Blacklisted (Loveless, Texas #3) - Jay Crownover
Prologue
My life used to be boring, predictable. I had a job I worked hard to succeed at, an ill mother who I devoted all my free time to taking care of, and one single friend I trusted and relied on. My days tended to bleed together, all of them seemingly the same, and I liked it that way. I liked knowing what to expect. I thrived with a set routine and did not field surprises and unexpected occurrences well. Part of that was because my mother had been sick for so long, and when things stayed the same, it meant she was still with me. Any upset in our day-to-day meant I ran the risk of losing her, and since she was the only family I had, I never adjusted well to even the smallest of inconsistencies in my schedule.
Unfortunately, those boring, dull, and predictable days were long gone. The job I loved and had worked my butt off to advance in was in limbo. My mother was no longer with me. And not only had I lost my only family, but her passing had set off a domino effect of life-changing and suspicious scenarios in my life. On top of losing both my professional reputation and my mother, I’d come to realize my one and only friend, the woman I’d relied on since we were in med school together, the woman who held me, and held me together, when I broke down after finding out my mother had passed, was the person behind my sudden issues at work…and though it wasn’t confirmed, and there was no physical proof, I firmly believed she was directly involved with my mother’s death.
I’d suffered a horrible loss and faced the ultimate betrayal all at the same time.
After all of my former friend’s malicious acts came to light, the Texas Rangers put me in protective custody. She’d threatened to kill me and warned that she planned to take away everything and everyone that mattered to me. Since she had proved to be just unhinged and unpredictable enough to follow through on the threats, I complied with orders from law enforcement and stayed out of sight.
However, I soon realized the only way to ensure the people around me stayed safe was if Ashby Grant, my former friend and current tormentor, could see that I was suffering from the havoc she rained down on my life. She needed to know her efforts weren’t in vain.
The first step was to get myself out of protective custody so I could remain her prime target. After that, I retreated into myself, locking the front door to my apartment and shutting out the rest of the world. I was lonely and missing my mother, feeling like my life was a mess. However, I knew I didn’t want to die, and more than that, I really didn’t want anyone else to die because of me and the choices I made. I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing any of the Lawtons, who had suddenly invaded my life at the same time it fell apart, injured or worse, just because we all had the unfortunate luck of having the same father.
If it hadn’t been for my newly found half siblings forcibly inserting themselves into my life, I would have effectively disappeared, hiding while I waited anxiously for whatever fate Ashby had planned for the two of us to befall me. They threw an absolute fit when I declared I no longer wanted police protection or a full-fledged security detail. The Lawtons—and more specifically my younger half sister, Kody Lawton—refused to let me sink into my grief and overwhelming anxiety that something would happen to her and her two older brothers because of me. No matter how hard I tried to push her away, she kept dragging me back into the land of the living. She forced me to interact with my new family and stubbornly made me stand face-to-face with all my paralyzing fears.
When she called me in the middle of the night not long after I ditched my protective detail, screaming that she needed my help, my first instinct was to tell her no. I didn’t want to leave my house during daylight hours on a good day—no way was I driving out to her dive bar on the outskirts of town while I was both alone and afraid in the dark. Her disappointment was palpable over the phone, and I immediately felt the sting of letting her down under my skin,