Under My Radar: Shameless, #3

By Frey Le Karr

When you've lived a life of darkness,can you be brought into the light?

With his world crashing down, Lee Young dusts off his gun and rejoins the darkness he once left behind.

Revenge: its all he can see as he becomes the ruthless vigilante he was always meant to be, drowning himself in savagery. 

 

Then Arabella Mcnaughton comes into his life, oblivious that a night of passion is all she can be to Lee. She's a guilt trip in the worst possible way.

 

With the storm of Lee's past hanging over their heads and secrets working their way to the surface, can Arabella break through Lee's barriers, or is Lee forever cursed to walk under the radar alone?

• Language: English
• Publisher: FreyLeKarrpublisher
• Release date: Feb 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781393228707

Frey Le Karr

Frey Le Karr was brought up in Manchester and now lives in the beautiful Scottish borders with her children and pets. She loves writing her stories and hopes Surviving Him can help someone out there who is, or has been through, the same sorts of situations as her. When she’s not writing, or taking care of her family, she can be found on Facebook or reading.

Book preview

Prologue

I’m a criminal; a killer no less. Born into the underbelly of an unlawful world that my father crafted many years ago, and I am to be crowned the next king. I used to covet the darkness; it had forever been my friend and it forgave me for all of my sins.

A slither of light dared me to hope, it had my house of cards tumbling all around me. From the moment I saw her I knew she would be my downfall. Tell me, how could something that shined so brightly not burn?

Yet, she was my salvation and I gladly walked the path that I had chosen to be with her.

My spirit is subdued, mirroring a boxer pummelled mercilessly against the ropes repeatedly. There’s no relief for me. There’s just pain.  I’m rooted to the spot unable to breathe or make a single sound to make it stop.

While my heart is thundering deep, a tight vice-like grip wraps around it, ripping it free with one swift tug. Still beating while it tries hard to pump the blood, not yet realising it’s been disconnected.

I’m uneasy, I’m besieged, and it’s suffocating me. The emotions pushing my body over the edge into overdrive, causing my limbs to tremble, while the sweat rolls down my face and lands on the dirt beneath my feet.

It sums up how I'm feeling right now, at this very moment in time. I wouldn't care if God struck me down on this very spot I’m standing on. The self-loathing is ripping my soul to shreds like a razor blade slicing through every single part of me. I have unfinished business, and he can't have me before I take down those that took her from me. They will pay for their malice. Then God can have his fun with my black soul and take what's left.

As I stare down at Lilah’s coffin, I shudder, but it’s not from the cold. My stomach turns itself inside out, almost bringing me to my knees. Her light no longer shines bright like it once did; her spirit extinguished from this cruel world as though she was nothing. Annie stands by my side shivering, her face blank and pale; her brown eyes dull, with red and blotchy rims. The light has been snuffed out from her along with her mother’s I realise. Pulling her in close to my side with my arm, I try my best to comfort her even though there is no comfort to be had for either of us. There's no calm, and there is no brightness to tell us it's all been a bad dream in a ruthless storm. No, that is my fault. It's all on me. It’s my doing, all of it; because of who I am and where I come from. An empty man cursed to live a life that I despise, forced to live surrounded by my own darkness while trapped inside my messed-up mind.

Lee? Annie pulls on my arm with her small hand, her eyes staring up at me, the skin bunching around them. Her face is now filled with pain, her jaw clenched, and all I can do is look at her, helpless. Lee, she's with the angels now, isn’t she? She quietly mutters while the tears flow down her cheeks as her vacant stare turns to the ground.

The rain falls, mingling with the uncontrollable tears that continuously stream down my face. I hesitate, so afraid of being vulnerable and saying the wrong thing. With tense shoulders, my free hand swipes at the wetness covering my cheeks, the inferno inside me building, gathering beneath the shell, lingering, just waiting to surface. Pulling Annie in closer, unable to say a word, I look up into the dark clouds that cover the sky. The thunder rolls as the wind picks up slightly as though Satan himself is already here. I'm going straight to hell for all of my sins. The wind whips against my face bringing with it the sting of a loss that I will never come back from. The mood is sombre as we stand helplessly at the graveside. Nothing but sadness, devastation, and hopelessness fills the air around us. A raw pain overpowers everything as we say goodbye to my sweet Lilah, the other piece and the lightest part of my soul. Now nothing but dust being swept away by the wind.

