Whiskey & Honey: Crimes of Crimson Valley: Book One

by A. Mae. Cooper

  Whiskey & Honey

  Crimes of Crimson Valley: Book One

  A. Mae. Cooper & S.M. Miller

  Whiskey & Honey

  Copyright 2021 © A. Mae. Cooper & S.M. Miller

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, real people, and real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the Author’s imagination and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, organizations or places is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. This book is intended for the reader of this ebook ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the express written permission of the Author. All songs, song titles and lyrics contained in this book are the property of the respective songwriters and copyright holders.

  Cover Design & Formatting: Black Widow Designs

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Author’s Notes

  This book is dedicated to all the new and aspiring authors of the world. Remember, you are worthy.

  You are enough. Never give up on your dreams.

  If I can do it, so can you.

  September Fifteenth Two Thousand Ten

  Tap tap tap.

  Something was making a remarkably annoying and incessant tapping noise on my bay window, the oak tree, perhaps? Whatever it was, it was keeping me awake. I had a physics test in the morning that I needed to be focused on if I wanted to be able to transfer to the AP class with the seniors next year. The wind was howling outside, and I realized that Crimson Valley was in the midst of another killer storm. Rain and hail beat against the glass, and I shiver as I look out at the sheer power of it raging outside. I had never been a fan of the storms around here, but I had never voiced that out loud.

  Throwing my rose gold sheets and comforter back on my huge California king princess bed, I shuffled out of bed to peer out the gilded window into the darkness. A twisted gnarled branch was tapping against the glass to the time of the gusts of wind sweeping through the grounds of our estate caused by the storm that was just beginning its journey over the town.

  Unbelievable. I was going to have Greg, the gardener, take care of that first thing in the morning once the storm had passed. I was hoping it wasn’t going to last much longer. I hated traveling to school in the rain. Turning on my heel, I grab my pillow from the pile on my bed and stalk out of my room and into the hall. Headed downstairs, I wince at the creaking in the old wooden staircase and hoped it didn’t wake Momma up. She was a light sleeper and she knew how stressed out I was about tomorrow. I didn’t want this to turn into an ordeal.

  Moving through the marble foyer, I head straight through to the massive family den and sigh in relief when I find it empty with the fire still roaring in the hearth. It was toasty warm in here and as silent as the grave.

  Tossing my pillow on the large charcoal sectional in the right-hand corner of the den as soon as I entered, I decided I would get a quick drink of water for my mostly parched throat before I would try to settle down for the night and get some sleep.

  Creeping back out of the den, I move across the cool marble floors to the opposite side of the foyer and into the elaborate, newly updated, stainless steel and black accented kitchen with its industrial strength equipment. Everything built to be able to house and feed an army when only three of us live here. Money talks in the small town of Crimson Valley.

  Grabbing a glass out of the cabinet, I fill it at the sink and drink deeply out of it for several long moments, staring out of the massive picture window that expands eight feet from one side of cabinets to the other above the massive farmhouse sink, a sink my Momma kept through the remodel. She said it held sentimental value and she didn’t want to get rid of it. She had apparently washed me when I was a baby inside of it.

  Placing my glass into the sink, I pause in turning around when I see a flicker of something move in and out of the thick grove of trees on the far side of the property. A deer perhaps? It was nearing hunting season here in Crimson Valley and many of the lower-class families would be out and about right now hunting to feed their families for the coming brutal winter. It was hard to make out anything through the heavy curtain of rain and hail that was pouring down from above, flooding the entire property in the process. The groundskeepers were going to have a field day with that.

  Whatever was out there was enough of a distraction that I had forgotten my senses. Too late for me to realize the presence at my back until it was too late. My scream didn’t even make it out of me before something blunt was slamming into the side of my head. Hard.

  Stars exploded in my vision and the sound that came out of me as I crashed to the ground from the hit was a soft groan and I struggled to keep consciousness as footsteps, multiple pairs, shuffled around me in the darkness of the kitchen. I think I black out for a few seconds because when I come to, I am being manhandled aggressively.

  “Hurry up, Zeke!” A male voice snapped in a low dangerous tone and I struggled to do anything as black dots continued to dance behind my fluttering eyelids. “We are getting paid good fucking money to deliver this little girl to those fucked up little boys.” What was this guy going on about? Am I being kidnapped?

