Break Me (Brayshaw High #5)(6)
“To talk, tell, share, anything about his life?” she cuts me off, a heavy frown taking over her forehead. “Trust me, I’m fully aware of the gag order everyone around me is under, thanks to you and your family.”
I clench my teeth. “Fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugs as she turns to look out the window. “You can throw something away, but that doesn’t mean it gets buried, you know.”
“Girl, I don’t know what you’re gettin’ at, but just... stop talkin’.”
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”
“Nah, I’d love to gag and bag your ass.”
She rolls her wrist.
Rolls her fucking wrist and my frown flies to Mac’s when he dares to laugh.
“How about, I stop talking when you start,” she bargains, sticking a palm out in some sort of truce shit.
I glare from it to her. “You don’t make the rules here.”
“Neither do you.” She laughs through her words. “You’re in a country ass town right now. The only rules here are never take the last cold beer from the fridge without replacing it, and no feeding the patrol’s horses.”
“Girl—”
“My name is Brielle,” she cuts me off, leaning into my space. “Not girl, not short stuff, or shorty, or any other equally lame nicknames you want to throw at me because you feel the need to remind me I’m nothing but a nobody. I get it. You’re the real-life Aunt Bully—you’re big, I’m small.”
I gape at her. “What?”
She tips her head. “Do you not watch TV? No movies as a kid? Too busy playing Avengers and saving your home one mission at a time?”
It’s fuckin’ official. This girl’s whacked out.
“Whatever, it’s probably not your fault that you’re movie-ly challenged,” she reasons as if I understand her bullshit. “All I’m trying to say is I might have been deemed worthless for your world, but that gives you no right to come into mine and act like a pencil dick.”
I’m ready to tear her shitty attempt at making a point apart, but instead, I tip my chin. “Why you keep sayin’ shit like that?”
She drops against the seat. “Like what?”
“How you don’t belong or aren’t enough. Laying blame on my family.”
A frown pulls at her forehead. “Why are you here, Royce Brayshaw?”
I eye her a long moment, only to look away when the answer to my question’s obvious.
She’s been lied to, and she has no clue.
She thinks we sent her here, to live with her aunt and cousin, ripped her away from her brother, but that’s some shitty, false CliffsNotes version of the truth, if there’s any truth to it at all.
Back in our town, at the front of our property, we have two group homes—one for males, and one for females.
Our freshman year of high school, when our dad was still locked away at his own hand for some shit too deep to get into, he sent us a file, same as he does any and every time there’s a new prospect for our houses. This one was stamped with the last name Bishop.
The file was full of dozens of hospital and police reports detailing the violent-ass attacks on two kids at the hand of their own father—Brielle and her brother, Bass.
They were on the verge of being sent to foster care when my dad found out about them and vetted them for a solid fit in our group homes.
It’s the same shit, different backstory for everyone we take in. They’re all fucked-up teens, and our hope is to turn them straight, or our kind of straight, which is really a full fucking curve, but an honest one. We bring them in, offer them a place with our people, in the town we run. In return, ask for their respect, loyalty, and that they earn our trust.
It doesn’t always work out.
Some aren’t built to step deep into our world, so as long as they follow the rules, we offer them one that keeps them safe until it’s their time to leave, no harm, no foul. Others fuck up and get sent away, put “away” but the rest... they eat it up, fucking flourish in their element and sharpen the street smarts they were forced to learn before even stepping foot into our houses.
They come to work for us, and we give them all they could ever want and never had—a safe place to lay their heads, money, and purpose.
A life and a future, something they spent most of their lives believing they’d never have due to that first shit card the universe dealt them. With us, they have an ace in their pockets and that ace, it’s where loyalty begins to grow, and the rest follows.
Bass, her older brother, was a scrappy motherfucker, strong and clever. We knew he’d be perfect for our world, so being the older of the two of them, me and my brothers went to him with our offer—live with us, go to our schools and act right, earn a place in our empire.
He agreed with a blink, but his clause quickly followed.
His baby sister, only thirteen months younger was to be sent away where she’d be free of the world of trouble he was about to jump headfirst into.
He wanted her safe and far away from any danger our world might bring, since she was finally safe from the one she was born into. He said she wouldn’t survive, that her world would turn dark, and he couldn’t live with that.
Since our family’s purpose is to protect those who need it, offer more to those who seek it, and handle all the bullshit that gets in the way however the hell we see fit, what he was selling for her sounded good. At the end of the day, we wanted what was best for the girl, too.