To be fair, I look nothing like someone who met my brother first would expect, and considering he’s been living in the group home on Royce’s family’s property for the last four-ish years, while working for them just as long, it makes sense this guy showed up with what he thought was a clear idea of what he’d find—the exact opposite of yours truly.
My brother, he’s an easy six-foot, pasty looking rebel with ink-black hair and crystal colored eyes. He’s tall and trim and has a natural edge to him, an aura people are drawn to despite his unapproachable, at first glance, appearance. He’s sort of the best of both worlds, and can pull off his assigned persona with zero effort.
I, on the other hand, am legit barely scraping by at five-foot as Royce oh so typically teased, and my sunglasses hide my eye color so he couldn’t look there for resemblance—not that he would find any even if he could see through the giant, reflective lenses. My hair is on the shorter side, and so platinum in color all I have to do is add in a little purple shampoo and bam, solid silver.
I have an actual ass, not one I’m sure he’s used to, either. It’s nothing like Ciara’s high and tight one. Mine’s more plump and peachy, full and round, but I happen to like how it gives shape to my waist, so if he is judging, I don’t even care.
That doesn’t mean I like him trailing me as he sums me up with a glance, though... if that’s what he’s doing.
Why is he still following me?!
A sudden sharp ache zings up my leg, forcing a wince from me, but I keep moving.
“Stop walking,” he commands, as if I’m supposed to listen.
I pick up the pace. “Can’t. Like I said, I’m late.”
“For what, Bible study?”
“Funny,” I quirk, internally cursing the awful school uniforms we’re forced to wear here. “A little disappointing, considering your reputation for quick wit, but maybe everything I heard about you is wrong. After all, you were unexpectedly... insufficient.”
I trip over a small hump of grass, but before I’m forced to catch myself with my injured foot, large palms wrap around my upper ribs and I’m lifted off the ground, only to be lowered right back, my bag falling to the crook of my arm.
My head snaps up and to the side, allowing me to meet his aggravated eyes over my shoulder.
“Come on now, girl,” he whispers, mockingly. “If you wanna spin stories, try one I can’t prove wrong where we stand.”
“Go for it, Slick Rick.”
He gives a half shrug, and something tells me he totally will, so I retract, rushing out, “No, don’t” before he can make a move.
Okay, so my bad. I lied.
As far as I could tell from the angle of my little peep show, he lacked in no facet of the word, but I would swear Ciara was just that to him—lackluster, unexciting.
Far from his type, should this prominent playboy have one.
Not to judge my cousin or anything, she has issues and it’s her choice to use sex to make her feel better, but she jumps right to it like a dog in heat. I hear the tales time and time again, how she cuts the sensuality out of it, a self-proclaimed quickie queen.
Give them more than your body, B, and they’ll shit all over it.
Words of wreckage from her.
With a guy like this one, though, I imagine that’s the worst way to be.
I’d bet you’ve got to awaken the chef to be served the five-star delight from this too tall, too gorgeous, tattooed, brute of a boy.
You’d only be shorting yourself to not.
It’s like cocoa without the whipped cream—lacking the full, glorious experience.
The corner of his mouth lifts, but his eyes seem to narrow more. “Far from a boy, short stuff.”
My nose scrunches, a small ripple running across my ribs. “I said that out loud?”
“You did.”
“Like... all of it? Or, you know, just the boy part...”
I swear he’s about to chuckle, but swallows it, and just like that, the hint of embarrassment warming my blood fades.
“How ‘bout,” Royce starts. “You repeat all of it, and I’ll tell you which part you already shared?”
“That sounds like a horrible idea.”
He raises a single brow and I’m instantly drawn to the tiny scar above the thick, dark curve.
Once I’ve allowed myself to focus on a part of him, I’m unable to stop, so from there, I search for more.
For proof of struggle and pain, for signs of a life lived and for the dark I’ve heard so much about but can’t seem to find staring back.
I spot another small marking on his cheekbone, and a ghost of one on his jaw, but my focus falls to the thick, full bottom lip he drags along his upper teeth.
He’s perfectly flawed... and still holding on to me.
“Why are you here?” I lift my gaze to his, though he can’t see beyond my frames.
A small wrinkle forms along his forehead, but his question doesn’t match the one his eyes provide.
He wants to know how I know who he is, and even more, if I do, why I’d ask with such a question, but those queries go unanswered as he decides another is more important. “Why’d you let me think your cousin was you?”
Because I’m tragic and eager to please.
“She seemed more your type.”
A shadow flashes across his face, a burn I recognize. One that ignites when met with judgment and personification, but did he not do the same to me?
He’s the one who saw her and boom, his mind was made up.
It’s only natural though, allowing what’s on the surface to settle all.
It’s humanity’s biggest downfall—judgment. Expectation.
“My type, huh?” he bites with blatant aggravation. “How you figure?”
“I mean… you’re basically wearing the same pants, so,” I joke. “Peas in a pod, Tweedledee and Tweedledum... Cheech and Chong?”
That does it, takes him off defense mode, and the corner of his mouth lifts with his sudden and unexpected laugh.
