by J Bree
Olivia shakes her head a little. “He’s been very busy with a big case. The narcotics issues in this country are only getting worse. It’s good for keeping his position secure but makes the hours a nightmare.”
Dammit. I nod sedately and take another sip of my drink. When I turn to find a refill, I see Luca and Atticus walk in together and I curse under my breath because of course they’re here. Of course, despite Atticus being perpetually busy with his own empire he found time to be here tonight.
Of fucking course.
Atticus’ lip curls the second he sees me and he starts towards me. Olivia glances between us both and then scurries away. It’s fine, I only really wanted to get a feel of her which I have.
I have a plan for her and Christopher now.
“What are you doing here? Are you trying to piss me off because that’s exactly what you’re doing?” Atticus hisses at me and I grab that fresh glass of Champagne to get through this without pulling a knife on him.
“I was invited. Why should I be forced to stay home just because you’ve got issues with me?”
He lets out a breath and looks around the room. Ah, so that fucking bitch is here too because she’s the only person I’ve seen him get this twitchy over.
He finally turns back to me and says, “I don’t have issues with you, Avery, I just want you—“
“If the words ‘to be safe’ come next you can swallow them because I’m over this narrative. So beyond over it that I might go find a drug den in the Bay to spend a few hours in just to ram it home to you that I will do whatever the fuck I want, whenever the fuck I want. I belong to the Wolf of Mounts Bay, not you. My safety is not your concern.”
He grabs my arm to spin me around and chew me out I’m sure when a hush takes over the room and I just about scream.
What the hell is it about this woman that has everyone running scared?
I’m the danger here, not this fucking flirty bitch with sub-par fashion choices and a murky past at best.
I’m Joseph Beaumont’s daughter. I am the descendant of Russian royalty and I have the ear of the Wolf herself, what the hell does she have?
I sound jealous but really, I’m just pissed that while I was off surviving a war between the most dangerous crime lords in the country this bitch was sinking her claws into the pawns of my board, the one I was born to rule.
She’s eating at my fucking table and shitting all over my space.
I won’t have it.
Naturally, she makes a beeline over to me, her hips swinging in the garishly cutout gown that shows enough skin that the entire room knows she’s not wearing underwear. Not my style at all, too much going on, and the shoes are terrible. Nude and too pointed for the look.
She smiles up at Luca and when he doesn’t return it, she pouts.
I scoff at her, barely stopping myself from stalking away from her but Atticus’
hand is still firmly wrapped around my arm.
She sidles up beside me and says with a sing-song voice, “I heard you’re looking to start a collection of your own? That’s interesting and quite a silly thing to do here. Everyone in attendance is already mine. You should plan these things out a little more thoroughly.”
I turn around to face her fully, tugging a little on Atticus’ hand but he doesn’t let me go. “I highly doubt that. At least half of the people here were on the Beaumont payroll until my father died and we both know he would never answer to a woman… no matter what your charms may be.”
She cocks her head to one side and giggles. “Joseph has been dead for months, you’re a little late to secure them for yourself. You should listen to me, Beaumont, because maybe you’re a little young to be playing here.”
The condescension in her tone makes my jaw ache from the clenching of my teeth. The moment I know what her deal is I’m going to have her killed. Whether it’s Illi or Lips or Ash, I’ll plead my case and have her throat slit for daring to speak to me like this.
Maybe I’ll have her tortured a little first.
She smirks at me. “You’re not as good at hiding your feelings as you think. If you want me to die for my sins shouldn’t you know whose anger you’re risking first? Take a walk with me.”
Atticus’ hand tightens around my arm and when I shoot him a cool look his eyes burn back at me with rage. Deep breath, I ignore him as I turn to her and smirk. “Sure. I can make some time.”
Chapter Twenty
There’s an old service elevator that goes down to the lower levels of the manor that is in perfectly maintained condition but is still creepy to climb into. The moment he had walked into the room Atticus had found his way over to me and the skill that he has to do that without being obvious is something that can’t be taught. He’s lived in this world for so long that it’s as easy as breathing to move all of the pieces to where he wants them to be without any of the smiling and laughing patrons noticing him going in for the kill.
I notice.
Amanda does too.
She smiles at me like this is all going according to her plans and I have to smile my way through the frustration of knowing that and accepting it. I can’t win if I can’t see the board we’re all on. I can’t win if I don’t know the game and the stakes to what we’re playing.
Atticus stands close to me as we get into the elevator with Amanda, Luca walking in behind us and pushing all of the buttons. He’s furious, the stiff lines of his shoulders tell me as much, but I really don’t care. He could have told me what is going on but he chose not to so he can keep his fury to himself and burn in it.
“You look like a little bird in here, Beaumont. A little, fine-boned bird in a cage. You might want to make sure you don’t get stuck here,” Amanda murmurs to me, leaning in close to my ear and I force myself not to move away from her, no matter how badly I want to get away from the feel of her breath rolling down my neck.
It’s disgusting.
I keep my mouth shut and that just makes her laugh. “Oh, little bird. Of course, you’re not worried! So surrounded by men willing to kill for you, where is that delicious Butcher of yours? Did he finally choose his wife over you? Was it the baby that swayed him?”
