So yeah, I thought Brielle was the rough, tough, jaded looking one of the two I found myself in front of, not the tiny, tired little thing who can’t even prop against a window without twisting her fucking ankle.

I look to the girl, still sitting in my lap, not fighting me, not wide-eyed and worried, not pissed off and punching. She should be doing one of those things.

She’s not.

She’s calm and cool, and it’s pissing me off.

Maybe she’s not all there?

Right as I think it, her right hand lifts, and I’m pretty fuckin’ convinced I’m right, ‘cause that hand, it doesn’t come down to scratch or hit me.

Nah, the freshly snatched mini thing slips it between the seats in a dumbass move to introduce herself to the getaway man.

“I’m Brielle,” she says.

My boy Mac frowns from her to me, but when she nods her head, he lets out a low sigh.

With tight lips, he brings a hand around to shake hers. “Mac.”

“I knew it. Not Maddoc or Captain. Interesting.”

My eyes snap to hers at the mention of my brothers. “What’s interesting?”

“That you’re here and they aren’t. I thought you guys were like, the Three Musketeers.” She surges.

When my blank expression doesn’t break, she nods back and forth like a broken ass bobblehead, her big-ass glasses and short silk-like hair only adding to it.

“You know,” she leads. “All for one and one for all...”

The girl even adds the little fuckin’ fist raise thing.

Mac chuckles but clears his throat to hide it.

I meet his eyes in the mirror, and it’s clear as damn day he’s amused. It’s also clear what the dick’s about to do next.

He adjusts the mirror so he can see Brielle better.

“So, uh, Brielle,” he asks. “Got a last name?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” She shrugs.

“Not in our world.” He grins.

“Ah, yes, the infamous town with no legal system other than a couple cops on payroll to deflect outsiders. Nothing but the crack of a whip delivered by one of three wild boys.” She looks to me, and yeah, there’s a note of mockery in her smoky tone, but I get the sense she’s teasin’. “Tell me, playboy, is yours leather?”

Mac’s shoulders shake with a laugh he holds in, but I’m stuck trying to figure this chick out.

“So,” she begins as she relaxes back.

Relaxes.

In a car with two fuckin’ strangers who just grabbed her ass up without a word of why.

Her head even falls onto the doorframe as she changes the subject from where I come from to what she’s wondering. “Where we going?”

I glare at her.

Why’s she so chill right now?

“You used to random fucks picking you up and throwing you in a plateless car or somethin’?”

“No.” She scoffs a laugh. “Are you used to traveling ten hours to the house of the little sister of the guy you hired to play mobster for your lives?”

“The fuck?” I jerk back, sliding my body from under hers.

She falls onto the floorboard, but quickly lifts herself onto the seat at my side.

“Your brother’s got a big fuckin’ mouth.”

“Don’t talk about my brother!” she fires back instantly.

“Fuck your brother,” I snap loudly, and her neck stretches slightly. “He’s not allowed—”

“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.