Hartstrings: A Jaded Regret Novel (Jaded Regret Series Book 3)

  Hartstrings: A Jaded Regret Novel

  L. L Collins

  Contents

  Copyright © LL Collins 2016

  Dedication

  AUTHOR NOTE

  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

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Acknowledgments

  L.L. Collins Book List

  About the Author

  Playlist for Hartstrings

  Copyright © LL Collins 2016

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Design and Photography by Cassy Roop at Pink Ink Designs

  http://www.pinkinkdesigns.com

  Models: Adam Spahn and Madam Bea

  Editing by Leddy Harper

  Proofreading by Jillian Toth at Jilly’s Polished Proofs

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To everyone who has ever suffered at the hands of someone who said they loved them. Love shouldn’t hurt, and getting out of an abusive relationship takes a lot of strength, support, and determination, but you are worth it and so much more.

  AUTHOR NOTE

  If you or someone you love is the victim of physical or mental abuse, please seek help. You are worth much more than living your life doing anything less than living your dreams.

  This book contains adult content and language. It also contains topics that could be difficult for some readers, including but not limited to physical and emotional abuse, murder, and violence. Please take these sensitive topics into consideration before choosing to read this book.

  ~L.L. Collins

  Prologue

  Tanner- age 7

  I held my hands over my sister’s ears, sticking my tongue out at her. Her chest rumbled and a high-pitched giggle escaped from her lips. She reached up and wrapped her fingers around mine. The tears that tracked down her cheeks seconds before were dried, and her mouth split in a wide, toothy grin. I loved making her laugh. There was nothing better in the world than Tracey’s laugh.

  My hands over her ears didn't do anything to mute the loud, echoing smash of something breaking against the wall, and her grin instantly vanished. Her bright blue eyes, the ones that mirrored my own, clouded over with a glossy sheen of tears again, and her chin trembled. I squeezed my eyes closed at the sound of my mother’s screaming and my father’s bellows and then a loud thud. The silence that followed made my skin crawl with unease. I knew what that meant. He had gotten mad enough to knock her down. It could’ve been into the wall, the corner of the table, even through glass. Whatever it was, she no longer screamed. He no longer yelled. The silence took over, and it was almost as deafening as the noise. I could hear my heart pulse in my eardrums. I could feel Tracey’s heart pound against mine and her tight grip cut off the circulation in my hand. I forced air in and out of my lungs as the fear coursed through my veins like a car on a racetrack. Get up, Mom. Please, get up this time. Every time we hid in my room, I waited. Waited for the time when she’d never get up again, and we’d be left with the man who said in words that he loved us but showed just the opposite.

  It was the same thing every time. I didn’t remember a time in my life when this hadn’t been a normal occurrence—all I knew was Tracey didn’t deserve this life. She was innocent and good. Though we are twins, we couldn’t have been more different. I had to be the man and protect her. If he ever came after her, I would jump in and let him hit me instead. It was bad enough he did it to my mom and she allowed it; Tracey was a whole other story. I didn’t know how I’d protect her from him, but I would.

  As she sobbed, I pulled her close. We were in the middle of a war zone; it was like this at least a few times a week. Sometimes, it was little fights. Cuss words, thrown objects, slammed doors. But other times, it was like this. Violent, physical…and terrifying. I knew exactly what my mother would look like tomorrow, and the excuses she would give. I also knew my father would come home with daisies—my mother’s favorite. He’d come up behind my mom while she cooked in the kitchen and whisper into her ear. She’d smile, her lips turning up like they did when she was happy. I loved that smile when she used it on Tracey and me, but he didn’t deserve it. She’d turn her bruised face up to his, and they would kiss. She’d grip onto his shirt while his big hands roamed her body. He would whisper, and she would smile again, running her hands along his face and gazing at him with so much love it made my stomach hurt. Tears would track down his face, and I would wonder what exactly he had to be sad about. If he didn’t like to hurt her, why did he?

  I would never understand them, and I didn’t want to. I hated them.

  Tanner- age 16

  I paced in front of the living room window, wondering where the hell Tracey was. It wasn’t like her not to be waiting for me after school. We lived within walking distance to our high school, and I could count on one hand the amount of times we hadn’t walked home together. Even when I went after school to play with my band, she’d come and watch us. But after waiting for her for over an hour, I walked home alone. My thoughts were a jumbled mess over what she’d told me and the things that had happened over the last twenty-four hours.

  I touched the sensitive spot on the back of my head where my dad had punched me last night. It was the first time he’d ever come after us, but it had also been the first time my sister defended our mom. I wasn’t sure what had gotten into her, but the second she’d run out of the room screaming for him to stop it, I knew I had to follow through with my lifelong promise. He would never hurt Tracey. So I’d jumped in front of my mom instead, shielding her body with my own. It hadn’t stopped him from hurting her, but it had stopped him from hurting Tracey.

