by J Bree
Obviously I’m working on it but it takes time.
I know she’s doing everything in her power to get us to the Bay, but it doesn’t help the crawling feeling from rippling under my skin until I want to dig it out.
I’m not going to make it through the break without Lips.
The day we’re all leaving Hannaford, Blaise and I arrive at the girls’ room together because Harley is a sneaky shit and left without us.
Avery opens the door for us with an eye roll, motioning us in only for us to find Lips lying under her bed with only her booty shorts covered ass sticking out.
She’s mumbling and grunting under there, but nothing can distract me from that ass of hers.
“Avery is going to kill us all. We should take bets on who dies first,” Blaise mutters, and I nod with a grimace.
“My money is on Harley; he’s too fucking obvious and if he takes her keys again, she’ll snap his dick off. She said so herself.”
“What are you two muttering about?” Harley snaps, and Blaise points at Lips and says, “Great view.”
Avery elbows him sharply in the ribs and he grunts, “What? I'm allowed to appreciate my girl’s ass, especially in those shorts. What are you doing, Mounty?”
“Construction work,” she teases, and then Avery ducks down to have a look at what she’s doing, impatient as always.
“That's where you hid that!”
Fuck, the possibilities are endless. “Hid what?”
“Her stash,” says Harley, and he's so smug I want to break his teeth.
Before I get the chance to pick a fight with him, Lips wriggles back out and drags a safe with her. Avery does her gimme hands at it, and Lips lets out one of her dry chuckles. “I'm not sure I can trust you with these, Beaumont.”
Avery bites her lips and stares at the metal box with the type of lusty eyes no brother wants to see. “I solemnly swear I'm up to no good.”
Lips scoffs, “Nerd,” and opens the safe, pulling out a velvet box and handing it to Avery.
To my absolute horror, Avery moans as she cracks the lid, and I immediately want to forget this day is happening. Everyone gets a laugh at my expense but seriously, what the fuck could be in there and getting that reaction out of her? “Sex toys? You can't fit a pair of Louboutins in a box that small and I can’t think of anything else that gets Floss that excited.”
“Better. So much better. Diamonds!” Avery squeals and then she starts pawing through them, the tinkling sound is definitely the sound of multiple rocks knocking together.
I’m so fucking confused right now.
Harley’s eyebrows shoot up and damn near disappear into his hairline as he looks over Avery’s shoulder at the stash. “How many of them do you have?”
Lips shrugs like this is nothing. “I'm good at what I do and I'm stockpiling so we can get clear of our shit after graduation.”
Avery rolls one of the diamonds in her fingers, practically panting, and Harley clears his throat at her so she quits her shit. “Put them back, Floss. Make Morrison buy you one for your birthday.”
Blaise is just as fucking dumbfounded as I am at what’s happening here to snap out a comeback, but Avery pouts as she carefully packs the diamonds back into the safe. “I don't want boring old diamonds. I want priceless, blood-soaked, favor diamonds.”
I decide I’m done waiting. “Someone needs to start explaining what the hell is going on.”
Avery pouts as she watches Lips bury the safe in her duffle bag and cover it with her clothes so it's obscured and nestled nicely, but she answers me, “The Twelve trade each other favors in times of need. Diamonds are used as a physical representation of the favors and Lips has dozens of them. Dozens!”
That explains exactly fucking nothing. Millions of dollars worth of diamonds just hiding under her bed for… what exactly? “Why? Why not use them and become rich? Why come to school here and put up with us?”
Lips shrugs, looking entirely uncomfortable with this line of inquiry. “I nearly died for most of those. I’ve only ever used two favors and that was for situations that were life threatening. I won’t use them for less than that.”
She says it like it’s not the fucking worst thing I’ve ever heard in my life. She’s going back there to the Bay to work over the summer break, what if a job does finally kill her? Fuck.
Fuck.
Lips steps over to her bed to check her phone, and Avery starts directing us all to help haul her boxes around. I remind her again that she needs to pack less shit next year because there’s no way she needs this much stuff.
I have my back to everyone, pulling boxes of kitchenware out of cupboards for Avery when there’s a crashing sound and Harley and Avery both start talking at once.
