To the End: Year Four (Hannaford Prep Book 4)

by J Bree

  I get a bad fucking feeling about walking into this place tonight.

  Then I see the blood.

  I tighten my grip on the strap of my bag as I walk up the steps of the manor, through the river of blood streaming down them. It looks like a fucking horror movie, nothing like the refined facade I was expecting to walk in to, and I pull my knife out of my pocket as I step through the already open doors.

  Holy. Fuck.

  Senior’s gone off the fucking rails and killed all of his own men.

  There’s pieces of them everywhere, blood and bone and innards spread around like they’re fucking nothing. Jesus H. Christ, an arm here and a leg hanging there… I take it all in for just a second, long enough to scout out for danger or clues, and then I ignore it all and stalk through the gore.

  I need to replace these shoes the second I make it out of here alive. Just burn them and my clothes because there’s no amount of scrubbing that will wash this scene away from them.

  There’s no sounds of fighting or dying men, the whole place is as silent as the grave and it’s eery as fuck. I try not to let shivers take over my body but something here feels fucking wrong. More than just Senior, something truly fucking bad is going on here.

  I give myself a shake as I move silently through the house. My plan has gone out the freaking window, I’d guessed at this time the psycho would be asleep, but every light is the place is on and there isn’t a single room without a dead body in it.

  The fuck is going on?

  I climb the stairs and head for Senior’s private rooms. I know he has his own wing and that all of his evil happens there, but I guess tonight his evil happens every-fucking-where. I have to make it past Avery and Ash’s room to get there and, oh look, dead guys are piled in their rooms too.

  I make a note to burn this place to the ground before Avery ever has to see it.

  The Jackal has done enough damage to my Ice Queen, I don’t need this serial killer doing anything else to her to her head.

  The hallway that leads to Senior’s rooms is dark and gloomy but there’s less death up here. The plush carpet doesn’t squish under my feet like the one downstairs. The only fucked up thing up here seems to be the paintings of the Beaumont’s ancestors on the walls and, fuck, that’s because they all look a little deranged. I make a note to ask Avery if there’s any fucking normal in their bloodlines, on their father’s side at least. Their mom sounded nice enough, just had shit taste in men.

  The painting of Joey makes my skin crawl.

  I’m busy trying not to tear the thing off the wall and shred it with my knife when the door at the end opens and Senior himself steps out. He’s wearing a suit and looks as unruffled as the day I met him at that fucking dinner. There’s a gun in his hand, not pointing at me yet but the threat is still clear. I slow my steps and he smirks at me.

  “You’ve caught me at a bad time, Wolf, but I suppose I can make an exception for the little slut that stole my son.”

  Well, here we fucking go.

  I shrug. “I’ve been looking forward to finally dealing with you so I’m sorry but it can’t wait.”

  The smirk only grows and he gestures for me to enter his rooms. “Ladies first.”

  Like fuck. “As I’m sure you’ll love to point out to me, there are no ladies here. After you, Beaumont.”

  It feels weird calling him that, something I usually reserve for Ash when he’s being an arrogant dick, but calling him Senior seems wrong as well. He turns his back on me, like there’s no chance I’d be able to stab him or slit his throat from behind, and I try not to get pissy about it. I need a clear head.

  He leads me through three very luxurious rooms until we get to what is obviously his killing room. The only luxury in this room is the single plush seat sitting next to a small, fully stocked bar. I imagine this is where he watches the girls he’s torturing scream and writhe in pain, sipping a fucking bourbon and enjoying the show.

  Fucking gross.

  The table that Ash described to me is sitting in the center of the room, all of the lights on the ceiling pointing towards it so it’s the centerpiece of this sick spectacle. The bench he has with all of his carefully cleaned tools is pretty standard, nothing unexpected on it. There’s a security camera setup and as the views flick through the screen I doubt there’s a single inch of this property that doesn’t have surveillance. Jesus, Alice never stood a chance against this fucking psycho.

