To The End (Hannaford Prep, #4)

by J. Bree

sprawl out onto my back, my head lolling about uselessly, and suddenly I see my own eyes staring down at me like I’m having some sort of fucking out of body experience. Fuck. They look angry, fierce, fucking furious, and yeah, I guess I am pretty pissed that after everything I’ve done, now I’m fucking dead. Fuck this, and then I pass out into nothingness.

He looks eerily like me. Our eyes are exactly the same: the shape, the color, everything. He stares at me and leans back in his chair. “You can imagine my own surprise, when Joseph Beaumont invited me to Mounts Bay to play with his children, to find another little lost sister down here.”

He shrugs and still doesn’t look at me. “I was formally diagnosed as a sociopath at eight.” A shiver runs down my spine. Fuck. Maybe this is the part where he paints my innards all over the walls. “I don’t feel things. I don’t feel happy or good about people. I enjoy cutting them to pieces. I enjoy blood on my hands. I didn’t question the diagnosis.”

“When I was seventeen, I went looking for our father. I decided it was time to end him, to destroy him for his many sins, so I rented an apartment next to his clubhouse. I watched it for weeks, and then one night I was woken up by a knock at the door. I opened it up to find a little girl, a little sister, and my heart beat for the first time. I looked down at that girl and knew that I’d kill anyone for her.” Right.

“Her mom is a junkie. She went back to our father to get a hit, and he told her to earn it. No one in the MC wanted to touch her, so she sold her daughter off instead. Our sister was six.”

“The first biker to climb into her bed was drunk. Made him slow, easier to fight off. Poe managed to get out from under him and climb out the window. She ran to the closest house, but no one would answer her knocking. The only people desperate enough to live that close to the MC were junkies and whores. I was the only person to open the door for her. She still had blood running down her legs. I looked down at her and knew I’d never let anything hurt her again.”

“That was the MC you tore apart. How is our father still breathing?” He shrugs. “I got her cleaned up. Got the whole story out of her. The biker managed to get his fingers inside her but nothing else, so I didn’t have to take her to the hospital. I didn’t know how to take care of people. I called our uncle to come get her but when he arrived, she wouldn’t leave with him. She only wanted me. So I told her what I was going to do, and she told me she would be a good girl and keep her eyes shut. Her mother had taught her how to do that when she got high and fucked men for drugs. The junkie cunt had already left by then—didn’t care that her kid was gone. Our father had left for a run, so I sent him a message. I heard about his reactions to it a few weeks later, and I’ve found I like the idea of him watching over his shoulder, living in that state of fear, while he waits for me to come find him. Someday I will.”

“If you don’t want to speak to me, you don’t have to; I know my reputation precedes me. I’ll leave you with my contact details, and you can call if things go bad again. I would have been here sooner, but Poe had… an incident I had to take care of.” I look away from the brawl. “What’s your name? It’s not Morningstar, is it?” He shakes his head. “Nathaniel. Poe calls me Nate. Morningstar is my middle name, my own addict mother thought it would suit me, seeing who our father is.” I take a breath and reach out to touch his hand. He’s my blood, and he’s saved my ass. The least I can do is try. “I’d like to know you. I just don’t understand why you’d want to know me. Just because I look like our sister doesn’t mean you owe me something.” He looks down at my hand and I think about taking it back, but then looks back up at me and says, “One look at you and I knew I’d kill for you too. You’re different to Poe, more guarded and cynical, but if anything, that proves you’re my blood.” Huh. Holy fuck. Ok.

He scoffs at me and waves a hand at Nate. “You’re lucky your brother was stalking you. He found you first, staunched the bleeding, then did CPR while I drove you both in. You’d be dead in that fucking mausoleum if it weren’t for him.”

“I’m angry at you too, Mounty, but I’ll wait for you to heal before I spank you.”

“Well, guys, this is Nate. He’s my sociopath half-brother and we’ve decided to keep in touch. He also approves of our relationship.”