Chapter One

Lee

I’M IN. I feel the noise rattling through my head as the sound of an angry dog from another floor barks loudly; as though he’s gotten inside my brain and refuses to leave.

I know how you feel, mate, I whisper to him knowing full well he can’t hear me.

I’ve come here to give payback, or maybe it’s karma if you believe in that sort of thing. A satisfying release for me that’s for sure. A feeling of vengeance, a taste, like a speedball to a junkie desperately seeking that epic rush just one more time. I steady my breathing and stand my ground, strong, still and eerily calm. Unfortunately for him, he failed to stay out from under my radar. If it wasn’t me coming for him, it would be someone else; somebody with a score to settle. This guy is known to us, a treacherous excuse of a man who has crossed an already delicate line; severed it with the ultimate sin.

Chaos lives inside me. I have spent my life living up to the word, in my father’s established shadow. I am heartless, dead inside frankly. Detached. A ghost of the man I once was, some might say. I’ve slit the gullets of men who had loved ones, who had families, who lived two separate lives thinking they were kings, without any hesitation. I showed them what it is a king does. I destroyed their lives like they had destroyed others without any rhyme or reason. I’d been shown how to cause devastation from the moment my voice broke, obliterate to liberate. Those are the words I live by. I’ve never worried about how I did it, as long as I succeeded and got the right result; the fairest result for all concerned.

My body stiffens, muscles tightening from my head right down to my toes as I think about that end game. Cold shivers skip their way across my heated skin as the goose bumps rise like they’re being resurrected by my adrenaline rush. My hackles rise at the thought of obliterating the scum in front of me from the face of the earth, just like my barking friend craves to do alongside me as the heat floods my veins...

I breathe deeply, remaining completely cool and calm, relishing in the fact he’s shattering before my very eyes, while the rage takes over everything inside me.

The craving begins.

I’ve been getting so many that the thoughts of revenge have flocked together in my mind; pigeons around breadcrumbs, emblazoned on my brain like an entire army has gathered there at the frontlines waiting to strike. And strike I will, thoughts of nothing else. I’m in my own solitary confinement, consumed by it. It has become my lonely place, and the only place I want to be right now, overshadowing every single moment and every emotion. I replace it with my anger and rage. My wrath urges him on, to slip up as the time slips by. Seconds feeling like hours to him, hours feeling like seconds to me as I watch reality unfold in his eyes. There it is staring back at me, sheer terror.

And it’s beautiful.

I just went over to Brooke’s because they left so quickly. Just to check on them to make sure they were okay.  I lean towards him again. This time my tone darkening like it’s long dead, ending on a growl. Not really hearing his pitiful pleas, just reading the lies straight from his eyes.

You ever thought they wanted to get away from the likes of you? You made damn sure they couldn’t. All I’m getting from you right now is fabricated bullshit. I hold his head back and pour the whiskey down his throat. He chokes on it. Good. He wants to die a drunk, then I will help him do it until he’s squealing for me to stop, screaming for mercy. A mercy I shall not give. I won’t stop. Nobody hurts my cousin and thinks they can live with no repercussions. Foolish motherfucker. 

He thinks it’s not a big deal breaking into my cousin’s mate’s house. Walking into her bedroom where my cousin and her friend were asleep; where she was staying over for the night because it was closer than going home after a girl’s night out clubbing in town. He drugged them both, then took what didn’t belong to him, including my cousin’s virginity. Then he simply left. No, I won’t stop this.

I close the door hanging from the hinges of the old apartment building behind me. I smile at him. Stupid man not realising that his pathetic life is about to be taken away in the blink of an eye. Lurking, waiting, watching in the shadows just mere inches away, I can feel death in the air before it arrives. Waiting for the perfect introduction. I grin to myself, a sneer no less. He moans incoherently, so I tip more of the whiskey into his mouth and then some. I step around the dribbling messy sack, so I’m standing where his head is resting against the back of the wooden makeshift bed. He’s completely out of it after the beating I gave him. Adrenaline pumps its way through my body as my hand reaches for the knife in my boot. Taking his wrist and slashing upwards right along his arm until the blood starts to pour out of him, his skin separating with ease like carving a Sunday roast at my father’s house. My breath thunders, pulsating in my ears as I wipe the blade’s handle. I place the knife between his fingers, pressing down hard. He’s an effortless kill that feeds my craving. I’m devouring his demise. He will never touch another woman. He won’t touch anyone ever again, not on my watch. Job done.

