Leveled: A Novella. Jay Crownover

      

      Leveled

      A Saints of Denver Novella

      Jay Crownover

       Copyright

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by Harper 2015

      Copyright © Jennifer M Voorhees 2015

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

      Excerpt from Built © Jennifer M Voorhees 2015

      Jennifer M Voorhees asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Ebook Edition © November 2015 ISBN: 9780008116255

      Version: 2015-10-14

       Dedication

      Dedicated to love … however it looks, however it lands, however it happens, however it finds you in all its beautiful, complicated, messy glory.

      Everyone deserves to love and be loved.

      Also dedicated to an adorable ginger that I happen to think is the bee’s knees and a pretty special kind of guy … looking at you, Matt Dellisola. Thanks for being my #1 man-fan … and my friend.

       Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

      —Winston Churchill

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

       Epigraph

      Introduction

      Chapter 1: Dominic

      Chapter 2: Lando

      Chapter 3: Dominic

Chapter 4: Lando

Chapter 5: Dominic

       Chapter 6: Lando

       Chapter 7: Dominic

       Chapter 8: Lando

       Chapter 9: Dominic

       Chapter 10: Lando

       Chapter 11: Dominic

       Chapter 12: Lando

       Chapter 13: Dominic

       Chapter 14: Lando

       Epilogue

       Keep Reading

       Lando and Dom’s Playlist

       Acknowledgements

       About the Author

       Also by Jay Crownover

       About the Publisher

       Introduction

      Surprise! It’s Lando’s book … way earlier than planned!

      So here’s the thing … I needed a bridge between the old and the new. I finished the Marked Men series and couldn’t have been prouder of my boys, or my readers, with where we left things. And then I jumped right into working on Built, (available for pre-order now) which is Sayer and Zeb’s story and was supposed to be the first book in the Saints of Denver. It’s an amazing book. I also couldn’t be more satisfied around how it kicks off the new series, but there was this need for a way to connect the two and that was where Leveled came in.

      Lando and Dom are the perfect mix of old and new, the perfect combo of then and now, and with switching the publication dates around, it really gave me the opportunity to close all the doors and tie up all the story lines that were left from the Marked Men series. It felt right. It was a story that poured out and was so sexy and fun to write. These boys are a handful … together and separately … that is always a treat to bring to life on the page.

      Of all our original cast in the Marked Men, none deserved closure and the choice to move on and find love like Orlando did. I was happy to give him this story and there are enough familiar faces in this book making appearances that even though this isn’t my typical kind of story, it will make all the fans of the original series really happy, and hopefully any new ones that are picking this book up as their first Jay read.

      I hope you enjoy the boys as they battle their way through love and fear and just in case you are wondering, the time frame of this book and pretty much all the Saints of Denver books takes place in that space of time between the end of Asa and the epilogue … so the six months or so that lead up to the wedding … you’ll have to read the Marked Men to know what wedding I’m talking about;)

      Also, before you dive in, I want to say that any liberties taken with police protocol and reinstatement after an injury are my own and done so for the sake of the story. Sometimes the reality of things makes for boring fiction, and the lines need to be bent and tweaked to get the story where it needs to be.

      I have nothing but respect and admiration for the men and women that choose to protect and serve and it’s an honor to give them a voice and a story in my work.

       Chapter 1 Dominic

      Leveled.

      Laid out.

      Knocked sideways.

      Flattened and collapsed.

      Breathless and stunned.

      I’d had the proverbial rug yanked out from under me more than once in my twenty-five years. The first time had been when my father’s partner showed up at our front door sobbing uncontrollably. Dad had taken a bullet during a routine traffic stop and in the blink of an eye I went from little boy to the man of the house. It was my job to take care of