Dare to Stay Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF JEN McLAUGHLIN

  “Sexy, hot chemistry and heroes to die for!”

  —New York Times bestselling author Laura Kaye

  “Jen McLaughlin’s books are sexy and satisfying reads.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Probst

  “I’m a huge Jen McLaughlin fan—she never disappoints.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Monica Murphy

  “I devour [Jen McLaughlin’s] books no matter what genre she’s writing in.”

  —Romance for Every World

  “A really enjoyable read. No one does angst and romance quite like Jen McLaughlin does. . . . I laughed, shook my head, and swooned.”

  —Once Upon a Book Blog

  Also by Jen McLaughlin

  DARE TO RUN

  DARE TO STAY

  SIGNET ECLIPSE

  Published by New American Library,

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  This book is an original publication of New American Library.

  Copyright © Jen McLaughlin, 2016

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Signet Eclipse and the Signet Eclipse colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information about Penguin Random House, visit penguin.com.

  eBook ISBN 9780698410930

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  This one goes out to the readers out there

  who fell in love with Lucas Donahue in book one.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and foremost, I’d like to thank you, my readers. Without you, I wouldn’t be able to tell stories and live in worlds where Lucas, Chris, and Scotty existed. Without you, I’d be lost.

  I’d like to thank my family, like always. Greg, Kaitlyn, Hunter, Gabriel, Emmy, Dad, Mom, Tina, Erick, Danny, Riley, Connor, Cynthia, Ashley, Greg, Carole, MeeMaw, PeePaw, and everyone else in my family, thank you for always being excited to hear about my latest book deal or my newest idea. And for understanding when I’m just too busy to talk.

  To my friends Jay, Jen, Brittany, Jill, Tessa, Megan, Liz, Joanne, and every single one of you out there who means something to me, you’re my world. My life. Thank you for being there for me whenever I needed you, however I needed you. You rock.

  To my agent, Louise, and Kristin and the rest of her team and the Bent Agency, thank you for always working hard to make sure my career goes as far as it has already and for always trying to push it a little bit further, too.

  And Kristine, my editor here at Penguin, thanks for loving this book as much as I did! And to everyone who had a hand in this book in any way here at New American Library/Signet Eclipse, thank you for that, too! You’re the best!

  To anyone out there who reads books, please keep on reading. Keep on dreaming. And more important, keep on living vicariously through these stories we authors are lucky enough to make up for you. Without you, we wouldn’t be who we are.

  Thank you.

  CONTENTS

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF JEN McLAUGHLIN

  ALSO BY JEN MCLAUGHLIN

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER 1: CHRIS

  CHAPTER 2: MOLLY

  CHAPTER 3: CHRIS

  CHAPTER 4: MOLLY

  CHAPTER 5: CHRIS

  CHAPTER 6: MOLLY

  CHAPTER 7: CHRIS

  CHAPTER 8: MOLLY

  CHAPTER 9: CHRIS

  CHAPTER 10: MOLLY

  CHAPTER 11: CHRIS

  CHAPTER 12: MOLLY

  CHAPTER 13: CHRIS

  CHAPTER 14: MOLLY

  CHAPTER 15: CHRIS

  CHAPTER 16: MOLLY

  CHAPTER 17: CHRIS

  CHAPTER 18: MOLLY

  CHAPTER 19: CHRIS

  CHAPTER 20: MOLLY

  CHAPTER 21: CHRIS

  CHAPTER 22: MOLLY

  CHAPTER 23: CHRIS

  CHAPTER 24: MOLLY

  CHAPTER 25: CHRIS

  CHAPTER 26: MOLLY

  CHAPTER 27: CHRIS

  EPILOGUE: CHRIS

  EXCERPT FROM Dare to Lie

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  CHRIS

  Sometimes you’ve got to take a look at your life—a good, hard, brutally honest look—and admit that somewhere along the way, you fucked up big-time. Just as importantly, sometimes you had to accept that the reason you were in an alley, bleeding and dying behind a busted-up Laundromat, was because, those choices you made? The screwups, the wrong turns, all the things you wish you could take back?

  Yeah. Those were the reasons why you deserved this.

  To die alone, as violently as you lived.

  I turned my head to spit out blood, painting it across the dirty concrete wall next to me, and laughed at the almost–smiley face it made, because why the hell not? But my laugh made my aching ribs hurt more than before, so it ended on a groan. Clutching my ribs, I gingerly rolled over and glowered up at the sky. The uneven cement under my back dug into my already sore spine. The docks were nearby, the smell of week-old garbage and rotting rat corpses the only thing surrounding me.

  The moon was absent tonight, and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen in the sky. The stars shone down on me—never changing, always steady—mocking me with their bright futures. While I probably wouldn’t last the night.

  Because I tried to kill my best friend . . .

  And he let me live.

  Lucas Donahue should’ve killed me instead of just shooting me and cracking my ribs. He was the closest thing I had to a brother, and I’d engineered a bloody coup that had nearly cost him everything. He should have shot me down in cold blood, should have put me down like the rabid dog I was. I deserved it. But instead, he showed me mercy. He let me walk away.

