Jigsaw (Hell's Handlers MC Book 3) Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Blurb

  Author Note

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Epilogue

  Author Note Amazon

  FB Group

  Copper Preview

  About the Author

  JIGSAW

  Lilly Atlas

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Copyright © 2018 Lilly Atlas

  All rights reserved.

  Lilly Atlas Books, LLC

  For my grandmother.

  Not only did you give me my first romance novel so many years ago, but you know a bird can’t fly with one wing.

  You’ll always be missed.

  All my love.

  After being disappointed by her family one too many times, Izzy’s convinced the only person she needs is herself. Seeking a life with fewer relationships, she leaves the bustle of the city and moves to small-town Tennessee. Her plans for quiet and solitude don’t last long after she’s adopted by both the men and women of the Hell’s Handlers Motorcycle Club.

  Once upon a time, Lincoln had a picture-perfect life. Sweet, loving wife, beautiful daughter, enviable career. But one fated night, it’s all wiped out, leaving him scarred both mentally and physically. Now known as Jigsaw, he’s a force to be reckoned with and a valuable asset to the Hell’s Handlers MC. But he’s also done. Done with love, done with dreams, done with women…unless it’s to work off some tension.

  Despite their resolve to avoid entanglements, chemistry blazes between Jig and Izzy that becomes harder to resist with each encounter. When the club’s enemies set their sights on Izzy, the Handlers pull her even further into the fold. Everything Izzy believes about families is challenged as Jig and his club prove they can be counted on again and again.

  Fighting side by side with a fearless woman, even one as smokin’ as Izzy, isn’t something Jig wants, but it might be exactly what he needs. If club business doesn’t destroy them, is there a chance Jig and Izzy can let go of their pasts and find happiness?

  Other books by Lilly Atlas

  No Prisoners MC Sereis

  Hook: A No Prisoners Novella

  Striker

  Jester

  Acer

  Lucky

  Snake

  Trident Ink

  Escapades

  Hell’s Handlers MC

  Zach

  Maverick

  Jigsaw

  Copper (Date TBA)

  Audiobooks

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  PROLOGUE

  IZZY MAY, 1995

  “Isabella Monroe, do not make me ask you again! Bring me the suitcase from under your bed, and do it now!”

  Izzy sighed and dropped her sketchpad on the deep purple comforter. Three was her mother’s limit. Three times of asking and being ignored by her thirteen-year-old daughter, and then she’d storm in and let her Latina temper flare. And Izzy usually ended up grounded in that case.

  Not that it mattered. Where did Izzy have to be? Who did she have to hang out with? All her non-school hours were spent hiding out in her room with her sketch pad and worn-down charcoal pencils, doodling as her mother called it.

  With another sigh, Izzy flopped onto her paper-thin pillow and stared at the cracked white ceiling while she counted to five. Then she rolled over and dangled off the edge of the bed while searching for the giant suitcase her mom had stashed there a few months ago.

  Their two-bedroom Bronx apartment didn’t offer much in the way of storage space. Or living space for that matter. Her room was smaller than some rich lady’s closet.

  “Got it, Mom. I’m coming.” Izzy towed the empty suitcase down the short hallway and into the master bedroom that was only about two square feet bigger than her own shoebox. “What do you need it f—”

  She stopped dead in her tracks and blinked her mother into focus as though the scene before her could change if her eyelids shut and opened again.

  Izzy’s heart sank to her toes. “He’s leaving?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

  “Don’t you sound sad for that pendejo, Isabella. You do not know what he did, mija.”

  “What did he do, Mama?” Izzy asked because Catalina expected it. Izzy knew the routine by now. Her stepfather had committed some heinous offense in her mother’s eyes, though Izzy never quite saw things from her mother’s hysterical perspective. Catalina would rant and rave in a frenzied tantrum until she ran out of steam. Afterward, she’d sleep for two or three days straight.

  Izzy asking for details usually got the ball rolling, and the faster Catalina got it out, the quicker the theatrical process would be over.

  But the packing of the suitcases was a bad sign. This was the third time in Izzy’s memory that the suitcase packing took place. And each time, it resulted in divorce. Three divorces in less than thirteen years, although really, Izzy didn’t remember much before age five. Actually, her Mom packing a bag and running Izzy out of a house without her beloved teddy bear was her first foggy memory.

  She’d never bothered to ask her mother if she had been married to Izzy’s father. Part of Izzy was afraid to find out.

  “What did he do? What did he do?” Catalina stopped haphazardly flinging socks and tighty-whities into the luggage and faced Izzy. Her dark, nearly black eyes, the eyes she’d passed on to Izzy, were wild, as was her ink-black hair, currently frizzing out of its messy bun in every which way. “He stuck his dick in that fucking teenager next door. That’s what the bastardo did.”

  “Mama, Juliet isn’t a teenager. She’s twenty-two,” she said, like that would somehow make a difference.

