Condemn, p.1
Condemn, page 1
Condemn
A Diamond Empire Novel
Copyright © 2022 by Kathy Coopmans
authorkathycoopmans.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations. Any resemblance to actual persons, things, living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.
Editor: Chasing Sophie Publications
Cover & Interior Design by Jill Sava, Love Affair With Fiction
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Trigger Warning
Dedication
Family Tree
The Diamond Empire
Epigraph
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
Epilogue
Up Next From Kathy
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About the Author
Also by Kathy Coopmans
TRIGGER WARNING
This book comes with a trigger warning. There is abuse and a miscarriage in the beginning. There are violent acts as this is mafia.
I’ve experienced both.
I’ve overcome them and learned to live with what I cannot change. I’ve become stronger and I did it quickly.
What reading this story comes down to is emotional safety and comfort for you.
With this note, if you continue, you are better prepared when faced with the content.
Many blessings to each one of you.
If you are a victim of abuse. Please know there is help out there and you are not alone.
All you have to do is pick up the phone and dial 911. Or The National Domestic Hotline: 1 800-799-7233
DEDICATION
To my father.
You passed away shortly after I started writing this story daddy.
I lost my way for a long time.
I’m still trying to find my way back.
I miss you more than words can say.
Love, your daughter.
FAMILY TREE
THE DIAMOND EMPIRE
VVictoria Hughes—CONCEDE. AVAILABLE NOW
Diesel Hughes—CALLOUS. AVAILABLE NOW
Aaron Diamond—CONTROL. AVAILABLE NOW
Jonathon Bexley—CONDEMN. AVAILABLE NOW
Dray Hughes—CONFESS. Release date TBA
Micah Levy—CAPTIVATE. Release date TBA
Cara Levy—CLINCH. Release date TBA
EPIGRAPH
“After a while, I looked in the mirror and realized…wow, after all those hurts, scars, and bruises, after all of those trials, I really made it through. I did it. I survived that which was supposed to kill me. So I straightened my crown…and walked away like a boss.”— Unknown
PROLOGUE
Paige
You aren’t thinking straight. Tell him to stop. You’ve had too much to drink. You don’t know what you are doing. This is a mistake.
My brain continues to plead for me to open my mouth. It’s firing off warnings left and right at my foolish recklessness, but they’re suffocated by the attraction that simmers in the air.
It’s combustible.
A sizzling charge in the air upon first sight.
Volts of it.
A shockwave that burns through my veins.
Scorching.
Something I don’t understand, yet I wish I could touch on it for all of eternity.
To get to know this stranger so much better.
The man has no clue he’s become my asylum.
The first good memory to slip into the empty compartment of my mind. I’ll be able to bring this night out and think of it whenever I want. To relish and savor.
To pretend that he’s mine in every way a man should belong to a woman.
Faithful and kind and sincere with a side of roughness.
The moment he sat next to me at the bar, he caught me in his seductive web with one shock-filled inhale of his aura. His rough yet gentle voice skidded straight down my spine.
He’s staggered me.
Stunned me stupid.
The connection was unstoppable, like two freight trains colliding before either had time to slam on the brakes. He set me on fire, and he knew it, too. It was obvious with the way my eyes went wide every time he brushed his arm or leg against mine.
He’s my first touch of warmth.
My first touch of feeling alive.
Every word that slipped from his tongue all night wrapped around me in comfort.
In safety.
In longing.
My skin flames with need when he skims his big hands down my sides. My nipples harden to stiff, achy peaks and that fire he lit inside me blazes higher, strengthening at my core.
I want this man to touch me everywhere. Brand himself into the piece of me that’s come to life just by how he looks at me.
Like I’m beautiful.
Like he wants to take me home, place me on a pedestal and worship me.
I don’t even know anything personal about him except his first name is John. I wish with all that’s in me I wasn’t so afraid to tell him everything about my life. I wish I believed that once he heard the disaster I am, he’d still look at me the same. That he’d offer to protect me.
To help me.
To love me.
To see me for me even if I don’t know who that is. A woman with internal scars and an ugly past. One I’d love to just flush out of my system.
After what I’ve been through, I’m surprised I want him touching me the way I do. A man’s hand is repulsive to me. They are nothing more than weapons of destruction. Somehow, I’d convinced myself it was okay. That after feeling nothing but misery for so long, I deserve to feel human. To feel something besides the pain coming off the hand of a malicious man. So when he asked me to follow him into the bathroom, I said yes.
As he continues to rob my breath by devouring my mouth with his talented velvet tongue, those hands now greedily squeezing the cheeks of my ass, I imagine that’s how he plans on taking me.
Ravenously.
Hard and fast.
