My Facebook page has finally reached 5,000 likes!! Thank you all so much for liking and sharing! 

If you follow me on there then you know that I had promised to post the prologue to Break when I finally hit the mark. So as promised, here it is! 

*Unedited - Subject to change*

* Still no firm release date. I have had a lot of things going on in my personal life that has put me a little behind but I am still saying it will be out sometime this Spring. :) *

And just so you know… This is my Ryker and Storm. ;)

Prologue


Ryker

I sat at the bar, not really listening to the chatter going on around me, my eyes trained on the cute little waitress to my right. She was staring at her tray while a man sat at the table she was serving, shouting at her over a fucking beer. Who the hell did this guy think he was? If there was one thing I could never tolerate, it was a bully, and watching a man sit there and bully a female was more than I could take.

With every insult I heard from him, my blood began to boil more and more. And when I had finally reached my limit, I pushed off the bar to head over there. I was going to show him what a real man does when he sees a sorry excuse of a man speaking to a female that way, but I stopped when I felt a hand come down on my shoulder.

 “Ryke, come on now. Don’t start any shit tonight.” My friend John hissed into my ear. “Come back to the bar and finish your beer. You know the last time you got into a brawl Charlie said he would have to think about kicking you out for good.”

John wasn’t just my friend; he was also my boss. He owned the garage I currently worked at, and Charlie was the owner of the bar we liked to go to after work. Charlie was constantly throwing my ass out for fighting. I wasn’t entirely sure why he hadn’t banned me from ever coming back all together. I guess deep down he knew that all my fights weren’t just for the thrill of hurting someone. Most of the time, I was fighting to defend someone else. It was good people like Charlie and John, people willing to take a chance on a temperamental little shit like me that kept me from falling off the deep end.

“Come on. Don’t be getting mixed up in other peoples business,” John continued. “Lets just finish our beers and head home. We have to be in the garage early in the morning if you want to install that new cam in, Betty.”

Betty was my ’69 Mustang GT. She had been my grandpa’s and when he passed, he left it to me to inherit when I turned eighteen. She was beautiful, gunmetal gray with two black stripes running from bumper to bumper. She was in perfect condition when I got her, and would have stayed that way too, had it not been for that one time I pushed her a little too hard on a back street race all to win a bet.

I had been living out of Betty for a couple of weeks after my mom had moved away to a different state with her new boyfriend. I was hard up for some cash and I let some fool talk me into a race. It was easy money. I knew his supped up Toyota Celica didn’t stand a chance against my purebred American muscle.

I ended up winning, but I tore my car all to shit in the process by throwing a rod and cracking the engine block. That night the temperature dropped well below freezing, and I was trying to get the engine to turn over long enough to warm my chilled body when an old beat up pick-up truck pulled up beside me.

That was the same night John found me and helped me out. He took me in, helped me fix my car, and gave me a job. Since meeting him we have completely revamped Betty’s engine. Now she doesn’t just purr like a kitten, she roars like a lioness.  Not to mention, focusing so much attention on Betty keeps me out of trouble. You know what they say about idle hands being the devils play things? Well, my hands are his favorite playtime toys. My hands are capable of frightening things… bloody, horrible things. Things that I wish I had more control over, but I don’t. I used to… but not anymore.

“Alright,” I said to John as finished of my beer. “That’s none of my business, anyway,” I shrugged and ordered another round.

I really needed to learn to control my temper; I was always letting it control me, and if I couldn’t get a handle on it soon, I was afraid it would consume me. I was afraid it was going to get me into trouble that I might not be able to get myself out of.

An hour or so had passed, and the anger I had felt over the situation between the man and the waitress had slowly begun to fade. I was taking a drink of my beer, when I heard the same voice of the asshole from earlier resound throughout the bar. “Why you stupid little shit! Do you know how much this jacket cost me?! More than you could make in a year! Waitressing is not a hard job. You get the drinks, take them to the customers, and then sit them on the mother-fucking table. A moron could do it, but you can’t seem to manage the simplest task of not spilling shit.”

Before I knew it, I was stalking across the bar. I could hear John’s protests, but I was beyond being stopped. I had had enough of this tool. “Hey,” I slammed my bottle down on his table to get his attention.  “What’s your problem? She’s a female. Have some fucking respect,” I snarled.

The man stood from his chair and cracked his neck. “Why don’t you mind your business, pal.”

I smirked at his attempt to intimidate me. I had fought bigger guys than him before. If he thought I was scared—he thought wrong. I stepped close enough that our noses were nearly touching. “When you make an ass of yourself, screaming at the fairer sex in a room full of people, you make it my business,” I stepped back and placed my hands on my hips before I continued, “The way I see it is you have two options here. Leave now with what little dignity you have, or you can leave limping like a bitch after I am finished with you. The choice is yours.”

He stood glaring at me for a moment, but then he turned to leave. I watched him shove his way through the crowd that had gathered around us during our argument as he made his way to the exit. When I could no longer see him, I glanced over to where I had left John at the bar. He was shaking his head at me but at least there was a smile on his face. I shrugged and grabbed my beer that I had left on the table and started to head back to the bar when I heard a commotion behind me.

When I turned around I saw the same asshole storming back across the bar. He came charging at me attempting to tackle me to the ground. I easily sidestepped him causing him to go crashing into some nearby tables. The sound of wood and glass breaking filled the bar, and soon after the asshole picked himself up off the floor and tried charging me again. This time I was ready. As he approached me, I sent a jab straight to his nose and watched as his head flew back from the blow. He immediately shook it off and came at me again.

“You just don’t learn, do ya?” I taunted as I dodged a swing he threw at me, and he roared with anger as he attempted another missed hit.

When I finally saw an opening, I let him have it. I caught his eyebrow with my elbow, the skin splitting on contact, causing blood to trail down his face from his wound. He automatically bent over to cup his injury and when he did I sent an uppercut straight to his nose. His body fell to the floor in a heap right after.

I stood over him and watched as he groaned on the floor. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Charlie shaking his head and signaling with two fingers for his bouncers to head my way.  I knew exactly what was coming next.

One of the bouncers grabbed me by my bicep and began to steer me towards the exit. I didn’t put up a fight; they were just doing their job. As his boys ushered me out, I turned my head to nod an apology to Charlie. I could tell by the faint smile on his lips that he wasn’t mad about the trouble I had just caused… he was keeping face by kicking out the trouble that disturbed the tranquility of the other patrons shelling out the big bills for his liquor.

Once I was outside I headed toward my car. As I slid the key into the lock, I heard the faint sound of someone clapping their hands.

“That was quite a show you just put on there,” a stranger said as he approached me.

“Yeah, what’s it to you?” I nodded at him and automatically bawled my hands into fists ready for another fight.

He chuckled and crossed his arms over his chest. “Lets just say I see something in you that I can work with, and if you are into making tons of cash all you have to do is let me lead the way.”

I huffed. “Tons of cash, huh? And what exactly do I have to do to get this cash?” I questioned. “And I will warn you now, you pop off something about sucking dick or staring in your freaky basement movies, I will end you here and now for wasting my time.” I glared at him but he didn’t seem deterred in the slightest.

“Nothing like that, son. What I have in mind for you is something you already hold a skill for. Something you love doing, you just don’t know it yet.”

I raised and eyebrow and waited for him to continue.

“Fighting,” he said with a Cheshire cat smile. “Fighting.”