  “And this makes it okay?” Her mother shrieked as she shook her head and stomped her foot like a petulant child. “We took vows, Isabella!”

  Always with the vows.

  Giant tears filled her mother’s eyes then spilled over unchecked.

  Here we go again.

  Izzy bit her tongue to keep from blurting out that she was pretty confident there was no way in hell Juliet would have sex with a balding fifty-year-old toll-taker who was lumpier than a bowl of cold oatmeal. Juliet worked her ass off at a minimum wage job while taking night classes online and raising her two younger siblings. She had no time for a fling with a past-his-prime married man.

  But those words would send Catalina into a further tizzy. So, another approach it was.

  “Mama,” she said softly. Izzy had learned over the years to approach with a soothing tone and del
icate step when her mom had one of these irrational episodes. “Can I make you a cup of tea? Maybe, if you sit and relax for a while, you’ll feel better, and you can talk it out with Len after he gets home. How does that sound?”

  “Tea? My marriage is falling apart, and you want me to have tea? Isabella, don’t act like a child. Hand me that suitcase and start filling it with everything in that drawer,” Catalina said, pointing to the drawer where Len kept his shirts.

  A lump formed in Izzy’s throat. Len might be fifteen years older than her mother and not the most attractive of men, but he was kind and worked hard to provide for them. Best of all, he loved Izzy like she was his own flesh and blood, and she felt the same about him. So many nights she’d fallen asleep watching reruns of Friends with her head on his shoulder. He hated the show, though he pretended to love it and suffered through countless hours just for her. Her absolute favorite thing about Len was his support of her art. He’d never called it doodling, never rolled his eyes like her mother did or told her that artists spent their whole lives begging for money. He praised her and bought her supplies with the few remaining dollars his meager paycheck afforded.

  Len believed in her.

  Izzy’s chest started to ache, and her eyes stung. God, she was going to miss him.

  Two hours later, all Len’s belongings were stuffed into three bulging suitcases and waiting by the front door when he came home from work.

  The oblivious smile that curved his mouth the moment he laid eyes on Izzy cracked her heart in two. Shame filled her, and she stared everywhere but at his happy-to-be-home-after-a-long-day grin. She could have told her mother no. Could have refused to help her fill those suitcases. Could have demanded Catalina stop giving into her raging insecurities and use her brain like a rational adult.

  But Izzy hadn’t. She’d kowtowed to her mother’s wishes like she always did. Long ago, she’d learned standing up to her mother when Catalina was in one of those frantic fits was pointless. Her mom would scream. And not yell like a frustrated parent whose child did something wrong. No, this was an intense, lost all control, screeching like a banshee kind of screaming. Once, in a haze of mania, she’d even slapped Izzy across the face. Never again had Izzy backtalked in those tense moments.

  Suddenly it was too much. The impending ugly words between her mom and Len, the sadness and pain on the horizon, the upcoming loneliness of the apartment once it was just her and her unstable mother. Izzy sprung from the couch and flew at Len. Her arms locked around his hefty waist, unable to meet in the back.

  “I’m sorry,” she sobbed into his soft stomach.

  “Shh, Izzy-bella,” he whispered into her hair. He sounded resigned as if he knew this was coming and wasn’t a bit surprised.

  But he did sound sad.

  “I love you,” she said, the words muffled by his girth.

  “Oh, honey, I love you, too. And I will miss you so much. But you’re strong,” he continued. “You’re such a strong girl, and you’re caring, and a beautifully talented artist. You have so much to look forward to in your future.” He stroked a pudgy hand over her hair. “Make sure you turn that art into something someday, you hear me?”

  She nodded against him as he held her tight. “Will you be okay?”

  “Sure, Izzy-bella. I’ll heal. Now you go on and get out of here for a while. No need to stick around for the rest of this.”

  One last time, she squeezed her arms around him as hard as she could. Then, without making eye-contact because she couldn’t bear to see his pain, she kissed his cheek and ran out the front door, grabbing her backpack on the way.

  She ran until her legs cramped and her lungs burned before finding a private park bench to collapse. Losing herself in her sketch pad, she drew her hopeless feelings until the sun vanished behind the high-rise apartment buildings.

  Just as she was about to make her way back to what was bound to be a depressing apartment, laughter rang out.

  “Look, it’s Frizzy Izzy.” Paula McLean, the most popular girl in the eighth grade, strolled down the sidewalk with her ever-present bitch-posse. Wearing designer jeans, a perfect, bouncy ponytail and more make-up on her face than Izzy had ever worn, Paula smirked. For some reason, Paula had taken an instant dislike to Izzy the moment they met in kindergarten and had made it her mission to keep Izzy’s school-life miserable ever since.

  The hair insults were the most frequent. Izzy had inherited her mother’s ridiculously thick hair and had yet to learn to tame it.