It’s not brash and boisterous, but a laugh just loud enough to stir the birds in the trees surrounding us.
It’s throat-deep and jagged, yet somehow still a lively and free sound, one that has me smiling, but the moment my lips curl to their fullest, his expression goes slack.
In a single inhale, the guy at my back morphs, now the bearer of the finest worn mask at the nonexistent masquerade he’s forced himself into.
A fake in the flesh.
Or maybe fake isn’t fair, but regardless, he chose to censor himself.
I don’t need any more of the type around me, those closed off and prone to hiding.
All anyone ever does is hide things from me.
“You can let go of me now,” I tell him.
He cocks his head, bottomless, dark eyes piercing mine through a mass of black lashes.
Something in my gut stirs, and I want to look away, but don’t.
So I try again to get him to be the one to step back, since it seems I’m glued in place.
“Pretty sure I’m no longer falling.”
“Who said I grabbed you ‘cause you were falling?” His grip tightens, his body shifting closer and closer, and leaving no room to twist, no air to breathe that isn’t infused with his very scent—weed and wonder. Wind and water.
I frown, blocking out the refreshing aroma, not understanding what he’s getting at, and that’s when the squeal of old brakes rings in my ears.
My head jerks toward the street to find the little white car that left him behind, the driver launching himself out of it the second it’s in park. He rushes around the vehicle, yanking the back door open as he canvases the area around us.
I don’t have to do the same to know this block is quiet and empty this time of morning.
A sliver of panic zips through me, tingling my spine and lodging my breath deep in my throat.
Royce dips down, swiping my legs from beneath me, my body now cradled in his arms, so I quickl
y latch on in case he decides to try and toss me around.
Before I can wrap my head around what’s happening, before I can process any of it, we’re stepping from the grass onto the street and sliding into the back seat. The door’s slammed behind us, and suddenly we’re moving.
This is definitely when I should snap out of my shock and scream, kick and fight, and go full Karate Kid on his ass, but all I can think of is oh.
My.
Shit.
A Brayshaw just kidnapped me.
And I straight-up let him.
Chapter 2
Royce
Well, this didn’t go as planned.
I came here to find Brielle Bishop, but ended up letting her cousin stick my junk down her throat, and not well either.
Technically, that shit’s not my fault—the girls played me, but I’m the dumbass who fell into it.
I showed up, mind dead set on a specific type, a girl hard enough to be the sister of the bastard who earned the top spot in my family’s dirty deeds quicker than any before him. A girl with edge and grit, dirt under her nails and a chip on her shoulder.
So yeah, I thought Brielle was the rough, tough, jaded looking one of the two I found myself in front of, not the tiny, tired little thing who can’t even prop against a window without twisting her fucking ankle.
I look to the girl, still sitting in my lap, not fighting me, not wide-eyed and worried, not pissed off and punching. She should be doing one of those things.
She’s not.
She’s calm and cool, and it’s pissing me off.
Maybe she’s not all there?
Right as I think it, her right hand lifts, and I’m pretty fuckin’ convinced I’m right, ‘cause that hand, it doesn’t come down to scratch or hit me.
Nah, the freshly snatched mini thing slips it between the seats in a dumbass move to introduce herself to the getaway man.
“I’m Brielle,” she says.
My boy Mac frowns from her to me, but when she nods her head, he lets out a low sigh.
With tight lips, he brings a hand around to shake hers. “Mac.”
“I knew it. Not Maddoc or Captain. Interesting.”
My eyes snap to hers at the mention of my brothers. “What’s interesting?”
“That you’re here and they aren’t. I thought you guys were like, the Three Musketeers.” She surges.
When my blank expression doesn’t break, she nods back and forth like a broken ass bobblehead, her big-ass glasses and short silk-like hair only adding to it.
“You know,” she leads. “All for one and one for all...”
The girl even adds the little fuckin’ fist raise thing.
Mac chuckles but clears his throat to hide it.
I meet his eyes in the mirror, and it’s clear as damn day he’s amused. It’s also clear what the dick’s about to do next.
He adjusts the mirror so he can see Brielle better.
“So, uh, Brielle,” he asks. “Got a last name?”
“Doesn’t everyone?” She shrugs.
“Not in our world.” He grins.
“Ah, yes, the infamous town with no legal system other than a couple cops on payroll to deflect outsiders. Nothing but the crack of a whip delivered by one of three wild boys.” She looks to me, and yeah, there’s a note of mockery in her smoky tone, but I get the sense she’s teasin’. “Tell me, playboy, is yours leather?”
Mac’s shoulders shake with a laugh he holds in, but I’m stuck trying to figure this chick out.
“So,” she begins as she relaxes back.
Relaxes.
In a car with two fuckin’ strangers who just grabbed her ass up without a word of why.
Her head even falls onto the doorframe as she changes the subject from where I come from to what she’s wondering. “Where we going?”
I glare at her.
Why’s she so chill right now?
“You used to random fucks picking you up and throwing you in a plateless car or somethin’?”