I want him, too.
I need him.
“I’m certain one night with you won’t be enough,” he whispers against my mouth, making me yearn for things that won’t come true as he winds a hand in my hair and yanks it back, obtaining access to my jaw and neck. His teeth nip the skin at my collarbone, making goosebumps bud along every inch of my body.
Using his teeth, he tugs the straps of my dress down my trembling arms. My heavy breasts spill out, and a moan pilfers free when he dips down to take a nipple into his mouth and sucks it hard.
Raspy pants leave my lungs, and desire streams through my veins, dumping into every cell until I’m close to erupting. It’s so foreign that a plea for more tumbles out. It feels so good.
I shudder when he chuckles roughly, his hands going to the hem of my dress, and he slowly raises it up. A tease before his rough fingertips caress the inside of my thighs.
I don’t tense. I don’t look for a place in my mind to cower and hide like usual.
I allow myself to feel.
Permit his touch to sink into my skin, and weave its way into my bones. Right down to the marrow.
“Damn,” he hisses, mouth going to my ear. “Your skin feels like silk. Last chance to tell me no. Say it, beauty. Tell me no.”
I almost say the word. It’s right there, ready to tumble out when he grazes the outside of my panties, and the word goes up in a puff of smoke. But that word, beauty, sticks to my flesh.
Red hot cinders shoot through my middle, landing right between my legs as he runs a finger along the edge of the lace.
The sensation of his touch is indescribable.
I silently thank God for bringing this man into my life. If only briefly because I’ve never felt anything like this.
It feels so good, it hurts.
“I’d be lying if I did.” My voice is croaky, my nerves a bundle of anxiousness.
On a growl, John spins me around, pushes my skirt over my hips, rips my panties clear off, and flattens his bulk to mine. I feel every hard inch of him straining against the fabric of his dress pants.
He’s enormous. Long and thick. The size of him is likely to spilt me in half.
I shudder as he rolls his hips, and my hands go to the walls beside the sink to stop my wobbly legs from giving out when our reflections catch in the mirror.
He is simply gorgeous, captivating, and has such a pretty face.
His hair is a deep shade of brown, and his eyes are the rarest color—a kaleidoscope of swirling green and blue that fascinate me. Like the clear waters of the Caribbean Sea. I’m surprised he can’t see right through
Every line of his face is carved to perfection. Sharp angles, and a perfectly trimmed short beard outlining his strong jaw.
The top buttons of his white dress shirt are undone, revealing a light swatch of hair. He’s tall with bristling muscles in his arms and thighs, and he has danger and darkness written all over him. When you live with them, you know what they smell like—only his call out to me with the sweetest hint of something I can’t grasp.
I wish I could, though.
“Are you wet?” He rumbles out as two fingers spread me open and slip inside easily from how soaked I am. I gasp, shocked at my body’s response and how my back arches in pure ecstasy. “Jesus, you are fucking dripping for me,” he mutters as he skates his thumb over my clit, carving figure eights over my sensitive flesh.
The friction is not yet quite enough to send me soaring, but just enough to drive me crazy. To twist me up. To make me rock against his hand as he works me into a frenzy. Those fingers plunge in and out, creating a crest of waves low in my stomach, and my head thrashes when an explosive orgasm rips through me.
Oblivion.
Soaring.
The pleasure shattering me into a million unrecognizable pieces.
“I need you,” I whimper.
Those three words have more meaning to them than he will ever know because, after tonight, I will never see him again.
He says nothing as he removes his fingers, and I hear the hiss of his zipper. Within seconds, my legs are spread wider, his chin hits my shoulder, and he pushes inside me, filling me with one deep thrust.
I scream starts to rip from my throat, but he’s quick to clamp his hand over my mouth.
“Are you okay?” he asks, his voice a rough caress over my skin.
All I can do is nod because the feel of him is like a dream come to life. The man stretching and filling and making my body delirious for him to move.
To bring me pleasure instead of pain.
With his body curling around me, he drops his hand, takes hold of my hips, pulls out and slams back in. Heat scorches my muscles, and lips brush the shell of my ear.
“Hold on, Paige. I’m about to fuck you raw.”
And he does. He drives in and out of me until I’m gasping and my legs shake. Until sweat beads between my breasts, and my body screams for release. Teetering on the edge of bliss. My moans and his grunts mix, bouncing off the walls of the tiny room.
Stars burst behind my eyes, blood rushes through my head, and I fall apart on a bone-shattering orgasm that ripples right through me. I scratch and claw at the walls. Groans of pleasure fill the air, and I watch his face, memorizing everything about him as he empties himself on a roar.
“Come home with me,” he commands gently, voice gruff—the question springing tears to my eyes in an instant.
