome face, he leaned as close as he could, brows scaling his forehead. “Lisa, what are you doing?” he whispered.

  “I’m giving you a chance to explain,” she said in a calm voice.

  To her disgust, he blinked, and then seemed relieved. “Okay, okay.” He waved his hands in a gesture that suggested he thought she was being unreasonable, but that he would gladly defend himself. “You’ve got it all wrong, baby. You see, what happened was – ”

  His words ended in a startled grunt as her bouquet connected with the side of his face.

  Chairs screeched back across the floor.

  “Lisa!” someone cried.

  Tristan brought a hand to his cheek, a finger probing the small, bloody scratch where a forgotten thorn had nicked his skin. His eyes flashed dark and full of anger. He opened his mouth to speak, but Lisa cut him off.

  “You lying son of a bitch!” she snarled at him through her teeth. “Did you think I was that stupid? Huh? You thought I wouldn’t find out?”

  “Get him, girl!” Morgan whooped.

  Tristan lowered his hand and stepped back, beginning to collect some of his dignity. He managed a sneering smile. “Yeah,” he said, loud enough for the ballroom to hear. “I thought you were just that stupid.”

  She hated that the words stung, so she tightened her veil of coldness, scrambled to erect a wall for extra fortification: a thick, impenetrable, stone and steel wall that would keep out not only Tristan, but all men.

  “Well, from now on.” She had no idea how she kept her voice from shaking, but she did. She lifted her little chin and managed to look down her nose at him though he stood a head taller. “You can put your itty-bitty dick wherever you want to, ‘cause I don’t want a damn thing to do with it anymore.”

  Amid gasps and shouts, cries and dirty looks, she turned and found her father’s quiet almost-smile.

  Never again, she thought as she stepped down off the dais and marched down the aisle, unmarried. At nineteen years old, Lisa Lee Russell was done with love.

  Five Years Ago

  “Does your client have any physical evidence to submit? A video tape maybe? Security footage?”

  From across the high-gloss polished surface of the mahogany table in the conference room, Ray waited for opposing counsel, Steven Sheridan, to produce some factual basis for the lawsuit. He had taken on this charitable case as a favor to his brother only because he’d known litigation would fall to pieces during discovery.

  “No.” Sheridan sighed and shot a dark look toward his clients, Mr. and Mrs. Peters, the owners of Peters’ Motors where five pre-owned Cadillacs had been stolen on Ray’s clients’ watch. Sheridan looked like a man who longed fo
r more intelligent clients.

  “Then I’m not sure what we’re doing here, Steve.” Ray leaned back in his plush leather chair, fingers drumming on the table. “Your clients have changed the damages sought three times now and – ”

  “They stole ‘em!” Mrs. Peters burst out. “I know they did! Look at ‘em, the smug little bastards, they - ” Sheridan shushed his client with a look and Ray made a soothing gesture with his hand for the benefit of the men on his side of the table.

  Edward O’Dell and Sidney “Sly” Hammond were far from innocent. The two mechanics had escaped grand theft auto charges in three states and had been at it again; only this time, their victims were only seeking damages in the form of the cars’ value, claiming the two crooks had allowed the cars to be stolen since they couldn’t prove they’d done the stealing themselves.

  “That’s not what this lawsuit’s about, Mrs. Peters,” Ray said. “You’re suing for my clients’ negligent acts that supposedly resulted in the theft of your property.”

  The woman’s face turned the same shade of bloody orange as her hair. “I know that!” she snapped.

  Ray sighed. “Steve, we both know this is never going to trial…”

  In a matter of minutes, the Peters went from irate, to crestfallen when they realized their case wasn’t even strong enough for Judge Judy, let alone Russell & Carillo. When they were alone in the conference room, Ray turned toward his clients.

  “I’m not the charitable type. And this was one hell of a favor. You do realize both your asses belong to me now, right?”

  He caught Sly’s blue gaze. The man looked carved from stone, but one corner of his mouth lifted in an attempt at a smile.

  Eddie snorted. “Yes, sir.”

  Four Years Ago

  “I’ve got an idea.”

  Ray lowered his newspaper and took stock of his younger brother across the kitchen table. Marcus still had all his hair – probably because he had nothing stressful on his plate that caused it to fall out – and his green, Russell eyes were dancing this morning. “Another one?”