Borrowed Peace

Borrowed Peace is an 86,000 word fictional, fast-paced thriller/dark crime police romance with shocking twists and turns that leave the reader on the edge of their seat.

Borrowed Peace follows Cassie Dawson who has spent years trapped in a toxic, abusive relationship with her southern socialite fiancé, Levi. When she uncovers a shocking betrayal, just months away from their wedding, she takes matters into her own hands, only to find herself as the sole witness to a murder…one which Levi committed. On the run with nowhere to turn, she encounters Jackson Tate, a handsome police officer who offers her protection. However, he harbors his own secrets, one being an unlikely connection to her abuser.  Through plot twist after plot twist, Cassie discovers that she never really knew her fiancé at all, in fact, he was living a double life and is far more dangerous than she could have ever imagined.

As Casie and Jackson work together to uncover the truth and ensure justice is served, their growing connection complicates matters, leading to a race against time when Cassie’s life is threatened. With danger closing in, Cassie and Jackson must navigate betrayal and confront the past in order to forge a chance at a future together.

While Borrowed Peace is a thrilling crime novel with a romantic theme, it has a positive undertone as an ode to anyone feeling trapped in a difficult situation, serving as a reminder that they are not defined by their circumstances, and healing and peace are attainable even in the darkest moments.

Chapter One  

Cassie  

I’m awoken by the groaning sound of one of the heavy chest drawers slowly sliding open in the corner of our bedroom. I crack one eye open just enough to see the moonlight still peeking in through the slats in the blinds. I only know it’s morning, because I know Levi is leaving to go on a fishing trip early today.

I peer through the dark room and watch as he grabs three pairs of boxers and basketball shorts, a few tank tops, two board shorts, lube and a sleeve of condoms from the chest and shove them into a duffle bag. Interesting packing list for a quick fishing trip with the guys. To my left, I hear a low vibration. Levi glances down to check the notification on his smart watch before quietly opening the bathroom door and disappearing inside. As soon as I hear the click of the door closing behind him, I sit up and squint towards the bright light illuminating his nightstand. The dumb ass didn’t think to grab his phone, or even check to make sure I am asleep at that. After waiting until the shower water turns on, I slide my finger in an X pattern across the screen of his Samsung to unlock it.

Jay: can’t wait to see you! Xoxo

Levi: Me too baby. U better be wearing that sexy lace set I got u and nothing else when I open that door.

Unbeknownst to Levi, I’ve known for four months now that Jay isn’t actually his fishing buddy that he met through mutual friends. His first mistake was buying said “sexy lace set” this past Valentine’s Day and stashing it in the house. You would think someone who was sneaking around to purchase lingerie for their mistress would look for a better hiding spot. I found the bag with the tiny red lace bra and panty set tucked away under piles of sweatshirts in the top of his closet. I wasn’t snooping, I didn’t have to. I’m just the one who washes, folds, and puts away all of his laundry. Stupid.

Inside the pink striped bag, I also found a blue jewelry box with the ugliest necklace I’d ever seen. It was one big diamond heart encrusted with tiny red rubies. It reminded me of something I would have paired with a princess dress and plastic heels when I was five, though I’m sure he dropped a pretty penny on it. As ugly as it may have been, imagine my surprise when on Valentine’s Day, Levi left me a pink gift bag with fluffy new Ugg slippers, a spa gift card, flowers, and a new yoga mat at the end of the bed. No sexy lace lingerie and no ugly necklace. Color me curious. That’s when I started to do some digging and looked into our phone records. Levi had been texting and calling an Alabama number regularly for eight months prior. The texts were frequent throughout the day, but the calls, I noticed, were only during the times when he was at work or around midnight which was well past my bedtime. If that weren’t enough to pique my suspicion, the phone records showed that image messages were being sent between the two numbers. It’s pretty unlikely that a pair of fishing buddies would send forty-five pictures of striped bass in the matter of eight months. Conveniently enough, no texts, calls, or mysterious image messages had been exchanged during any of his fishing trips. It wasn’t very hard to come to a conclusion. It took a whopping thirty seconds for me to do a reverse phone number search and learn that the phone number is registered to a Jaylee Miller who lives in Gulf Shores, Alabama. From what I gathered through Facebook stalking the girl, the two of them met last spring when Levi was on a fishing trip with his friends in Gulf Shores. She works as a bartender at a local bar and grill situated half a block away from Anchors Marina, which is how I’m assuming Levi met her. She is twenty-two, a Scorpio, lives with her parents and their family dog “Theo,” and judging from her pictures, she’s a bit of a party girl. Given the fact that Levi and I have been together for six years and share a home and a phone plan, one would think my fiancé would have been a little sneakier when partaking in an affair. But as I alluded to earlier, for an educated man, Levi lacks the common sense it would entail to successfully conceal an affair. Or perhaps, he just doesn’t care to. Right before I set the phone back on the nightstand, a text comes through.

