Devastated (Anger Management Book 1) Read online

  Devastated

  An Anger Management Novel

  by

  R.L. Mathewson

  Other titles by R.L. Mathewson:

  The Pyte/Sentinel Series:

  Tall, Dark, & Lonely

  Without Regret

  Tall, Dark, & Heartless

  Tall, Silent, & Lethal

  Fated

  Tall, Dark & Furious (coming soon)

  The Hollywood Hearts Series:

  A Humble Heart

  A Reclusive Heart

  The Neighbor from Hell Series:

  Playing for Keeps

  Perfection

  Checkmate

  Truce: The Historic Neighbor from Hell

  The Game Plan

  Double Dare

  Christmas from Hell

  Fire & Brimstone

  Delectable

  The Promise

  Irresistible (Coming soon)

  The EMS Series:

  Sudden Response

  The Cursed Hearts Series:

  Black Heart

  Cold Hearted (Coming Soon)

  YA Series:

  Neighbor from Hell YA

  Pyte Chronicles

  (Both coming soon)

  Misc. Titles

  The 2014 R.L. Mathewson Chronicle Collection

  The 2015 R.L. Mathewson Chronicle Collection

  The 2016 R.L. Mathewson Chronicle Collection

  Nonfiction Titles:

  How to Write, Publish and All That Good Stuff…

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. These are characters in a book of fiction and are not based on any actual person or event. Any similarities between any events or persons alive is simply a coincidence.

  Devastated © Rerum Carta Industries, Inc. 2012. All rights reserved.

  http://www.rlmathewson.com

  Edited by R.L. Mathewson, Jo Denson, Kirstie Grundy, and Casey Alexander-Camp

  eBook:

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9986017-3-1

  ISBN-10: 0-9986017-3-X

  Dedication Page

  A special thank you to Laura Rose, Ashley Gorden, Kirstie Grundy, Amanda Brown for putting up with me during the making of this book.

  As always, this book is dedicated to my children, Kayley and Shane, who put up with me, hook me up with plenty of Coke to keep me going and make me smile every day.

  A very special thank you to L.R.

  Thank you for purchasing this book and for being there for us every step of the way.

  Sign up for my newsletter and receive the latest news about the Neighbor from Hell Series as well as my other series at:

  www.Rlmathewson.com

  Table of Contents

  Dear Reader

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek at Furious, the next Anger Management Novel

  About the Author

  Dear Reader,

  First, I’d like to thank you for giving Anger Management a chance. It’s been seven years in the making and has gone through a lot of changes, but finally, it’s here and I’m pretty happy with the way that it turned out and the direction of the series.

  When I first started toying with this series it was actually going to be called the Politically Incorrect series because it was going to deal with raw emotion, a lot of anger, etc. It was the same idea of what I have now, but with more anger. I wasn’t sure if it was something that I could pull off because I really don’t like dark romance, anger, drama, whatever you want to call it, it’s not really my thing. I like humor, kindness, growth, etc. But I wanted to see what I could do mostly because I wanted to give characters who have been through hell and back the happy ending they deserved.

  So, I wrote the first few chapters of Furious (the second book in this series). It was about a firefighter who’d had his life torn apart in the worst way imaginable and found himself facing the rest of his life in a wheelchair. When I was an EMT I encountered a lot of patients like him, who had their lives destroyed and were understandably angry. So, I let that character go, let him be angry and didn’t hold anything back. I posted that chapter online with a quick explanation of what happened. The majority of the feedback was positive, understanding and readers were able to put themselves in his place, but a very small percent didn’t understand at all.

  So, I took it down and put it away and moved on. Over the years I played with Furious and Devastated, not sure where they were going, but knowing that they were definitely something that I wanted to get back to. It wasn’t until I got to really know why readers enjoyed my books that I realized where I was messing up. My books are known for humor, down to earth characters, and an escape from reality and I don’t want to change that.

  With that being said, the Anger Management books are a bit different. They’re a little more serious, dealing with those issues that a lot of us unfortunately have to go through. I wanted to write a series for everyone who has struggled, who has gone through hell, and busted their assess to survive. This is for you. I wanted to write those stories with the same humor, friendship, love, and happy endings.

  The characters go through hell and there’s mention of what they’ve survived, but it’s not the main focus. Their survival and ability to move on and finally get their happily ever after is. So, if you’re easily triggered by painful experiences, just know that in this series, they overcome, kick ass, and finally find peace.

  -R.L.

  Devastated

  An Anger Management Novel

  Prologue

  “Please tell me that you didn’t really tell Judge Peters to go fuck himself,” Ryan said with a forlorn sigh as he leaned back against the other side of the cell’s locked door, acting like this surprised him.

  “Fine. I won’t,” Hunter said, trying to get comfortable on the paper-thin mattress before finally giving up on the lost cause and sat up.