  What the hell was I supposed to do with that?

  The moment he let me walk out of his apartment, a crumpled-up, bloody note in my hand giving me everything I wanted, I knew I’d made a huge mistake. I never should have attacked my blood brother to get ahead in a gang that—more likely than not—would end up killing me, anyway. I’d stupidly wanted to show my pops that I could be a harder man than he was. That I could beat him at his own game. Be cold. Ruthless. A killer.

  I was all those things, but not to Lucas.

  Betraying Lucas was the single biggest regret in my life. Normally, I didn’t wallow in the what-ifs or the shoulda-beens. I didn’t waste my damn time with what I could have done or what I could have been. But if I could go back in time and undo all the shit I’d done to Lucas . . .

  Man, I would turn that damn clock back so quickly, it’d snap in half.

  The bloodstained note in my pocket burned against my thigh. It named me Lucas’s successor, just like I’d wante
d. And just like I’d wanted, Lucas was out of the picture, out of the gang. When his younger brother, Scotty, had shown up at his place, gun in hand, I knew that, no matter the outcome, I wouldn’t win.

  But truth be told, even before that, I knew I’d made a mistake.

  Lucas had looked at me with hope, thinking I’d come to help him, and part of me had died back in that apartment with the rest of the men who’d dared to attack Lucas. When he realized I was the mastermind all along . . .

  There was no coming back from that.

  It had been too late.

  Too late to say, “You know what, man? Never mind. We’re cool.” The second Lucas found out I was trying to kill him to move up the ranks, I was a dead man, whether he pulled the trigger on his gun or not. All along, I’d thought our friendship was more a friendship of convenience at this point. That Lucas had used his connections to me and Pops to get into the gang, and he’d remained friends with me because he couldn’t afford to lose that connection.

  But the betrayal Lucas had felt hadn’t been feigned, and he’d chosen to let me live even after I’d tried to rid the world of him. My own father would have laughed and shot me in the face, but not Lucas. And that’s when I’d realized in trying to prove I was the better man, I’d become my father.

  The one thing I despised more than anything.

  Angry at what I had become, I’d lashed out at Lucas. Tried to get him to pop me, to put me out of my misery. But he hadn’t. He’d done the honorable thing and let me live. He hadn’t wanted to kill me, even after all the shit I’d done to him. He’d told Scotty to let me walk away . . . and I had.

  Now with Scotty’s help, Lucas was gone.

  Dead. Only he wasn’t. By now, he was probably miles outside of Boston, and away from this slum we called Steel Row—while I would die in the worst section of Southie, knowing I had put power above brotherhood.

  I should have lived the life that Lucas led. He was the type of guy who put friends first. Family first. The type of guy who saved a guy’s neck, even if that guy had just tried to kill him, because he’d made a promise he’d be blood brothers with him when they were kids.

  And here I was, a fucking fool.

  Any minute now, my phone would ring with the news of Lucas’s “death,” and I would be expected to be shocked. Raging. Grief stricken. And the thing was, even though he was alive and well . . . I was all those things.

  Because I’d become a monster.

  I laughed again. “Rest in peace, Lucas Donahue.”

  As if on cue, my phone buzzed in my pocket. Wincing, I dug my sore fingers into my pocket and pulled out my iPhone. Squinting at the screen, I sighed. It was Tate, the head of the Sons of Steel Row, my gang. Time to put on a good act. “Hello?”

  “Where are you?” Tate asked, his voice hard.

  I struggled to sit up, resting my back against the concrete wall, right next to my bloody smiley face. “I ran into some Bitter Hill guys, and they did a number on me. I’m just trying to recover a bit before I head back in. Why? What’s wrong, sir?”

  “We just got bad news . . . about Lucas.”

  I rubbed my forehead. It hurt like a bitch. I didn’t know what Scotty had or hadn’t told him yet, so I didn’t want to say too much. “Where is he?”

  “I’m sorry, but he’s gone.” Tate made a growling noise. “Fucking Bitter Hill took him and his girl out. They burned the place down, leaving nothing but bones and ash, but the dental records match. Lucas is dead.”

  I blinked. How the hell had they managed to pull off a damn dental records match—and so quickly? I’d hung around after the attack to make sure Lucas and Heidi actually kept their word and left. They had. Scotty had waved them away with a smile. They weren’t dead, and yet . . . oh shit. Son of a fucking bitch.

  It all made sense now.

  Scotty had seemed too quick to agree to keeping my secret. And when he came barging into Lucas’s apartment, the way he’d held the gun had been telling. It had screamed his true identity, clear as day. And the way he stood, all straight and at attention, with a firm grip on his pistol—like they teach at the academy. Scotty was a fucking cop.

  In the eyes of Steel Row, that was worse than what I’d done. It was worse than a betrayal. Beyond a death sentence, it was a mutilation sentence.