Jay: Attachment: IMG.

Jay: Something to look forward to during your drive

I click on the image to find a pretty blonde with bouncy curls, big blue doe eyes, pouty red lips and perky breasts perched at the end of a bed with her legs spread wide, wearing nothing but a black lace thong. She has her arm out in front of her holding her phone to get the perfect angle of her cleavage, while draping the other arm across her chest to cover her nipples. She’s a good-looking girl, I’ll give her that. Her look has just the right mix of sultry and girl next door. She’s the type of girl who could walk into a bar alone and walk out with any man she wants. Apparently, even the taken ones. Settled right between her bare cleavage is that tacky heart necklace Levi gave her for Valentine’s Day. She’s a better woman than I am, because I would have dropped that bad boy off at a local pawnshop and said I lost it.

A green text bubble comes through a few seconds later with a drooling emoji from my wonderful fiancé. He then tells her that he is about to head her way now and will be there in a little over four hours. I’m not ready for him to know yet that I’m aware of what he’s been up to, so I set his phone back down on the nightstand and roll to my side of the bed. He emerges from the bathroom a second later and grabs his keys off the top of the dresser chest. He starts to walk towards the bedroom door, and I have half a mind to grab his cellphone and chuck it at his stupid empty skull and say, “you forgot your phone asshole.” I wonder if I throw it hard enough if it would crack his big hollow head right open. Maybe it’d even kill him. A girl could dream. Instead, I squeeze my eyes shut and listen to him walk back across the bedroom, grab his phone and head out the door, closing it behind him. I wait until I hear his Ford pickup’s engine roar to life and back out of the driveway before getting out of bed and heading to the bathroom.

I stare at my reflection in the vanity mirror as I wash my hands with my favorite coconut scented hand soap. “That’ll be a fun one to cover up,” I mutter.

Just over my right cheekbone, I have four fresh purple lines staining my ivory skin. I do a quick once over of my body to take inventory of what other damage it may have suffered. On the back of my left bicep, I have a matching set of four purple lines, and a bruise the shape of a thumb across the front. The back of my white tee has a trickle of dried blood originating from the small missing handful of my auburn hair that was yanked from the scalp. Overall, not too bad. I make a mental note to grab some more yellow concealer from the drugstore before heading to yoga. I learned all about color correction very early on in our relationship from binge watching YouTube tutorials on “how to cover bruises.” That should have been my first sign to run. Guess I’m a dumb ass, too.

The first time Levi ever laid his hands on me was on Labor Day, a little less than a year into us officially dating. We had just stepped away from a party at his uncle’s beach house in Gulf Shores when he accused me of flirting with the bartender. In actuality, the interaction between the bartender and I lasted about ninety seconds and included not much more than a laugh when he criticized my “typical white girl” drink choice of a Malibu Bay Breeze. I earned myself a brisk slap to the face from a belligerently drunk Levi for having the audacity to “lie” to him about the conversation. According to Levi, he “has two eyes and knows flirting when he sees it.” The handprint on my face was so prominent that I had to excuse myself from the rest of the party and lock myself into our room to avoid anyone seeing it. Shame and embarrassment filled the pit of my stomach. That was the night that I learned that green concealer covers red marks, yellow for purple and white for brown. And then I cried myself to sleep.