  He notices my eyes and walks over to the screens, again giving me his back. I slide my bag down to the ground, it was only ever here to take him out if he was asleep, and I make sure my knife is open and ready in my pocket.

  Senior looks up from the security camera. “It seems my guest is making a mess of the place. I suppose this is what happens when you invite the lower classes over to play. He showed such promise, I really thought he might be able to reach Alexander but he’s turned out to be such a disappointment.”

  So Senior isn’t killing all of his own men? There’s another psycho on the loose. Ah, fuck. It’s fucking Morningstar.

  “Does it matter? We should get this over with.” I murmur, and he nods slowly.

  He turns back around to face me, his hand sliding into his pocket casually. The smirk is back and I grit my teeth so I don’t snap at him. That’s what he wants, he wants me brash and reckless. I’ve got to keep my head.

  “I think I’ll have a taste of that cunt, the one that bewitches all of the men who meet you. You’re pretty enough, for a piece of slum ass, but I don’t feel the pull. You’re already too broken for my tastes.”

  I ignore his words, watching only his hands. If he goes for any of the weapons on the bench, I’ll see it and make my move.

  “How sweet it must be to trap both my sons. The Jackal. Morningstar, himself.”

  I startle but my eyes stay fixed on his hands. “Oh you didn’t know that? Didn’t know that he was invited to come kill you and take my useless daughter? He had a good look into your life. Saw something he liked and now he’s at my mansion, killing my men and making a fucking mess. I guess killing the Jackal hasn’t stopped you from being stalked. I wonder if my son would be willing to share you with him too? Not that we’ll find out. I need him home with me, my legacy where it belongs. I’ll have to break him myself.”

  He’s just trying to get a rise out of me. It all means nothing, if he gets into my head then he wins, so I ignore him and keep my focus true.

  A sensor pings and Senior huffs under his breath. “More unwanted guests. The gall of you people.”

  Fuck. There’s no way it can be Ash and the others, no fucking way. I do the math in my head twice before I take a breath. Even at the Ferrari’s top speed the entire trip I still have an hour. Ash is fast and arrogant but he’s still subject to the same laws of physics that the rest of us are.

  Senior takes a step forward and I take a step back, watching as he shakes his head at me, his finger tracing down the length of the scalpel on his workbench. “If you came all the way here and didn’t want to work with me then you’re in for a rude shock, slut. Either you get on the table yourself and we do this the right way or… you displease me. That will not be satisfying for either of us.”

  He’s talking like I’m going to enjoy being carved to pieces and killed, like this is an erotic game for the two of us.

  No wonder Joey was fucked in the head.

  “Apparently you didn’t get the message. I live for displeasing men.”

  He raises the gun in my direction for the first time. “On the table now. I’d like to enjoy you without interruption.”

  I move slowly enough that he doesn’t see my knife in my pocket, I just need to get close enough to him to use it before he sees it coming.

  I don’t want to touch the table at all but I slide my ass onto it without a flinch, even as the bare skin on my thighs touch it. I pray Avery got her cleanliness from him and this thing was bleached after the last time he used it.

  If I’m sitting in a p
uddle of blood and his semen I’ll lose my fucking shit at him.

  After he’s dead.

  “Lie back, I need to get you strapped in.”

  Ugh.

  I pivot so my legs are on the table as well, ignoring the dull pain in my stomach as I slowly lower myself. The sadistic twinkle is back in his eyes and the bloodlust starts to take him over. Good. I need him all worked up.

  He walks over to grab my ankle to strap it down and I take one last deep breath. Now or fucking never.

  I kick my foot out and slam it into his wrist, knocking the gun out of his hand. He snarls at me but I’m faster than him, grabbing my knife and swinging it at him. He turns at the last second and it sinks into his shoulder, not his throat where I was aiming.

  Fuck.

  He grabs a fistful of my throat, roaring in my face and lifting me from the table. My feet don’t even touch the ground as he slams me into the wall.

