Five Fabulous Angels: Brass Knuckles & Tattered Wings, #4

By Martin Svolgart

After a freak accident killed his wife and son, Pritchard slipped into alcoholism to drown his sorrows at a blue-collar bar nearby to avoid the dead and empty house. But then a teenage girl asked for his help, and it turned his entire existence around.

Although Pritchard is slowly moving back into the realm of the living, he's overlooked a very important detail. Discovering how his actions have kept him from truly moving toward, acceptance sets him off in a downward spiral. A young man, a perfect stranger, sees right through the façade hiding Pritchard's pain and offers his help. But the young man has enemies—the kind Pritchard specializes in neutralizing.

Pritchard has more things to learn about the balance he tries to maintain between the widower he is now and the man he was in his past. Once again, Cat steps up, offering what support he can, and he finally makes headway breaking through to Pritchard.

None of it makes life any easier, but at least it points Pritchard to where he needs to look for the answers. With the blinders off, Pritchard has a few big decisions to make.

• Language: English
• Publisher: MarLau Publishing
• Release date: Aug 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9788793966093

Book preview

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Five Fabulous Angels

Brass Knuckles and Tattered Wings #4

Season One

Martin Svolgart

AFTER A FREAK ACCIDENT killed his wife and son, Pritchard slipped into alcoholism to drown his sorrows at a blue-collar bar nearby to avoid the dead and empty house. But then a teenage girl asked for his help, and it turned his entire existence around.

Although Pritchard is slowly moving back into the realm of the living, he’s overlooked a very important detail. Discovering how his actions have kept him from truly moving toward, acceptance sets him off in a downward spiral. A young man, a perfect stranger, sees right through the façade hiding Pritchard’s pain and offers his help. But the young man has enemies—the kind Pritchard specializes in neutralizing.

Pritchard has more things to learn about the balance he tries to maintain between the widower he is now and the man he was in his past. Once again, Cat steps up, offering what support he can, and he finally makes headway breaking through to Pritchard.

None of it makes life any easier, but at least it points Pritchard to where he needs to look for the answers. With the blinders off, Pritchard has a few big decisions to make.

Copyright © 2020 MarLau Publishing

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. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

ISBN: 978-87-93966-09-3

Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.

Cover design by Juan Padrón

Edited by Avril Stepowski

MarLau Publishing

Denmark

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Table of Contents

Day 64

Day 66

Day 67

Day 68

Day 79

Day 85

Day 94

Day 95

Day 96

Day 101

About the Author

Day 64

A WEEKEND WITH ROSE, Cat, and Frank had been fun. Having Rose help him get the car ready for a new adventure to look for a prince or princess made for great bonding time with his young friend, too. Now, Pritchard was back on the road, feeling a little bit better and a little bit worse for every mile he put between himself and Glens Falls.

He missed Rose, and he missed Cat. He even wanted to know how Liam was doing. And he kinda liked hanging out with Frank. Lenny seemed a good guy, too. He guessed that was why he felt worse for every mile, yet the distance also helped put his mind at ease about being up for captain.

No, it didn’t. It didn’t put his mind at ease—it merely gave him the distance to ignore it for a while. Like he was running from it.

But he was running.

The sudden thought or realization kicked him, and acknowledging it pissed him off enough to pull the car over to get that thought straightened out in his head.

He’d run away from a dead house. First, at the distance of the bar. Then back to the Kitchen. He’d run back to the only thing he’d known, yet he’d had a very good reason. Rose. And he wasn’t sorry! He’d never be sorry for having cared enough to go get her at that mill.

But going back to Hell’s Kitchen was also what had made it possible for his name to end up on a list of people to be promoted. Him laying Dimitri to waste to save Rose had left the turf of Glens Falls open for the taking, so that was kinda his fault. No, not fault. That was just how the cards had landed.

And then he’d run again. Away from Glens Falls and the Kitchen.

He didn’t know what had suddenly kicked the stone over to reveal that harsh truth, but that’s what he’d done, and he hated to acknowledge it. People were supposed to meet challenges head-on, yet Pritchard realized he’d run into other people’s problems head-on to avoid having to deal with his own.

It infuriated him enough to get out of the car to take a deep breath to calm himself. Didn’t work as well as he’d hoped.

He’d taken Sheila away with him because she wanted to run, too. Now she was starting over in New Hope, and Pritchard was kicking stones at the side of the road somewhere in Ohio, having left...friends.

He wanted to get into his car and head south to meet up with Sheila, but he wasn’t going to go sit and pour his heart out to her about his dead wife and son. That wasn’t what they’d had. They’d had...something else. Definitely not something healthy to build upon. It had been needy and almost desperate, and not just from his side.

Maybe that’s why he wanted to see her? Because she was managing what he hadn’t? The courage to start over. He had a moment of feeling proud and good about himself at having had a hand in her opportunity to do that, but it still left him at the side of the fucking road going nowhere to not look at his own problems.

And what happened when he ran and got into trouble? The world he’d closed the door to fifteen years ago came and saved his ass.

Was it Rose who’d called him home to Glens Falls?

Home.

He acknowledged using that world and even feeling like it was home.

Jennie.

The moment his mind had connected the dots, and he’d had a clear mental image of her from work, he’d wanted to help her. He’d even missed working with her. Driving from New Hope to Glens Falls, he’d remembered a lot of good times at work. He’d also relived the two-hundred and one days of hell, going through the motions while everything, including the pain, seemed to be at a standstill. Like a knife twisting its way out of a wound, yet it only spiraled around in there, not going deeper but not working its way out, either. Just a perpetual pain day in and day out.

And again, Cat had been there.

Something had tied Pritchard back to his past, and it all started with that one phone call because Dimitri had moved in on Glens Falls. Because it wasn’t Rose’s fault. She was the girl caught up in all that. And she’d managed to pull Pritchard out on top of it all.

He wondered what would have happened if he’d never met