When the Man Comes Around Read online

  When the Man Comes Around

  Bradley Wright

  Contents

  Title

  Also by Bradley Wright

  Untitled

  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

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Acknowledgments

  Sample

  Sample: WHISKEY & ROSES

  Sample

  About the Author

  Also by Bradley Wright

  XANDER KING

  Whiskey & Roses

  (sample chapter at back of book)

  Vanquish

  King’s Ransom

  King’s Reign

  Vendetta (prequel novella)

  LAWSON RAINES

  When the Man Comes Around

  Copyright © 2018 by Bradley Wright

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  Bradley Wright/King’s Ransom Books

  www.bradleywrightauthor.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead,

  or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Cover Design by DDD, Deranged Doctor Designs

  When the Man Comes Around/ Bradley Wright. -- 1st ed.

  ISBN - 978-0-9973926-4-7

  For Chris Lawson,

  friend is not a strong enough word

  Instead of a man of peace and love, I have become a man of violence and revenge.

  Hiawatha

  A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.

  Christopher Reeve

  Prologue

  2008: Ten years earlier

  Lake Mead: Thirty miles outside of Las Vegas, Nevada

  Bringing his family to Lake Mead was the first vacation that Lawson Raines had taken since becoming an FBI agent three years earlier.

  It would also be his last.

  The morning sun had begun its climb up the wide blue sky that hovered over the desert. Its rays felt hot on Lawson’s broad shoulders as he gave the turquoise waters of the man-made lake a once-over. He could smell bacon frying back inside the small kitchen of the rental boat. He never spent any money, never really had time for it. But it was his wife’s birthday, and after three years of far too much neglect, he felt it time to give her a well-deserved, full-attention vacation.

  At seven thirty in the morning, the lake hadn’t yet begun to buzz. Lawson’s boat rocked gently where it was anchored a few hundred yards offshore, and the water was already calling his name. Lawson hadn’t missed a workout in years, and he wasn’t about to let a little time off change that. When you’re chasing bad guys all day, there was no room for a bourbon-and-pizza gut. He had already ripped off a couple hundred push-ups, but now it was time to get in a swim to keep his cardio strong.

  “Lawson, honey. If you’re gonna go for a swim, you’d better hurry. Breakfast is almost ready,” his wife, Lauren, called to him from inside the cabin.

  Hearing Lauren, Lawson walked back inside through the sliding doors, and then his phone began to ring.

  Lauren turned from the skillet, shaking her spatula at him, a playful smirk on her face. “I know you’re not going to answer that.”

  A golden ray of sunshine fell over her matching golden-blonde hair. He could see the sparkling blue of her eyes from where he stood some twelve feet away. They were a perfect match to the water just outside the boat. Even after all these years, he was still struck by her beauty.

  “Daddy!” his two-year-old daughter, Lexi, called to him from the pack ’n play. She was the spitting image of Lauren.

  As the phone rang in his hand, he walked over and gave Lexi a kiss on the forehead. Then he looked back to Lauren, her hand now resting on her hip.

  Lawson smiled. “What? It’s Cassie. She might need directions.”

  Cassie was Lawson’s partner, and she and her boyfriend were his and Lauren’s only real friends in Las Vegas. Since Lawson had been accepted into the FBI and moved from Lexington, Kentucky, to Vegas, they hadn’t really put a lot of time into making friends. He and Lauren had been high school sweethearts, and they had grown used to only having each other to lean on. Sure, Lauren had some acquaintances at work, and so did Lawson, but the only one they had really welcomed into their world was Cassie. She was from Tennessee, so they instantly bonded over their Southern roots, including a love for bourbon, and country music.

  Satisfied that it was not a work-related call, Lauren went back to tending to the bacon. She spoke with her back turned. “I’m so glad she decided to come. Today’s gonna be fun!” She turned back toward him. “Well, answer the phone already!”

  Lawson laughed at his wife. He also noticed just how fantastic her sun-kissed skin looked in that yellow bikini. Finally, he answered the phone. “Hey, Cass. You on your way?”

  “Hell yeah I am. I got some Country Time lemonade, and enough Buffalo Trace bourbon to drown all four of us.”

  “I knew there was a reason I let you be my friend.”

  Cassie scoffed. “The only reason we’re friends is because the FBI insists that we spend every . . . single . . . day together.”

  “Is Bobby with you?”

  “No, he can’t make it. He said he had something come up last minute. I know you are just heartbroken about that.”