  Afterward, she’d held an ice pack to the lump on the back of my head, and I’d asked her why the hell she did what she did. Her answer had simply been that she was sick of living this way. I understood, but I knew intervening wouldn’t make it end. It wasn’t until our mother did something to stop it that things would change for all of us. Tracey then told me she’d been seeing someone, and being with him had shown her that she didn’t have to live this life anymore.

  I’d been scared shitless to hear those words from her, and more scared when she told me who she’d been seeing and what she’d shared with him. No one knew about our home life. There was a reason we never had friends over. But now she got all comfortable and had told our secrets to him. What if he told people?

  Damn Nicholas Griffin. The asshole drummer I’d thought was a friend of mine but had been dating my sister. He’d given her the gumption to stand up against our dad. He had no idea what he was doing, encouraging
her like that. I needed to have a conversation with him. But first, I had to find Tracey.

  I rolled my shoulders, stepping away from the window, and then into the kitchen. I looked for a note from her, but there wasn’t one. My dad was still at work, and my mom was strangely absent. It was nice. She was always here, hovering over us and trying to act motherly. It was too little, too late for that. I wasn’t sure if she’d ever had a job, but I sure as shit knew she hadn’t worked since she’d been with my dad. I knew she loved us, but she was weak. She exposed us to this shitty life because she wasn’t strong enough to kick his ass out.

  I would never understand it. I hated my dad. His only saving grace was that he had never turned a hand to Tracey or me before last night. Right on cue, my head pounded. He’d finally crossed that line. What would it be like next time? I couldn’t count how many broken bones my mom had explained away to hospitals, open lacerations she’d doctored herself, and purple-red bruises she’d covered with makeup.

  Fucking asshole. Two more years; hell, less than two years until I took Tracey and got the hell out of here. Then what happened in this house wouldn’t matter to me, because we’d be gone. My mother, though the victim, would have to decide if this was how she wanted to live her life. I wasn’t sure if she was waiting for us to be grown, or if she was okay with the life she led. I’d thought about leaving so many times since I turned sixteen, but I knew I had to have everything in order to be able to take care of us.

  I saved every dime I made working at a local restaurant. All the high school girls would come in and request to sit in my section. I used it to my advantage in more than one way. Hell, even the college girls would come in asking for me. It felt good to be wanted by them. Giving them some extra attention gave me more money in the bank and let me get lost in being someone else for a little while.

  I wasn’t Tanner, son of Thomas, lawyer extraordinaire and grade-A asshole, or Tamara, Suzy homemaker and doting mother.

  I was Tanner, the guitar player with muscles in the right places and a smile that stopped hearts. It worked for me, and I used it. It felt good to be in control of the girls I dated and the attention I got when nothing else in my life was in my control. I’d learned to play the guitar from our neighbor, an old man named Gabriel who had lived next to us for the last twelve years. I had a feeling he knew what went on in our family, so I started going over to his house and playing at five years old. I was a natural, and now I used it to escape my life. When I strummed the chords beneath the hardened pad of my thumb, I was in control. Tracey would sing, and I would play, and for a little while, we would escape the life we were forced to live.

  I strode down the hall and stopped outside my sister’s room, directly across the hall from mine. For so many years, the only time she’d gone into her room was to change. She hated being in that room alone, afraid to hear what happened inside our walls without the security of me around her. Having each other near, cocooned in our safety net, offered us courage. It afforded us the strength to cope with the bleakness of the battlefield that was our home. Without her, I’d be lost. Without me, she was a wandering target. I’d never let that happen. I’d always be her shield, and she’d always be my salvation, my reason to keep going in this life of ours.

  But once we’d hit eighth grade, Tracey had gone back to her room. It had stung, the rejection of my sister leaving my protection, but she still turned to me for everything. We’d been each other’s lifelines for so many years, clinging to each other in our times of uncertainty. We needed each other to breathe, to survive. She’d run to me when a boy broke her heart, or a girl called her fat or ugly. I’d go to her for help with school, or girl trouble. She was the only one I could trust. No one could know what went on inside our house. Without each other, we had nothing.

  I thought back to something she had said the night before that didn’t make much sense to me at the time, but now it made alarm bells reverberate in my head. “We don’t have to take this anymore, Tan. Nicholas knows a way out for both of us.” I’d scoffed at her, immediately dismissing that we could do anything. We were sixteen years old. What could we possibly do?

  But maybe she was serious. Maybe Nicholas gave her enough courage to do something rash. Something stupid.

