WARNING
This novella is part of the Nicky James “a touch of taboo” collection.
This book contains content of a taboo nature which some people may find objectionable. The main characters are consenting adults, but their actions may be regarded as disturbing or unnatural to some readers.
Proceed with extreme caution.
It should also be noted that this novella is intended as a prequel to Rule Breakers.
Although the content of this particular novella is MM, the full story is an MMM of an extremely taboo nature.
This novella ends with neither a HEA or a HFN, but it will give you the story before the story told in Rule Breakers in as complete a form as is possible.
I hope you enjoy.
Triggers for drug use.
Prologue
Denver
Present Day
“No, I have it right here. Sir, I’m telling you, the numbers don’t match. I’m looking at the chart right now, and there is a notable difference between input and output.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying there is inventory disappearing.”
A low-rumbling groan came through the receiver, and I envisioned Mr. Laudry, my boss, scrubbing his bald head like he did when he was frustrated.
“And how long has this been going on?”
“I can’t say. I’m pulling up charts for the last few months to see if I can track it. I brought it to your attention the second I noticed, sir.”
“I know, I know. I’m not angry with you. It’s the situation.”
I shifted on my creaky leather office chair and cringed when his heavy sigh hit my ear.
“I’m sorry, sir. If I’d—”
“Unless you’re the culprit responsible, stop apologizing.”
“Yes, sir.”
The ringing of my doorbell made me jump, and I jerked my attention from my Excel sheets to the doorway of my office as though I could somehow see beyond it to the front hallway of the house. Who was ringing my doorbell at eight in the morning on a Saturday?
Mr. Laudry was speaking again. Tuning back in, I caught the tail end of his rant—something about dishonesty and integrity, and why can’t his employees be more like me? He didn’t take a breath for me to cut in.
“Send me those findings and write a detailed summary so I know what I’m looking at. Go back in the books a couple of months and see if you can determine when this started.”
The doorbell rang again.
I shifted to the edge of my office chair, clinging to my phone with both hands as Mr. Laudry continued speaking. “I want you to contact Reece and get him to send over the timetables. Go over them and see if there’s anything suspect.”
There was no sense pointing out it wasn’t my job or that it was my weekend off. We both knew I’d do anything he asked. I was a kiss-ass who didn’t know how to tell him no.
“Yes, sir.”
When the bell rang a third time, followed by a pounding fist, I cursed under my breath and made my way to the front door, hoping the impromptu meeting with my boss would be over by the time I got there.
When Mr. Laudry continued berating his no-good employees, I cut him off, knowing it was disrespectful. “I’m sorry, sir. I have to run. I’ll get those charts to you this afternoon and contact Reece.”
“Oh, indeed. Thank you, Denver. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
We hung up as I reached the front hallway. The person on the other side of the door seemed determined to break through the hardwood and enter whether I wished it or not.
When I went to shove my phone into my pocket, I came up short. Eight in the morning on a Saturday also meant I hadn’t dressed or bothered fixing myself up for company. I was in pajama bottoms and an old white T-shirt.
I stole a glance in the hallway mirror and cringed. Thick stubble covered my chin and neck, dark like midnight. It was too bad the mop on the top of my head wasn’t as resistant to silvering. Every day a few more strands of gray joined the others, determined to make me feel every one of my forty-two years.
My impatient visitor called out from the other side of the door as he continued to hammer and kick and fight his way through. “I see you in there, Uncle Denver. Open up. Fuck, what the hell? Why are you just standing there? Come on, man. It’s cold out here.”
My nephew.
Edison.
A wash of apprehension filled my veins and stalled my forward momentum. I hadn’t seen him in over five months, and our last encounter had ended … awkwardly, leaving me with many weeks’ worth of anxiety and second-guessing.
He didn’t relent. He was like his father in a lot of ways. Impatient. Reckless. Persistent. Impulsive, which was why I’d sent him away the last time he’d shown up at my house out of the blue.
I could leave him out there, but a neighbor would notice and call the cops eventually with the racket he was making.
Less concerned about my appearance, I unlocked the deadbolt and swung the door open, letting in a blast of cold winter air that raised goose bumps along my bare arms in record time.
A million questions and statements sat ripe on my tongue, but Edison shoved his way inside before I could voice any of them. “Move. I have to piss. It’s like twenty below out there. My nads crawled inside me, and my bladder’s turned to a prune.”
He shot down the hallway toward the downstairs bathroom, and a second later, I heard the sound of a sharp blast of urine hitting the toilet.
“You could close the bathroom door,” I muttered under my breath as I stumbled toward the kitchen, rubbing some heat back into my arms.
The coffee was old since I’d made it at six when I’d gotten up, so I started a fresh pot. Edison wandered into the kitchen like he lived there and aimed for the food cupboard, rooting around until he found a box of cereal he deemed acceptable. Instead of finding a bowl like a normal person, he opened the box and dug in with his hand, popping Chex into his mouth and crunching them as he leaned back against the counter.
He was the spitting image of my brother Harley when Harley had been twenty years old. Same wild hair the color of wheat. Same intense and mischievous gray eyes. Same devious smile that dared me to tell him to stop eating like an animal and sit at the table.
The coffee machine gurgled behind me as we continued our stare-off. There were so many things I could have said, yet I remained unable to voice a single word.
“Sexy scruff.” His grin was playful and full of innuendo.
“Don’t.”
Edison shrugged. “What? It is. I ain’t gonna lie. Did I wake you?”
“No, I was having a phone meeting with my boss.”
“On a Saturday? That’s weak.”
It was as though the five-month gap and all the things that had caused it no longer existed. Then again, it was easier to brush things aside when you were younger. Edison had probably dismissed our last encounter like it was no big deal. With age came a firmer sense of morals and ethics and responsibility.
Or, rather, it was supposed to. I was still working on that.
I’d made a hundred excuses for my behaviors over the years. Especially for how I’d acted last time Edison and I had been in the same room together. The past was repeating itself, and I wasn’t a strong enough person to stop it.