by J Bree
He bundles me into his chest, my body still shaking in the aftermath, and runs his hands all over me. He finally unsnaps my bra and takes it off, throwing it across the room. I lay there and wait for him to push for more, to make some sort of move that would start the next act.
He doesn’t.
He lays there and holds me to his chest, his erection still as hard as steel and digging into my thigh.
“Mon monstre, did I do something wrong?” I whisper, my head still tucked into his chest as his hands stroke over my back.
“Of course not, baby girl. We have all the time in the world and if I go there with you right now… fuck, I’m too fucking pent up. I don’t wanna be too rough with you. Not until you’re ready to take me like that. I told you, I’m not ever going to hurt you. That means not tonight. I’m not ever losing your trust, baby.”
I nod, disappointed and sort of happy that I can feel that way. Maybe I’m more ready than he thinks. I run my hand up his chest, marveling at the colors of his ink and textures of his scars. “I do trust you, mon monstre. Even if it’s the death of me, I trust you.”
I wake up naked in Illi’s arms and I want to spend the whole day there. I want to taste every inch of him, the way he did me. I want to offer him everything he could ever want with me.
He groans at the look in my eyes, moving me slowly away from his chest so he can get up and start his night. “I would’ve killed any man I needed to get you baby, but to see that look in your eyes directed at me? Fuck, I would’ve never thought I’d get you.”
I huff at him, a little grumpy he’s getting up and heading out for the day when we could spend all the time in the world wrapped up in each other. He swipes his thumb over my bottom lip, tugging at it before his swoops down and gives me one of those blistering kisses of his, the ones where he gets a fistful of my hair and tugs until I gasp. It's there, the passion he feels for me, and I know that someday he’s going to unleash it on me and I’ll beg for more.
“I’m a very lucky woman, to have lured a man like you into my life. I guess I should stop hating this face and body, because even if they cursed me with the pain and horrors they also got me you.” I murmur into his lips, still pouting at his leaving.
He doesn’t take well to that, his eyes narrowing at me. “Let’s be real here, baby, it ain’t the sweet curve of your ass or your lush tits that makes me want you so fucking bad, I’d kill any man that gets in my way. It’s the fire in your eyes and the curl of your lip when someone disgusts you. It’s how fucking angry you are. You’re every bit as damaged as I am and I fucking love it. I’ll keep you here with me until you’re ready to show that fire to everyone else again. We’ll ride this out together, nowhere else I’d rather be, baby girl.”
How can I stay grumpy at him with such words of love and devotion?
I slump back onto the bed and listen to him shower, biting my lip when he comes out of the shower shirtless, his hair a mess and the grin on his face a lascivious thing.
“Fuck baby, can you stay there for me all damn night? I’ll be back before dawn. Fuck, I wouldn’t be leaving unless I had to.”
There’s something about his words and his eyes that makes me brave, but I cup my breasts and squeeze them a little as I arch my back in a long stretch. He watches the entire movement and I laugh.
“Mon monstre, you’re drooling.”
He huffs out a chuckle, throwing his shirt over his head. “You’re damned right I am. One taste and I’m fucking addicted. I need more of that sweet pussy baby. I’m having you for dessert.”
I get up and walk to the bathroom with a laugh and if I shake my ass a little more than required, well, I do it all for love.
He leaves me with a kiss, triple checking the locks and the alarms as always, and I move to make a cup of tea. I’m once again dressed in his clothes, most comfortable when I’m surrounded by his scent.
The house is silent as always but it’s now soothing to my fractured and healing soul. I hum quietly under my breath as I work in the kitchen, chopping the fruits and sliding the pieces in the pots to stew. It’s busy work, something full of labor but not much thought, so instead I dream about something Illi had said to me once, about babies in my belly.
It’s not something I’d ever really thought about before.
I always thought I’d be stuck living at the whims of my father and never settle somewhere for long enough to get a husband and a family to call my own. Louis was never strong enough to tell my father he loved me… not that he really did, but he was my only chance at finding love back home.
Home.
It doesn’t feel that way anymore. Home is here, between these walls, wearing mon monstre’s clothes and baking new things in his big, unused kitchen. The lounge area needs a nice rug to replace the one there with the paint stains. I wonder if he’d let me pick one out? Something plush and warm, with a little splash of color. My eyes drift up to my latest painting of the city skyline where it hangs and my heart clenches at the sight of it up there.
Mon monstre hung it in the most prime position in the whole house, over the large fireplace he has. No matter where you sit in the large open-space living room, you can see it. It means something to him. My work means something to him.
I feel adored.
The smile that won’t leave me creeps back onto my face and I busy myself in my work again. Mon monstre had said he loved the apple pie we ate for dessert last night. I want to make him one from scratch, the way my mother used to do a long time ago. Back before she lost herself at the bottom of a bottle of wine and my father began beating me regularly.
I try not to think of those things anymore.
