Prologue
June 25, 2016, 2:22 a.m.
When darkness prowled, so did he. Jaxon preferred the night. Since he was a kid he had found solace in between the hours when most people slept. He drove to his studio alone, determined to meet with his team and get his answers. A fifty-million-dollar film project he had funded was now another ten million over budget. No matter the hour, when he wanted answers, everyone was present to give them.
He’d not make the meeting.
She was in trouble. She had run from him, now she was running to him for protection. The boyfriend was a mouse. He’d done his research. Rejection wasn’t expected with her, she seemed so amicable to his desires. Was he wrong? Jaxon smiled to himself as his fingers gripped the steering wheel and his foot lay heavy on the gas pedal. Of course he wasn’t. She was his, sweetheart just didn’t know it. Apparently, the mouse did.
The BMW burned asphalt, hugged the winding curves of the road. Recovered nicely and gained speed.
“Listen to me,” he said through clenched teeth as he squinted at the darkness.
“You have to stay calm,” he shouted over her screams.
“I can’t! He’s behind me, he’s ramming my car. He’s going to run me off the road. Oh my God! He’s going to kill me!”
“I’m coming. I’m coming,” he mumbled, to himself rather than to her. Maybe the boyfriend wasn’t a mouse after all. Jaxon sent her down the cliffside road, headed directly for him. After a few dangerous curves he saw the speeding vehicle headed his way. He flashed his lights at her to slow her down. She was either too panicked or too reckless to agree. Instead, she accelerated.
“Fuck!”
For her life, and for leverage over the car chase, he swerved left between the charging Range Rover and the pursuing Ferrari just in time, to keep them both from crashing off the side of the road. The mouse travelled far too fast to be stopped. The only good defense Jaxon could summon was a strong offense. He took the danger upon himself and blew out his gear shift to send his BMW into a spin. The impending crash followed bright beams of lightheaded straight for a collision he narrowly avoided. The Ferrari slammed into the back passenger door and they both spun dangerously close to the mountain side. The Ferrari missed the mountainside and avoided a double flip that would certainly have killed the driver and passenger by a double flip down the middle of the road. Jaxon wasn’t as lucky. The collision sent his BMW into a car-to-street roll, with sparks flying from under the hood as he slid nearly a quarter of a mile down the slant of the road. The windshield shattered. His passenger door window was blown out as well. The airbag suffocated him.
His BMW rested on its roof. The engine burst into flames. Jaxon initially lost consciousness, but the heat of the fire that spread fast woke him. Dazed, bleeding, he counted down the broken bones: his wrist, his knee, and there had to be something wrong with his shoulder. The shock rendered the trauma to his body numb. He gagged on fumes of motor oil and cooking engine parts. Everything burned around him. The black smoke inside the car and the darkness outside of twisted his reality. He fumbled with the seatbelt. It was locked so tight to his chest he choked down whatever clean air he could grasp. A constant pressing on the button eventually freed him. It was then, just as the fire ignited his feet and pants legs, that he began to crawl out of the window using the good arm, elbow and shoulder for leverage. He felt the fire spread like the devil’s forked tongue licking slowly up his leg. He felt his trousers melt and his skin burn.
“HELP HIM!”
Goodiva rushed from her car, down the slanted road covered in glass and motor oil. Jaxon Price crawled out of the car window with part of him on fire. He rolled and tried to put himself out. Before she reached him, Twixt, her boyfriend, grabbed her by the waist and threw her away from the scene so forcefully she spun before she landed on her hands and knees.
“Kill him!” Twixt shouted at his brother.
“No!” she pleaded. She could see Twixt’s brother drag Jaxon away from the burning car before he began to kick and stomp on his body.
“Are you insane! He’s hurt! You’re killing him you assholes!”
She got to her feet and fought Twixt with her fists, swinging them like her best friend had taught her. She had used the pepper spray on him earlier—his eyes were red and glassy from the blast. Where was it now? She felt so desperate she was almost incapacitated by her breathless fear.
Twixt grabbed her by both arms and shook her violently. He threw her again, and she landed on her back. From what she could see, Jaxon Price fought back against his attacker. He caught Kumar by the leg, and Twixt’s brother went down on the pavement as hard as she had. Twixt’s attention turned toward the fight scene. He raced over to help his brother. She needed to find a weapon, anything. They were going to kill him. What else could she do?
Jaxon heard her screams. He felt the kicks and bone crunching stomps from his attacker foot, and his first instinct was to get past him to her crazed boyfriend. But his vision was impaired. One of his eyes didn’t open. The car fire illuminated the road. It must have been her peril that surged his strength. He had little else to fight back for. He felt no pain as he went for the idiot kicking him, while only half of his body worked. A fast grip of his attacker’s ankle caused the bastard to fall close enough for him to gain the advantage with his one good arm. What he didn’t expect was the second attacker. He received another hard kick to the back and felt the force go straight through his spine. He flipped to his side and took a gut kick that sent him rolling closer to the burning car. The heat was extreme. The men then proceeded to stomp and kick him together in some macabre dance of death.
Jaxon folded, unable to overcome the repeated blows in time to fight back. From his good eye he could see her. She stood frozen and watched his beating. When the beatings got worse, he knew his fate was closer to death than rescue. She knew it too. Instead of trying to help him, she turned and fled. She ran from them all. The last thing he could remember was her white Range Rover drive away. One last hard kick, and he was gone.
Chapter One
Malibu, June 22, 2016
Another smile pushed up the corners of his lips. He peeked at her from under a typical glazed, droopy lidded stare. Not only was he guilty, but she saw a different truth in his eyes. A truth her best friends had warned her about the moment she brought him around and bragged over her newfound happiness. Twixt didn’t love her.
His birth name was Vihaan Arjun. He was British, of East Indian descent. The moment he crossed over into pop music, Vihann was gone and Twixt was born. A five-foot-eight, popular, handsome, sweet dream of a man with deep brown skin and dark piercing eyes under lashes longer than any natural man woman or child. Women from all over the world listened to his hypnotic, thick-accented, rhyming voice and were seduced. Somewhere between becoming his black American deejay, lover and then girlfriend for clout, she’d fallen for the jerk. It wasn’t difficult to do. What 24-year-old women living in the City of Angels hadn’t fallen for the celebrity, wealth or popularity in the world she lived in?
“Play some music babe, that always chills you out,” he said in a dull tone. “I’m not in the mood to argue tonight. I just got home.”