Ignite: A MM Mercenary Romance, page 1
IGNITE
A MM Mercenary Romance
Abigail Glenn
Portal World Publishing
Copyright © 2024 by Abigail Glenn
All rights reserved.
E-book 978-1-955532-34-1
Paperback 978-1-955532-35-8
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Cover Design: Christley Creatives
Editing Services & Formatting: Indie Proofreading
Contents
Trigger Warnings
Playlist
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
EPILOGUE
AFTERWARD
Other Books by Abigail Glenn
TRIGGER WARNINGS
This book is heavy. I would say in some ways, heavier than anything I’ve ever written. While there are plenty of sweet moments, nuggets of comedy, and a HEA, it does touch on very sensitive, difficult topics.
This story was not approached with a light heart. I did my best to handle these topics as delicately as possible. Everyone processes trauma differently. Everyone has their own unique journey with mental health. There are pieces to these characters that are a mix of truths, and yet I had to give them a bit of rein to tell their own stories.
With that said, please tread carefully if any of the below topics may put you in a bad headspace:
Mental health struggles, self-harm, suicidal thoughts/behaviors, violence, mentions of child trafficking (good guys fight against it), and trauma as a result of previous child sexual assault (not detailed on page).
PLAYLIST
I went a bit unhinged with this one…
Check out the playlist on Spotify.
Weak & Powerless - A Perfect Circle
High Water - Sleep Token
Take Shape (feat. Billy Corgan) - Code Orange
Forward! - Anaal Nathrakh
Stranded - Gojira
Walt Disney Wormdog - Grim Salvo
Custer - Slipknot
Send the Pain Below - Chevelle
Right In Two - Tool
Outside - breakk.away
Two Tens (feat. Anderson .Paak) - Cordae
The Summoning - Sleep Token
Die On The Cross Of The Martyr - Unprocessed, Tim Henson, Scott LePage
Heavier - Rain City Drive
Legend Has It - Run the Jewels
Seasons of Flies - Bind the Sacrifice
Do Your Job - Irving Force
The Grudge - Tool
Dr0nched In Sw0t - KAMAARA, Grim Salvo
PROLOGUE
EZRA
TWELVE YEARS OLD
There’s too much blood.
It drips from my trembling hands as I stumble toward the stairs of my concrete prison—a small, windowless basement in a creaky suburban house.
Fourteen stairs to climb. Fourteen stairs, and I will have escaped hell.
Come on, Ezra.
The choking, gurgling sounds from the man I just stabbed twists my stomach into sickening knots.
No. Not a man.
Evil given flesh and bone. He deserved death. I shouldn’t feel a lick of remorse over giving it to him. He kept me in the dark so long I’d nearly succumbed to a lifelong sentence of torture.
As my heart slams against my ribcage, I keep my head tilted up, eyes focused on that rectangle of golden sunlight painting the first floor of the house. Nothing else matters. Nothing else except reaching the top of those stairs.
Nine more to go. The demons won’t follow me. They’ll stay buried with the corpse I’m leaving behind.
Eight. I’ll survive this. Everything will be better when I make it to the top.
I stumble up the next few steps on weak legs, and the little scrap of confidence I’ve worked so hard to coax out of the chasm where I’ve shoved everything away shrivels.
By the time I reach the landing, tears I swore I wouldn’t cry leak from my eyes, trailing hot and endless down my face. God only knows how long they’ve been collecting inside of me.
I drag myself into that pillar of warm sunlight and break down, quaking so hard with sobs I’m certain I’m going to fall apart.
Is this shame normal? This disgust over what I’d done? I’d grabbed that screwdriver so fast, jabbing it into the soft flesh of my captor almost on instinct. It was like some raw, primal beast had overcome me as soon as I saw him drop it on the floor. Once warm blood spurted over my small hand, that beast fled, leaving me utterly lost in its wake.
Eyes blurry and fingers slick, I crawl to the front door and battle with the locks. My pulse continues to throb under my clammy, dirt-streaked skin.
What if this isn’t real? What if I’m dreaming again?
Another sob escapes the depths of my tattered soul. Oh, God. Don’t let me wake up. I don’t want to wake up. Don’t give me hope just to take it away.
Flicking the last lock on the door, I stumble out onto the porch and suck in my first breath of clean, humid air. Is it summer? I’m really not sure.
My shaking legs fail me, dropping me onto the concrete hard enough to rattle my bones.
Gritting my teeth against the jolt of pain, I pull my body down the front steps, leaving bloody handprints along the way.
I sprawl out on the grass. The soft tickle of it against my skin feels absurd. I’d long forgotten the burn of the sun, too. I’d let it bake me right here if not for the panic swimming through my veins, jolting my brain with alerts to keep moving.
