Mirage: Veiled Love Duet: Book One Read online

  Mirage

  Veiled Love Duet: Book One

  C.M. Radcliff

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Coming Fall 2020

  Acknowledgments

  Also by C.M. Radcliff

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2020 C.M. RADCLIFF

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events, places, brands, media and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author, except for the use of quotations in a book review.

  Due to the graphic nature of this novel, it is not intended for anyone under the age of eighteen.

  Cover Design: Black Widow Designs

  Editor: Ellie McLove of My Brother’s Editor

  Prologue

  LYING ON MY BACK, my eyes scan the flawless, bright white ceiling. Not a single mark or an uneven paint stroke is visible.

  Impossible.

  Perfection is a fabricated expectation in life. All our souls are tainted and eventually our sins slip through the cracks, exposing the truth.

  We’re all flawed, but some of us can hide it better than the rest… just like the ceiling above me.

  A warmth circles around me and sticks to my skin. My body’s numb to every sensation, but the feeling of my own blood saturating my clothes. My long, thick black hair is fanned out around my head, absorbing the liquid.

  My body is rendered immobile and my vocal cords are paralyzed. I’ve been silenced and made a prisoner within my own skin.

  The sound of my heart pumping leaves a whooshing tune ringing in my ears. With every passing moment, it’s becoming weaker and I’m slowly sinking deeper into myself and farther away from here.

  I’m bleeding out.

  I’ve witnessed death before, but I never imagined my own. I knew one day it would come to this and it’s a miracle that it took this long.

  This isn’t the first time that Jasper laid his hands on me, but it is certainly going to be the last. We’re edging past the point of no return and he’s got his foot pressing the pedal to the metal.

  Smiling to myself, I chuckle inwardly, feeling it in my chest. It’s all quite ironic. I’m lying here on the floor, bleeding out at the hands of a cardiothoracic surgeon. He saves lives, but not mine.

  Mine, he decided he would take.

  It was never a decision for him to make.

  ♦♦♦

  There’s movement throughout the room, but it’s too fast for my sluggish eyes to follow. There’s a shift in the air and I don’t need to see him to know he’s here.

  Axel.

  He saved me and he brought me back to life. He showed me how it feels to truly be loved.

  He did everything he could for me and now he’s going to have to let me go.

  He was the love of my life and now the love of my death.

  Wherever I go from here, I’ll carry a piece of him with me.

  Axel is everywhere, filling the room and my senses. His smell and the sound of his voice, it’s as if I can feel him without touching him. His presence alone consumes me.

  He keeps my head above the water, just as I begin to go under.

  The weight and the pressure vanish into thin air and suddenly, I’m no longer sinking. I’m caught in a dreamlike state, where none of this feels real.

  I’m weightless and it’s relieving, it’s comforting. I’m floating, suspended in the air, and there’s no coming down from here.

  The warmth surrounding me on the floor, seeps inside and warms my soul. My sins are free, and it soothes over the cracks in my façade.

  Only in the moments of our death are we flawless.

  ♦♦♦

  A loud bang rings through the air and penetrates my eardrums. The lights grow dim and I’m no longer floating.

  I’m not sinking.

  I’m plummeting downward, spiraling out of control with no end in sight.

  Like the flip of a light switch, everything goes black and everything becomes nothing.

  Chapter One

  Axel

  DROPLETS OF BLOOD spray across my face as my fist connects with the side of his jaw. His mouth falls open as his head jerks away from me and toward the crowd surrounding us. He stumbles backward, barely catching himself and I’m barely a step behind him, cocking my arm back. Watching me from the corner of his eye, he sees me coming for him.

  And I anticipate his actions.

  He throws an uncoordinated punch and I stand firm. I don’t duck, I take it. I let him get that one hit, but for my own selfish reasons. He gets a cheap shot in, splitting my bottom lip open on my teeth. Running my tongue over my lip, I taste the blood and a grin slowly creeps onto my face as I step back into his space. With one final blow to the side of his head, my opponent falls to the ground with a loud thud.

  Dressed in their designer suits and elegant dresses, the crowd outside of the ring cheer. They’re all colorblind, to every color except green. It’s easy to forget how illegal this is until you see tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars being handed back and forth between the onlookers.

  Illegal street fighting was all that I had in life. I learned how to fight at a young age, and it became a vital part of survival.

  I was a fire station drop off baby. Whoever my mother was decided she didn’t want me and dropped me off, still covered in her blood. I never knew her or any blood relatives. And if they were out there somewhere, they never came looking for me.