“Lips, what—“
“Fuck, babe—“
I spin around and dash back over to them at the same time as Blaise, one of Avery’s boxes of shoes still in his hands from where he was moving crap for her.
Lips’ face is as white as paper as she sinks down onto her bed, the panic etched into every line of her body, and I’m about to lose my shit when finally she speaks.
“The Jackal is here. He’s picking us up.”
It doesn’t matter that she runs us through the protocol fifty times before we walk down the staircase to meet the Jackal, I fucking hate this plan.
Avery catches my hand in hers and gives it a squeeze as we stalk down the hall like prisoners to the executioner block. “We have to trust her. She knows what she’s doing.”
I get that, but I also hate it.
I hate it even more when we find Joey waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs, the junkie in him obviously so in tune with his dealer that he felt the Jackal’s presence in the building. His gaze bounces over each of us until he lands back on Lips.
I want to rip his throat out with my bare hands just for looking at her.
“How the fuck do you know the Jackal? He’s here for you.”
Lips just arches an eyebrow and steps around him like he’s nothing, and I fucking adore her for it. There’s nothing a Beaumont hates more than such a dismissal, and Joey’s lip curls at her. Harley follows Lips, one step behind her exactly how she told him to, and when Joey moves like he’s going to stalk after us, I step up into his space, leaning in to hiss at him, “Do you want to fucking die?”
I can see the insanity in his eyes, the madness that was always there and that the drugs have always magnified, but he obviously wants to see how this will play out as badly as I do, so he turns away from me in his own version of Lips’ dismissal.
Like I give a fuck.
Avery steps up to my side and tucks her arm in mine, looking cold and disinterested at the scene before us, because if Senior has taught us anything it’s how to hide your weak points and triggers away.
I stand there and take a good look at the monster stalking my girl. The Jackal is tall, broad, and well-presented in a suit. Dark brown hair, eyes the same color, and that natural shade of olive skin. There’s nothing exceptional about him, nothing in his DNA that says he’s a monster on sight and honestly he’d look like any businessman my father would meet with except for the thick black lines of his tattoos running across his cheeks. They mark him as something else entirely.
“There you are.”
My hackles raise instantly at the possession in his voice. Harley does well not to stiffen or react to it, and it must be killing him.
He’s brought that asshole from the docks with him and Harley’s uncle, Diarmuid. They’re both standing on either side of the Jackal and grinning at Lips like they’re eager to take her home to the Bay. I add them to my kill list.
Diarmuid grins and sweeps Lips into a bone-crushing hug. She laughs at him but I can tell it’s fake, patting his back until he lets her go. The moment he drops her back onto her feet, he steps around her to hug Harley. Fuck, he must be biting his fucking tongue off at that.
The other asshole steps forward and takes Lips’ bag with a
smile, and then the pissing game really begins when he locks eyes with Harley and swoops down to kiss her cheek.
“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to hunt him down in the Bay and slit his fucking throat. Mark my words.”
Avery huffs, but Blaise meets my eyes over her head and nods, as serious about dealing with the asshole as I am.
There’s a small pause, like everyone is holding their goddamn breath, and then the Jackal says in that same possessive tone,“Where’s my hug, little Starbright?”
What the fuck kind of nickname is that?
She steps forward into his arms. He presses himself into her fully, chest to thigh, and Avery’s nails dig into my arm as a reminder, because fuck am I about to break every last one of Lips’ rules and go beat the fucking life out of that cunt.
Lips pulls away from him and allows him to tuck her under his arm, though even from here I can see how stiff she is. She’s repulsed by him and not only can he see it, he’s fucking feeding off of it. It’s like watching every last one of Senior’s interactions with unwilling women and the rage building up in me is fucking insane.
The Jackal flicks out a hand to get Harley and his men to follow them, and then they stalk out of the door.
I hate it more than I’ve hated anything in my life, and my mind is made up before they’re even in the car.
I’m going to kill the Jackal.
Also by J Bree
The Mounts Bay Saga
The Mounts Bay Saga
The Butcher of the Bay: Part I
The Butcher of the Bay: Part II
Hannaford Prep
Just Drop Out: Hannaford Prep Year One
Make Your Move: Hannaford Prep Year Two
Play the Game: Hannaford Prep Year Three
To the End: Hannaford Prep Year Four
Hannaford Prep: The Complete Series
The Queen Crow Trilogy
All Hail
The Ruthless
Queen Crow
Standalone Novels
Angel Unseen: An Unseen MC Novel
About the Author
J Bree is a dreamer, writer, mother, farmer, and cat-wrangler. The order of priorities changes daily.