I try to remember that I’m so far away from them, so safe here, that there is no chance of being taken back to that time of beatings and emotional abuse.
Once it’s baked and cooling by the stove I clean up the kitchen and then move back into the living area. I have images of the little house we visited stuck in my head but it’s something too… personal and private to Illi for me to paint. No, I need to get it out of my head in a sketchbook where it won’t be on display for all to see. I settle back into the chair and open my sketchbook, sighing happily as I look out at the water.
Then the power cuts off and the apartment plunges into darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Illi
I go out on my job with a smile on my face and a pep in my fucking step.
My life is fucking perfect.
Okay, not perfect. There’s a whole list of guys I have to kill for what they did to my girl, and I need to find a new place to live that isn’t so fucking dangerous for her, and then there’s the problems with D’Ardo stalking the kid. But all in all, my life is pretty fucking good.
My girl is back home, healing and laughing and making art. I know absolutely nothing about it but she’s fucking happy and I’m going to build her a shrine somewhere nicer than the docks and we’ll get messy in her paints and fuck on a canvas for fun.
One taste of that pussy of hers and I’m sold.
But first, I’ve got work to do. I’ve gotta see Harbin and catch a drink. I’ve got to see why the fuck the Viper keeps calling me like some desperate hookup-turned-stalker. I’ve gotta start checking men off of my fucking list.
I drive to the Dive but quickly find out I can’t go there for a drink because there’s a gaping hole in the wall. Right. Chaos Demons had their way with the place. Part of me is pissed the Viper survived the attack but, then again, if he’s over his tantrum then his money is good and I’ve got bills coming in I need to pay.
A big fucking mansion.
So the Choke it is, I take off and head further down the docks until I get there, struggling to fucking park now the competition has been taken out.
There isn’t a person in the place not talking about what happened at the Dive. The general consensus is that the Demons are fucked and we need to keep them the fuck out of the Bay.
There’s also a lot of
talk about D’Ardo’s bomb.
For fuck’s sake.
Apparently seeing the aftermath of a pipe bomb has some guys getting antsy at the idea of a nuclear bomb. Brain-dead fucking half-wits, that’s like comparing an arrow with an AK47. The damage is about a billion times more catastrophic, but I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s pissed at the utter fucking dick stain.
Sometimes I wonder at what it is that D’Ardo has as his end game.
A nuclear engineer, all the shit he could possibly need for a bomb, maybe he wants to wipe us all from the face of the damn Earth.
Wouldn't be the worst thing.
Except thinking about what could happen to the country if the Bay is wiped out... I'm not sure how I feel about that. Where would be the hot spot for crime lords and corruption? Where would the skin trade start up again? Everyone knows this is where you come to buy all the best guns, girls, and good times.
Kinda sad to think about it.
"What the fuck is wrong with you now, Butcher? Every time I see you lately you're looking like a puckered asshole."
I drain the beer in my hand and slap a wry smile onto my lips. "Tank. What brings you back to the Bay? I thought we beat the asshole right out of you, guess I was wrong.“
The Serpent chuckles and slaps my back. "On a job. Moving something big for a mutual friend of ours."
I quirk an eyebrow. Tank has never been one to put up with D’Ardo’s egotistical ways. I choose not to tell him I fucking loathe the guy now, it’ll only start a whole new conversation I’m not fucking interested in. “Since when are you D'Ardo's errand boy?"
I ignore the warning look he gives me. I could take out every last one of the Serpents in this place without working up a sweat and the fact that he doesn't call me out on my shit tells me he knows it too.
"A lot of people are interested in what he's cooking up, ya get me? I've learned it's best to keep an eye of that sort of thing, before it blows up in my face."
Blows up.
So maybe everyone really is a little twitchy about the bomb.
I need to get the kid away from him as fast as fucking possible.
I nod and grab another beer. "I'm not too worried about it. There's a lot he still needs, a lot that will be too fucking hard to get."
Tank scoffs and turns in his seat to check out the room, to eye up all of the guys around us just to be sure there's no one here that could go running. Gio is far too careful with this place, I doubt D’Ardo has ever stepped foot in here before. Even being the Jackal has limits to where you can go.
"He already has all of the hard shit. After the dickhead Coyote got him the nuclear materials, the rest has been too fucking easy. If we're not careful, this whole fucking town is going to be gone. Now, I have a home to go back to but this place being wiped off the map... that kind of changes things. Changes a lot of things."
I sigh and nod. Looking around for Harbin or Roxas but finding neither of them. They hadn’t text me back either. Fuck it, I have a job to do tonight, I’ll have to catch up for drinks later instead.
"I'm out of here. I'll see you the next time you’re in the Bay."
Tank shoots me a wry grin of his own. "I heard you have a woman now. Never fucking thought I'd see the day."
A lovesick stupid fucking smile tugs at the corners of my lips. "Never met a chick worth settling down with before."