“No.” She scoffs a laugh. “Are you used to traveling ten hours to the house of the little sister of the guy you hired to play mobster for your lives?”
“The fuck?” I jerk back, sliding my body from under hers.
She falls onto the floorboard, but quickly lifts herself onto the seat at my side.
“Your brother’s got a big fuckin’ mouth.”
“Don’t talk about my brother!” she fires back instantly.
“Fuck your brother,” I snap loudly, and her neck stretches slightly. “He’s not allowed—”
“To talk, tell, share, anything about his life?” she cuts me off, a heavy frown taking over her forehead. “Trust me, I’m fully aware of the gag order everyone around me is under, thanks to you and your family.”
I clench my teeth. “Fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugs as she turns to look out the window. “You can throw something away, but that doesn’t mean it gets buried, you know.”
“Girl, I don’t know what you’re gettin’ at, but just... stop talkin’.”
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”
“Nah, I’d love to gag and bag your ass.”
She rolls her wrist.
Rolls her fucking wrist and my frown flies to Mac’s when he dares to laugh.
“How about, I stop talking when you start,” she bargains, sticking a palm out in some sort of truce shit.
I glare from it to her. “You don’t make the rules here.”
“Neither do you.” She laughs through her words. “You’re in a country ass town right now. The only rules here are never take the last cold beer from the fridge without replacing it, and no feeding the patrol’s horses.”
“Girl—”
“My name is Brielle,” she cuts me off, leaning into my space. “Not girl, not short stuff, or shorty, or any other equally lame nicknames you want to throw at me because you feel the need to remind me I’m nothing but a nobody. I get it. You’re the real-life Aunt Bully—you’re big, I’m small.”
I gape at her. “What?”
She tips her head. “Do you not watch TV? No movies as a kid? Too busy playing Avengers and saving your home one mission at a time?”
It’s fuckin’ official. This girl’s whacked out.
“Whatever, it’s probably not your fault that you’re movie-ly challenged,” she reasons as if I understand her bullshit. “All I’m trying to say is I might have been deemed worthless for your world, but that gives you no right to come into mine and act like a pencil dick.”
I’m ready to tear her shitty attempt at making a point apart, but instead, I tip my chin. “Why you keep sayin’ shit like that?”
She drops against the seat. “Like what?”
“How you don’t belong or aren’t enough. Laying blame on my family.”
A frown pulls at her forehead. “Why are you here, Royce Brayshaw?”
I eye her a long moment, only to look away when the answer to my question’s obvious.
She’s been lied to, and she has no clue.
She thinks we sent her here, to live with her aunt and cousin, ripped her away from her brother, but that’s some shitty, false CliffsNotes version of the truth, if there’s any truth to it at all.
Back in our town, at the front of our property, we have two group homes—one for males, and one for females.
Our freshman year of high school, when our dad was still locked away at his own hand for some shit too deep to get into, he sent us a file, same as he does any and every time there’s a new prospect for our houses. This one was stamped with the last name Bishop.
The file was full of dozens of hospital and police reports detailing the violent-ass attacks on two kids at the hand of their own father—Brielle and her brother, Bass.
They were on the verge of being sent to foster care when my dad found out about them and vetted them for a solid fit in our group homes.
It’s the same shit, different backstory for everyone w
e take in. They’re all fucked-up teens, and our hope is to turn them straight, or our kind of straight, which is really a full fucking curve, but an honest one. We bring them in, offer them a place with our people, in the town we run. In return, ask for their respect, loyalty, and that they earn our trust.
It doesn’t always work out.
Some aren’t built to step deep into our world, so as long as they follow the rules, we offer them one that keeps them safe until it’s their time to leave, no harm, no foul. Others fuck up and get sent away, put “away” but the rest... they eat it up, fucking flourish in their element and sharpen the street smarts they were forced to learn before even stepping foot into our houses.
They come to work for us, and we give them all they could ever want and never had—a safe place to lay their heads, money, and purpose.
A life and a future, something they spent most of their lives believing they’d never have due to that first shit card the universe dealt them. With us, they have an ace in their pockets and that ace, it’s where loyalty begins to grow, and the rest follows.
Bass, her older brother, was a scrappy motherfucker, strong and clever. We knew he’d be perfect for our world, so being the older of the two of them, me and my brothers went to him with our offer—live with us, go to our schools and act right, earn a place in our empire.
He agreed with a blink, but his clause quickly followed.
His baby sister, only thirteen months younger was to be sent away where she’d be free of the world of trouble he was about to jump headfirst into.
He wanted her safe and far away from any danger our world might bring, since she was finally safe from the one she was born into. He said she wouldn’t survive, that her world would turn dark, and he couldn’t live with that.
Since our family’s purpose is to protect those who need it, offer more to those who seek it, and handle all the bullshit that gets in the way however the hell we see fit, what he was selling for her sounded good. At the end of the day, we wanted what was best for the girl, too.
It was with his push, a decent monthly check from our very own accounts to make sure she was cared for properly, and off she went to live with their extended family. An aunt and cousin who were happy to have her, wanted her even.
Break Me Page 2