  Sure enough, rough large male hands grab both of my arms and twist them around to my back before I feel something tight and plastic wrap around my wrists. Zip tie. I start coming to my senses more and more and blinking through the darkness that keeps nearly overwhelming me, and I am just about to try and let out a scream to alert my parents to my situation when thick, nasty smelling duct tape, is being placed over my mouth and a black silk blindfold is being tied around my head to completely block out my vision. All I can hear past the ringing in my ears from the blow to the head I just took is the repetitive pinging sound of rain and hail beating against the window in the kitchen and the roof above.

  Panic starts to set in when I can no longer see and someone starts to lift me up, so I instinctively start to thrash, using every ounce of strength I have to try and get free. To escape. A thirteen-year-old girl is no match for several grown men, though. Before I know it, someone is clamping arms around my legs to hold them still while another one carries my upper half.

  We start to move, and huge wet crocodile tears start streaming down my face, soaking the blindfold and all I can do is sob and scream silently behind the tape on my mouth as I am blindly carried to who knows where. The last thing I feel before I lose consciousness is the feeling of that same hail and rain soaking into me and freezing me right down to my bones as I am carried out of the warmth and safety of my home.

  Little did I know, later, this night would be the end of my innocence.

  With no one to blame but the Reds of Crimson Val
ley.

  September Seventeenth Ten Years Later

  “I’m sorry, Miss Locke. By the time paramedics got to the scene they were already gone.”

  A long, pregnant pause.

  “What do you expect me to do about this, Sam?” I growl into the receiver of my cell phone, anger, and pain swirling through me like a devastating tornado. My parents… My momma and papa… they were dead.

  “There is the will to discuss, Miss Locke. I know your circumstances and I know how your father never wanted you back here, but you need to return home to settle the estate and decide what you want to do with the properties and staff, you own Locke Manor now.”

  His words helped seal that last god forsaken nail in my coffin that was built for me many, many years ago. Grinding my teeth, I look out at the ocean from my spot on the little deck of the one-bedroom condo I just purchased in south Tampa last month after I graduated with my Masters in Physics.

  Some things in my old life had never changed after that night. Not my love for science, anyway.

  “I will be there by nightfall.” Is all I say to my old butler from my childhood before I hang up and try to gather strength and courage I know I will never be able to feel again. Not when it concerns that town.

  “Welcome home, Miss Locke.”

  This place had stopped being my home the moment those boys used me to send a message to my parents, ten miserable years ago. No one messed with the Order of Red and got away with it, even one of the five ruling families of this miserable town.

  Crimson Valley. A town as dark and bloody as its namesake.

  “So, which one of those miserable bastards killed my parents?” I bluntly ask, stepping into the hauntingly familiar foyer with its same bare marble floors I used to love to slide across in my socks. A memory I quickly push to the back of my mind. Anger was my fuel to get me through this. If I allowed myself to dwell on the past, I knew I would pay for it dearly.

  “Their deaths were an accident, Miss Locke. As I said on the phone yesterday, there was no sign of foul play when the police investigated the accident. Just rain slick roads.” Sam spluttered at first, probably due to my blunt attitude or the curse I just let fly. Sam was a proper man; he didn’t much believe ladies of my stature should act in such ways.

  Well, I was no fucking lady.

  “Right. Well, I’ll be the judge of that. When is the meeting with the lawyer on the will and my parent’s assets transfers?” I turn on my heel to face the old man and he stares at me for a long moment, his cheeks still slightly pink with indignation from my earlier total lack of manners. I don’t think my blasé attitude was fooling him.

  “Tomorrow morning at nine sharp.”

  It was nearly one in the morning now. My flight had been delayed four different times trying to get here due to the storm that's raging outside right now. September brought the beginning of the storm season before the usual brutally long winter here in Crimson Valley.

  “Would you like me to get your bags placed in your old room, Miss Locke?” My eyes snap to Sam again as I had just been appraising the entrance to my old childhood home. Nothing had changed, not even the creaky old wooden grand staircase that would lead up to what used to be mine and my parents’ floor.

  “Absolutely not. Place them in a guest room down here on the main level, one without windows. I am going to go check out my father's office.” I didn’t want to ever go back into that room again. The room with so many memories. Sleepless nights staying up reading ahead in my physics classes. Long movie marathons with my one and only best friend, Nina, who moved away not long after I left years ago. My first kiss with Silas fucking King.

  “As you wish, Miss Locke. Would you like anything to eat prepared for you?” I shake my head as I leave him in the middle of the foyer and make my way down the hall to the left of the grand staircase to the last door on the right.