I want to say yes so damn bad. It’s right there ready to spill from my satisfied smile, but I can’t, and that makes my smile disappear.
I swallow down the attraction, tuck this night away as I planned, and let the hurt burn my throat and bubble like acid in my stomach as I shake my head.
I’m married.
God help us both if my husband were to find out I’d just cheated.
CHAPTER ONE
Paige
Three months later
As I sprint down the sidewalk, pumping my arms and pushing my legs to go faster, I become rapt by how the fleeting colors of dusk slowly fade away, bringing in the charcoal-black night sky.
A few stars peek out, and I’d like to think that because I can see them on the edge of the city, they’ll align for me and all the other women in the world who walk in my shoes.
That luck would be on our sides and something good would happen.
Fate and luck.
Destiny.
A bright outlook on life.
God, how I wish it were that easy. It’s not when your self-esteem and confidence has been beaten out of you. When you have no money to fall back on. When you blame yourself as much as you do the abuser. When you have an emotional toll with the weight of the world on your shoulders.
Sighing, I continue to watch the darkness mount, smiling the more it shades me in protection from the devils spawn I’m running from. My nerves settle down a little, giving me a bit more faith and hope that I might not be found. That I’ve actually escaped.
After all, those emotions are the only things I have to rely on in the lonely, miserable world I’ve lived in. They’ve failed me so many times in the past, but I need them now more than ever before. If they fail me, what remains of me will wither away.
I’ll become a dried-up tumbleweed blowing away in the wind.
Not that anyone would care.
The cuts on the bottom of my feet from stepping on shards of glass sting, yet I continue to pound the pavement. I kicked off my heels and ripped my tight red dress to mid-thigh to run faster a few blocks back. If I’d had a plan, I would have faked sick, and my husband would have left me at home. Why he asked me to come with him tonight anyway, I’ll never know. I wouldn’t dare ask.
I’m sure I look like a raggedy mess to the people I’ve passed to on my way to freedom, but I’m so close to it, I could care less.
My chest tightens as the face of my malicious husband flashes in my mind. Of all the times his fists would use me as a punching bag, and his cock sprang to life, hardening with every strike. His unwanted hands tearing my clothes off to rape me after he beat me black and blue.
Seeing me with bruises and broken bones turned him on for some sick reason.
The despicable man is a predator full of wicked intent.
Vile and degrading.
The scars he’s left will forever reside in what’s left of my ruptured soul.
I might never be able to scrape the ugly memories from my mind. Thanks to finding out I was pregnant a few weeks ago, though when I never thought I’d become a mother, has given me the courage to run.
To flee for my unborn child.
My eyes sting from the dried-up tears, and my legs burn as I duck under a big oak tree plastering myself against the bark to figure out where I am as I realize I haven’t seen a single person since I sprinted through the gates of a park a few minutes ago. Which is odd, considering this is New York City.
I believe I’m lost, unsure if I’m heading in the right direction to find the women’s shelter we passed earlier.
Nikita’s Safehouse.
A sanctuary.
A refuge.
A place he wouldn’t be allowed to step foot in.
When we drove by, I took that as a sign to run from my villain of a husband, Lucas Donovan. The second he stopped at a light, I whipped open the door and took off in a sprint.
Lucas is a horrible man. Beyond that actually. He wouldn’t know the meaning of good and kind if they slapped him in the face. He was born without a moral compass—without a shred of decency in his body—just a cold, vicious heart.
Ugliness through and through.
A vicious viper.
I’ve suffered many years of stumbling and losing myself to the man who vowed to love, honor, and cherish me. I should keep running from him, but now that I’ve stopped, I need just a minute to control my racing heart and to figure out if I’m heading in the right direction. God, please let me be. I don’t want to head back the way I came. He’s searching for me, I know he is.
“Life would be much easier if he’d just let me go,” I whisper.
Lucas could have anyone he wanted, and I wouldn’t put it past him to have someone on the side since he sometimes doesn’t come home for days at a time. Not that I would care. I only hope he doesn’t treat her the way he does me, because he enjoys making me live in a swamp of misery.
The man I married is a slippery little son of a bitch. I’m sure he keeps me purely for his own sickening gratification. Taking me on one of his joy rides whenever he wants, only to leave me a burnt-out wreck in the end.
Battered and bruised.
My spirit charred to ashes.
His ominous warning that he’d kill me if I attempted to leave thunders through my consciousness. I’d known better than to question it. He will kill me if he finds me, or he’ll beat me like he never has before.
If I could take Lucas’s life and get away with it, I would. There’d be no thoughts of regret while I blew his brains out and stood by his grave, faking my grief.