  Lawson laughed. “This day just keeps getting better and better!”

  Lawson never liked Bobby. He had always thought that Cassie was far too good for him. He seemed about as slimy as any man he’d ever met. But they say love is blind, and all he could do was let Cassie know how he felt. She was a big girl, she had to make her own decisions.

  “Ha. Ha.” Cassie faked a knowing laugh. “Give it a rest for one day, would you?”

  Lauren walked over and snatched the phone from Lawson’s hand and hit the speaker button. “Cassie, will you just hurry up and get here already. It’s five o’clock somewhere, isn’t it?”

  Cassie laughed. “Oh lord. It’s gonna be one of those kinds of days, is it?”

  “Yes. Yes it is.” Lauren laughed. “Now hurry up or you’re gonna miss Lawson try to swim the length of the lake before breakfast.”

  “You just don’t know how t
o relax, do you, Lawson?” Cassie jabbed.

  Lawson picked up Lexi and tossed her in the air. “Nope. But I imagine bourbon will help!” he said as he caught Lexi. His daughter’s laugh could be the only sound in the world he could hear and he would be just fine with that.

  Lauren ended the call as Lawson grabbed his towel. She turned her back to him for the skillet, and he just couldn’t resist. He walked up behind her, wrapped his hands around her waist, pulled her into him, and began to kiss her neck.

  “And just what do you think you’re doing, Mr. Raines?” she said in a singsong way as she squirmed in his hands.

  “I could skip the swim. Maybe find a different sort of workout?” His smile widened, his eyes holding a mischievous look.

  Lauren turned into him. “What’s gotten into you? This morning wasn’t enough?”

  Lawson’s smile lingered as he shrugged his shoulders.

  Lauren gave him a long kiss on the lips. She ran her hands along his lean muscular torso but pulled away just before they made it below the waistband of his swim trunks. “Save that for later, hotshot. Mama’s gonna need a fix when the sun goes down,”

  Lawson let out a frustrated breath. “Damn. I sure hope that lake water is cold.”

  She clawed at him like a tiger as he backed away shaking his head. He really had never seen her look better. She went back to finishing breakfast, and after a pinch of Lexi’s chubby little cheek, he walked out to the deck and dove into the cool blue water.

  As he swam away from the boat, his mind wandered to how great things were at that moment. It was a departure from the first two years in Vegas. It had been a tough adjustment from their lifestyle in Kentucky. Everything was different. And Lauren had taken it especially hard. Things were rocky for a while. Her being pregnant shortly after the move hadn’t helped. Mostly it was the hours he was working that really pulled them apart. In Lexington, he was a detective. And while the hours were just as long and erratic, at least Lauren had her family and friends around in his absence. In Vegas, she didn’t know a soul.

  Getting paired with Cassie had been a godsend. She really helped Lauren cross over, and after Lexi was born, she finally had a chance to breathe. The past year, everything had slowly just fallen into place. Life was great at home, and Lawson and Cassie had become a force to be reckoned with in the bureau. “Rising stars” is how Division Director Adam Billings described them. And while that was good to hear, it caused division between them and the other agents, making it hard for them to make friends. But they had been doing a great job fighting against the influx of organized crime that had been moving back into Las Vegas lately. It had been something that Lawson knew he had become obsessed with. Unfortunately, it was his time with Lauren and Lexi that had been sacrificed.

  As he turned back toward the boat, the burn in his lungs brought him pleasure. He loved the way pushing his body made him feel. He was also eager to do nothing but hang out with the people he loved, catch some sun, and drink until he couldn’t see straight. It had been a long time since he had enjoyed any of those things. Far too long. The thought of bacon and his woman in that bikini helped him reach for another gear as he stroked back toward the boat.

  Twelve minutes later, his hand finally slapped the back of the boat, and as he caught his breath, he turned away from it to face the lake and the path he had just swam. It wasn’t a long swim, about twenty-five minutes. He had gone at it pretty hard, so he figured it was somewhere north of a mile. That would have to do, because he could smell bacon all the way out in the water. And Lauren would kill him if he let her hard work on breakfast go cold. He turned back to grab hold of the ladder, and that was when his life changed forever.

  Rolling toward him in the cracks of the teakwood deck, and dripping down over the swim platform into the water, was a long trail of a deep-red liquid.

  Blood.