  I had to check her room. I had to see for myself that she was merely hanging out with her boyfriend somewhere and push away the nagging feeling—“twin sense”—that something else was going on here.

  The door bounced against the stopper as I scanned her neatly made bed. Her bed was never made. It was a running joke with us. She’d say why make your bed when you’re going to get back into it. I’d say it needed to be made. There were no clothes strewn on the oversized chair in the corner. I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw the cushions of that chair, mounds of jeans, dresses, and tops usually piled on top of it. There was no makeup on her dresser. The girl loved makeup, and it often covered not only every space of her dresser but the counter of our bathroom, too. Everything seemed…too neat. Too perfect.

  My heart raced, the pounding in my chest intensifying as I walked to the closet and flung it open. Empty hangers swung back and forth with my rapid movement, mocking me. A rush of air escaped my lungs as I took in the emptiness of her closet and room.

  She didn’t.

  She wouldn’t.

  I stumbled for our bathroom, my feet tripping over themselves as I hurried faster than my body could keep up. I smashed my hand into the wood door, forcing it back with such power the wood splintered, the cracking sound echoing in the small room. The counter was clean. I flung the drawers open, the lack of objects in them making them move too fast on the tracks. They crashed to the floor with the force of my movement, the metal tracks tearing into the worn linoleum floor, leaving holes where they’d landed. My chest heaved and my eyes stung, my pulse roaring in my ears.

  Tracey’s things were gone.

  Tracey was gone.

  She left me.

  Chapter One

  Tanner- Age 20

  “Where the fuck have you been?” I paced the small living room, my fists clenched at my sides. My heart ricocheted off my rib cage, and my breath came out in short spurts. I could feel my pulse in my temples, pounding so loud in my ears I could barely hear.

  Ashlyn’s eyes widened at my stance. She dropped her purse on the chair by the door, followed by a few shopping bags, and stepped closer to me. “Babe, what’s the matter? I was at work.”

  “You got off work two hours ago. I’ve been calling you non-fucking stop!”

  “Tanner.” Ashlyn reached her hands out to touch me, but I stepped back. Her gaze scanned my tense body, then back to my face. We’d only been living together for a month, our relationship still rather new. I knew I was freaking her the hell out, but I couldn’t stop it. “Babe, it’s okay. My phone died, and I had to stop for a few things at the grocery store. I-I’m sorry.”

  “Are you cheating on me?”

  Her mouth dropped open, and I saw the flash of anger behind her green eyes. She set her jaw, stepping closer to me. “Ask me that again, Tanner.” Her voice was low and threatening. She was the strongest, most self-assured twenty-year-old I’d ever known, and I was pushing her.

  “Did you have someone else’s dick inside you for the last few hours?” I was like a train wreck I couldn’t stop. We were standing so close I could see the slight flare of her nostrils as she processed my hurtful words. I loved her. What the fuck was I doing?

  “Fuck you, Tanner.” Ashlyn stepped back, moving to step around me. “I don’t need this shit.” She stopped at her purse. “I bought you your fucking protein powder and bars. You can take them and shove them right up your ass. I’m going to my mom's house. Love or not, I will not put up with this shit from you.”

  I glanced down at the remote on the coffee table next to me. Before I could stop myself, I picked it up and hurled it. The plastic cracked, and the batteries went flying as it hit the wall right next to Ashlyn’s retreating form. She ju
mped at the sound, dropping her bag and putting her hand over her mouth as she saw the hole in the wall from the force of my throw.

  The bottom fell out of my stomach as I realized what I’d done.

  She turned back to me, her eyes full of tears.

  “Shit.” I stepped closer to her, and she flinched. She fucking flinched. “I’m sorry, Ash. I didn’t…”

  She picked up her bag with shaky hands and slung it over her shoulder. “Who the fuck are you, Tanner? I don’t know this person in front of me.”

  The door shook against the casing as she slammed it. Moments later, I heard the rumble of her engine and the squealing of tires as she sped off.

  I dropped to my knees and cradled my head in my hands. I lifted my gaze to see the hole next to the door, and bile rose violently from my stomach.

  I’d become what I swore I never would.

  I was him.

  Intimidating.

  Angry.

  Asshole.

  Chapter Two

  Tanner- Present

  “We’re heading up.” Beau clapped me on the back, reaching for April’s hand. She smiled up at him, and I glanced away.

  I nodded, my gaze going back to the blonde across the room who’d been eyeing me for the last hour. She was exactly my type, and by the look on her face, very willing to rock my world for the night. We’d had another big show tonight, another sold-out crowd. I was pumped and didn’t want to turn in yet. My whipped bandmates had spouses to sleep with and children to tuck in.

  I had nothing.

  As usual.