Gia: Woman Empowered (Tied In Steel Book 3) Read online

  Gia

  MJ Fields

  Gia (Tied In Steel)

  Copyright © 2020 by MJ Fields.

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Edited by C& D Editing

  Proofread by Julie Deaton

  Cover Designed by Jersey Girl Design

  First Edition: March 2020

  Contents

  About Gia

  Dedication

  Playlist

  Arnesen Marina

  Queen's House

  Reluctant Wanderer / Transatlantic Transformation

  Lighthouse Landing

  Chick Magnet

  Not so Fresh Start

  Halfway To Hilton

  On Top

  Deep Sea

  Overboard

  Landing

  Too Much to Drink

  Wine With Friends

  Late Night

  Deep Shit

  Just Like That

  Now or Never

  Queen … Again

  Holding Her

  A Brand New Day

  Epilogue

  Want to know what to read next?

  Bella

  Next In Steel

  Thank you

  Also by MJ Fields

  About the Author

  About Gia

  GIA

  He was handsome and from a good southern family.

  I was beautiful and didn’t know my real family.

  He was strong and self-confident.

  I was broken and never knew confidence.

  He was everything to a girl who had nothing.

  I was everything to a man who needed nothing.

  He told me I would be his queen.

  Then, three years later, he stripped me of my crown.

  After our son was born, I “fell down the stairs” and broke my arm.

  At the hospital, I found out I was pregnant again.

  Two months later, I “ran into a door” and hid my black eye behind designer sunglasses and a fake smile.

  In my last trimester of my second pregnancy, we went to meet some of his old college friends in New York City. I took too long to get ready. He told them I had the stomach bug.

  I was once an eighteen-year-old girl, married to her high school sweetheart turned tormentor.

  That fateful night in New York City, a cycle was broken.

  Now, I am empowered …

  Today, my name is

  Gia

  …but only for a few weeks out of the year.

  Dedication

  If you’ve been a reader of mine for awhile, you know how I feel about you. You’re valued, loved, cherished and Forever Steel. You know I feel a ‘family’, is people you let in, and they can be by blood, by choice, or both. You know I HATE the word fan. You can be a fan of my words, my worlds, my work, but not me. I prefer readers, friends, or straight up Forever Steel crew.

  You may also know I often use names of people in my reader group as characters in my books.

  Well, one of my dear reader friends once said she wanted her name, Maria, to be used in a book where the character wasn’t a maid, a side piece, or a side character. So I used it.

  What I didn’t know was that the story I wrote, in which I used her name, also mirrored her past, until I received a message from Maria, after she had read the ARC.

  So this book is dedicated to the strong, beautiful ‘Queen’, Maria.

  Knowing her through messages and her awesome taste and passion for books, lol, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind sharing the dedication with all those who have endured the same hell, who fought or who are fighting to emerge from the wreckage, and then straighten their crown, and truly fight for happiness.

  Forever Steel Queens.

  Playlist

  bad guy - Billy Eilish

  White Flag - Dido

  Talkin’ Bout a Revolution - Tracy Chapman

  Fast Cars - Tracy Chapman

  You Matter To Me - Sarah Bareilles & Jason Mraz

  I Love You - Alex & Sierra

  I Choose You - Sarah Bareilles

  Better Place — Rachel Platton

  God Gave Me You - Dave Barnes

  Listen on Spotify

  Arnesen Marina

  Pace

  Eight Months Ago …

  Tybee Island, Georgia

  By circumstance or birth right, during my entire life, I’ve been part of a team.

  There’s something truly spectacular and fulfilling about working with others to accomplish a common goal. On a high school team, it was to win games. As an adult, it is to make ends meet. At the end of the day, you’re able to lay your head down, close your eyes, and find peace in the knowledge that those you put in your time with, accomplishing that goal, were doing the same.

  It just so happens that I have never liked being the captain of anything, yet I was thrown into that position. At first, it was the one all my teammates coveted, because it brought them a false sense of elevation in status, gave them bragging rights, or some semblance of control. Back then, I didn’t give a shit about any of that. I’m no bitch, but my dream was never to be better, do better than anyone else. Life was good.

  I woke up every day with hot water for my shower, dressed in decent clothes, and ate a hot breakfast with my family in a multigenerational home where I knew exactly where I came from and never questioned where I was going, or how I’d get there.

  I went to school, made out with a sweet little thing every day, and turned down not so sweet offers from her “friends,” some of which basically put it out there right in front of my girl, all of which I shot down, because no fucking way was that a game I wished to play. I played ball, came home, ate a hot meal, talked with my folks, and laughed with my sister.