Last night’s events took place when Levi informed me of his plans to go fishing this weekend. Secretly knowing full well what his fishing plans entail, I suggested that there are likely more productive ways to spend the weekend being that our wedding is less than a month and a half away. He grabbed me by my left bicep and slapped me across the face before grabbing a handful of my hair and yanking my head back to look up at him. He reminded me, very ironically, that I live a comfortable life because of the money he makes. The only reason I have a wedding to plan is because his family is paying for it. I spend my days at home, getting my hair done, or at yoga because he works ten-hour days to finance it all. So how dare I question how he spends his money or his free time? The gaslighting from this man is unmatched. But he’s not entirely wrong. Aside from occasionally enduring a slap to the face, I do live comfortably because of him. Not that it makes hitting a woman okay, but right now I’m not exactly in a position to leave.

My parents died ten years ago, leaving me with a small inheritance, most of which I used to put myself through college, earning a business degree from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. I spent my late teens and early twenties alone, having no other living relatives, and struggled every step of the way. It wasn’t until meeting Levi during my fall semester of junior year that things started to become easier for me. I had someone that wanted to take care of me. We ended up moving into an apartment together off campus my senior year and his family covered the rent, utilities and various living expenses which helped immensely in getting myself back on my feet, a charity that he now does not let me forget.

Levi was two years ahead of me and had decided to continue in the business program to earn his MBA. After college, I never did put my degree to use. Levi and I were moving into a new home together and his father had helped him get an accounting job with a salary that would have tripled anything I would make. He convinced me to stay home, at least for a little while, and I can’t say I put up much of a fight. The thought of getting a break after years of fending for myself enthralled me.

Levi is a trust fund baby who comes from old southern money. The Lambert family-owned numerous cotton mills in the early 19th century and accrued an exorbitant amount of wealth as a result. The following generations used their inheritance of the wealth to invest in stocks, local businesses, or to give their children Ivy League educations. Many of Levi’s relatives, including his father, Clayton Lambert, are surgeons, while others are lawyers, accountants, and even political figures. His uncle, Branson Lambert, is the sitting governor of Alabama.

Unlike their son, Clayton and Mae Lambert are two of the most genuinely sweet people I’ve ever met. Mae was working as an Operation Room Nurse at Piedmont hospital in Atlanta fresh out of nursing school when she was called to scrub in for one of Clayton’s heart valve replacement surgeries. The two have been inseparable, and very much in love, ever since. They now share an 8,000 square foot mansion in Milford, Georgia with 10 sprawling acres, an Olympic size swimming pool, a putting green, indoor movie theatre, a chef, two maids, and one abusive, cheating, bastard of a son. In their defense, they don’t know a thing about Levi’s extracurricular activities. In their eyes, their darling son is a real southern gentleman who graduated from a prestigious university with a 4.0 GPA and earned an MBA in accounting. He has a successful career, a perfect fiancé, and is the light of their lives. They gush about him constantly to just about anyone who will listen. Bless their hearts. If only they knew.

Chapter Two

 Cassie

Checking the clock on my phone, I note that it’s 6:25am., giving me just over an hour to make it to yoga on time. I wash my face, then brush my teeth and pull my hair into a messy top knot, pulling down the pieces of hair framing my face. Throwing on a pair of Lulu Lemon leggings, I intentionally choose an open back long-sleeve athletic crop top to cover the bruising on my arm. After returning to the mirror, I attempt to conceal Levi’s handprint the best I can with just foundation until I can get to the drug store. I apply a double coat of mascara and swipe nude gloss across my lips and stare at my reflection. If you looked hard enough, you could still see the bruising, but I should definitely be able to make it in and out of CVS without dying of embarrassment. I head down the stairs to the kitchen to refill my Stanley and throw a banana into my purse before sliding on my sneakers, slinging my cute little macramé yoga mat holder over my shoulder, and heading for the door.