Atticus tenses, I presume he was unaware of Odie’s pregnancy, but there’s no way I’m letting this woman threaten Illi’s unborn child. I have no doubt that’s what she’s doing.
“Dynasties are built on the strong foundation of a family. Loose, immoral women like you wouldn’t understand such a thing.”
She giggles under her breath at me. “Loose and immoral? Ah. I was unaware that fucking a man in the back rooms at a gala was such a pious thing to do. Fucking another down in the docks of Mounts Bay? At least the Crow has good breeding, the other one is nothing but a gutter rat. Was it the rape at school that made you this way? Did it derail you from your dreams of marrying a Crawford and settling down to live out your privileged life?”
Atticus doesn’t mask his feelings about this question at all. Instead, he turns to look down at me and I refuse to feel guilty about Aodhan. I refuse to feel a goddamn thing about what has happened in my life.
So instead I look over at her and smile. “If you’re jealous because I have no intention of fucking you, Donnelley, you should know that you never really stood a chance. If there were any inclination in me to be with a woman, I would never stoop to be with someone like you.”
There goes that infuriating giggle of hers again, the one that sounds like she’s trying to be some psychotic school girl. “No, you’d fuck the legendary Wolf of Mounts Bay. What it must be like to know her… I had a pet assassin once. He was ex-army and came highly recommended, you know. There was never a death too difficult for him to execute and he never asked questions. Great in bed too, his dick never went down.”
My lip curls at her because for one I don’t give a fuck about her sex life and for two she’s equating Lips to a fucking animal to keep and that is beyond insulting.
The elevator finally dings like it’s going to
open and she leans into me again. “Your Wolf killed him. I’ve never seen anything like it and I knew then that I’d like to find her and keep her too.”
The doors open before I can answer but I’m very glad that Lips went away with the guys and there’s no chance of this woman getting her claws into her. I need to figure her the hell out and then have Illi gut her before she tries to go after my Mounty.
Hell.
I’ll call Nate if I have to.
Luca steps out of the elevator and Amanda follows him, tucking her hand into his elbow like they’re the best of friends even though I can see him cringing away from her touch.
Interesting.
Atticus holds out his arm for me to take and, though I’m shocked he’s doing it, I take it. We walk behind the other two and it occurs to me that I have a gun in my purse. Not a single person has attempted to search me or even ask if I’m carrying a weapon, so it would be easy to just aim it at her head and take the woman out.
I wonder if Atticus would stop me?
I think he would but I’d like to think it was for my own safety and not just because he has such a weird reaction around her. It’s not exactly fear but he knows something about her that clearly I don’t.
The foyer the elevator opens up to is empty and decorated completely differently to the rooms upstairs. The open and bright rooms up there were luxurious and inviting, the type of spaces that people will gossip about and covet but down here is a very different feel.
The carpets are a deep, dark red and sumptuously plush in a way that only comes from an unlimited budget. Millionaires don’t get this sort of thing, hand woven and thousands of hours of work for something that you only walk on. The walls are all covered in the finest silk wallpapers and show gory scenes of battles and orgies, brothels and boneyards.
No, this room, as unassuming as it is, was put together with the intention to impress and terrify. I take stock of it all but I’m not concerned. I’m a Beaumont, I don’t feel fear at this kind of showy bullshit.
If anything, I’m impressed that Amanda really wants to worry me this much. To bring me down here means that she knows that her snide comments and flirting mean nothing to me and now she’s pulling out the bigger tricks that she’s hidden up her sleeves.
We finally make it over to the large wall of cherry wood paneling, the door almost invisible to the eye. There’s a man standing beside it with the same sort of microphone pinned to his lapel as Atticus’ men have. He nods at Amanda and murmurs into it as we approach but his face stays strangely blank.
“Your father will be so happy to see you, Atticus,” Amanda murmurs, and my eyebrows creep up.
That’s who’s waiting behind this door? It’s been years since I last saw Randall Crawford but I’m not scared of the asshole. He’s disgusting and he buys girls the same way that Senior did but he’s not a man I’ve ever worried about.
His taste is for poor girls. Girls who have no hope in their lives, girls who will grovel at the men who bought them if they think it will save them. Girls who don’t give a fuck that he’s a disgusting fucking creep once they find out he’s worth billions.
Of course, Amanda is into him.
The door finally swings open and the bodyguard steps aside to usher us through. Atticus’ arm tenses but he leads me in.
It's only the fact that I've spent my entire life hiding all of my reactions that I don't jump out of my skin when the doors open and we find a naked girl chained to the floor by her throat. She's younger than I am, trembling, and her eyes are wide with terror.
Atticus' shoulders roll back as he straightens up but other than that he doesn't react, just directs me past the girl as if she's not even there. It only gets worse the further into the room we get.
The girls are all either naked or wearing some form of latex bondage suits, some of them in masks with only breathing holes so they're completely blind and faceless.
These ones all look empty, broken, and lifeless. Atticus doesn't look surprised at the rest of them, no reactions, and I wonder how long he’s known about this little party room.
I wonder how many of these girls belong to his father.
