Showing results by author "Aly Martinez" in All Categories

Death had been chasing me my entire life. I survived the horrors of war, but it was the aftermath that truly destroyed me. People called me a recluse, but the only time I didn’t feel like I was suffocating was inside that house. For my daughter, I kept some semblance of normalcy by implementing a rigid routine. Once a week, I forced myself to walk to the diner at the end of the block—a ritual I despised but relied on as my last anchor to the real world.

When I was 15, a single bullet changed my life. I spent the next decade trying to outrun the devastation of my past, building an empire that would shield me from whatever life could throw at me. But all the money in the world couldn’t help me when I found a screaming newborn abandoned on my doorstep. I’d never wanted to be a father. Passing the sludge that ran through my veins down to an innocent child seemed like a tragedy. But there she was - pink cheeks, red hair, and mine.

In the aftermath of tragedy, it’s strange the things you remember. The deafening boom as the house exploded. The paralyzing fear as I searched for my wife. The blinding smoke burning my eyes as I carried her out. But carved into my soul for the rest of my days would be the earth-shattering realization that the woman in my arms wasn’t my wife.

Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me. Lies. Words destroyed me. "I'm sorry. She didn't make it." "Daddy, he can't breathe!" "There's nothing more we can do for your son." Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me. More lies. Those syllables and letters became my executioner. I told myself that, if I didn't acknowledge the pain and the fear, they would have no power over me. But, as the years passed, the hate and the anger left behind began to control me. Two words - that was all it took to plunge my life into darkness.

Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me. Whoever coined that phrase is a bald-faced liar. Words are often the sharpest weapon of all, triggering some of the most powerful emotions a human can experience. "You're pregnant." "It's a boy." "Your son needs a heart transplant." Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me. Lies. Syllables and letters may not be tangible, but they can still destroy your entire life faster than a bullet from a gun.

I met Sarah Kate Erickson when I was 21 years old. I was lucky enough to keep her for seven years before a tragic accident stole her from me. She didn't die, but sometimes I think it would have been easier if she had. I lived in a haze for those four years after the accident. Catering to her every need, even though she hated the very sight of my face. I tried to hold on to her and the future that we were supposed to build together. But you can't hold on to someone that doesn't exist anymore.

Growing up, Ramsey Stewart branded my soul in ways time could never heal. At 12, he asked me to be his girlfriend. At 13, he gave me my first kiss. By 16, we’d fallen in love, planned a future together, and had our eyes set on the horizon. Love never fails, right? But for Ramsey, it did. I failed him. The entire world failed him. At 17, Ramsey was convicted of killing the boy who assaulted me. "Move on", he wrote in his first and only letter from prison. There was no such thing as giving up on Ramsey. Love may have been our curse, but he was mine - then, now, and forever.

When I was eight years old, Caven Hunt saved me from the worst kind of evil to walk the Earth. It didn’t matter that I was a kid. I fell in love with him all the same. But that was where my fairy tale ended. Years later, a one-night stand during the darkest time imaginable gave us a little girl. It was nothing compared to the pitch black that consumed me when I was forced to leave her with Caven for good. At the end of every fairy tale, the happily ever after is the one thing that remains consistent. It wasn’t going to be mine.

Choices. Everyone makes them. From mundane to unimaginable, one choice can change the trajectory of your entire life. My mother’s choice was to abandon us with our abusive father. My brother’s choice was to go to prison for killing the boy who assaulted his soulmate. Camden Cole’s choice was to fall in love with a shattered girl who had absolutely nothing to offer him but heartbreak.

The world owes you nothing. It took losing the woman I loved, and facing the paralyzing task of moving on without her, for me to truly understand that. I’d resigned myself to a life of loneliness, until a survivor from the same plane crash that took my fiancée stormed into my life. Remi Grey was chaos and sunshine, fire and freedom. I began to believe that fate had other plans for me. But it seemed the only thing fated about our relationship was that I had been destined to lose her from the start. The world owes you nothing. But for Remi, I would risk it all. No matter the cost.

Once upon a time, Caven Hunt saved my life. We were only kids, but the trauma of that day destroyed us both. Years later, he didn't recognize me when a one-night stand unexpectedly reconnected us. And nine months later, when I left our newborn daughter on his doorstep, I didn't recognize myself either. The darkness doesn't always win, though. It took four agonizing years for me to find myself again—years during which our daughter grew up without a mother.

Sound is an abstract concept for most people. We spend our lives blocking out the static in order to focus on what we believe is important. But what if, when the clarity fades into silence, it's the obscure background noise that you would give anything to hold on to?

From over a thousand miles away, I watched on the screen of my phone as two men murdered my wife. And I was helpless to save her. Consumed by hate and rage, I spent four years running from my memories - until a shattered woman gave me a reason to stop. Cora lived in a nightmare, but through sheer force of will, she’d turned it into something beautiful. She had a smile that could pierce the darkest soul. And with one glance, she shredded mine.

The complete series. Three full-length novels. Fighting Silence, Fighting Shadows, and Fighting Solitude. For the Page brothers, fighting was a way of life. Both inside and outside of the ring. Follow them through hardship, disability, and overwhelming adversity as they fight for the women they love.

I was afraid to fly. He made me soar. After years of climbing the ladder of success in the music industry, I finally had everything I could want. Yet I still found myself wandering through life alone. Captain Evan Roth was the one man I never saw coming. Tall, dark, mysterious...Straight. We were both damaged beyond repair and searching for something so elusive we weren't sure it even existed. But, when two broken souls collide in midair, falling is a given. I just never expected to crave the spiral down.

That was all it took for me to know Elisabeth was my soul mate. Five years, countless infertility treatments, and the loss of our only son. That was what it took for me to lose her. One phone call, a mix-up at the lab, and a little girl neither of us knew existed. That was the hell it took to bring her back to me.

When I was nineteen years old, I was faced with a choice that changed my life. Keep the safety of what I already knew or risk losing everything with the young, hotheaded soldier who stole my heart. I chose the wrong man, and for seventeen years, I paid in tears, blood, and shattered dreams for that decision. Now, there’s a man in my house, holding a gun to my head on the order of my ex-husband—given from his prison cell. That hotheaded soldier I was too afraid to choose? He’s now a six-foot-three wall of muscle who works at the country’s most premier bodyguard agency. I’ve always wanted him, but now, I’ve never needed him more. It’s the call I’m terrified to make. I’m sure he still hates me… Even though I’ve never stopped loving him.

From USA Today best-selling author Aly Martinez comes a hot-new series of alpha bodyguards. She was my nightmare. Every time I closed my eyes, I watched her fall into that inferno. Over and over, I failed to save her. I hadn't been able to reach her, and the guilt only burned hotter over time. Four years later, I was the unreachable one.

The world gave me everything. After surviving a plane crash, I was lucky to be alive. It was a harsh truth, but one that changed my perspective on how fragile life could be. So when a fellow survivor caught my eye, I owed it to myself to take a chance and follow my heart. Bowen Michaels was guarded and broody, but I saw through his well-formed armor. Much like me, he was broken and lost, but together we found our way through the darkness. For a brief moment, wrapped in his arms, it felt like maybe he was right about fate and we’d been destined to find each other all along.

I wanted to jump. He made me fall. As a celebrity, I lived in the public eye, but somewhere along the way, I'd lost myself in the spotlight. Until he found me. Sam Rivers was a gorgeous, tattooed stranger who saved my life with nothing more than a simple conversation. But we were both standing on that bridge for a reason the night we met. The secrets of our pasts brought us together - and then tore us apart. Could we find a reason to hold on as life constantly pulled us down?