Turning into the parking lot of Starbucks, I find an empty parking spot right in front of the door. I love it when that happens, as if the extra twenty feet would kill me. I pull down my visor, open the mirror and quickly apply a coat of yellow concealer to my face, cover it with foundation and dab some setting powder over the top. Class starts in about fifteen minutes, so I opt to run in to grab my coffee over waiting in the drive through to save some time. Starbucks runs before yoga have become a ritual, so I know full well that if I wait in the drive through line, I’d be at least ten minutes late for class. I open the doors and am greeted with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, my absolute favorite scent. I scroll through Instagram while I wait on the short line until it’s my turn to order.

“Mornin’ Cassie! The usual?”

“Yup! Can I also grab a tall chai latte with oat milk and a pup cup? Thanks Emma.”

“Coming right up.”

A few minutes later, Emma, my favorite barista, hands me a perfectly crafted caramel macchiato with skim milk and an extra shot, with extra caramel drizzle, my usual. She secures my drink along with the latte and pup cup into a to go holder. After swiping my card, I dig through my bag and find a crumpled up five-dollar bill at the bottom. I thank her then drop the five into the tip jar before hurrying out to my car.

I pull into the busy parking lot of Soulful Sanctuary five minutes before class starts, which leaves me just enough time to finish chugging my macchiato, scoff down the banana and head inside to find Hazel and Pip. Hazel has been my best friend since senior year of high school and is the sole owner of the yoga studio. Every Saturday, I bring her a latte and a pup cup for her Chihuahua, Pip, the pint size studio mascot. We usually spend twenty minutes before class debriefing each other on the events of the past week. This is a tradition we started about three years ago and it’s very rare that I’m running late.

“Come here, Pip! I got you something girlie,” I croon in a sing-song tone.

I hear the jingle of her collar before watching the tiny white and tan fluff ball dart out of the back office and slide right into my feet. I stand there as she laps up the whipped cream from her pup cup and watch as Hazel floats out of her office towards me. Hazel is a natural beauty with waist length wavy light brown hair and natural caramel-colored highlights. She has full lips, almond shaped eyes the color of honey, and freckles that decorate her cheeks and the bridge of her nose in the summertime. Hazel is one of those lucky bitches that has thick, curly lashes without needing to enhance them with mascara, and never wears makeup unless it’s a special occasion. She is about 5’7” with a body that screams yoga instructor and I love to tease her about her yoga booty being the reason that there are so many men in the class. I’m not actually joking though, it’s one hundred percent the reason.

When Haze first opened her studio a little over three years ago, she posted a flyer with the studio information, which included a professional picture of herself as the instructor, to Facebook for advertising. Within seventy-two hours, the post was shared two thousand times with over three thousand likes and fifteen hundred comments. Needless to say, the comments weren’t about their interest in the class, rather their interest in the instructor. Her classes have been packed ever since, and I’ve never seen more men in a yoga studio in my life. But the horny bastards are consistent and stuck with it, I’ll give them that.

“You’re late! Mmm, coffee, thanks. Why are you so late? I wanted to recap the series finale of Firefly Lane. I still haven’t emotionally recovered from it. Even Jason cried, and he never cries.”

Jason is Hazel’s on again, off-again boyfriend. They’ve been “together” about two years now. He used to play football for the Atlanta Falcons before tearing his meniscus, forcing him to take an eight-month recovery. During that time, Jason’s physical therapist suggested trying yoga to help heal the injury. That’s how he and Hazel met. He never fully healed, so now he is the head coach of the Georgia State Panthers. His sudden dismissal from the NFL really gutted him and it’s deterring him from settling down with Hazel because he feels inadequate career wise and insists she deserves better from a husband. Yet, every time he breaks up with her, he can’t stay away for too long.

“I know, I know,” I whine. “I’m sorry. I had to stop and run an errand before grabbing the coffee. And for the record, I don’t think any of us will ever emotionally recover from that show, and the next time Jason cries over anything, I want pics for proof.”

“You’re not kidding,” she says. “I wish they gave us some kind of warning before we all became so invested in their fictional lives. Anyway, I have some time between classes. We can chat in the sauna when this one wraps up.”

