Shane's Fall (The Escort Series Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

lines. This was the guy he recognized, the fuck-up who was always just on the edge of losing it all.
    Ten seconds passed, then twenty, then a full minute. And he knew he would do what he had done all the other times Paige had tried to “help him out.” He picked up the mirror and dumped the contents in the sink and turned the water on. He didn’t even care that the hundred dollar bill got wet. It was her daddy’s money and there was plenty more of it where that had come from.
    Shane was lucky that Paige had yet to figure out that cocaine was just a cheap substitute for him – that the drug his body craved and tormented him endlessly for was heroin. One taste eight years ago was all it had taken for the monster to latch onto something inside and never let go. If she’d left him a needle full of the beautifully ugly brown liquid, his former life would already be a distant memory, his friends and family gone. It would only take one hit and he could let everyone and everything around him go. For eight years he had fought it and won, but it was inevitable that there would be a day when he couldn’t stop himself from sticking that thin piece of metal in his arm and feeling the pain and pleasure as he pushed the plunger down and watched as the drug burned through his body.
    He dropped the mirror on the counter and left the room and went to answer his now ringing phone because he knew that if he didn’t, Gabe our Logan would show up on his – no, Paige’s – doorstep, and he didn’t want the few good pieces of his life anywhere near this piece of shit monstrosity that was his future.
     
    ***
    “Thought I might find you here.”
    Shane looked up from the bench he was sitting on to see Gabe striding toward him. Shane considered himself to be a fit guy but Gabe had him beat hands down – he was tall, built like a heavyweight champ and Shane had seen his skills in action – the bulging muscles weren’t just for show. “How’d you find me?” he asked as his friend stopped beside the bench and looked around before dropping down next to him.
    “Riley,” was all Gabe said.
    “Shit. Your woman has a good memory,” Shane muttered as he leaned forward and dropped his elbows on his knees. He’d mentioned once in passing to Gabe’s girlfriend Riley, that he stopped by to visit his brother every Saturday morning.
    “I didn’t know you did this,” Gabe said as he motioned around them.
    “Yeah, well, Saturday mornings were our thing right?” Gabe smiled and nodded and then fell silent. Shane turned his attention back to his brother’s headstone. It was big and garish just like his parents had wanted. All around them were subtle grave markers with simply engraved names and dates with the occasional epithet or colorful bouquet of flowers, but Michael’s grave might has well have had a neon sign flashing over it that said, “Rich, beloved dead kid here.” It wasn’t true of course, at least not the beloved part. There were pictures engraved into the marble on each sides of Michael’s name and fancy calligraphy underneath that said Gone too soon, forever in our hearts. He suspected his mother had come up with the phrase – it sounded appropriately dramatic.
    “I guess ‘disowned gay kid who would rather OD then live in this fucked up world alone,’ was too big to fit,” Shane said coldly as he motioned to the headstone. Gabe didn’t answer and he hadn’t expected him to. Michael had been fucked from the get go and they both knew it. His brother had been only nineteen when he’d taken his own life by shoving a needle full of heroin into his arm. It had happened just hours after Michael had come out to their parents about his sexuality and he’d been quickly disowned and abandoned in response. Shane hadn’t even been able to say goodbye and by the time he got the suicide note the next morning, it was already over and Michael lay on a metal slab in the coroner’s office. Official cause of death – accidental