  “You stupid whore! All of this is your fucking doing, I’ve lost my sons because of some worthless slum slut who thinks she can climb out of the hell she belongs in, on the shoulders of my bloodline. You are nothing. Nothing.” he hisses, and I focus on staying calm, slowing my pulse so I can stay conscious for longer. Passing out now means death, and when I’m done with him I still have to get out of here without the Devil finding me.

  He leans his torso into me, my arms pinned, and he starts to really fucking rant about me and my dumb, slutty pussy. Men are fucking pathetic sometimes. He gets himself all worked up, badly enough that I manage to hook my ankle around his leg without him taking notice until I break his choking hold, ducking out from under his thumbs and taking his leg out on the way down. I lurch towards the workbench at the same time as he roars at me, all of his refined gentleman exterior gone.

  Senior shoots towards me, but I’m prepared for how fast he’s going to be. I snatch the knife and slam it into his throat. The triumph I should feel is cut out of me as the searing pain of my own knife in his hand slicing through my gut hits. Fuck.

  What the hell is with these assholes stabbing me in the stomach? I’ll be fucking lucky not to lose a fucking kidney or some shit at this point.

  He gets his hand around my throat again and it tightens just a little before finally he lurches back, slumping down to the ground, grabbing at his throat uselessly. I’m freaking covered in his blood but I barely notice.

  I slide to the ground, hacking and choking on my own blood as my mouth fills with it. He’s hit something important, fuck knows what.

  The bubbling finally stops and the rattle in his chest dies down to nothing.

  He’s dead.

  Thank fuck.

  The only problem is that I think I am too.

  I sprawl out onto my back, my head lolling about uselessly, and suddenly I see my own eyes staring down at me like I’m having some sort of fucking out of body experience. Fuck. They look angry, fierce, fucking furious and yeah, I guess I am pretty pissed that after everything I’ve done, now I’m fucking dead.

  Fuck this, and then I pass out into nothingness.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The next time I open my eyes I come face-to-face with the Devil.

  I mean, I’ve always assumed I’d be going to Hell for everything I’ve done, even if it’s all been self-preservation, but seeing the man who is freaking legendary in the underworld for what he can do to a person is actually worse than waking up in the flames for one very vital and terrifying reason.

  He looks eerily like me.

  Our eyes are exactly the same, the shape, the color, everything.

  He stares at me and leans back in his chair. “You can imagine my own surprise, when Joseph Beaumont invited me to Mounts Bay to play with his children, to find another little lost sister down here.”

  I actually feel it click together in my sluggish brain, the drugs slowing me down some. My mouth is as dry as the Sahara and hurts when I swallow. “You were sending me the heads.”

  He nods again, but his eyes move to the door like he’s waiting for someone to show up and try to kill me. The air around him is protective, I know it well now. The guys are all the same way with me. It’s… fucking jarring.

  “We only have one other sister. I have no time for our brothers but Poe is… everything. You two could pass as twins. We all look like the cunt who fathered us, but you two are so similar.”

  I struggle to sit up but, fuck me, the stab wounds in my gut hurt like a bitch. “So, I look like our sister and that makes you feel protective of me? I don’t need a bodyguard.”

  I’ve clearly lost too much blood and gone insane, because not only am I talking to the Devil himself like this but he’s also just saved my damn life. That kind of proves I might need some help, just a little.

  He shrugs and still doesn’t look at me. “I was formally diagnosed as a sociopath at eight.”

  A shiver runs down my spine. Fuck. Maybe this is the part where he paints my innards all over the walls.

  “I don’t feel things. I don’t feel happy or good about people. I enjoy cutting them to pieces. I enjoy blood on my hands. I didn’t question the diagnosis.”

  I discreetly try to find a weapon or the nurse call button or something to get me out of this situation. He notices and looks back over at me, pinning me to the bed with a single look.