  As an infant, I was thrown straight into the system. Most couples that are trying to adopt want a baby. Babies come with nothing but biological flaws. They’re still innocent and pure, untouched by the toxic world they were born into. New parents can form and shape them however they want.

  Biologically, I was flawed, and I never fit into the mold of the perfect son that every parent wanted. The family that took me in never adopted me. They gave up on me the moment that their older son had to get stitches because of me. They saw me bash him in the head with a glass vase, but what they didn’t see was the torture he’d been putting me through since I was an infant.

  He constantly tormented me, and I finally stood up for myself. At the ripe age of four years old, I landed on my ass, back in the system.

  After them, I bounced to and from houses, families and school districts all with the reputation of being a shithead kid. One with an attitude and an anger problem.

  They weren’t entirely wrong, so I went with it. If they were going to give me that label, then I was going to live up to their expectations. And when I was thrown into the shittiest group homes in Miami, I used that to my advantage.

  The group home taught me everything
I needed to know. I grew up in the gutter of Miami and I learned quickly that the street mentality isn’t like the rest of the world. That’s where I learned what I needed to survive, to make it to the top.

  And I did.

  Staying on top is harder than getting there. I took one misstep in that ring and it was game over… I lost everything.

  I was one of the top illegal fighters in the country and I ended up in a coma because of a brain injury.

  Flexing my hand, I make a fist and feel the nerves light up through my fingers.

  A wonderful side effect of surviving a deadly blow to the head.

  As soon as I was cleared by the doctor, I got back in the ring and I’ve been steadily making my way back up the food chain. Society doesn’t accept the moral code and ethics that I live by, so I stay in the shadows until it’s time to fight.

  Now, I’m back in the gutter, but maybe it’s where I belong. This city made me who I am today.

  Miami is a breeding ground for the vicious monsters that prowl the streets late at night. It’s the city where criminals are born, but they hide in the shadows when the sun rises across the horizon.

  They aren’t the ones to be feared though, not when the daylight hides the vilest creatures of them all. They are the criminals that don’t get caught and they’re a whole different animal.

  ♦♦♦

  Leaving the bloody mess on the floor of the ring, I duck between the ropes and step down onto the concrete ground. Blood drips from my battered knuckles as I walk down the aisle, passing the rows of spectators and slip through the back door.

  The vast locker room is empty when I step inside. Whoever owns the property put a great deal of time and money into the design of the arena. The entire building is intricately detailed and tailored for the crowd that it hosts.

  Even though we’re all expendable when it really comes down to it, most of us are well taken care of. The locker room is one of the perks that comes with fucking with the wealthy and their dirty money.

  We have our own space to wind down and clean up afterward. Although we don’t mingle after the fight unless we’re invited, there’s still a strict code for having a clean appearance leaving here.

  It’s a private and exclusive event and the last thing that the owners want is to be tipped off by the police. I follow their code and abide by their rules for the pure sake of fighting. I couldn’t give a shit about the logistics. The only thing that matters is the money and the fight.

  Grabbing my street clothes from my locker, I head to the bathroom for a shower. The water in my apartment is easily comparable but sharing a place with Rush makes for a lot of awkward shower moments. I’ve seen his dick more times than I’d care to share, and he’s got a different girl in there every night.

  With my body clean of the last of the dried blood, I slip out of the shower and quickly get dried and dressed. Glancing down at my swollen knuckles, I take note of the new scabs and the questions they may draw.

  An older man dressed in a freshly pressed suit sits on one of the plush benches against the wall as I walk back into the locker room. A young, thin blonde sits next to him, hanging onto his arm. He smirks as I scowl at him and continue to walk past him. Ignoring him, I head to the medical area and grab a roll of gauze and begin wrapping it around my bruised knuckles.

  “I heard that you were a hard ass, but that may be an understatement,” the man chuckles from across the room. “I also heard how no one can seem to lock you down.”

  I respond with a grunt and roll my eyes as I finish covering my wounds.

  Here we go again with another rich bastard who thinks that I can be bought.

  “The strong, silent type too,” the man muses as he rises to his feet. “I can appreciate that.”

  Appreciating and understanding are two different things. He clearly doesn’t know the meaning of silent.

  Turning to face him, I cut my eyes at him as he strides across the room to me. Stopping in front of me, he’s about my height and his frigid blue eyes meet mine. He’s lean and muscular like an athlete, where I’m trimmed and toned like the ruthless fighter that I am.