  If I told Tate about this, Scotty would be dead within the hour, and no one would ever find all the pieces that would put him back together. My position in the gang would be more secure than ever before, if I helped take him down. I would successfully take over Lucas’s position, and Pops would finally be proud of me.

  It was the perfect way to secure my future.

  But it was Scotty Donahue, Lucas’s little brother . . .

  The brother of the man I’d wronged.

  “Chris?” Tate said, his voice raised. “Are you there?”

  I must’ve been silent too long. But my shock over Scotty’s occupation would double as my grief over Lucas’s demise. I cleared my throat. “Y-yeah. I just . . . I can’t . . . I’m gonna fucking kill them all. Every last one. Right now.”

  “No.” Something slammed down on wood. More than likely, on Tate’s walnut desk. He loved opulence as much as I loved women. “We need to be smart about this. We’ve got enough cop focus on us right now, and we don’t need more by bringing a gang war down on Steel Row. All that’ll do is land our asses behind bars. I think we’ve all done enough time.”

  There it was. The opening to mention my suspicions about Scotty’s side job as an undercover. It would be so easy to do. A hell of a lot easier than shooting Lucas had been. “What am I supposed to do? They killed my best friend. I . . . I . . . shit. I can’t let that go.”

  “You have to, until we have a foolproof plan. Until then . . .” Tate slammed something else down, and I heard someone speak in a low voice. “Okay, yeah. Your pops called in from the airport. He suggested you take some time to yourself, and I agree. Lie low. Heal. Drink. Fuck it out of your system. Whatever works for you.”

  I gritted my teeth. Of course my pops immediately assumed that I was weak and would need time to heal. And worse than that, if he knew I’d tried—and failed—to kill Lucas, and that his death was a ruse, he wouldn’t be so quick to protect me. “Are you sure? Don’t you need me there? I mean . . . Christ. Lucas.”

  “I know.” Tate sighed. “You do you; we’ve got this. We’ll make plans, and when we have anything concrete—”

  “I’ll be the first to pull the trigger.”

  “I promise,” Tate agreed.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, glancing down at my blood-soaked T-shirt and brown leather jacket. If I didn’t sew that bullet hole up soon, I would go from dying to dead. “I appreciate it.”

  “Sure thing.”

  The line went dead, and I dropped my hand to my thigh. Simply holding up the phone took too much effort. Hurt too much. But it was nothing compared to the guilt trying to choke the life out of me. Banging my head on the wall hard enough to see stars all over again, I said, “Son of a bitch, Scotty.”

  Didn’t he know how much danger he was in by doing this? By pretending to be in the gang, while reporting back to the Boys? If Tate found out about Scotty . . .

  Gritting my teeth, I struggled to my feet, wavering.

  I’d lost a lot of blood, and unless I truly wanted to die in this alley, I needed to get moving. There was a closed pharmacy in the swanky part of town, outside of Steel Row, that Southies generally avoided. But this one was in the Sons’ employ, thanks to Pops and his fondness for gambling. If I could get in the back door, I could grab supplies and pain meds, stitch myself up, and then . . .

  Then what?

  Fuck if I knew.

  Trust that Scotty, the cop, didn’t turn me in to Tate? Trust that he wouldn’t tell the man of my deceit and betrayal? If he told them, they would kill me, no matter
what Pops said. I would be a dead man. And, even worse, what if Scotty used the other side of his advantage—and turned me in to the Boys? Told them all the shit I’d done, and locked me away behind bars? Or, conversely, I could tell Tate about Scotty’s dirty little secret first, and be responsible for yet another “disappearance” in the Donahue family.

  Or . . . I could just hide out.

  Wait and see how all this blew over.

  Nothing good ever came from rash decisions, and after the death of four Bitter Hill guys, there was more than likely going to be some reaction. And that backlash would come right back to me. I’d sworn Phil and his men to secrecy when I hired them to take Lucas out, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t blabbed to someone.

  Men like them always did.

  I stumbled down the alley, each step hurting more than the last. Lucas had kicked my ass within an inch of my life, and he should have killed me. I should have been dead. Maybe I’d just lie down and wait to bleed out. It was a fairly peaceful way to go, for a guy like me. I could just let my blackened blood spread across the grimy cement until nothing remained of me but a dried-up shell.

  But that damn survival instinct in me refused.

  I’d fucked up big-time by betraying my best friend—that much was true. But to just give up and let the devil drag me to hell? I couldn’t do it. And Scotty, fool that he was, had a lot riding on this whole affair, too. If he wanted to remain undercover, he would need me to back his story up. Vouch for him.

  If he told them I was there, too, I needed to agree.

  It was the only way to keep Scotty whole.

  I had to play my part. Tate and the rest of the guys at Steel Row would expect me to be vengeful, bitter, and upset. I could do that. I might be too late to make it up to Lucas, to let him know how sorry I was for what I did, but I could save Scotty.

  Because I owed it to Lucas.

  It was a small thing to do, really. Not even close to big enough to make up for all I’d done, or the lies I’d told in my quest for power and Pops’s approval.