Synopsis

Lyle Hardgrave is a gentleman, a poet, a jazz lover, and a hitman.

But when he meets Cora Wilson, the killer finds himself battling organized crime, the FBI, and unchained emotions to keep himself and the love of his life alive.

Hardgrave is known to the criminal underworld as the Gorgon. See his face. Die. He’s lived a life of anonymity, a life in which he has total control where emotions are a handicap. Years ago, he chained them and buried them, then threw away the key.

A series of events threatens his anonymity and his control. He’s forced to kill the son of Joseph Vincenti, the top mob boss. His best friend, and the only one that knows his identity, disappears. The FBI closes in. Vincenti and his thugs hunt him. All part of the lifestyle he’s chosen.

Except, now there’s Cora Wilson. Besides being beautiful, she’s energetic, unrestrained, passionate, and pure. Hardgrave falls in love with Cora as she fills a void he’d ignored for decades. Cora possesses the key to his shackled emotions. One by one she unlocks them. But she doesn’t know Hardgrave’s secret.

Hardgrave must choose. Leave his criminal life or leave Cora. Even if he chooses Cora, will she accept who he really is? Can he have love from this amazing woman and find redemption from his past?

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Excerpt

As they left the Gnarly Barnacle, Hardgrave’s arm around Cora’s waist, her head on his shoulder, he began to doubt his first theory. Maybe the greaseballs hadn’t approached Cora. An anonymous phone call? A threat by letter, perhaps? He decided he wasn’t going to ask her tonight. His previous plan still seemed the best. Ask the greaseballs. They’d tell him…eventually.

They neared his car.

Cora stopped. “Look at that.” She pointed down the row of cars.

About fifty feet away, three men formed a ring around a woman. What Hardgrave at first had mistaken for laughter he realized was cries of terror.

“You have to do something,” Cora said.

“Get in the car. There’s nothing we can do.” The last thing he wanted was to get involved with three drunken morons pushing around some hooker.

“Lyle, we can’t leave her. They could kill her.”

“Probably just having a little fun.” He hated himself for taking that position, but he could foresee big trouble if he got involved. He opened the passenger side door.

Cora broke from his embrace and started walking toward the gathering.

“Cora, come back here.”

“No. If you won’t do anything, then I will.”

“Great,” he muttered, then shouted, “wait.” He leaned inside the car, popped the glove compartment, retrieved his nine millimeter and twenty-two, and slipped one in each pocket of his light jacket. He then slammed the car door and swiftly caught up with Cora.

“Stay here. No matter what. You understand?” He felt himself slipping into the role of cold-blooded killer. Much too easily.

A faint flicker of the earlier fear flashed through Cora’s eyes. He knew he was about to undo everything he’d worked hard that night to do.

Slipping his hands in his pockets, gripping both guns, he sauntered toward the three men. Where most men would have felt nervous, excited, an adrenaline rush, he felt nothing, dispassionate, maybe annoyed, like he was going to scold errant children.

He leaned against the nearest car, directly behind a balding man with five-day stubble, a black T-shirt, and faded jeans hanging low enough to reveal his butt crack. The other two men both had long hair, one a goatee, the other a ragged mustache. Upon quick inspection, he determined none of them had guns. A knife maybe, hidden in a jeans pocket. But he could deal with that.

The woman was pretty in a grungy way. Ratty blonde hair hung over her shoulders. She also wore a T-shirt and jeans, though her jeans were snug on a firm behind, and her T-shirt was cut off at the sternum, barely covering ample breasts.

“What’s the matter, baby? You come on to ole Joe here but now you don’t want to put out?” This was spoken by goatee boy. His accent indicated transient. Not from around there.

“Yeah, ole Joe here, he likes them boobs you got. Come on, give us a feel.” Baldy inched toward the woman.

“Evening, boys,” Hardgrave said.

For a moment, no one said anything. The woman looked at him with an expression of relief.

Baldy turned slowly and when he saw Hardgrave, snarled. “What do you want, slick?”

“I was just wondering if the lady was enjoying herself.” He looked past Baldy and caught the gaze of the woman. “Are you?”

She shook her head.

Goatee boy shoved the woman toward Baldy hard enough to snap the woman’s head back. She gasped, then cried out in pain, but held her balance.

Hardgrave sighed and shook his head. “Now that’s no way to treat a lady.”

“Oh yeah. What you gonna do about it?”

“Yeah, what are you gonna do about it?” asked the man with the ragged mustache.

Hardgrave glanced over his left shoulder, toward the bar. A couple of men were exiting but ignoring the gathering. Other than that, the pier was empty. No help. He’d have to deal with it. Cora was watching intently behind him.

In the old days, the situation would have been easy to resolve, the only cost, three slugs. Now, with Cora, he was forced to employ tact. Again, he sighed, feeling weary just thinking about the energy this was going to take. “I think you’ve had enough fun for one night. Why don’t you leave the woman alone. Better yet just leave.”

Baldy stepped close enough so that Hardgrave could smell his rotten breath and pungent body odor. “And just what are you gonna do if we don’t? Huh, slick?” Baldy glanced back at his friends and grinned. The other two laughed and nodded their heads.

Hardgrave kicked Baldy in the groin. The thug doubled over with a grunt. Hardgrave drew his leg back, then planted the heel of his cowboy boot on Baldy’s forehead. The man fell back onto his butt.

Goatee Boy and Mustache Man looked first at their fallen leader, then at Hardgrave. But neither one moved toward him.

Baldy struggled to his feet, still hunched over and holding his groin. A deep growl rose from the man’s throat. He charged, head down.

Hardgrave timed his kick and drove the steel tipped toe into Baldy’s nose, then he stepped aside as the man’s momentum carried him into the car Hardgrave had been leaning on. He hoped the moron didn’t leave a dent, as he doubted the Lexus belonged to him. Baldy slid down the car into a crumpled heap.

Two clicks sounded in rapid succession. Switchblades.

Hardgrave looked at Goatee Boy and Mustache Man. They had fear in their eyes and knives in their hands. Both had crouched into fighting positions. He pondered for a moment, trying to come up with a clever line that would send the rodents scurrying, but failed. Instead, he took his hands out of his pockets, the nine millimeter in the right, the twenty-two in the left, and aimed each gun at a different thug. His fingers twitched. He came close to firing but abstained.

Cora’s eyes burned into his back.

Both men straightened. When Hardgrave said nothing, they dropped the knives.

“Get your fat friend and get out of here,” Hardgrave said.

They did as they were told, half dragging, half helping along the groaning bald man.

The blonde rushed toward him. “Thank you,” she croaked, her voice hoarse from screaming. She tried to throw her arms around him.

“Get outta here.” Hardgrave impatiently waved her away while stepping out of her embrace.

She pouted but turned and headed in the same direction as the departing thugs, but at a much slower pace.

Hardgrave pocketed the guns, sighed, and turned around. One of those morons might as well have plunged a knife in his back; it would have been less painful than the terrified look on Cora’s face.

About the Author

B.D. Lawrence has always loved reading fiction. Ironically, though, his worst subject in high school was English. One night, sitting in a master’s level computer programming class, daydreaming about vigilantes, he decided to give writing a try. Out of that came his first novel, which went nowhere. That was many years ago. During his writing journey he’s dabbled in several genres, including mysteries, suspense, science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction. He currently is focusing on stories of justice, vengeance, and redemption.

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