Not safe. Not safe. Never safe.
That man is dead. I stabbed him. I watched him bleed.
Why am I still so scared?
I can’t get my breathing under control. The weight of all these unleashed emotions is crushing my lungs. I might die right here, bleeding out from internal wounds.
That panic jolts me upright, snapping me back into survival mode. I scan the tiny property that I had once foolishly believed would become my first true home. A quaint two-story, robin’s egg blue house. A leaning chain-link fence. A cracked driveway spilling out into a street flooded with traffic.
I don’t know what I’m looking for, only that I need to keep moving. I need to wash my tainted skin clean before anyone sees what I’ve done.
My gaze locks on a glistening body of water peeking through lush trees across the congested street. I break into a pathetic run toward it. Cars blare their horns at me, barely swerving in time to avoid taking me out. I’m skin and bones. The impact would kill me in an instant.
I spent so long wishing for death, but now that I’ve had a taste of freedom, I want nothing more than to live.
I choose to live.
As soon as I breach the line of trees bordering the river, I leap into the cold, murky water. I sink all the way down to the rocky bottom and hold myself there until my lungs ache.
Still, that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach won’t leave. I want to claw my skin off. I want to scream until my throat goes hoarse. I want to incinerate his touch embedded into muscle and bone. Into the very center of my being.
That man is dead. But deep down, I know he has forever broken me.
CHAPTER ONE
EZRA
ELEVEN YEARS LATER
Standing in the middle of a pockmarked, blacktop street, I stare at a rundown warehouse and sift through my latest thefts, trying to figure out where I fucked up.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’d get myself into trouble. Fate had my name on a list from day one. I cheated it once, and now it wanted payment in blood. Not just mine, either.
Dragging fingers through my chin-length blonde waves, I spin my lip ring around with the tip of my tongue. Fuck my self-preservation instincts today. I don’t have much to show for my short time on this earth, anyway. Just a backpack stuffed with ratty clothes, a shitload of trauma, and a long-time friendship with an old homeless man I call Jakey, who might not even realize if I never make it back to our side of the city.
Jakey.
Visions of my reed-thi
To say I wish I had the strength to mess these people up for hurting my Jakey is an understatement, but even after all these years of freedom, I can’t seem to steal enough food to keep more than lean muscle on my bones.
As I stride to the chained gate, my eyes trail the razor wire fence surrounding the massive warehouse. Might cost me a few new scars to clear it if shit goes south, but it’s doable.
Four men clad in black with balaclava masks spill out of a graffitied security booth, rifles cradled in their arms. I dig my black-painted fingernails into the soft flesh of my palms as my heart dips in my chest.
I really fucked things up this time, didn’t I?
Stealing began as a means to ease the gnawing ache in my stomach. With no true skills or education, I had zero hope of finding a job when I escaped that basement. Humans aren’t designed to handle my amount of baggage, but I’ve done my best to cope on my own.
I’d expected the police to pick me up and convict me of murder. No one ever came. And I had no desire to ever return to a foster home. They’d all proven just how little my life actually meant, especially when the CPS visits stopped altogether.
That should have been my first red flag to run.
Eventually, I stumbled upon kind, quirky Jakey in a scrapyard. Catching sight of me lurking among the trash as he warmed his hands around a barrel fire, he invited me over. Told me wild, fantastical stories to settle my nerves. Promised me he would never hurt me.
Jakey restored my faith in humanity. He wanted to care for me like the parent I’d never had, but I quickly realized how much he needed me to take charge.
I can’t say that was the start of my troubles, but the pressure to make sure I always had cash on hand definitely pushed me toward the edge of a cliff.
One I now actively choose to leap off.
The adrenaline rush of stealing made me feel alive. Invincible. Even when I sometimes got bloody. My injuries were never enough to stop me from having another go, like some fucked up thrill ride I couldn’t quit.
So, when the offer came to take on bigger thefts—mostly swiping confidential business files for a random guy that haunts the docks—I hadn’t put much thought into where those jobs would lead me. I was desperate for the money to get me and Jakey on the other side of the river. Permanently.
Chest leaden with guilt, I approach the warehouse gate. The closest gunman drags it open enough for my thin body to slip through. Guns immediately point at me and shouting commences in another language, deep and throaty. I don’t understand a single word of it, but I lift my hands in submission.
“Um… I think I’ve been summoned,” I say, battling the urge to fidget when one wrong twitch of a muscle could have me turned into swiss cheese.
I’m motioned toward the warehouse, three of the gunmen closing in around me, and my pulse shifts into a higher gear. Nothing but a rat in a cage.
The thought makes me sick.
