All Hail - J. Bree Page 0,31

murder plots out in the open. I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of the day getting you out of lock up.”

He glares over at the cops with a clenched jaw, his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl that speaks of murder. “Nah, they gotta take you in for that shit and I’d be bleeding the whole lot of them out before they got the chance. What’s all this about, anyway?”

I shrug and glance over my shoulder at where Drummond is standing and yelling at three of his officers because they aren’t finding anything to take me in for. “The Police Chief’s daughter is missing.”

Illi huffs. “And what the fuck would you know about that? Do you spend a lot of time with pig’s kids without me knowing about it?”

I would smirk at him but the state of my house has made any joy impossible. “We went to Hannaford together. Drummond used to pant after my father’s check book. I think he’s paranoid that we took Lauren as retaliation… but I don’t give a fuck about stupid little girls who don’t know when to keep their mouths shut.”

Illi nods and then I watch as he squares himself up, broadening his stance until he looks like he’s gotten even wider. There’re footsteps as Drummond approaches us but I won’t lower myself to look at the pathetic man any more than I already have.

“I will find her and I will have every last one of you locked up, the keys thrown away, for taking her.”

Illi rolls his eyes. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but no one give a shit about you. Police Chief who lives in billionaire serial killer pockets? You’re fucking nothing to me or Beaumont. Nothing but a fucking tantrum throwing pig.”

That has me smirking and I glance over my shoulder at the blustering man still standing there failing to get a word out in his anger. “I’ll be billing the city for all of the damage here. Expect to see me again soon because I’ll have your job for this.”

Illi scoffs. “I’ll have his fucking throat. Sleep tight, cunt, I know where you sleep.”

Drummond has the sense to look at least a little worried about that but the officers around us who hear it practically shit themselves. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to look at Johnny Illium and see anything other than the fiercely protective family man who will throw down for his people without hesitation.

He must be terrifying to these gutless idiots.

It takes a half-hour before they all finally get in their cars and leave us to my utterly destroyed house. I try to send Illi home, if anyone can clean this place up single-handedly it’s me, but he gets it in his head that they’ve planted something here. The idea of there being surveillance on me literally curls up in my gut and threatens to choke me with bile so I keep my mouth shut while he searches the entire place with a fine-tooth comb.

I throw out most of the soft furnishings.

There are dozens of broken chairs and every last one of Blaise’s guitars that he left behind are too damaged to rescue. The orgy-sized bed in their room has been completely gutted with what looks like a machete and Harley’s books are all over the floor. All of that pisses me off but the real thing that lights a fire in the deepest, darkest corners of my soul are the shredded remains of the clothes Lips left behind strewn across her floor.

They’d had to pack light for the bus and there were shirts she’d stolen from the guys that she didn’t want to risk losing so when I find the pieces of the cashmere sweater of Ash’s that she was not-so-discreetly obsessed with I think I lose my mind a little.

Okay.

I definitely don’t lose my mind but I go beyond the shallow anger at my house being messed up because those torn up clothes mean something to Lips. As a kid who struggled to clothe herself, who didn’t have anyone to love her or give her any sort of security, the clothes that her guys gave her mean something and Drummond has stomped all over it.

I will salt the Earth.

I will burn the entire department down to the ground and build something back up in its ashes that belongs entirely to me.

For the first time in months I feel purpose again.

My job is to stop this shit from happening