All Hail - J. Bree Page 0,54

a pair of normal teenagers making out past our curfew.

I could forget myself in his arms. I think I could even forget the panic, but I can’t forget his words and I pull away from his lips to say, “Tell me what we’re doing here, I don’t like secrets.”

He smirks at me. “You love secrets, you just want to collect them for yourself. We’re here because I have a shipping container in storage in the warehouse over there and I just need the coast to be clear before we go over there. Lots of eyes down this way, lots of old loyalties we don’t want to fuck with.”

I nod slowly and he grins at me. “I have my uncle chained to a chair in the shipping container. I can kill him for you or you can do it for yourself, either way he dies today for what he did to you.”

Chapter Fourteen

Aodhan

I pull the door to the warehouse open and the light streams into the space in a wedge that only touches a pair of scuffed up boots.

I was very careful about keeping Diarmuid in a dark little hole that he couldn’t climb out of. I hold Avery’s hand as her eyes adjust to the darkness but I know the moment she can make out the outline of my uncle in the dark.

He looks a little worse for wear.

Jack and a couple of our other cousins went after him when we finally got word of where he’d been hiding and they’d taken a sadistic sort of pleasure at being able to bring him in. He was already profusely bleeding by the time I laid eyes on him.

Plugging those wounds up hurt me.

I wanted nothing more than to just sit there and watch him bleed out but this isn’t about me. This is about Avery getting some fucking closure because Diarmuid is the reason the Jackal got her in that room. Without that two-timing asshole there was no way the Jackal would have gotten past the Wolf and her family.

No fucking way.

Harley would die for Avery without hesitation. It’s the reason I was always so curious about the Beaumonts because one day he got out of juvie and Liam was served with court papers saying he no longer had custody. It was only after he paid off a judge and got a few weeks over the summer holidays that we found out he had billionaire cousins. I’d thought there had to be money motivators for them to want him because Iris never saw her sister, Éibhear never had anything good to say about them either, and who the fuck would want to take on the angry little Mounty boy who spent half his time stealing cars and beating anyone that looked sideways at him?

Jack and I followed him up to that big school of his out of curiosity and one look at the Beaumonts was all it took to see they loved him. He walked through the gates and every kid there standing around with their parents stared at him like he was a god. It made no fucking sense to us until the twins showed up with their friend tagging along and then accepted him into the fold, Avery hanging off of his neck for a hug in a pair of heels no fourteen-year-old girl had any right wearing so easily.

From that moment on I knew he’d be okay.

I just had to get rid of Liam and Domhnall and all of the other toxic men in our family to break the cycle of abuse and keep the kids safe from the evils of their fathers.

A few of the women too.

The integrity and loyalty in Avery Beaumont is second to none and I don’t know what the hell I did to get her attention but I’ll do fucking anything to keep it.

I reach over and very carefully push a strand of hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear securely.

“Have you danced since your feet healed?” I pitch my voice low but even if Diarmuid hears me he can’t interrupt with the gag in his mouth.

She shakes her head. “Not— not properly. I’ve done practice and some warm ups but I haven’t really pushed myself, I’ve been too busy with my work.”

I nod and thread my fingers through hers, not even the slightest tremble in her as she takes in the mangled sight of our prisoner. “Dance for me? When we’re done here, I want to watch you.”

She startles