  “Why do you insist on keeping me on retainer if you’re not going to call me when you get arrested?” Ryan asked, as he flicked an invisible piece of lint off the cuff of his expensively tailored suit.

  Hunter shrugged it off as he raked his fingers through his hair. “Because it wasn’t a big deal.”

  “It wasn’t a big deal?” Ryan repeated back slowly with a dry chuckle before going into one of his lectures, “You’re facing destruction of property, assault with a deadly weapon-”

  Hunter couldn’t help but frown at that. “I didn’t have a weapon.”

  “-public endangerment,” Ryan continued as though Hunter hadn’t spoken, “assaulting a police officer, and m
y personal favorite, resisting arrest.”

  “I didn’t have a fucking weapon!” Hunter shouted, pissed that they were trying to fuck him over for something that should have been written off as a simple misdemeanor.

  Ryan simply nodded. “They’re classifying your hands as weapons. Of course, if you’d called me, I probably could have fought that,” he drawled before explaining, “They’ve decided that with your extensive military record, and let’s not forget the surveillance video of you beating the shit out of everyone in that bar, that your hands should be considered a dangerous weapon.”

  Hunter snorted.

  “Thankfully Nancy, you remember Nancy, don’t you? The pretty young thing with great legs that works as a clerk at the courthouse. She gave me a call two hours ago. It seems that she remembered you from last year when you were up on charges for, surprise, surprise, assault. I, being the good friend that I am, left in the middle of my very important meeting to come rescue your sorry ass.”

  “Is that what you call fucking your secretary over your desk now? A meeting?” Hunter asked dryly.

  Ryan waved it off. “It’s a meeting of the minds. Anyway, I used my charm to get a private meeting with Judge Peters and the Prosecutor that you told to suck your dick this morning and I saved your sorry ass once again,” Ryan announced, sounding a little too smug for Hunter’s liking, but what the hell. If the man managed to get him out of these bullshit charges, then he could dance around in a pink tutu for all Hunter cared.

  “What’s my fine and how many hours of community bullshit do I have to complete?” Hunter asked, getting to his feet and biting back a wince when his arms and legs shouted in protest. He was getting too fucking old for this shit, he reminded himself as he walked over to the cell door.

  “None,” Ryan said with a sheepish smile that Hunter didn’t like, not one fucking bit.

  He narrowed his eyes suspiciously on his oldest friend. “What do you mean by ‘none’?”

  “What I mean is that you can’t exactly perform community service seeing how you’re going to be on house arrest for a year,” Ryan explained, as he took a healthy step back and out of reach of the bars while Hunter digested his words.

  “You better be fucking joking,” Hunter finally said, wrapping his hands tightly around the bars, wishing that it was Ryan’s neck instead.

  “It was either house arrest or staying locked up in a cell.”

  Hunter nodded, taking that in as well. “Let’s get back to something for a minute here. You call a year stuck in my house saving my ass?”

  “Yes,” Ryan said with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever.

  “Uh huh,” Hunter mumbled thoughtfully. “I think there’s just one little problem that you may have overlooked,” he said, only to pause as he pursed his lips up in thought before adding, “Actually, make that two problems.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Maybe the fact that I live out of hotels and don’t have a fucking house? Or I don’t know, maybe the fact that I run a fucking company has something to do with it? How the hell do you expect me to run a company that employs twenty thousand people around the world while I’m on house arrest?” he demanded, not liking the smug smile on his friend’s face.

  “We already came to a solution for both problems. The first is that you’re required to buy a house in this county,” Ryan explained. “And two, you’ll work from home.”

  “First off,” Hunter bit out, “I don’t want to buy a house in Hicksville, Florida-”

  “Ah, it’s actually Maryhale,” Ryan pointed out, but Hunter ignored him simply because he didn’t care.

  “-and secondly, how am I supposed to run a company from a house?”

  “You’ll have to hire an assistant,” Ryan explained in a tone that let Hunter know that the little shit clearly expected him to be in awe of his greatness.

  “Fine,” Hunter said, waving dismissively for Ryan to leave, “go to Hooters. Make sure she’s blonde, has double D’s, and doesn’t talk much.”

  When Ryan didn’t move to leave, Hunter narrowed his eyes on the little bastard that he should have beaten the shit out of when they were kids.

  “What else?” Hunter demanded through clenched teeth, already knowing that he wasn’t going to like what Ryan had to tell him.

  “The thing of it is, in order to get this deal for you, I had to negotiate a few things and-”

  “Get to the fucking point!”

  “Well, the court decided since having a live-in-”

  “Live-in? Are you out of your fucking mind?” Hunter demanded, wondering just how badly Ryan had fucked-up this case for him. He couldn’t live with a woman. It was one of the many reasons why he would never get married. He simply couldn’t stand them. As far as he knew they were only good for sex and keeping him company at all the boring dinners that Ryan forced him to attend.