Staring at the fucker—who caused my cousin and her friend so much pain and torment—one last time, I see he's still dribbling; the saliva hanging by a thread from his discoloured lips covered in his own blood. So red, a painter could never match it. The purple on his face, a darker shade, fascinates me. The body of someone so cruel, yet his is so weak, with one mutilated arm slung over the wooden ledge. I take it all in and it dawns on me that this is where he probably brought some of his own victims.

He’s not been dead long; he still has some colour in his body. How ironic that he got to die in the very spot where he probably caused so much pain and devastation. I know I haven’t been here for any length of time; however, while checking my watch, I notice it has been fifteen minutes. Getting to my feet, I reach for the door, my mind trying to figure out what drives scum like him to hurt women the way he did.

Sirens, fuck. I take hold of the petrol can from my holdall and pour its innards over the floorboards. Striking a match, I watch it plummeting until it ignites the room. My skin tingles as my adrenaline spikes. I leap out of there and run as fast as my legs can carry me, my plastic covered feet making a swooshing sound as I reach out, turning the handle on the bedroom door. I escape through the open window, the window I had arrived through. 

My emotions are tarnished, vibrating through my skin like a virus, have been since my life changed forever that day. I lost everything with one bullet and one knife in my own front room. I’m not able to give a toss about unravelling; any compassionate thoughts for anyone else are absent with the exception of Annie and a few family members.

The evil doings of others have forced me to change the road I was trying so hard to stay on, altering the slight warmth I had gotten back in my soul. That warm glow that Lilah gave has left me, something inside broke like a branch snapping violently from a tree in a storm, never to be re-attached again. Life saturating me in its ruthlessness. I don’t know who I will be once I mend. If I ever do. Will I ever come back from this?

When I finally reach home, it’s still dark in the early hours of the morning. I almost sit on my dog, Sniper, who’s currently lying on my sofa licking his paws. His ears rise, and his eyes widen at the sight of me.

It’s then I notice the smell of perfume in the air. Bloody Ryan. This must be the third chick this week he’s had back here. Standing, I shout out for Ry, to let him know I’m back, making Sniper jump down off the sofa wagging his tail. I rub my hand over my tired eyes and head for the shower.

Once I’ve scrubbed away the night—the blood, sweat, and scum—I bag up my clothes like I’ve done a hundred times before. Sniper watches me intently as I watch them burn in a steel drum in my back garden. Ryan soon joins me, standing beside me as close as he can get, cocking his head to the side. A slight smile appears on his lips.

Rough night, mate? He hands me a bottle of lager, his eyes brightening.

You could say that. When is it not a rough fucking night? If I were you, I'd stay as far away from me as possible. I'm like the walking fucking plague. I’m cursed, I swear to fucking God. I shake my head with languid movements. I see you had a good night, mate? Tipping back the ice-cold liquid, it glides down my throat, the taste smooth and refreshing. I throw back more. Until tonight I had been drowning in my own confusion, days passing me by in a haze of grief-stricken pain. The booze helps a little.

I'm crushed you don’t want any more. Ryan puts his hand over his heart. Eyes dancing with mischief, pure Ry. Don’t talk shite, man. You’re no more cursed than I am. Drink up. I’ll get rid of this for you. He nods at the drum. Anyway, if I leave, I won’t be able to turn this garden into a football pitch, will I? Its big enough. His wide grin is infectious, yet I still can’t smile along with him. Just as we lock up—having gotten rid of everything that needed to be gone—as if on cue, the sound of sirens rings out in the distance. 

My heart beats like any other, but it is still as black as coal, demons swirling around inside it. Only working for one purpose: keeping me alive long enough to take the lives of those that don’t deserve to breathe the same air as the rest of us. The area I grew up in, an area with so many great memories as an average kid, houses the most cherished but distant memories, all tucked away in little jail cells inside my brain.

Ever since I took on the role that was coveted by many, it changed my world forever. Prison life is shit, and I didn’t want to end up back in there. I promised myself for her I wouldn’t, and now she’s gone. Nothing matters now. There’s no point trying to fight against the darkness. It’s what I was made for. I'm fucked. And I don’t give a fuck.

I couldn’t protect them. My friends, all of them could have died. And Lilah, she had been taken away from me; taken away far too soon the very same day as my sister. It could have been avoided if I had just seen what was right there in front of me. I might as well have put a bullet in my brain there and then. She didn’t realise it straightaway, but she was mine. She always would be. No matter how selfish it was,