  Challenging him with my eyes, I continue to glare at him as I remain silent.

  A sly grin forms on the man’s lips as he nods. “Very well then.” Reaching inside his suit jacket, he grabs a business card and hands it to me. Reluctantly, I grab it and quickly read over it.

  Astor Medical Supplies

  Jasper Lafar, MD

  CEO

  Cardiothoracic surgeon

  202-555-4422

  “13 Waters Edge Drive. Come by tomorrow around noon.” Jasper straightens his suit jacket and motions for the blonde to come over to him. “I can assure you that I have an offer that only a fool would turn down.”

  You and every other man who comes to these fights.

  With a curt nod, I tuck the business card in my back pocket. The blonde walks over and attaches herself back to Jasper’s arm.

  “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow, Axel,” he says with a smirk and turns away, pulling the girl out of the room with him.

  I wait a few minutes, letting his words soak in before I head out. Rush is outside waiting for me in his pristine Bentley coupe, like he does after every fight.

  We’ve been best friends since we ended up in the group home together. When Rush turned eighteen, he found out that his biological family, who were all dead, left him a large sum of money.

  That was six years ago and he’s nowhere close to the bottom of that barrel.

  “Dude.” Rush turns toward me as I hop into the car. “What the fuck took you so long? I had to blow off Amy or Audrey, or whatever the fuck her name is, tonight.”

  As if pussy isn’t on his daily agenda…

  “I think you can go a day without getting your dick wet,” I mumble as I shake my head. “I got caught up with some shit.”

  Rush gives me a sideways glance before backing his car out of his parking spot. “Do I even wanna know?”

  I shrug. “It wasn’t anything important.”

  Rush rolls his eyes. “Sure. It wasn’t important enough to make your knuckles bleed, right?”

  Glancing down, I notice my clenched fists and the blood soaking the gauze wrapped around my hands. I must have broken open the newly formed scabs.

  “Fuck me.”

  “Hard pass.” Rush smirks. “I’m sure we can find someone who will though.”

  Rolling my eyes, I settle down into my seat as Rush turns up the stereo and pulls onto the road.

  Jasper’s card burns a hole in my back pocket and his address rings in my head.

  Many of the men there have fighters on their payroll that they pay to fight for them. I’ve only ever fought for myself and although I’ve been approached before in the past, I never considered fighting for someone else until this moment.

  The men there are sharks and I don’t know a single thing about this man. For the right price, there’s a chance that none of that will matter.

  For the right price, anything can be bought, and his fortune might be the key to my ascension.

  Fighting for him might be my last chance at success.

  Chapter Two

  Jaslyn

  WATER DRIPS from my body as I climb out of the pool and walk over to the lounge chair. Pulling my long black hair to the side, I let it fall around my head as I lie down on my stomach. The hot sun beats down on my bare skin, enhancing my natural tan.

  At twenty-three, a life like this is one to be envied. My father built an empire and made a fortune that left me set for life. I’ve never wanted for anything and I never will… financially and materialistically, at least.

  My father was a world-renowned heart surgeon, but his empire was built off the artificial heart valves he designed. When he got sick and passed away last year, I found myself as the proud owner of Astor Medical Devices and the ruler of his multi-million-dollar empire.

  Jasper was my father’s right-hand man and now he has a ring on
my left hand, with the other one deep in my pocket.

  He was there for me when my father passed away. He helped me get all his affairs in order and then he manipulated me when I was vulnerable.

  I was young and dumb and thought he was genuine, but he proved me wrong. He stripped me of everyone and everything in my life.

  And now, at twenty-three, I’m engaged to a monster that keeps me secluded from the rest of the world.

  I would give it all up in a heartbeat if it meant that I got to live. Because lying here like a battered trophy wife isn’t living. It’s not even surviving. It’s merely existing.

  My father would be devastated if he could see how everything fell apart after he died. It wasn’t his fault, just like it wasn’t his fault when my mother died. She had a heart defect that they didn’t know about until after I was born and after it was too late. As a heart surgeon, it ate away at my father until the moment he took his last breath. But the empire that he built, that was all for her and all in her name.

  He couldn’t save her, but he has saved so many other lives in her memory.

  And now Jasper is carrying out his legacy and tainting the sentiment behind the dollar signs.

  Jasper was fresh out of med school when he met my father. He worked under my father for many years and he taught Jasper everything that he knew. Jasper showed potential, so they brought him on board with the company, giving him a nice cushy seat on the board.