Synopsis

Welcome to Northern Nevada. The scenery is idyllic, the people are friendly and three Motorcycle Clubs rule the tri-city area between Reno, Carson City, and Lake Tahoe with an iron fist. Gisela wasn’t introduced to the thug life, she was born into it. The daughter of an American gangster, her life has been carefully orchestrated with private education, a law degree and now a respectable law firm she co-founded with Kyra Hughes, her best friend. Life is good until her high school sweetheart walks through the door of Jackson & Hughes and decides to turn her world upside down. Cillian is not an average criminal, he was brought up in the Lucifer’s Saints MC and is now V.P. of a powerful criminal enterprise. He’s no stranger to mayhem yet only one woman has ever made him feel worthy of redemption. He’s a survivor and luck has always been on his side until he is arrested and charged with the murder of an undercover ATF agent. His complicated life becomes more than he can handle when he is forced to face the only woman who has ever turned him inside out. An unconventional love story, unfinished business between these two passionate people—physical, emotional and professional—will spark a fuse that will leave a path of death and destruction in its wake.

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Excerpt

“When did you start smoking bud?” Cillian knew he didn’t have any room to judge her—he wasn’t known as “The Killer” for nothing—but something about her was different and it was the first time he’d been able to notice it up close and personal.

It wasn’t like they never saw one another. There were various functions each year that brought them into one another’s vicinity but at the same time, neither went out of their way to talk to the other.

Gisela wasn’t the angry and loud type. She’d always been quiet, innocent and so dangerously beautiful. He felt touching her, he’d tarnished her somehow because he wasn’t fit to breathe the same air as her, and she was an infinitely better person than he could ever be.

It never stopped him from fucking her every chance they’d gotten when they were teenagers and he had to have every inch of her. He needed them to be connected in every way and they were whether they wanted to admit it or not. They shared a child and at one time, they’d been inseparable but that seemed like a lifetime ago.

“Don’t worry about my chronic habit.” Her voice was feminine yet strong. “I don’t do anything harder and I’m not going about flashin’ my pussy to every available man so mind your own fuckin’ business. I already have a father—I don’t need a second one.”

Cillian couldn’t help but smile before he dragged from the joint and held the smoke in his lungs as long as possible before he exhaled.

“I didn’t mean to raise your hackles, darlin’. You were another person when we were together—”

“Yeah that was long motherfuckin’ time ago, Cillian.” She smiled wryly as she mispronounced his name on purpose.

The first time they’d met, she stared at him as if he were the devil himself and wondered out loud, “You’re Cillian Cox? My dad would kill me if he knew you were offering me a ride into Pine Bluff.”

“My name’s pronounced Kill-e-an,” he’d told her. “It’s an old Irish name and I get shit from the teachers all day pronouncing it with a soft ‘C’ when it’s pronounced like it would be spelled with a ‘K.’”

Those were fun times, innocent times but certainly not the present. He handed her back her joint.

“Listen, I know you didn’t come here for sex because obviously you and Chiara did more than talk…what’s goin’ on?”

Cillian needed to do something with his hands. He reached into his pocket and grabbed his pack of Camels. After he freed one from the pack, he lit it with his Zippo and dragged hungrily. “Are you sure you want to know? I mean…I don’t even know why I’m tellin’ you when…you could be disbarred.”

“Then don’t tell me.” Gisela stood; he reached out and grabbed her arm with sheer instinct.

Her skin was warm, soft and she smelled delicious, like vanilla and amber mixed together. Her scent was so palpable, he could smell it over the cigarette and marijuana smoke.

“Spit it out, Cillian. Is it Club business?”

He nodded as he exhaled cigarette smoke from his nostrils. “I gotta tell you somethin’ and I know you’re bound by attorney-client privilege—”

“The Club employs Jackson and Hughes but I’m not your attorney.” She dragged from her joint and sat back down. “What’s up?”

Cillian reached into his pocket and peeled off twenty one-hundred-dollar bills. “It’s all the cash I have on me.”

“Fine, I’m now your attorney and whatever you tell me falls under attorney-client privilege.” Gisela glared at him with annoyed amber eyes. “So, what the fuck is goin’ on?”

“Tomorrow night…I’m gonna kill a man…and eventually, his death will lead back to me. Promise me, you’ll represent me in court.”

She dragged on her joint one last time before she put it out in the ashtray and ran her hands through her hair. “You don’t have to do it—”

“Yeah, I do.” He took another drag on his cigarette before he stubbed it out in the same ashtray. “It’s the only way Dizzy will allow me to leave Brianna.”

The look on Gisela’s face was priceless as she met his eyes with her own inquisitively. “You’re…leaving Brianna?”

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Meet Selene

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Selene Chardou is a world traveler and the alter-ego of Elle Chardou.

Ms. Chardou’s writing is all about hot romance and exciting times with the wild, damaged, out of control and/or rich and famous set in the New Adult realm.

She is currently working on The Will to Love, the second novel in the Scarlet Fever Series, which chronicles the relationship of Will Cullen and Laurel Munsen. She is also working on Deadly Seduction, the first novel in The Rough Riders series, which chronicles the issues between three Motorcycle Clubs, and various criminal elements in the tri-city area of Reno, Lake Tahoe and Carson City in Northern Nevada.

Ms. Chardou has lived abroad in Stockholm (Sweden), Manchester (England), Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and Portland. She currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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