Not this Time — Erosa Knowles

Smoke was missing. The men at Three X Construction are searching everywhere for a clue to his whereabouts. The body count is rising each day he's absent. Red and Ross try to keep the men from taking the law into their hands. It's a hard battle considering Red and Ross want blood for the offense. Days have passed and Smoke hasn't returned. They pray for the best and hope for a miracle.

The case Vianca Marino worked seemed simple enough. Tail the female and report her whereabouts to the client. Boring. She could have done this one blind folded. Except for the night the female left with a friend. That wasn't the norm. Later, when Vianca searched for the female, she found a corpse, and a battered, and bruised live body. She never expected the outcome from helping the man escape, what it'd cost her professionally and personally. She never expected to get burned, thought she had the fire of her attraction under control. But, Where there's Smoke…

Excerpt Chap 1

“Hey!” Smoke yelled while being lifted in the air. A foul smelling bag was crammed over his head. The next moment, with the ferocity of an out of control Mack truck, his back slammed into a wooden barrier.
“Shit,” he moaned into the darkness. Nerve endings tingled as they raced to his brain, transmitting a litany of body damage. His breath surged from his mouth, as pressure of a well-placed fist to his stomach created a vacuum. The ringing he heard -- not from bells, but his ears, as his abdominals took punch after punch. His swollen eyelids attempted to open and close, to brush away the thick, sticky fluid streaking his beat-up face.
Someone dragged and pinned him to the floor. His mind registered the harsh breaths of his attackers, but little else. The orchestrated sounds of a brutal whipping were indelibly printed on his mind.
“Ahhhh,” he yelled, as shards of pain shot up his arm, stabbing his mind. A hand shoved a cloth into his mouth, blanketing the sound.
One thought ricocheted through his mind, prison ass whupings had been less brutal.
“Uh,” Smoke groaned, doubling over in the dark. Excruciating pain radiated through his abdominals to his back. His arms were stretched wide and attached to the wall. Red-hot fire slammed through his face as it whipped to the side. He tried to spit and couldn't. That's right, they'd gagged him.
“Stop,” a voice said. “No more hitting his visible areas.”
“Oomph,” A sickening sound permeated the air. This time darkness swallowed him, he didn't feel the next kick, the next, or the next.