Title: Stolen Course (Wrecked
and Ruined #2)
Author: Aly
Martinez
Release Date: May 21, 2014
Genre: New Adult
Romance
Cover Design: Book Covers by
Ashbee Designs
*Synopsis*
I fell in love
with Manda Baker eight years ago, and I loved her to the core of her soul. We
were supposed to have that elusive happily ever after and spend a lifetime
together. But that was all before she was STOLEN from me.
Her best
friend, Sarah Erickson, killed her. It wasn’t intentional. It was far worse.
Everyone claims it was just an accident, but I can see through the lies. Even
if it’s with my dying breath, I will make her pay for what she
did.
Fate hates me.
It robbed me of my first love and left me to navigate through this world
emotionless and numb. Then, one day, spiteful fate gave me a woman to fill my
shattered soul and make me feel again. It gave me Emma Jane Erickson. Now I
spend my days searching for the answers that will ruin Sarah and my nights
falling in love with her sister—the one person who is bound and determined to
save her.
But what
happens when everything you know to be true explodes around you? Who will be
left to pick up the pieces, and who will need to be saved from the
wreckage?
*Prologue*
“It’s not
fucking them!” I punch the dashboard and scream at my partner, Brett, as he
weaves through traffic. Just moments ago, we received a page that will destroy
one of us forever. It said a bunch of words, but the only four I can remember
are “One fatality, one injury.” I reject the very possibility that this has
anything to do with my Manda, but the vise currently holding my heart still
twists even tighter. I drop my head to my hands as I wage war with reality. If
that message is accurate, I have a fifty-fifty chance that my life is over.
Done. Finished. I’ll never survive losing Manda. Never.
It can’t be
her. We haven’t even gotten married yet. We are supposed to get married and
have a life together. We have a plan. A knife lands hard in my stomach as I try
to reason my way out of this mess. It can’t be her. Manda is
strong and healthy. No accident in the world could steal her from me. Yeah,
she’s tough. She’s got to be the one who’s injured. Something simple, maybe a
broken arm. We can fix that. I just need her to be alive, anything else we can
deal with together.
The car barely
slows before I’m out and sprinting toward the twisted metal on the side of the
highway. Every hope I have of this being a big misunderstanding vanishes into
the night when I recognize Sarah’s car. Reality slices me open, but the promise
of only an injury keeps my legs moving forward.
“Detective
Jones!” I hear shouted, but I continue to run. I slow only when I get to a
group of officers.
“Where is
she?” I demand, but deep down I’m terrified to hear the answer.
“Caleb, take a
second and catch your breath.”
“Where the
fuck is she!” My eyes scan the faces lining the road, desperately searching for
Manda’s fiery red hair and green eyes. But instead, they land on a white sheet
covering what I know to be a body. My heart begins to race as I once again try
to fight all rational thinking that tells me it’s her.
“That’s not
her,” I say, desperately trying to catch my breath, but the panic that has
lodged itself in my system prevents it. “Oh God, someone please tell me that’s
not her.” Tears well in my eyes as I glance up to see my good friends, Stephens
and Perez, step up beside me. From the look on Stephens’s face, I know I don’t
want to hear whatever he has to say.
“She didn’t
make it, Jones.” With one sentence, the little breath I have left is stolen. My
legs buckle, forcing me helplessly to my knees.
“No.” I refuse
to accept that my Manda no longer exists.
The earth
starts to tremble as my world begins to crumble around me. It only takes a
minute to realize that my body is violently shaking as the physical pain of
reality courses through my veins. This is not happening.
“That’s not her,” I begin to repeat.
She
can’t be gone. My eyes never leave the body that used to house my
soul mate. This isn’t real, and any minute I’m going to wake from this horrible
nightmare. I’ll roll over in bed and pull Manda hard against my chest. I close
my eyes, willing myself to wake up, but it never comes.
I rise to my
feet and take a step towards her. “Manda!” I yell. I need to see her. To touch
her. It’s fucking cold tonight and she’s just lying there under a sheet. Oh,
fuck. That’s not her.
Perez grabs my
arm, effectively halting me. “Don’t do this to yourself. You don’t need to see
her like that.”
“Get your
fucking hands off me. If that’s Manda, I need to see her.”
“Not now you don’t.
Let them get her to the hospital and clean her up a bit.”
The pain in my
chest is quickly being replaced with anger.
“Get off me,
Perez,” I say calmly while leveling him with a menacing glare.
“Not
happening. I won’t let you do this to yourself.” He pulls me back a step, and
that is all it takes for me to lose it. My rage needs somewhere to go, and it
just so happens that it chooses Perez’s face. My hands fly, landing directly on
his jaw.
“I need to see
her!” I scream, landing punch after punch. Stephens jumps in, tackling me from
behind. He uses his weight to pin me to the ground.
“Goddamn it,
Jones. Stop fighting. We’re trying to help you.”
“She’s not
fucking gone!”
“She
is, and you don’t need to see
her.”
An image of
her laughing at dinner flashes behind my eyes as once again reality takes hold.
This is not happening. The temporary shield of anger fades
away as devastation settles in. As I’m lying facedown on the side of a highway,
gut wrenching sobs spring from my chest.
“Oh, God.
Please, not Manda.”
Changing Course (Wrecked and
Ruined #1)
*About the
Author*
Born and
raised in Savannah, Georgia, Aly Martinez is a stay-at-home mom to four crazy
kids under the age of five, including a set of twins. Currently living in
Chicago, she passes what little free time she has reading anything and
everything she can get her hands on, preferably with a glass of wine at her
side.
After some
encouragement from her friends, Aly decided to add “Author” to her ever-growing
list of job titles. So grab a glass of Chardonnay, or a bottle if you’re
hanging out with Aly, and join her aboard the crazy train she calls
life.
Giveaway
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