She lives on a small farm in a tiny rural town in Australia that no one has ever heard of. She spends her days dreaming about all of her book boyfriends, listening to her partner moan about how the wine grapes are growing, and being a snack bitch to her two kids.
For updates about upcoming releases, please visit her website at http://www.jbreeauthor.com, and sign up for the newsletter or join her group on Facebook at #mountygirlforlife: A J Bree Reading Group
CONTINUE READING FOR AN EXCEPT FROM
All Hail:
Queen Crow Book 1
Available now on Kindle Unlimited
Prologue
The Jackal’s Lair
“Beaumont. Don’t be an idiot, just fucking stab me.”
I squeeze my eyes shut a little tighter. I’m not one to attempt to block things out normally, I face everything head on but this? This situation I would do just about anything to get out of.
There’s a knock at the door and I can’t help but look as the Jackal steps up to answer it. The thick tattooed lines on his face are stark against the olive complexion of his skin. Objectively, he’s an attractive man but the sadistic light behind his eyes makes it impossible to find him anything but disturbing.
He looks exactly like the deranged psychopath Lips has described to me dozens of times.
No wonder she’s always been so scared of him.
“I told you I didn’t want to be interrupted.”
I can’t hear the answer to his snarl; my heart is beating too loudly in my own ears. My feet hurt in a way that I’ve never had to feel before. Sheltered. I’ve lived in a house with Joseph Beaumont Sr. my entire life and yet I’ve never had to feel pain like this before.
Ash felt it all for me.
“Listen to me, Beaumont. If he offers you the knife again, you need to take it. There’s no way I’m walking out of this room unharmed and you covered in blood and wounds. Just take the fucking knife.”
I turn to look at Aodhan. The only marks on him are the ones he’s done to himself, straining against the ropes and handcuffs. His wrists are a mess, blood dripping down his hands and onto the ground, pooling slowly.
He looks nothing like the cousin we share.
I keep my mouth sealed firmly shut. I can’t answer him because there’s no way I could stab him, not even to save myself the pain. Dancing is an outlet to me and something I love doing but it’s not everything to me. It’s not more important than my morals or my friends and this man killed half his family as a gift to Harley. He’s paid penance for actions his blood took that he never once condoned.
I know Lips and the guys will be raising hell to find me.
I just need to hold out until then.
“Avery… listen to me, I’m not going to let you die for me. There’s no fucking way that I’m letting a girl like you die for the likes of me.”
The Jackal steps out of the room and shuts the door behind him. I try to distract myself from the pain and say, “And what type of girl is that, O’Cronin? Some delicate little rich bitch? I’ll die how I want to, thank you, and if I decide that my death happens here, then it does. You don’t get a say on how that happens.”
He leans back in his seat, easing the pressure off of his wrists finally and rolling his shoulders the small amount that he can. “I think you’re too fucking good to die here for me. I think you waged war for your family from the moment you took a breath on this Earth, and I think that you’ll do it to the end. I think that you saved Harley when the rest of us were too fucking scared to try. I think that I’m not worth the life of someone like that and if anything happens to you… fuck, just stab me. Either I die for you or I die after you, either way I’m dead.”
The air in my lungs seizes up and stays trapped in my chest until I think I’m going to pass out. “I’m not… I’m not like that.”
He shakes his head and leans forward toward me again. “You’re ruthless and you’re fierce. You’re unstoppable and you’re so fucking loyal that you won the Wolf’s friendship. The Jackal doesn’t fucking know who he’s messing with.”
The door opens again and the Jackal steps back in, his eyes manic and frenzied as he looks around. I squeeze my eyes shut for a second.
“We don’t have time for you two to be fucking flirting, are you dying Beaumont or are you killing O’Cronin?”
I open my eyes and stare into the deep forest green of Aodhan’s eyes. He stares back at me without reproach or any sort of hesitation. He’s already chosen to die here for me, whether I’m dead or alive.
I take the knife.
