This novel is not a cliffhanger and can be read as a stand-alone.
WARNING: This book is real, beautifully raw, and not for the faint of heart. It is the story of a young girl’s loss of innocence while growing up around a motorcycle club. It is not suitable for children under the age of seventeen due to language, sexual content, and intense subject matter. Based on true events.
Family.
I have tattooed that single word on more skin than I care to count. It elicits powerful thoughts and emotions for most people.
Loving. Caring.
Supportive. Togetherness.
Forever.
But not for me. The word family means so much more.
Vicious. Harmful.
Dangerous. Corrupt.
Deadly.
You can’t run forever from the ones who love you.
4.5 Star Review by Lisa Kane
Keller is a tattoo artist as Screaming Ink. She’s also hiding, from things that go bump in the night. Horrible people that will always look for Helen. The person she used to be.
My secrets are held tightly within. The life I now fight for and the lives of others depend on my continued silence.
She’s been running for 4 years, but for the last year she has been doing ink at Malik’s site. She gave him the spiel about running from an abusive husband. Every night she takes her supplies and tools with her in her rolling suitcase, never knowing if she will have to leave again in a hurry.
Her own skin is inked;
My skin has been marked in two ways: freely and by force. Both were life changing experiences. One should have scarred me, forever branding my with hatred for this passion of ink and art, but instead showed me the beauty of choosing living artwork.
When she was a child, her father was VP of the Hell’s Highwaymen MC. Her mother died a few months after her little sister Tara was born. Then her dad got a new old lady, presumably from hell. Because she treated Keller like crap. Until she did something really stupid and then Helen lost everything because of her. Her best friend Holden was the only family she had left. He and his mother, Sage, took her in. But as they get older, Holden gets more involved with the MC and that becomes his focus.
A chain of events, like falling dominoes, has led Helen to her new life as Keller. Although Malik would like to be more than her boss, she keeps him at arms’ length away. It’s easier to be alone. Until He shows up, looking to ink his virgin skin.
“Where do you want it”” I glance directly into those eyes of his. “On the left side of my chest,” he answers, not hesitating for a second. “Over my heart.”
Keller does her best to avoid Vin, the guy who she just tattooed. He tried to ask her out, but she shot him down. But she kept help running into him. He tells her that he shares his grandfather’s passion for restoring old houses, and that’s how he makes his living. She avoids questions about herself.
“I want to get to know you-that’s all I am asking. No more, no less. I have never met a more infuriating human being, much less a woman, who didn’t’ want to talk about herself. You really must be missing that gene, which I must be crazy for even mentioning.”
The story is told in a series of flashbacks. Keller's youth, and her teenage years are filled with the MC. A vicious incident that happened to her sealed her fate as being a permanent part of the MC when she was just 14. That’s the time she started to realize how Holden had change, and how much influence his father Ward, held over him. Marking her as part of that memorable night, scarred her soul as well as her body.
“Blood in and blood out.”
As she and Vin get a little closer, she shares just a little of herself.
“That is really a sad story,” he says, acting like he’s crying. “No, it’s not. It’s supposed to be a happy story of how my art travels to all these different places.” The truth is that I don’t have a real license or passport to be able to travel anywhere, not to mention the funds.
But there are things about Vin, secretive things that send up flags for Keller.
“There are certain things that we don’t know about each other. And second, those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” he says.
But as hard as Vin seems to try to stay away from her, he isn’t able to. There are a maelstrom of flashbacks that bombard Keller constantly. Once Holden claimed her as his own, any guy that talked to her had a death wish. Everyone in the MC kept their eyes on her, and she was virtually a prisoner, her only outlet was the local tattoo place where she worked. That was her freedom, inking customers and getting ink on herself. But she tries to overcome all those old memories, and she wants Vin, even though he is reluctant to go that next step with her.
“This will be the only thing between us that isn’t filled with lies. When we are together like this, you will be mine-body and soul. Agreed, Keller?”
“Anyone special you aren’t being forthcoming about? Should I be worried about a jealous boyfriend? So is there someone going to cut off my hands for touching you?” “No one,” I whisper. “No one is going to kill me? Because I would. After being inside you, the thought of anyone else touching you enrages me, " he says.
But the devil has his price and he always wants to be paid. Keller’s past is going to collide with her present and the secrets she knows about and the ones she is clueless about are all going to come spilling out. Who will be the last one standing on the day of reckoning?
I loved this book! I am partial to MC romances, but this one-it kicks it up a notch. Keller’s past is so laden with violence and the things that she has seen and had done to her and those around her….broke my heart. She has tried so hard to make a new life for herself, but every dog has its day and it was only a matter of time until it all caught up with her…and the twist with Vin-pure magic!!
“You deserve respect and love and everything your heart desire,” he whispers. “You need to live your life instead of watching it pass you by.”
RELEASING APRIL 27, 2014
Nicole Reed is the New York Times Bestselling Author of Ruining You. She is a true Southern girl, enjoying life with her husband and three children in the peachy state of Georgia. As a child, she discovered another world between the pages of a book. In 2012, she self-published her first bookRuining Me, and then followed it with Ruining You, Cake, and Wasted Heart. Her books have also been listed on the overall Top 100 Amazon and Barnes & Noble Bestselling list. She is represented by Ginger Clark with Curtis Brown, LTD. You can follow her on Facebookwww.facebook.com/
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