  “When I was seventeen I went looking for our father. I decided it was time to end him, to destroy him for his many sins, so I rented an apartment next to his clubhouse. I watched it for weeks, and then one night I was woken up by a knock at the door. I opened it up to find a little girl, a little sister, and my heart beat for the first time. I looked down at that girl and knew that I’d kill anyone for her.”

  Right.

  Ok, so he’s got some deep-seated issues but that’s noble enough and we’re fucking related. I relax just a little and stop looking for weapons to just listen to him.

  “Her mom is a junkie. She went back to our father to get a hit and he told her to earn it. No one in the MC wanted to touch her so she sold her daughter off instead. Our sister was six.”

  Fuck. I can see why the Boar said not to go looking for that man. I feel my fingers twitching to go hunting. Morningstar, the Devil, my brother, turns back to watch the door.

  “The first biker to climb into her bed was drunk. Made him slow, easier to fight off. Poe managed to get out from under him and climb out the window. She ran to the closest house, but no one would answer her knocking. The only people desperate enough to live that close to the MC were junkies and whores. I was the only person to open the door for her. She still had blood running down her legs. I looked down at her and knew I’d never let anything hurt her again.”

  I find my voice again, and years of being the Wolf means it’s clear as I say, “That was the MC you tore apart. How is our father still breathing?”

  He shrugs. “I got her cleaned up. Got the whole story out of her. The biker managed to get his fingers inside her but nothing else, so I didn’t have to take her to the hospital. I didn’t know how to take care of people. I called our uncle to come get her but when he arrived she wouldn’t leave with him. She only wanted me. So I told her what I was going to do and she told me she would be a good girl and keep her eyes shut. Her mother had taught her how to do that when she got high and fucked men for drugs. The junkie cunt had already left by then, didn’t care that her kid was gone. Our father had left for a run so I sent him a message. I heard about his reactions to it a few weeks later and I’ve found I like the idea of him watching over his shoulder, living in that state of fear, while he waits for me to come find him. Someday I will.”

  A fight breaks out outside the room and I look up to find Harley screaming at Illi. My oldest friend, the only one left, tries to keep Harley from bursting in the room but my boyfriend is having none of that. Illi has to use every muscle, every ounce of strength in him, to keep Harley out.

  If Blaise and Ash show up, it’s game over.

  “If you don’t want t
o speak to me, you don’t have to; I know my reputation precedes me. I’ll leave you with my contact details and you can call if things go bad again. I would have been here sooner, but Poe had… an incident I had to take care of.”

  I look away from the brawl. “What’s your name? It’s not Morningstar, is it?”

  He shakes his head. “Nathaniel. Poe calls me Nate. Morningstar is my middle name, my own addict mother thought it would suit me, seeing who our father is.”

  I take a breath and reach out to touch his hand. He’s my blood and he’s saved my ass. The least I can do is try. “I’d like to know you. I just don’t understand why you’d want to know me. Just because I look like our sister doesn’t mean you owe me something.”

  He looks down at my hand and I think about taking it back, but then looks back up at me and says, “One look at you and I knew I’d kill for you too. You’re different to Poe, more guarded and cynical, but if anything, that proves you’re my blood.”

  Huh.

  Holy fuck. Ok.

  I nod at him and squeeze his hand before letting go. “I’d like to have a brother. And I’d love to meet Poe. I’d… love for you to meet my family too.”

  His eyes flick out to the raging screaming match happening outside the room. Ash and Blaise arrive as we look up and Illi glances over at us. Nate stares him down.

  “The Butcher is a good addition. The Beaumont kids seem to be proficient, and the mobster is decent enough. Not sure why the singer is hanging around.” He says, and I gulp. I’ve never had to tell a brother anything, let alone about my complicated, messy, fucking perfect relationships.

  “I’m dating him. And the other two, not the Butcher. I’m… with three guys.”

  The Devil, shit… Nate nods and says, “I know. I was planning on killing them too until I saw how they are with you. I don’t give a shit who you’re with, as long as it’s what you want and you’re not being hurt.”