Nate speaks without looking at any of us, “I didn’t say I approved. I said I don't care, and as long as you’re happy I won’t kill them.”

“She’s not spoiled, she’s just from a different class than your sisters. Anyone who isn’t a biker brat would look like a princess to you.” Nate’s head tilts. “Last person who called my sister a biker brat ended up being put through a wood chipper. The noises he made were the sweetest sounds.”

“Your friendship with the Butcher makes more sense to me now, knowing that ‘deranged psychotic killer’ is in your blood.”

My mind goes off on that tangent for a minute and then the door opens again and in walks a girl who has to be my sister. Holy shit. Poe is not a kid. She’s a teenager, younger than me but not by that much. She’s… gorgeous. She looks like me but without any of the demons—the dark stain nowhere to be seen. I could fucking cry all over again, and it just confirms once again that I’m with Nate. I’ll fucking gut anyone who tries to take that sunshine away from her.

“Brothers are dumb. Hi. I’m Posey, but everyone calls me Poe because Posey is a stupid-ass name.” Her southern accent is freaking adorable, especially with the curse words, and I fall hard. I glance at Avery and see the same thing on her face, even as guarded as she is. Looks like our family really is growing again.

Poe cackles. “Nah, Thorn and I have the same mom. He shares custody of me with Nate, because Nate doesn’t want his annoying kid sister cramping his serial killer style or some shit.”

“Oh, whose car is that?!” Poe says, peering over Harley’s shoulder and he tenses a little. “It was mine. I’m fixing it at the moment, it doesn’t look like that at all anymore because someone blew it up,” he mumbles, still torn up about the ‘Stang. “Who the hell would do that to such a beauty? I hope you beat the fucker,” she says, prying the phone out of his hands and staring at the car lovingly. Ash stares at her for a second and then shrugs. “Your brother cut his head off.”

She shrugs and clicks her tongue. “I build ‘em with my pops. I hate school, but I’ve never met a car I couldn’t fix. I wanna drop out and work at the garage with him but I think that’s the one fucking thing Thorn and Nate agree on and… never mind. Everyone agrees.” There’s a hint of color on her cheeks and, sweet merciful lord, that’s my blush. The one I get about the guys, the one that let every-fucking-one know I wanted them.

“You’d know, you’ve got three of ‘em,” Poe says, all sly and coy, then she scrunches her nose up at us and shrugs. “Rue’s not going to be interested in some dumb kid. We’re friends. I help him with cars, and he beats up guys who ask me out because he thinks he’s my protector like that. It doesn’t matter.” “What kind of a name is Rue?” Blaise jokes. Poe grins. “The type of name a Prez’s son has. The type a future Prez has. His name is Ruin, but there ain’t a biker out there without a nickname.”

“So, who’s the fuckin’ suit? He some sort of dirty cop or somethin’? He looks fuckin’ pissed.” I cringe. Avery rolls her eyes when Ash starts glaring at the doorway Atticus just walked out of. She turns to Poe and speaks in her sweetest, most dangerous tone. “He’s an old friend of mine. We’re having a little bit of a disagreement at the moment, so Ash has decided that Atticus is the number one enemy of our family now that the others have been taken care of.” I scoff, and Ash gives me a foul look, like it’s all my damn fault. “Isn’t that the point of brothers? To hate any guy who comes within spitting distance?” Poe says, that sly little grin on her face, and Avery narrows her eyes at her even though it’s so fucking clear she’s being charmed so freaking hard by the kid.

“Well, Nate doesn’t know I’m sweet on him because if he did, Rue would already be nothing but DNA matter. And Thorn… Thorn knows I have some feelings, and he’s told me if my panties come off at any point before I turn eighteen, he’ll tell Nate and that’ll be the end of that. I think he’s bluffin’ but I ain’t risking it. Nate’s fuckin’ fierce when he needs to be, and I don’t want Rue dying over some stupid… crush I have.”

Poe smiles again, giggling and rolling her eyes at me. “He’s twenty, so he’ll only be a dirty, twenty-four-year-old biker when we have to tell Nate about him. That is, if he hasn’t shacked up with some stripper or biker slut before then.”