  Stepping into my Papa’s office was a brutal blow to my chest I almost wasn’t ready for and it nearly sent me staggering back into the bookshelves that lined all the walls around the huge space as the scent of that familiar cologne he used to always wear, although faint, hit me like a ton of bricks. Taking a moment to recollect myself before I move further into the office, I glance around from my spot in the doorway to see everything exactly the same as the last time I had been in here. When Papa had sat me down after I got out of the hospital and asked me if I wanted to leave this place behind for good. He had promised me he would never make me come back here.

  What a crock of shit that had been.

  I can’t really blame them though. I refuse to believe for a second that that car accident was just an accident. Stuff like that just didn’t happen around here. My papa was a cautious driver. He wouldn’t have gone out like that if the roads were bad unless something had driven them out that night.

  The Order of Red.

  The five ruling families of Crimson Valley. That’s what they called themselves. That’s what I was. Whether I like it or not, I was back in this town to stay. People didn’t just leave the Order and seeing how I was the only remaining Locke heir; I would automatically be expected to take my seat on the board.

  I wonder if any of their parents have stepped down yet for them?

  Silas King. Kassim Daegden. Gabriel Finelli. Hawk Rhodes.

  The junior chapter of the Order. They called themselves the Reds. I had once been one of them. Now, unless one of their parents has stepped down and let them take their seats, I have power over them all as a ruling Locke Heir.

  Shaking off the dark memories that came whenever I thought of those wicked, sinful Reds, I moved fully into the office, heading around the large dark cherry wood desk to my father’s laptop that was still open. Taking a seat in his leather office chair, I reach my hand tentatively forward to tap a button to turn the computer on, but I find myself hesitating.

  What if I found something on this computer that I didn’t want to see? What if I found incriminating evidence to point towards the Order being behind their ‘accident’? Would I even be able to do anything about it? The Order of Red were the ruling families of Crimson Valley for a reason. They were all dark and deadly people with a great many connections. What could I do to them that they wouldn’t be able to do to little old me, but ten times worse?

  Worse than the night that sent me packing from this town in the first place.

  Steely resolve hardened my gut then as I pushed that treacherous night from my mind abruptly. I was no longer the scared little thirteen-year-old girl those sick monsters used to send my momma and papa a message all those years ago. I was Honey Rose Locke, heiress to a throne upon the Order of Red, and as the Gods are my witnesses, I would find out who took my parents away from me.

  Leaning forward I reach out my hand again, this time with steady fingers, and I tap the spacebar on the laptop. It comes to life a few seconds later to a login screen and I type in the secret password Sam had included in the document he had sent via email when I was on my flight here from Tampa earlier. A couple seconds later and the screen changed and a sob choked in the back of my throat when one of my favorite images in the world filled the screen on papa’s laptop.

  The family photo that was taken mere hours before the night that changed my entire life. My momma had insisted we get an updated portrait put up on the mount above the fireplace in our den since I had just turned thirteen the week before. That portrait was still hung up on the wall above the fireplace in the den.

  That photo was the last time I had ever been genuinely happy.

  I think it was the last time momma ever had a genuine smile on her face. She and Papa had blamed themselves for what the Order made their sons do to me, but I didn’t blame them. I blamed them. The Reds. They knew what they were doing. There was always another choice. Silas King chose to make me slowly fall in love with him, and then the four of them brought me into their inner circle, only to later pay goons to kidnap me and dump me in the Blood Wood at the center of all five of our estates to bea
t and torture me before dumping me back on my doorstep.

  To make sure my parents knew not to cross the Order ever again.

  The scars that riddled my body from that fateful night, the worst of them covered by the massive avenging angel tattoo on my chest, were a constant reminder to anyone who came into contact with me what happened when you tried to defy the Order of Red. My parents were just pawns. We all were.

  Blinking back the tears that were threatening to spill down my cheeks again, I ignore the heartbreaking smiles of my once happy family and scan the screen sides at all the links to untitled documents. Clicking on the first one at the top left of the screen, it opened up to reveal what I had already dreaded.

  With a date at the bottom that was last edited mere minutes before my parents supposedly left to go to dinner a few nights ago, was the deed to the very estate I now sat in. Locke Manor, as my Papa used to call it, like it was a magical place. It used to be, but not anymore. Scanning through the deed, I notice it’s a transferal document and my name is in bold capital letters at the bottom of the document, and underneath that, is my parents signature signing over their home to me.

  They knew something was going to happen to them. They just hadn’t known what at the time.

  Doing my best to reign in the blinding rage threatening to pull me under, I shut my eyes tight and willed the tears to dry up before they had a chance to fall. I would not give those vile cretins an ounce of my pain or sorrow. I was Honey Rose Locke. The person I was forced to become after I fled here all those years ago was not the same frightened and beaten thirteen-year-old I once was.