  JV and Varsity football, baseball, even the fucking surf team, I joined because my college application needed some fluffing. I didn’t even know how to surf when I joined, yet there I was—captain.

  I have never wanted to be the captain of anything but my own life.

  Not. At. Fucking. All.

  Unfortunately, that’s where fate placed me.

  Took a while to accept it, but I did.

  I hated the added responsibility, it felt like a weighted suit, put on your heart and mind instead of your body. Yet I was placed in the position.

  Instead of fighting it, I embraced it. Made it my new normal.

  Little did I know that embracing what’s laid in front of you, working with what you have, would be the way to survive the next little path life throws you on.

  As an adult, it was to bust my ass so Pea, my sister Paige, could go to college and do what she always wanted to do—get the fuck out of here.

  I totally understood. She wanted more, just like I once did, until one piece of shit, Warren Black, and one fucking accident took all those dreams away.

  Vengeance was not really my style, but he didn’t just fuck with me; he fucked with someone I love. That’s a tipping point for me. Fuck with me all you want—I’ll bounce back—but you fuck with family, on all levels, and you’ve gained my attention and earned my wrath.

  So, I stand waiting to see if my efforts, laced with malice and good intentions, will put me back in a position I neve
r truly wanted, one of power, until now.

  Truth be told, it’s that same feeling—the burden of responsibility, the weight of bureaucracy, and bullshit by the ton. Fuck if ignorance is not bliss. It is.

  Imagine yourself on a boat that’s filling with water, and all you have is a holey bucket—hell, more like a strainer—to bail the water out that’s threatening to sink your ship.

  At first, you panic. You put all you have—your time, your energy, your emotion—into emptying that boat so it doesn’t sink. But after several years, you just accept the inevitable and you keep that boat just empty enough so it does as a boat should—float. Hell, you even find comfort in the fact that you’ve been managing as long as you have without killing yourself and those on it. You accept the inevitable but hope your best will someday be good enough.

  For the past several years, I’ve been second in command of a symbolic sinking ship.

  Not exactly where the local golden boy, with all-American good looks, southern charm … the star quarterback of a high school football team pictured himself while envisioning the future.

  Now, here I stand, looking out over the water at the end of the dock, listening to the roar of the ocean that’s always loudest at night. I would give anything to be out there on one of the boats, casting a line, drinking a beer, and smoking a cigar.

  But that’s not where fate has steered this ship.

  Several months ago, my father nearly died of a heart attack. It was, without a doubt, stress-induced.

  To save the family’s business, he had accepted a loan. I found out after the fact that it was the same type of loan that half of Tybee Island’s local, small business owners had taken out to improve their businesses. Businesses that had been losing money due to the local economy getting kicked in the ass a few years in a row.

  The mayor, Wallace Black, had allocated funds —tax dollars— in the wrong direction. He even missed state grant deadlines for funding that would have assisted in easing the burden that fell on the taxpayers and would have helped upkeep the community. For a community that thrives on tourist season, it’s a big damn deal.

  The banker? Warren Black. The only motherfucker I’ve ever had bad blood with.

  It was too late. Dad had already signed the note and missed two payments when he finally told me about the loan.

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth. The truth that Warren Black more than likely preyed on him because, for the first time in my life, I took revenge on a man who played a big role in fucking up my dreams.

  It wasn’t until Dad was in the hospital and my sister Paige came home from her big shot marketing job in New York City that I ever spoke about what happened all those years ago.

  When Paige confronted me about hiding the financial stress of our family, I had no choice but to tell her the truth.

  We walked out of Dad’s hospital room and into a bathroom across the hall.

  “Remember when I was dating Carnie?” I asked.

  “Of course I do. She was great … up until she wasn’t.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “Yeah. That’s how those things usually work out.”

  “Go on.”

  “She was pregnant. We were going to have a baby. I told her that I’d do whatever it took so she could go to college still. Hell, I was finally on my way, too. I knew Mom and Babička would be on board to help out with a baby, so I got excited.”

  She nodded. “Of course they would’ve been on board.”

  “She started talking about a kid ruining her life, about me never being around, about the fact that she wanted more, and then, finally, that she wanted to have an abortion. It all came out of left field. I mean, we sold the house. I was going away to college, but not far. We would have been fine.”

  She nodded, remembering it all. Hell, she was still in high school. It was shortly after our grandfather passed away.

  “One night, she told me that it was her body, that she didn’t want to get fat. Then she told me that I wouldn’t be enough. That no matter what, I’d always be a fisherman. That I’d never be able to give her what she deserved.”

