Anarchy Found (SuperAlpha, #1) by J.A. Huss
DESCRIPTION
That’s what Detective Molly Masters tells me. “What we need,” she says, “what the whole world needs,” she pleads, “is a champion.”
The only thing I want to talk about with Molly Masters is how I’d like to make her scream my name when I push her up against a wall, slide my hand up her thigh, and live out my wildest fantasies.
“Someone who will fight against injustice,” she says.
I’ll fight against anything you want, honey. Just come a little closer.
“Someone who will stand tall in the face of adversity,” she says.
I’ll do it standing, sitting, or lying down. See how easy I am?
“Someone who believes in the value of a good deed,” she says.
I believe in the value of me, sweetheart. Because I’m Lincoln Wade. Jaded genius, obscenely wealthy, capable of violence, and looking for revenge.
Molly Masters might have delusions of grandeur. She might see me as some superman capable of cleaning up the scum, filth, and corruption in Cathedral City.
But I’m not the hero she’s looking for.
I’m the dark alley where all her good intentions hide.
So be careful what you wish for, Molly Masters.
Because you’re about to get it.
Chapter One - Molly
Today is like any other day.
If every other day was filled with hopeless abandonment
And it is. Has been. Will continue to be. For as long as we both shall live.
The wannabe writer in me thinks like this. All poetic. Stringing words together just because they sound like music when you say them out loud.
“You’re crazy, Molls,” I whisper to the fogged-up windshield of my brother’s truck. That’s what he would say. And why not channel him? Today of all days? Why not?
I’m not a writer, not in the traditional sense. I don’t write sentences or paragraphs. Just lists. And today I have a long one brewing inside my head. When I get home, I’m going to write it down in my journal and then, no matter what happens after this day, I can look back and remember how it feels to save your soul by selling your past.
Hate. That’s the name of the list. Or if you want the full title, Things I Hate While Driving on a Mountain Road Pulling My Dead Brother’s Bike Trailer Home from the Racetrack After Successfully Ignoring Said Bikes for Six Months.
But Hate, for short.
Mountain roads.
Rain.
Foggy windows.
…
A pair of motorcycles whip past on either side of me, their engines roaring, the riders’ helmeted faces buried deep against the gas tanks. I slam on my brakes, my heart beating so fast it might jump out of my chest. Their red taillights disappear around a curve and I let out a long breath.
“What the f*ck, you *s?”
I scream it. And that makes me mad because there’s no one to hear it. So I get out of the truck and stand in the rain and scream it again. Only this time I scream it to God.
“What the f*ck? You *!” I think I’m crying. Not for those jerks who will probably crash on the slick roads, but for me. Because I’m angry. I’m so, so, so f*cking angry.
A horn honks behind me and snaps me out of my fit.
“Sorry,” I yell, a smile on my face. The good-public-servant smile I’ve practiced for the past six years. “Problem with my headlights. But it’s OK now,” I add quickly, as the older man makes to get out and help me. I wave at him. “I’m fine, all fixed.” I motion for him to pass and he goes around, shaking his head at me. Feeling sorry for me.
That’s what people tend to do. Generally. If they know me well enough, they feel sorry for me. That’s part of the reason I moved to Cathedral City.
Which is where I really need to be right now. Home, making my hate list, feeling sorry for myself so people don’t have to.
I jump back in the truck, soaking wet, and put it in gear. I move forward with the same lethargy I had before the bikers pissed me off and morph back into my normal self as I take the corner around the mountain.
The car that just passed me brakes and then swerves like it’s avoiding something on the side of the road. This road is narrow, so everyone drives right down the middle unless there’s another car coming. I strain my eyes through the blurry fogged-up window to see what the issue is, but before I can get a handle on it, the two bikers from before peel out from the side of the road, their red taillights flashing at me again.
“Assholes,” I whisper to myself, speeding up. “You’re a couple of *s.”
The trailer I’m dragging fishtails as I pass over a deep puddle, and I force myself to slow down. But I keep my eyes trained on the twin taillights ahead. The road meets the mountain and splits at a fork, and one light goes right, another left.
When I get to the fork, I go left, away from Cathedral City and towards the bike shop that wants my brother’s last creations. It’s the only reason I came out here to pick them up.
It’s a way forward.
A way past the anger.
And sadness.
And pity.
I call that list A New Start.
I’m desperately in need of one. And the new job just doesn’t quite cut it.