  “-could be seen as a benefit, that the D.A.’s office should be allowed to choose the most qualified candidate whom they would trust to make sure that you didn’t abuse the situation.”

  Hunter stared at him for a moment.

  Finally, he said, “Please tell me that you’re kidding.”

  “I’m afraid not, and before you tell me that you’re just going to fire her, I should probably tell you that if you do that then you’ll have to finish your sentence in jail.”

  “What if she quits?” he asked slowly, already running ideas through his head on how to get rid of some unwanted pain in the ass.

  “Then you go to jail.”

  “That’s bullshit!”

  Ryan simply shrugged. “That’s the deal.”

  “So, I’m going to be stuck with someone who can hold jail over my head?”

  “Do you really think I’m that stupid?” Ryan demanded, actually having the balls to sound offended.

  “At the moment? Yes.”

  “I made it a condition that she didn’t know.”

  Hunter shook his head in disgust. “I can’t believe you fucked me over like this.”

  “Hold that thought,” Ryan said, taking another step back.

  “What else?” Hunter demanded through clenched teeth.

  “You also have to see an anger management therapist while you’re under house arrest,” Ryan added when he felt that there was enough space between him and the bars.

  For a moment, Hunter could only stare at the man he planned on killing with his bare hands. Then finally, he decided to set him straight.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind? I don’t have a fucking anger management problem!”

  Chapter 1

  February 17th.

  “This can’t be right,” Kylie murmured as she pulled to a stop in front of the large two-story brick house that looked like it belonged in an Animal House movie instead of the affluent neighborhood that it was smack dab in the middle of.

  Frowning, she looked back down at the address written on the thick yellow envelope that the Prosecutor’s office had sent over three hours ago and frowned. The address matched, but this couldn’t be the right house. There was no way that this was Hunter O’Mallery’s, C.E.O of Shadow Security, house.

  This had to be a mistake, Kylie realized just as the convertible filled with scantily clad women behind her laid on the horn, demanding that she get out of the way. No, this definitely wasn’t the right house, she thought, deciding that perhaps she was on the wrong street. She drove to the end of the street and frowned when she saw that it was, in fact, the right street.

  Deciding that they gave her the wrong address, she looked for a parking spot and after a few minutes she found one, the only one left, which happened to be a half-mile from the party house. Once she was parked, she called the Prosecutor’s office. After ten minutes of being put on hold, and five minutes of being forwarded to a half-dozen offices, she discovered that the address was indeed correct.

  As much as she wished that she could put this off, she couldn’t. She had a job to do, one that would guarantee her future.
If everything went according to plan, she wouldn’t have to worry about anything for the next year. For that alone she could handle absolutely anything, Kylie reminded herself, as she stepped out of her car. After a slight pause, she decided to come back for her bags later.

  This really was a very nice neighborhood, Kylie mused as she walked down the unmarred cement sidewalk and admired the perfectly manicured lawns and intricate designs in the metal gates that surrounded the elaborate homes that lined both sides of the street. It was definitely a step up from the small studio apartment that she’d been renting for the past two years.

  Then again, a cardboard box in a Wal-Mart parking lot would have been a step up from that apartment and probably a lot safer. At least she wouldn’t have to shell out a hundred bucks of her own money to have new locks placed on her door and window. She also probably wouldn’t have to worry about coming home and finding one of her neighbors searching through her stuff either. Definitely not a bad place to spend a year, she thought with a smile as she looked at the houses that looked more like mansions.

  As she continued the long walk towards what could only be described as an out-of-control frat party, she mentally berated herself for not doing a little research on her new employer. She only knew a few basic details about Hunter O’Mallery and that was only because she’d taken thirty seconds out of her busy morning to skim the face sheet attached to the thick file that she’d received while she’d admittedly been in a rush to follow the nice police officer’s orders and get the hell out of her apartment before things got ugly.

  Okay, uglier.

  Normally, she liked to know everything there was to know about a potential employer, company and position before she agreed to take a job, but she hadn’t been given the opportunity to conduct any research before she’d accepted this position. The only thing that she knew about this job was that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with great pay and benefits and that it was a live-in position that required a yearlong commitment.

  When the DA approached her about this position three days ago, she’d quickly realized that they weren’t going to answer any of her questions. She had to admit that it had been a little unnerving interviewing for an unknown employer. After she’d received the phone call late last night letting her know that the job was hers if she wanted it, she’d almost turned it down. If it hadn’t been for her neighbor choosing that exact moment to put his fist through her wall, she probably wouldn’t have accepted the job. But as Big Daddy, as he liked to be called, pulled his meaty fist back, leaving a huge hole in her bedroom/living room/dining/kitchen wall, she’d decided that this live-in position, what little she knew about it, sounded perfect.