His eyes finally flick to mine and then down to Poe. “This is why we only trust each other. Anyone else is a liability.” Fuck. I’m saved from answering him by Poe snorting and saying in her teasing tone, “Well, I have a whole fuckin’ heap of people I trust, so maybe you need to rethink that line.”

swallow the lump in my throat. “Of course I will. You have my number, and everyone else's so if you need anything, Poe, anything at all, you just call. Any of us.” She smiles and hugs me

“I’ll walk you down. Too much bad shit has happened lately, I’m not letting anything happen to the baby of the family,” he says, and Poe grins so fucking wide my heart clenches. This kid needs a family. She needs people loving her. Well, I’m up for it.

There’s a heap of motorcycles and bikers loitering, but I make an educated guess at which one this Rue guy is. He’s pacing, twitchy and pissed off, and that makes me twitchy and pissed off. He looks like a fully grown man, and my baby sister is in love with the fucker.

grit my teeth. “Fine. All we need to do is tell Nate about him and then we’re golden. Job done.” I glance back to the carpark. Harley has an arm slung over Posey’s shoulders as they come out of the hospital and into our view. My heart clenches, I’m so fucking happy they get along, and then I see exactly what he’s doing when Rue’s pacing slams to a halt, his spine snapping straight as he gets an eyeful of my golden god cuddling up with my baby sister. It’s fucking perfect.

“I’ll head out to keep an eye on you and Poe tonight. Call me, Wolf. I’ll come whenever you need. I mean it, you will call me from here out.” I nod and feel freaking emotional as hell at him leaving. He watches me closely and then holds out his arms. Holy shit, he wants a hug? “Poe taught me sisters need hugs,” he grumbles, and I step into his arms. “Maybe normal sisters do, but I’m fucking broken,” I say, but I enjoy the hug anyway. How different would my life have been if he’d have found me a little sooner? Before Matteo became the Jackal, before the war in Mounts Bay started?

We have the Devil on our side. “You know you can call me too, right? If you need anything, or Poe, just call and I’ll be there.”

I leave the hospital in one of Ash’s Ferraris so doped up on pain meds I ramble and cackle like a fucking loon. It would be way more embarrassing if Ash wasn’t shooting me all of these little looks and biting his lip like I’m fucking delicious or something. “You are delicious. I’m going to get you home and spread you out. It’s been way too fucking long since I’ve tasted that pussy.” Avery gags in the backseat. Right. I forgot she was in the car as well. “Oh, I know you’ve forgotten all about me, Mounty. I’ll forgive you because of the blood loss. Just this once.” I fucking love her. “I love you too, Mounty.”

“You’ve never cared about being stuck with us before, you’ve always preferred to have us all together. You bought this fucking house to fit us all in comfortably. You’re already talking about where you’re going to put Posey’s room for when she comes to stay. Fuck, you’ve been looking into how the fuck we can adopt her. What’s the real fucking reason, Avery?” he hisses, and I slip my hand into hers under the table. I fucking hate it when they fight and doing it now, in front of everyone, is only going to end in blood.

“Look, if the Devil shows up at my door, you’d best fucking believe I’m going to tell that motherfucker whatever the fuck he wants to know. Besides, he’s your brother right? He was helping you out by killing people for you? I thought you’d forgive me for telling him your name. You’re welcome, Starbright.” I don’t even think about it, my knife is just suddenly in my hand and I flick it open and press it to his femoral artery because it’s the closest and the one all guys freak about. “Don’t. You. Ever. Fucking. Call. Me. That.” Jackson swallows, his eyes wide as he slowly nods his head. I press just a little harder for a second and then calmly say, “You’re lucky you’re family and that the Devil is my blood, otherwise I’d kill you. To be clear, you ever rat me or any other member of our family out again and you’ll beg for me to kill you once I’m through with you.” He nods again, a little jerk of his head, and says, “You know, I really do see the family resemblance.”

My family was worth it all.