  I paused because, as much of a kick in the nuts as that was, it got worse. “The fucking day of Mom and my accident, on our way home from registering at Beaufort College, she had an abortion. I get that it’s the woman’s body, Paige, I do, but she could have handed me that baby, signed off and left, and never looked back. It was a part of me, too.”

  “It shouldn’t stop you from trying again, Pace. Someone will—”

  “I crushed my pelvic bone,” I interrupted her, because she needed to know the damn truth in the matter. “Yeah, it healed, but I can’t have kids, Paige. I’m fucking ruined. The day she took away that baby is the day I got fucked up so I can never have that chance again.”

  She hugged me and cried.

  I hated to see her cry, so I continued. “I’m not done yet.”

  Stepping back, she nodded and wiped her tears. “Go on.”

  “Warren Black is the one who got in her ear. He’s the one who came home from college and fucked with her head. When I found out, I went after him.”

  She swallowed hard and turned pale. It was fucked up, but she said, “Go on.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll explain later. Go on.”

  Exhaling, I closed my eyes and told her, “I fucked his mom, then his sisters, and a few of his ex-girlfriends.”

  “Pace!”

  “What? His dad was cheating on her anyway, and she was fucking begging for it.”

  “Oh my God, you’re awful.” She laughed.

  “It was simply out of vengeance, but when his dad got gonorrhea, then his mom, and his sisters found out that they got it, too, so did Warren.” I shrugged, and she tried not to smile.

  “You gave them an STI?”

  “Well, one of them gave it to me. I just spread it around.”

  We both laughed. I mean, it’s fucked up, but the whole damn family having an STI still makes me chuckle. Imagine what their family doctor must have thought.

  Paige grinned. “Did you know before you screwed half the town?”

  I shook my head. “Wish I had, but no. I think that’s why he went after Dad with an offer to finance the business and gave him some bullshit about lowering his interest. I wish he’d have talked to me, or at very least let me look over the paperwork. But, Paige, I can’t bring myself to tell him. I feel like I failed him.”

  “Well, actually …” she sighed. “I may have been the one to cause this.”

  I knew my sister. She needed a minute.

  She told me about a frat party that Warren had invited her to. Ended up being what they called a “cattle call.” It happened the summer after, the one after my accident, when she forgave the fucker for disrespecting her. She told me how she bought into the fact that he never liked larger women, but that Paige was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She fell under his spell … again.

  She told me how he promised her that he never wanted anyone like he did her and begged her to let him help her get in shape. She told me how she bought into his shit, because she was so fucking insecure, and just wanted to have a boy like Warren Black want a girl like her.

  She told me how he gave her a meal plan and exercise routine. How she nearly starved herself trying to be what he wanted, what she convinced herself she wanted. How he humiliated her once again that summer.

  I felt like I was going to throw up. I couldn’t take anymore. I was going to kill the bastard.

  She had to physically hold me back from going after him right then.

  Then she asked me to save it until she tried to get him to refinance or hold off until she could get the money from her retirement account.

  As much as she wanted to help, I warned her that I didn’t think it would work, and then we agreed that she had one day, and if it didn’t work, we would both kill him together and dump him in the fucking Atlantic.

  Not sure how it happened, but
my first friend, my best friend, my sister, the girl some fucking waste of sperm and oxygen, Warren Black, destroyed her self-esteem, ended up having some deep-pocketed Italian follow her across the ocean and literally saved this entire fucking island. He bought our marina, Joe’s Crab Shack, Caroline’s Coffee Shop, and even old man Tragus’s warehouse next to our marina. He paid their debt to Warren fucking Black and gave each the opportunity to buy it back, or they could choose a fat salary and the opportunity to still run them as they would if they owned them, including ours.

  Pissed Pea off for a bit, but he did it out of love. It just took her a little bit of time to accept it. And when I say, “accept it,” it was either trust that he would love her or he’d sell out and leave. If I didn’t already see it in her eyes that she was head up her ass in love with him and just fighting her own insecurities, I’d probably have ordered a nice pair of cement boots and taken him fishing.

  Now she’s married, knocked up, and has me running for mayor against Warren Black, who is running in his uncle’s place.

  While campaigning wasn’t a big deal—Paige had that shit covered—I kept running the marina with Dad over the past few months and worked some shifts at Joe’s to learn the business. I am also working with Vincent to convert Tragus’s building into luxury vacation rental condos.

  Why the extra work?

  Arnesen Marina.

  I’m gonna buy it back for my folks—also for me. It’s in my blood.