Trouble at Brayshaw High (Brayshaw, #2)(27)

He’s motionless a minute, but then a light laugh leaves him, and he stumbles off. “Well, fuck me, baby girl...”

Bass slowly follows him down the hall, glancing back at me once on his way.

I fall against the wall and close my eyes. “Shit.”



Cap and me down two shots and just as we drop the glass and get ready to go find Royce, my shoulder is bumped, bloody tissues tossed in my face.

Vienna squeezes by us, blood trickling down her lip and slightly smeared over her T-shirt. “You’re welcome,” she bites out in a hissed whisper. “And you owe me one.”

Captain whips around, looking down the dark hallway that leads to the girl’s bathroom, where Vienna disappeared to and just came back from.

Royce rushes from the same hallway, headed right for us with a fierce expression, but my eyes cut behind him.

Raven steps into the light, her face blank, but her eyes are wild.

Her eyes snap up, crashing into mine with a fire so bright my shoulders stretch wide.

If she could reach, she’d catch me across the jaw.

My baby is jealous, and she wants to fight about it.

Suddenly her eyes leave mine, and her feet carry her away, back to the bitch who is gonna burn.

Collins hisses something at her, gripping her wrist and I push forward, but Cap stops me with a tight grip to my shoulder.

He dips closer to her with a hard expression, but she jerks away with a solid fuck you mouthed in his face.

A zing shoots down my spine.

The fuck is going on here?

In the next second, we’re exiting the club.

“We’re missing something,” Royce slurs right as we hit the pavement out front, not entirely convinced but desperate to believe it. “We need to find out what.”

The driver we hired for the night, one of our guards from the warehouses, rolls up and we silently slide in.

I agree, something is fucking wrong. There’s a reason for this and we need to find out what it is, but it’s not just with her actions, but Graven’s and our dad’s, too.

But back there? That was what tonight was about, bringing her loyalty to light by playing off her weakness, just like Maybell said.

Tested.

Reacted the only way she knows how.

Impulsive. Uncontrolled. Reckless.

Mine.





Like clockwork, the skinny fucker slides out the gate of the warehouses right at midnight to make his check-in call. He adjusts his leather fucking jacket, those dumbass headphones around his neck, like always, and pulls out his phone.

“We should jump his punk ass.” Royce sits forward.

I grip the steering wheel tighter. “Grab him.”

“Why?” Royce laughs. “Not like he won’t come in on his own if we tell him to.”

“He doesn’t get to be asked tonight. He’s fucking lucky I don’t run him over right now.”

Royce starts for his handle, but Captain unbuckles his seatbelt.

“Let me get him,” he insists and steps out.

Me and Royce look to each other.

“This shit’s messed him up, Madman. If we’re reading this wrong, if Raven really is playing dirty, or fuck, bartering even, she could tell everyone about Zoey.” Royce looks out the window. “Kinda fucked up we can’t ever have anything for ourselves. He shouldn’t have to share baby girl with nobody until he wants to.”

“You think she’d do that?”

I frown when Bass spins around, trying to punch Captain as he reaches out and grips his jacket, but Captain spins him and slams him against the fence.

Bass finally sees it’s him and chills some, but he still acts like a prick and forces Captain to push on him to get him over here.

“Not in a million fucking years, brother, but I didn’t think she’d ever be where she’s at either,” Royce says then pushes open the door.

Cap shoves Bass inside and slams the door before he has time to move and Bishop’s head smacks against the window.

Royce grins and sits back, eyeing him. “‘Sup, bitch.”

He gives us a careless look. “What do you need?”

“I need you to sit there, say not a fucking word and watch your mistake unfold,” I start, shifting to look back at him. “You can beg to keep the life we’ve given you after.”

“The fuck you talkin’ about?” he draws out.

“He said sit, Bishop. Not speak. You’re the dog, we’re the masters,” Royce adds with a malicious smirk.

I get us back on the road.

“If we’re leaving, I need to let—”

I cut him off. “Already let everyone know you won’t be back tonight.”

Bass moves his glare out the window.

We called our PI the minute we woke up sober enough to reprocess and regroup after last night’s shit.

He had what we needed in an hour, but Cap had a date with Zoey today, so we waited. It was the better choice anyway. This way we catch them good and fucked up, right before the end of the night when bravery and the sense of invincibility has come and gone.

“You didn’t wanna look like the rat, yet you went to Raven for a reason. Loyalty. That’s what we asked from you when we hired you. You fell short, Bishop.” I meet his eyes in the mirror. “We take a hit, you take a hit. That’s how this works.”