Cash by Betty Banks

They call me Cash.
Because I’m cold, hard, and have lots of it.

From the orphaned kid with an empty stomach to the crime lord that has it all.
But I’m still hungry, ravenous for the one thing my money can’t buy.
Celeste.
My first girlfriend. The only girl I’ve ever loved. Eyes and skin the color of milk chocolate. Lips just as sweet.
We were just eighteen when I kissed her goodnight and drove off with her father’s million-dollar check burning a hole in my worn jeans.
I promised him I’d leave her alone. He didn’t want his little angel poisoned by a poor boy like me.
I was out of sight. But she was never, ever, out of mind.
I did what I swore I would: I disappeared. But never too far from my sweet Celeste. Never further than the shadows of her college dorm.
I stabbed the frat boy that asked her out on a date.
I slit the throat of the creep that got too handsy at a house party.
But when I see the engagement ring glistening on her finger, I know I have to emerge from the shadows.
It’s time to claim back what’s mine.