Want a sneak peek of Bang so you can feel the vibe? Check out a snippet of chapter 1 below. Please note that this is a rough snippet, and I still may change a few things around during the editorial process.

Bang will be available on July 21st. You can preorder it here, but it’ll also be in KU for those of you who read there. As a reminder, this is my first “dark” romance, and it has darker themes than Copper. (Book 1.) You do not need to read Copper, but it will help you understand the side characters and the better understand the epilogue.

Cheryl-

“What in the actual fuck?” a voice says behind me, and I close my eyes.

“I can explain, Lucy,” I mumble, grimacing, my teeth clenched.

She’s silent for ten seconds as I look down at Daniel, my hands on my hips and still not turning to face Lucy. I’m scared what I’ll see when I turn around. It’s safe to say I’m probably fired, but I’m not sure what kind of facial expression one puts on for their boss who just found their employee standing over a dead body in the parking lot. Do I smile? Look mean so she won’t cross me, even though I’d never hurt her?

“Jesus Christ, is your stripper heel clean through his eye?” Lucy asks.

“Yes, ma’am,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. This is Daniel.” I gesture to the man on the ground. “Daniel, this is my boss, Lucy. She’d shake your hand, I’m sure, but you’re busy dying and all.”

“You know this man?” she asks.

I finally turn to face her and find a surprisingly neutral expression on my boss’s face. There’s a hint of curiosity there, judging by the scowl on her forehead, but I don’t see judgement or horror. Only concern.

“He’s my ex. The boys’ father.” I rub my neck. “He was waiting for me and attacked me.” Silence as she stares at him on the ground. “I guess he was mad about me asking for an increase in child support, huh?” I chuckle, even though nothing about this is funny. “I had to… improvise,” I say, pointing at my bare foot. I cross my fingers she can see the red mark where he slapped me and my messy hair so she can form her own opinion on what happened.

Lucy takes two tentative steps forward and cranes her neck. “Didn’t want to pull the shoe out?”

“Nope. I can’t stand the idea that an eyeball would come with it. Apparently, that’s my line when killing my ex.”

“Everyone has a line.” Lucy inhales deeply and looks around the parking lot. “Clean shot, though. Bravo, you.”

“You’re not mad about this?” I ask.

She bites her bottom lip, thinking. She takes four steps and looks down the street aways at our nearest neighboring business, a taco joint with cameras in their lot. “Probably not close enough for them to get a good shot. The bushes between our properties kind of cover some things, too. Not like they’d rat on us anyway. They don’t want attention brought to them with some family members from Mexico working in the place, and we’re going to leave them the fuck out of this.” She looks around. “Open your trunk.”

“What?” I ask.

“Well, we can’t just leave the bastard here with a shoe in his eye!” She points to Daniel. “Open your trunk.”

I take my other shoe off so I can walk and then shuffle over to my car on bare feet. I search for my keys, pick them up with shaky fingers, and take two tries to press the button for the trunk. Once the trunk is open, I walk back to her, taking small steps on the painful gravel and watching for broken beer bottle glass that always seems to be around.

“Help me get him in your car,” Lucy directs. “You lift the bloody half since you’re the one who did the damage.”

I bend and lift Daniel’s shoulders as blood still pours out of him. Who knew people had this much blood inside of them? I sure didn’t. If he wasn’t dead from the strikes, bleeding out would do it.

Lucy suddenly drops her end of him, and I tumble forward, almost falling. “What the fuck?”

She turns and heads toward the door of her business. “We need trash bags to line the trunk. Otherwise, he’ll bleed all over it. I have some cleaning gloves, too.”

Lucy goes inside for a few minutes while I wait in the parking lot, tapping my foot and wondering if I should drag Daniel behind the dumpster in case someone happens to be lost and pulls into the parking lot to turn around or something. What would I do then? Smile and wave?

Eventually, she comes back and silently lines my trunk with plastic sheeting she must have left over after painting the place a few months ago. She even has duct tape with her and tapes the sheeting to the edge of the trunk, making a bowl-like plastic protection for my car. On top of that, she lays four trash bags down and two old towels on top of that.

“There,” she says. “Now we can get him in. I’ll hose this off after we get him in and pour some bleach over the top of that. I got some new scrubbers that should get most of it. The parking lot will be good as new.”

Lucy goes back to Daniel’s feet and squares her legs before squatting to lift. I can’t help but think about my retail job in high school where we had an entire training session on team lifts and using our legs. I guess that information is finally coming in handy.

“He’s a heavy mother fucker, that’s for sure,” Lucy says, grunting a little as she lifts.

“He was always bulky. Lifted a lot.”

“Ugh. I hate muscular guys that are jerks. It makes dealing with this harder.”

“What’s harder?”

She blushes at the question. What’s harder? How does Lucy know muscular dead men are harder to deal with?

“You’re abnormally calm about this,” I say when she doesn’t answer.

Blood from Daniel’s head and neck runs down my legs to my ankles. Maybe Lucy can go inside and get me some wipes. I’m not sure I have enough baby wipes in the car. I usually carry them for the boys’ sticky hands if they eat in the car, but they sure don’t make this kind of mess.

Lucy’s eyes meet mine for the first time since she found me hovering over Daniel. Her normally dark eyes are even darker, but an eyebrow is raised like she has a question or possible secret. “Shit happens, honey. Shit happens to men like this sometimes.”