  “Lauren!” His heart began to thump inside his chest as he pulled himself up the ladder out of the water. “Lauren! Are you—”

  He slipped on the river of blood beneath his feet and fell hard onto the deck. That was when Lexi started crying. Panic set in. “Lauren! Lauren, are you all right? Lauren!”

  Lawson scrambled to his feet. He noticed her feet on the floor, sticking out from behind the counter in the kitchen. They were positioned as if she were lying on her side. The trail of blood ran from around that same counter. Everything inside of him jumbled all at once, and the fear of what he was about to find paralyzed him. Lexi was now screaming.

  “Lau—Lauren” rolled unconsciously from his lips. “Lauren, no!”

  Emotion swelled inside him as he moved toward her, following the stream of blood. His heart breaking open with each step. In what seemed like slow motion, he rounded the corner of the kitchen counter. And there she was, the love of his life, his Lauren, lying there on the floor, her throat sliced open and her lifeless blue eyes staring up at him.

  1

  2018: Ten years later

  High Desert State Prison: Thirty miles north of Las Vegas

  Lawson Raines counted down in his head as he fired off the last of his daily routine of four hundred push-ups. He had already finished his five-mile run in the prison yard. Just the same as he had every other day for the last ten years, or 3,650 days, or 87,600 hours, or 5,256,000 minutes. He could tell you all those numbers down to the minute, not because it was the amount of time since the last day he had tasted freedom but because it was the last day he had seen his daughter, Lexi. She would be twelve now, but he only knew her face from when she was two. Ever since that day, when the very justice system he had vowed to serve wrongfully sentenced him to life in prison for the murder of his wife, he’d been counting the days, hoping he would get the chance to right what someone else got wrong.

  “Today’s the day, Lawson. You excited?” John Simpson said through the bars.

  Lawson had always liked John. In a sea of terrible human beings, he was the one man Lawson respected. He always found it comical that such a skinny little man was a prison guard. He was one of the few guards who didn’t use every moment to try to make all the inmates feel inferior to his almighty, key-holding power.

  Lawson popped up from the floor of his cell after his last push-up. “Only excited about the fact that I’ll never have to see your ugly face again.”

  John laughed. “I don’t know how you did it. I really don’t. But promise me you’ll make the most of it?”

  Lawson pulled his white V-neck T-shirt over his swollen muscles. Every inch of him was a rippled fury. When all there is to do is read and work out, that’s what happens. And Lawson always took advantage of both.

  “Don’t you worry about that.”

  “You know, a lot of your fellow inmates are going to be upset to see you go. Don’t know what they’ll do without you to protect them.”

  “They’ll manage.”

  Lawson had looked after the little guy in prison for years. It wasn’t always that way, however. When an FBI agent gets thrown in with general population, there are many a man who want revenge. Not because Lawson had been the one to personally put them behind bars, but because he represented the people who did. The law. The first two years had been brutal, absolute hell. Too many savage beatings to count. But little by little, he trained, and worked his way to where there wasn’t a man in any of the prison’s 2,671 beds that could take him.

  John said, “I’m not sure they will manage. So are you going to tell me how you did it, or not?”

  “Did what?”

  “Come on, Lawson. You were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison ten years ago. And for ten years nothing changed for you. Then all of a sudden the governor of Nevada decides to pardon you, and boom, you’re free? That doesn’t just happen. What gives?”

  “No clue. I guess my luck has turned.”

  Lawson played dumb, but the reason he had been pardoned had absolutely nothing to do with luck. It had everything to do with the reputation that he had deve
loped on the inside for being a man who knew how to get things done. The governor was just one man in a long line who had acquired his services. See, criminals know a lot of things about a lot of people. And a lot of people on the outside with a lot of money have a lot to lose if those criminals talk. Lawson had done a good deal of favors for many powerful people over the years. The first favor he called in was to the governor, and he was more than grateful that Lawson had been able to keep certain things from being leaked to the public. You could say he was “pardon Lawson from life in prison” grateful.

  “BS,” John huffed. “Luck, my ass. People talk. We all know you have been running things in here for a long time. But I know you’re not like the rest of these animals. I’m glad to see you’re getting out of here. You never should have been in here in the first place, as far as I see it. Any idea what you’re going to do on the outside?”

  “No.” Lawson kept it short as he started the first of his four hundred squats.

  “You’ve always been a man of many words,” John said, sarcastic. Then a comically serious look washed over his face. “You’re only thirty-seven, maybe you should try the UFC or something? I’ve seen you fight. You could be the champ.”