Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 28170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 141(@200wpm)___ 113(@250wpm)___ 94(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 141(@200wpm)___ 113(@250wpm)___ 94(@300wpm)
Read Online Books/Novels: | Beauty Found (Hades Hangmen #6.5) |
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Author/Writer of Book/Novel: | Tillie Cole |
| Language: | English |
| Book Information: | |
EVEN IN HELL, THERE IS BEAUTY TO BE FOUND. There is life before the Hangmen. There is life before your soulmate is found. There is life even when all seems lost. Shane ‘Tank’ Rutherford is just seventeen when, escaping his father’s lethal fists, he ends up on the streets. Fighting for survival, he finds himself suddenly saved. Saved by a group that takes him under their wing. A group that everyone knows . . . the Texas Ku Klux Klan. Years later, Tank is disillusioned from the Klan and what they stand for. Recently released from prison, he is lost in a world he no longer knows. He is on his own. Until he picks up a woman hitchhiking on the side of a road. A beauty queen dressed in pink. Susan-Lee Stewart is done with the crowns. She’s done with the glitz and glamor of pageant life. And she’s done with the bruises . . . the bruises gifted by the one person who should love her unconditionally—her mother. Seconds after taking yet another pageant title, Susan-Lee makes a split decision and flees the stage. Flees the glossy life of a pageant queen, flees her violent mother . . . and jumps straight on the back of a tattooed muscled god’s motorcycle . . . And never looks back. As Susan-Lee holds tightly to Tank’s waist, neither of them know it’s a chance meeting that will change both their lives, and their hearts, forever. There are stories of how you find your other half. There are stories of how someone can save your soul when all hope is lost. Before they were Tank and Beauty, they were Shane and Susan-Lee. Two lost hearts who, together, were finally found. Contemporary dark romance. Contains scenes of violence, offensive language, mature topics and sexual situations. Beauty Found: A Novella (Hades Hangmen 6.5) is to be read AFTER Crux Untamed. Recommended for ages 18 and over. | |
| Books in Series: | Hades Hangmen Series by Tillie Cole |
| Books by Author: | Tillie Cole Books |
Prologue
Tank
Age 17
I wasn’t even awake when the first boot hit my ribs. I gasped, my eyes shooting open as another boot smashed into my stomach, knocking the wind right out of me. I scrambled back against the wall and looked up. There were at least five of them that I could see. A fist plowed into my face as I tried to get up, knocking me the fuck back down. “Asshole!” I hissed, and pushed back at the prick who was trying to keep me on the ground. He slammed to the floor. I jumped up just in time to see one of the fuckers grab my backpack.
“Hey!” I barked. But before I could rush at him, charge the bastard for touching my things, four others flew at me. Fists and feet pounded into my body. Black dots started dancing in my eyes, then suddenly the assholes were ripped away.
I leaned against the wall, holding my ribs, catching my fucking breath, and looked up. A group of tatted-up white guys were smashing their fists into a bunch of Mexicans . . . the fuckers that had attacked me.
It was a quick fight, the new guys kicking the asses of the Mexicans in minutes. The fuckers ran away down the alley in which I’d been sleeping. Sweat and blood dripped down my face. As I wiped it away with my hand, my vision cleared to see a huge guy with a shaved head approaching, my backpack in his hands.
“They didn’t get anything?” he said. I narrowed my eyes. He had a massive skull and crossbones in the middle of his throat. I reached out and took hold of my backpack. My teeth gritted together at the immediate stab of pain in my ribs.
The fuckers had broken them. I just knew it.
The guy pulled the bag back and grabbed my arm. His hand was like a vise around my bicep. He smirked. “How old are you, kid?”
I cast my eyes around the others. They all looked the same—same haircut, clothes, tattoos. And they were all looking at me. “About to be eighteen.”
The guy shook his head. “You’re a big fucker.” I shucked off his arm and stepped back, ignoring the pain in my ribs. It wasn’t like I’d never coped with this shit before. “Football?”
“Tight end,” I said after a few moments of saying fuck all. “Varsity . . . at least I was.”
The guy looked at someone behind him, then back at me. “And now you’re sleeping in an alley?”
Every muscle in me tensed. This asshole had no fucking idea of the shit I’d been through. I couldn’t have stayed with my old man for another damn minute. My jaw clenched and my hand rolled into a fist at my side. Sudden anger lit me the fuck up as I thought of him taking one of his fists to my face after he got jacked up on whiskey . . . again. The guy must have seen it. But instead of being threatened, he just smiled wider and whispered something to the guy behind him again. He stepped closer, his height and build matching mine. “I’m Trace.”
I looked around at them all. None of them seemed like they wanted to kill me, and they’d kicked those Mexicans’ asses for me too. “Shane. Shane Rutherford.”
Trace smiled. “Good name. Pure. True American.” He pointed to my ribs. “We got someone who can fix that.”
My eyes narrowed. “Why would you do that?” I tensed. “I ain’t sucking your dick.” I’d had too many of those offers here on the streets.
Trace burst out laughing, as did the rest of the guys behind him. “Good to know. Like fags ’bout as much as I like Mexicans.”
My shoulders lost their tension, but I still asked, “Why’re you helping me?”
Trace put his arm around my shoulder and turned so I could see all the guys with him. “When a white brother, from good American stock, US of A born and bred, is in need, his fellow white brothers come to help.”
The tattoos on the guys’ arms and necks became clear. Swastikas, Celtic crosses, “SS.” “We got a place you can stay. We can fix you with a job, get you outta this alley.” I glanced back at the blanket I’d been sleeping on for two months. My stomach growled in hunger. Trace squeezed my shoulder. “Food you can eat.”
“Johnny Landry makes insane barbeque,” one of the other guys said. Barbeque was my fucking favorite.
They all stared at me. Trace kept hold of my shoulder. I sighed, for the first time in weeks feeling something but fucking desperate. “I could eat some barbeque,” I said, and the guys smiled.
“Then let’s get the fuck on.” Trace led me to a truck. I took a deep breath as we left downtown Austin and continued out toward Spicewood. We turned and drove down a dirt road until a house came into view. Dozens of people sat outside, drinking and talking.