One Step After Another (The After Another Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  A broken heart.

  She took one of the knives from the leather satchel she had left on the dresser and headed for the attached bathroom. For the first time in years, she cut—a single line that bled in droplets to the sink—but she didn’t make a sound.

  Not even when she dug two fingers into the bleeding wound in her upper arm to find the item there while agony tore through every fiber of her being. Instead, she focused all that pain into her reflection staring back from the mirror. A face that looked far too much like the woman who had done this to her in the first place.

  How could she run from a monster that looked back at her everyday?

  No one would understand why it had to happen like this. Not Luca, when he woke up tomorrow to find Penny gone. Certainly not her handlers when someone realized the chip in her arm—that now rested at the bottom of the bloody sink drain—hadn’t showed any movement activity in hours. Not the team of people at The League who had been working with Penny for years so that their plan to dismantle and end The Elite could finally culminate to a successful job. One that would earn the organization millions from the man who delivered her and the job to them in the first place.

  Not one of them would be able to justify anything she did. Because they weren’t her. They didn’t live inside her head or past the way she did. They couldn’t go back in time like she was forced to all the time in her memories to explain why it all had to happen like this.

  But she wasn’t sorry.

  She wouldn’t apologize for this or leaving them behind to do what needed done. Something she should have finished years ago. Maybe when it was all over, the people who did matter would allow her the chance to ask for forgiveness.

  One step after another, she thought. Each one she took led her right back to her mother.

  Everything she did, before this and after, it was all one big circle that was destined to eventually return to the place it began. There was only one way it could stop. Wasn’t it time for this to finally end?

  It started with her mother.

  Penny would end it there, too.

  Want to continue Penny and Luca’s story – grab ONE BREATH AFTER ANOTHER!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Bethany-Kris is a Canadian author, lover of much, and mother to four sons, three cats, and four dogs. A small town in Eastern Canada where she was born and raised is where she has always called home. With her boys under her feet, a snuggling cat, barking dogs, and a spouse calling over his shoulder, she is nearly always writing something ... when she can find the time.

  Find Bethany-Kris at her:

  WEBSITE

  OTHER BOOKS

  The After Another Trilogy

  One Step After Another

  One Breath After Another

  One Second After Another

  Boykov Bratva

  Fractured Ties

  Essence of Fear

  The Guzzi Legacy

  Corrado

  Alessio

  Chris

  Beni

  Bene

  Marcus

  Renzo + Lucia

  Privilege

  Harbor

  Contempt

  Forever

  Cusp

  Renzo + Lucia: The Complete Trilogy

  Andino + Haven

  Duty

  Vow

  One Last Time

  Andino + Haven: The Complete Duet

  John + Siena

  Loyalty

  Disgrace

  John + Siena: The Complete Duet

  John + Siena: Extended

  Cross + Catherine

  Always

  Revere

  Unruly

  The Companion

  Naz & Roz

  Guzzi Duet

  Unraveled, Book One

  Entangled, Book Two

  Cara & Gian: The Complete Duet

  DeLuca Duet

  Waste of Worth: Part One

  Worth of Waste: Part Two

  Standalone Titles

  Pink

  Pretty Lies

  Dirty Pool

  Effortless

  Inflict

  Cozen

  Captivated

  Dishonored

  Donati Bloodlines

  Thin Lies

  Thin Lines

  Thin Lives

  Behind the Bloodlines

  The Complete Trilogy

  Filthy Marcellos

  Antony

  Lucian

  Giovanni

  Dante

  Legacy

  A Very Marcello Christmas

  The Complete Collection

  Seasons of Betrayal

  Where the Sun Hides

  Where the Snow Falls

  Where the Wind Whispers

  Seasons: The Complete Seasons of Betrayal Series

  Gun Moll Trilogy

  Gun Moll

  Gangster Moll

  Madame Moll

  The Chicago War

  Deathless & Divided

  Reckless & Ruined

  Scarless & Sacred

  Breathless & Bloodstained

  The Complete Series

  Maldives & Mistletoe

  The Russian Guns

  The Arrangement

  The Life

  The Score

  Demyan & Ana

  Shattered

  The Jersey Vignettes

  FANTASY ROMANCE

  The Hunted: A 9INE REALMS Novel

  Find more on Bethany-Kris’s website at www.bethanykris.com.

  Copyright © 2020 by Bethany-Kris. All Rights Reserved.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted material is illegal and punishable by law. No parts of this work may be reproduced, copied, used, or printed without expressed written consent from the publisher/author. Exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in reviews.

  eISBN 13: 978-1-989658-28-4

  Editor: Eli Peters

  Proofreaders: Tracy A., Eli P., and Felicia F.

  Cover Design © London Miller

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations, corporations, locales and so forth are a product of the author’s imagination, or if real, used fictitiously. Any resemblance to a person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.