Randall Crawford smirks at me from the table, a cigar in one hand and a glass of bourbon in the other. He looks nothing like his son, his russet hair slicked back and his nose slightly crooked at the end. He’s wearing a suit but it fits to his thick body in a way that looks off, like everything was cut on the bias and now it’s warped. He looks just as evil and sadistic as I’ve always known him to be so that isn’t the surprise.
The surprise is Lauren Drummond kneeling at his feet.
The missing daughter of the MBPD Chief is completely naked except for the rope looping Shibari-style around her and binding her. The art form itself is usually exactly that, an art, but the way it’s been done to her is disgusting to look at and I imagine extremely painful to her.
The ropes are wrapped around her breasts are so tight that her skin is purple, her nipples barely discernible from the rest of her skin thanks to the coloring and mottling. Tears run down her blank face but she isn’t sobbing or even really crying, it’s like her body is going through the motions but her mind is completely gone.
It’s the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen.
“Amanda! What are you doing down here so early? I thought you were too busy rounding up the sheep to come and play with us.”
She smiles at him like he hung the moon and it’s a struggle to keep the repulsion off of my face. Atticus is locked down hard and fast, not a single twitch or flinch to be seen in his face. Even his arm that I’m holding is relaxed which is good because it means they can’t see the tenseness of my own stance.
“I brought your son and one of his little birdies to see you, Randy. She’s not to your taste but I think Holden would like her.”
Randy? I want to vomit and I keep my face blank but at the mention of Atticus’ older and completely vile brother I have to force myself not to run screaming out of the room. Sure enough one of the doors behind the table opens and out he walks, tucking his shirt back into his slacks so there’s no mistaking what he’s been doing out there.
New plan.
I’ll call Illi back here to burn the place down to the ground, locking the door first so that we kill everyone in here while we’re at it. Just wipe the entire place off of the map and be done with it because the entire Crawford family is disgusting except for Atticus.
How the hell he ended up decent in that household is a miracle.
“Well, well, little Avery Beaumont. You grew up!” Holden says with a smirk and then he makes a big show of looking around me. “Where’s Alexander? I thought the two of you were attached at the hip… honestly I thought he went from your mother’s tits to yours but I’m not one to judge.”
I loathe this man.
I loathe him almost as much as I loathed Joey’s existence.
“Lovely, my entire night has been ruined. All we need now is the pedophile drug addict to round things off. Where is Bing these days? Thailand? Cambodia?” I snark, and Atticus groans at me under his breath as Holden’s eyes light up.
“I always did love a girl with spirit. I could break you nicely, Beaumont, and without your father around there’s no one to save you now.”
I roll my eyes at him, ignoring the danger I’m in because there’s something about him that digs in under my skin. Probably the fact that, unlike Bingley, Holden looks similar to Atticus and Clarissa, their mother. Seeing the same steely gray eyes staring at me like he wants to flay the skin from my body is infuriating to me.
I hate the man.
“There are a lot of people who know that I’m here tonight. If you want to piss them off then go for it, Holden. I dare you to break me.”
Lauren’s eyes flicker at the scathing tone of my voice, like maybe hearing it is triggering some kind of memory in her void-like state and she’s remembered who she really is but then it’s gone and she’s back to being nothing but a
naked girl again.
Holden smirks at me and takes a step forward, that smirk turning vicious when Atticus moves to stand fully in front of me. Luca steps in closer to us both but he doesn’t have the chance to throw himself at Holden and take the creep down.
Amanda holds up her hand and, shockingly, Holden stops in his tracks. “She belongs to the Wolf of Mounts Bay, has a diamond around her neck and everything. If you touch her, you’ll have half of the most dangerous crime lords in the state after you.”
Randall glances up at me as well, and I keep my face blank. I’m shocked that she even noticed the diamonds tucked into my dress but from the moment Aodhan gave it back to me there’s no way I’m taking them off again.
“The Wolf… so you know the Butcher too, then? Was it because of you that he took out your father? I should’ve known, you were always too good at corrupting the men around you.” Holden sneers at me, all of the joking wiped away from him now he knows where my protection comes from.
I’m intensely curious about how they know about Lips and which one of her jobs made them so cautious of her. Was it Amanda’s military sniper or something else? I know she doesn’t know any of the Crawfords, her reaction to finding out about Atticus’ link to me was genuine and she would have told me if she’d met any of the other men, but there are plenty of people she could have taken out that would impress these men.
Also, I find it hilarious that they’ve assumed the Butcher took Senior out.
Nate is a very useful ally to keep a secret from anyone, especially this family if they’re going to become a problem.
“What are you doing down here, Beaumont? Come to see my collection? Joseph wasn’t one to keep trinkets but I’m more sentimental than he ever was,” Randall says, and then he bends down to put his cigar out on the exposed skin on Lauren’s shoulder.
Still, she doesn’t react.
I step up until I’m standing at Atticus’ side again and raise an eyebrow at him. “I’m here because your little friend thought this would scare me enough to stay out of your parties. I don’t think she likes the reputation I have, petty jealousies of poor breeding, and she thought this would scare me off.”