He chuckles. "What, and this one is?"
I roll my shoulders back in my jacket. "This one is worth it all, dickhead."
The job is so easy I don’t know why the Viper is paying me the big bucks to do the drop off but green is green.
I drive out to the drop-off point, chain smoking my cigarettes as I plot out the rest of my week. I need some fucking leads on the cartel. I’m itching to bleed them out.
I make it to the truck stop, drop the bag off, and turn to leave when I spot it.
There are legs sticking out of the bushes.
It’s the Bay, finding a dead body isn’t that strange, but the shoes on the chick’s feet stops me. I don’t claim to be a fashion expert but no Mounty girl wears those sorts of heels. Red soles and an emblem on the strap that looks like diamonds and believe me, I do know diamonds.
They’re designer so the corpse is some rich bitch.
I step carefully over to the body, pushing the bushes aside to get a better look at her, just to make sure she’s actually dead. Something about it being a woman… it just doesn’t sit right with me anymore. I don’t think it ever did, I just ignored the sick feeling because it wasn’t my business.
As soon as I get a good look at her warning bells start screaming in my head.
She’s naked. Her eyes open so her cloudy eyes are staring sightlessly up at the stars and her limbs are splayed out all over the place without a care. I don’t recognize her at all, definitely some rich bitch senator’s wife or something, but I know for sure that this isn’t a hit or some cover up for an accident.
This was premeditated murder by a serial killer.
Okay, I get that technically I’m a serial killer but that’s my job. I take out other people who live in the murky underworld of Mounts Bay. There’s a very clear difference with what I do and the work that’s laid out getting colder by the minute at my feet.
The guy who did this is compelled to kill for his own sick pleasure. Sexual pleasure for sure because you don’t carve a woman’s chest open, break open her rib cage and plant a fucking lily in her chest, dirt and all, without it being some kind of sexual thing.
I’m about to turn away, make sure I didn’t leave any of my own evidence behind, and then leave her to be found by someone who’ll call it in when I spot the card.
Right.
This guy leaves calling cards.
That’s not fucking weird at all.
I crouch down so I can get a good look at it without touching the thing. It’s a scripture verse, this guy thinks himself moved by a higher purpose.
“The seed is the word of God. - Luke 8:11”
Oh, great. Just what the Bay needs, fucking zealots. I don’t know much about this kind of thing, but I’m fairly certain if there were a god, he doesn’t want women murdered and plants growing out of their corpses.
This time when I turn to leave I actually go, getting into my mustang and hitting the highway and gunning it towards home. I try to forget about the woman entirely, I have my own girl warm and welcoming at home waiting for me, but sometimes you know when you find something that will change your life.
The kid was one.
Odie was another.
And now this.
I don’t like it. Not one fucking bit.
I know it the second I drive the Mustang into the garage.
Something is wrong.
There’s tire tracks leading into the garage and both of the doors are open. I check my phone, my stomach full of lead but there’s no missed calls from my girl. There’s no way she wouldn’t call if someone showed up here… no fucking way.
I tear my way out of the car and up the stairs but I’m too trained, too well honed not to see the evidence around me. Dirt, rocks, grease, there's been people in here. Men in fucking boots.
My cold, dead, worthless heart begins to race in my chest.
The front door is fucked. The lock snapped off as if someone used a battery ram to get in and the power is out in the entire building, the alarm never having a fucking chance to go off.
There’s two dead men in my kitchen, bled out from bullet wounds in their chests. For a second, one useless fucking second, I think she’s killed them and is now hiding and waiting for me to get back here.
She’s nowhere to be found.
And, fuck, do I try to find her. Every room, screaming out for her to hear me, but nothing. She’s fucking gone.
A roar of pure, filthy rage claws its way out of my throat as my chest begins to heave. Where is she? Where the fuck is she?
The red letters scrawled across the window catch my eye.
My eyes trace over the words written out in blood, over and over and over again. No. I can't have misjudged him this much. He can't fucking do this, not to me. This can't be fucking happening.
The Jackal sends his regards.
Also by J Bree
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
Coming 2020
The Mounts Bay Saga
The Butcher of the Bay Part I
The Butcher of the Bay: Part II
Acknowledgments
To Laura, my ride or die. I swear I could write a whole new novel about how much your friendship, support, encouragement and dick pics mean to me. You’re the real MVP of the entire Mounts Bay family and I’m so freaking grateful to have you as my bestie <3
To Katy, thank you for being such an amazing, loyal, and kind supporter and friend. Your friendship means the world to me and your staunch loyalty when shit goes down is everything to me. Also, the dick gifs and MM recs are a total bonus lol. Thank you for being you <3
To Kenia and Flora, thank you for all of your help with translations and for not judging me for butchering your languages terribly. Your help and support mean so much to me!
To everyone in my Facebook group, you all give me life and make this whole journey so much fun. Thank you from the bottom of my blood stained heart.
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.