I’m not afraid of pain. These guys can torture me all they want. I’ve endured far worse. It’s the fear of being confined in that boarded up warehouse that has fresh adrenaline shooting through my veins.
I can’t wither away in the dark again. Mentally, I don’t think I’d survive it.
Running my fingers over the rows of safety pins fastened to my tight black pants, I shove down memories before panic can take root. Definitely not the time to lose my shit.
I glimpse another figure dressed in black walking the perimeter. It triggers me to scan the decrepit lot once more for an escape route. My attention snags on the vision of sleek high rises staggered across a glassy, cloudless sky on the other side of the murky river.
East Bank. A mythical land of big business and affluence where people worry more about sales deals and balancing checkbooks than where their next meal is coming from or who is going to shank them in their sleep.
Moving there was me and Jakey’s grand plan. A dream that may never come true, but it still inspired the mind while laid out on wafer-thin shelter beds in the middle of the night.
The leading gunman smacks a palm on the warehouse door hard enough to rattle it. When the door screeches open, revealing a musty, dim interior, my combat boots find themselves nailed to the ground.
Pain lances through my lower back as one of the gunmen slams his gun into my kidney. Normally, it would be enough to focus me, but the idea of strolling into the dark space has cold prickles spider-walking down my spine.
My brain replays the soundtrack of my life. Not safe. Not safe. Never safe.
“No trouble from you,” the gunman utters in a thick accent.
I throw him my best glare, though it’s hard to intimidate anyone with my soft, youthful features. His icy eyes reflect nothing but a desire to inflict harm, and I drop my gaze, catching the hint of a neck tattoo peeking out from his mask—a series of numbers and letters.
He tugs his mask back over the ink.
“Cheat your way through preschool?” I taunt. “Or just a big fan of alphabet soup?”
A wad of spit hits my cheek, and anger surges through me. I weigh the consequences of throwing a fist at his face. But now all three gunmen are shouting at me in their indistinguishable language, so I figure I better get my legs to cooperate.
“Heathens,” I mutter under my breath, wiping the glob of tobacco spit on the sleeve of my tattered jean jacket as I step inside the warehouse. All of me, clothes included, will need a wash later.
I’m escorted through towering rows of wooden crates and smaller rooms overflowing with corroded machinery and yellowing paperwork. This place hasn’t been touched in decades, which only nudges me further toward meltdown territory.
The gunmen shove me into a boxy, cluttered room with an extensive wall display of guns. Forcing down the terror eager to hook razor claws into me, I focus on the man behind a metal desk.
I assume he’s in charge. He’s not very intimidating in size, and I get the feeling that he tries to make up for that fact with piercings and tattoos. He also doesn’t appear much older than mid-thirties. His dark hair and stubble are free of gray. The only signs of aging are the crows feet at the corners of his lifeless eyes.
How does one rise to the top of so many armed criminals so young? Is there a box on the job application to check that reads: I’ve killed at least five whole humans?
“Cozy in here,” I mutter, fighting the building energy in my body urging me to move. To run. To freak the fuck out.
I need to keep my wits about me if I plan to make it out of this shit-pile situation. If I die, then Jakey won’t have anyone to look out for him. And if I live, but somehow piss these people off, Jakey might become a victim of their aggression again.
The leader swivels in his chair to face me. I take in the name Gabriel stitched on his mechanic’s shirt. Something tells me he doesn’t actually fix cars for a living, and I doubt that’s his real name, unless he’s got an inflated ego, but it’s something to report back to the police, I suppose. Not that I can rely on them to get involved in anything on this side of the river.
“This is him? The notorious street thief?” Gabriel asks, his gaze sweeping over my lean frame and ragged clothes in clear disappointment. I mean, I’m not petite, but I’m not a six-foot hulked out viking like the masked gunmen surrounding me.
“No bowing needed, thanks,” I reply. Something solid hits me in the back of the head. “Ah, fuck! Not my skull, please.” I rub fingers over the pounding warm spot, certain I can feel the bruise developing already.
“I hear you’ve been doing some jobs for an acquaintance of mine at the docks. Says you never fail to deliver,” Gabriel comments.
Shit. I should have known better than to assume I’d found a quick way to earn some cash. The bleach blonde man at the docks was shady as fuck, but I’d convinced myself he wasn’t any worse than anyone else that roamed the streets in West Bank.
“Give me a few weeks, and I’ll probably fuck something up.” I shrug, trying to make light of the situation.
Gold and silver teeth gleam from Gabriel’s wide smile. “Cocky. You’ll need to be for the job you’re about to do for me.” He props his boots up on the corner of the desk. “You ever heard of Sinro Enterprises, kid?”