  “Hi, Paula. Have a good evening.” She rose and started to scurry off, but one of Paula’s little gremlins, Krista, yanked the sketch pad from under Izzy’s arm.

  “What do we have here?” she asked in the whiny tone she was known for. The sketchbook dangled from her acrylic-tipped fingers.

  “Give it back!” Panic filled Izzy. No one was allowed so much as a peek in that particular book. No one, not even Len, and she’d talked to him about what she drew. But showing him, or anyone, was a different matter entirely. The drawings in that book were so personal she had a hard time looking at some of the sketches herself. It was where she poured her pain when life became too much and she needed an outlet.

  Pages of agony, frustration, and teenage angst.

  Krista flipped the book open to the first page. Without looking, Izzy knew precisely what the mean-girl stared at. A self-portrait Izzy had drawn after enduring a particularly rough day of bullying at school.

  Izzy is chubby, and no guy will ever want her.

  Izzy is so poor, she wears the same clothes three days a week.

  All her mom’s husbands leave because Izzy is so ugly.

  And the insults had gone on and on. So, Izzy did what she did best and drew her pain away in a self-portrait where she wore her insides on the outside. Exactly how she’d felt that day. Exposed, vulnerable, ashamed.

  Kind of like she did at that moment.

  Krista lifted the next page and scrunched up her perfect nose. “Oh, my God.” She giggled. “Look at this thing. It’s gross. What the hell is wrong with you Izz—”

  Without putting an ounce of thought into it, Isabella pulled her arm back and rammed her fist into Krista’s nose. Crushing pain like she’d never experienced shot through her knuckles all the way up to her elbow. But it was a good pain. A satisfying pain. A powerful, life-changing pain. And the feeling only intensified when she looked up and saw blood gushing from Krista’s mangled purple nose. Eyes wide and horrified, Krista shrieked and started balling. “You crazy fucking bitch,” she screamed in a nasal voice, then started spitting and gagging as her mouth filled with blood.

  Paula and the other girl looked as horrified as Krista and started backing away. So much for the bonds of friendship.

  That’s right, bitches.

  Izzy stared down at her aching hand as she flexed and extended her fingers. She glanced back up at the popular crew and smirked.

  Never again.

  Never again would she be bullied.

  Never again would someone take something from her.

  Never again would someone leave her alone and lonely.

  Never again would she allow her heart to break.

  She’d become strong both physically and mentally.

  She’d harden her heart and learn to fight because it felt damn good to be the one on top. To be the one inflicting the pain instead of receiving it.

  JIGSAW JUNE, 2012

  Lincoln Miller couldn’t keep the grin off his face as he navigated the packed street in front of his townhouse, searching for an empty parking spot. It seemed like he’d been a student his entire life and, well, he pretty much had. Twenty-six years old and he’d been enrolled in school in some form since he’d been four. Well beyond the majority of his years.

  But it was finished. Over. Tomorrow he’d officially be dubbed Dr. Lincoln Miller. His internship would morph into an actual job title, pay would increase from crumbs to a healthy slice of the pie, and he’d finally be able to move his family off t
he busy street full of college partiers.

  But the best part of the entire experience would be watching his wife’s face as he received that Ph.D. diploma. As she did for his bachelor’s degree, she’d beam with pride and love for him. Heck, he should probably hand the certificate straight to her because without her support, encouragement and, above all, patience, he’d be nothing more than a brainy peach farmer following in his father’s footsteps back in Georgia. Not that he harbored any ill will for the farming industry and his family’s legacy; it just wasn’t what he envisioned for himself.

  At seventeen, he’d been so head over heels for his high school sweetheart, Callie, he hadn’t wanted to leave her or Georgia. He’d convinced himself peach farming was the way to go despite dreams of an academic future. But when the letter arrived from the University of Alabama alerting Linc to his acceptance in the physics program, Callie encouraged him to attend in that soft and gentle way she’d had. Two years later, she’d transferred from Georgia Tech to Alabama herself, and they married at the young age of twenty.

  Too young according to their families, but six years and one daughter later, they couldn’t be happier or more smitten with each other.

  They showed everyone that young love was real and could last.

  He was still as devoted to that woman today as he was the day he married her. Probably more so. No other woman had even turned his head. Why would they? Callie appealed to him on every single level: physically, mentally, emotionally. Tender and small, he’d always felt like a man in her presence. Callie needed him to provide for her, protect her, care for her. Not in a money-grubbing way—certainly not with the pennies he made—but in a loving way a wife needs her husband. And he needed her particular brand of sweetness just as much. They were a perfect match.

  Finally, he found a tight spot and maneuvered his ten-year-old Corolla between two parked cars with the skill of someone who parallel parked on the daily. Grabbing the bottle of wine and dozen roses he’d picked up on his way home from work, he started the trip along the cracked sidewalk to his humble home.