“Sounds good! Try not to kill me with the tripod headstands today.”

Chapter Three  

Cassie  

“So, how’s the wedding planning going? Seriously, if you need any help at all, please let me know! I feel like such a useless Maid of Honor, you haven’t let me help with anything!”

That’s because I’m secretly hoping I can find a way out of this marriage within the next month. The seating charts, flower arrangements, and reception songs are of very little importance to me.

“Please don’t think I don’t want your help! I’ve just barely had to lift a finger myself. Levi’s mom has pretty much taken charge of all things matrimony.”

That wasn’t entirely untrue. Levi’s mother was so excited about her only son’s impending nuptials that I was more than willing to let her take over the planning. She is acting as my unofficial wedding planner and coordinator, and I am honestly so thankful for it. With everything I’ve been dealing with concerning Levi, planning our wedding is the last thing I have the energy for.

“Can I at least plan a bachelorette party for you? We can take a girl’s trip or keep it low key and hit the bars in Atlanta,” she pleads.

“Levi and I decided we aren’t going to do the whole bachelor/bachelorette party thing.”

That was Levi’s rule. He forbade it. Not that it matters for him though, he is having one big bachelor party every time he secretly leaves to visit Jay. It’s just another way for him to control me. A disappointed look washes over Hazel’s face and, as if reading my mind, she says, “Isn’t that a little unfair? I mean, he goes on guys’ trips to Gulf Shores to fish like, what? Once or twice a month? Isn’t that where he is right now? How does that not qualify as a bachelor party?”

If she only knew.

This whole conversation is making me break a sweat, between having to hide the truth from my best friend, and the fact that we are having said conversation in a sweltering sauna. I grab my sweat towel and swipe it over my face, then take a few gulps of water. When I turn back to answer her, she is staring at me in a way that makes me uneasy. I look down at my towel to see my makeup smeared all over it.

Fuck.

“Why the hell does it look like you have a handprint on your face, Cassie!?”

 Fuck. Fuck.

“It’s not. I, uh, hit myself in the face with the car door. It was super windy yesterday and a gust just swung the door right open.”

I have always been a terrible liar and Hazel is aware of that.

“First of all, Cassie, it’s June, and the weather was perfect yesterday. Second, you better cut the shit and tell me what is going on because there is a handprint tattooed on your face that’s clear as day! So, you can either tell me the truth, or I can drive down to Alabama and drag Levi off that boat by his balls and have Jason beat it out of him.”

I secretly love when Hazel loses her Zen. It reminds me of our high school days. She was a firecracker and not someone you wanted to mess with. She had a short fuse and was fiercely protective over her friends. As the years passed, she mellowed out and became a changed woman when she discovered her love for yoga and meditation. But every once in a while, the old Haze fights its way towards the light.

“It was stupid. He was drunk, and I pissed him off…it was a one-time thing. It won’t happen again.” I try my best to sound convincing.

“I don’t care if you totaled his truck, Cassie! He has no right to lay a finger on you. What happened!?”

She is now visibly fuming. You can almost see the steam coming from her ears. Or maybe it really is, we are still sweating our asses off in the sauna.

“Haze, I’m about to pass out in here. Can we not talk about this now?”

It would be completely out of character for her to let something like this go, but I shoot my shot, anyway.

“You’re lucky my next class starts in five, but don’t think for a second that this conversation is over. As soon as I finish up teaching, I’m coming over with takeout and we are going to talk about this,” she warns me.

Oh, yay. Can’t wait.

“Fine.”

I grab my towel and water bottle and head to the back office to retrieve my yoga mat. I take down my top knot to try to cover the side of my face with my hair the best I can and all but sprint to the car.

Dominique Groves is a twenty-nine-year-old military wife, mother of three and author living in Fort Mitchell, Alabama, though grew up in central New Jersey. Although this is her first experience writing a novel, she has always shown a deep interest in literature and creative writing, having spent most of her formative years writing music and poetry. Additionally, while Borrowed Peace is currently a stand-alone novel, she has already begun writing a sequel which will follow Hazel, another of the main characters and Cassie’s best friend.