Duplicity (Victory Lap Book 2) Read online

  Duplicity

  Mercedes Jade

  Cover art designed by Trillian Fire Design. Custom, hand-made jewelry, crafts, and graphic design that includes covers.

  Internal graphics, chapter dividers, etc… custom made by C.A. Farelli Art

  Thank you to every person that has read and reviewed this book in all of its stages. Your feedback was so helpful. I couldn’t have done this without you, the readers!

  This is a work of fiction.

  First edition. Nov 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 Mercedes Jade.

  Written by Mercedes Jade.

  Mom.

  I will ride this teeter-totter with you to balance it so you can let go.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Fallout

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Also by Mercedes Jade

  About the Author

  Prologue

  The Game

  None of them believed Tess.

  Smartest boys in the school. Did she really think she could fool them with that act of a selfish bitch in front of her miscreant father?

  They were players. Had perfected the art of fooling others for the last few months. The deep game they were in demanded a cover she couldn’t rip off with a few desperate guesses.

  Her mistake?

  Thinking they were less likely to come after her because they had only met a week ago. Assuming she wasn’t worth chasing. After she left a love letter in their chat, one last message.

  Hope. A future.

  Tess might be impetuous, but they were gambling men. She was a long-shot they couldn’t let get away. The girl had stolen their hearts.

  She better not run away with what belonged to them.

  Fallout

  Takes place after Tess has left

  Lucifer// Tess didn’t resemble her father in the least.

  War certainly wouldn’t have picked him out of a lineup. Too brutish and none of the empathy that Tess must have learned from her mother. He was a bulldog of a man, ready to bite into anyone and determined not to release his jaws, even if it crushed the daughter he had kicked to the curb a few years ago.

  She possessed a bone he wanted. Her father would chew her up and swallow everything that was kind and sweet, leaving the Tess they were growing to love an empty husk.

  Men that used women like commodities weren’t worth a dime themselves.

  War was going to break him.

  He was built to tear men down, more than capable of any tackle. He’d been taught the simplicity of a ruthless takeover from his own father’s brutal business attitude. Battle was in his blood. Winning the only option. Surrender was never a Scotsman’s way.

  Murder was a strange thing to contemplate as he sized up his potential father-in-law. Usually, it was supposed to be the other way around. Boyish proposals met with a father’s withering judgement.

  If War ever had to shake that man’s hand, he’d meet him with a bone-crushing challenge, yanking him in and give his only warning.

  Tess was theirs now. They wouldn’t let anyone harm her, even her family.

  She wouldn’t like it. She didn’t know War well enough yet. She didn’t know the boys she had so trustingly let into her house and her heart. Although she might act tough and she had shown surprising strength, she was vulnerable.

  They were hard enough to take advantage of it when her safety was at risk.

  Bastion would be best to manage her protests. He’d give her orders to keep her from straying into the dark business deal War would negotiate to handle Greg. The twins could be a good distraction. Kade more than capable of making Tess behave if she thought to slip Bastion’s reach and Keir able to soften the blow to her pride.

  War had already begun to plan their dirty play. He’d buy the playing board and set up the rules to get whatever he couldn’t outright purchase. An assassin was rarely needed for a business strategy, but it never hurt to have a backup man in place, ready to pull the trigger.

  It would make telling Greg that he was a dead man, if he laid hands on Tess again, the black promise War intended.

  Was chasing her father from town even an option?

  It seemed too soft. Bastion said the man already had broken the restraining order against him to be near Tess.

  A crooked cop that had broken the rules too readily would never be confined by them, or the ethical boundaries, that kept the rest of them from descending into beasts that tore out each other’s throats.

  Quick and clean; his choice, but not a preference.

  War would rather feel his hands tighten around Greg’s throat, squeezing until his eyes popped with the same fear that had flickered in Tess’s sweet, brown gaze as Keir announced the demon that had darkened her doorstep.

  Fuck that.

  He would use his fists, pummelling Greg for every lie he had made Tess speak. A broken finger for each time he had pointed his gun at her, so he could never threaten to shoot her mercilessly again.

  If he was still breathing, War would kick his ribs in for the hell of it, the pure suffering of each drawn-out breath he was allowed to take after making Tess bleed in front of them all. And when it was over, War would reach into that man’s chest and pull out his blackened soul.

  Tess called him Lucifer and the damned were his to punish.

  Trouble// Tess was quick witted.

  No wonder their dad agreed to a girl tutoring his sons when he usually encouraged them to act like unattainable bachelors around the ladies. They were allowed to flirt with girls their age, but nothing was to go further than a few unimportant dates.

  The twins had their futures ahead of them and they’d better balance the straight and narrow path their father laid out with his exacting standards to be met.

  The best schools demanded perfection. Law had been where their father had pushed Kade until he blemished his sterling record. Medicine was still a possibility. Keir would be expected to take up his father’s law profession instead.

  Second choice, but young enough to still mold.

  No more playing around. As if merriment was a crime.

  Keir had been prosecuted even though Kade had dated first and flirted harder. Before. Keir always felt uneasy seducing girls that his father belittled as empty-headed. A waste of time that was better spent studying. He didn’t like to discard hearts he had tempted, to break promises the next morning when girls thought one night led further.

  Nothing too serious. The joke was on Keir.

  He poked at the frowns surrounding him, kept others from getting too close with the stick of his humour.

  His brother needed the distraction. Kade had lost so much in one blacked-out night.

  Keir obliged, acting as the foolish sidekick. Their father could lament over Keir’s antics instead of Kade’s descent into darkness.

  Keir would make them all laugh until it hurt. It was as close to delivering Kade a slap back into reality as Keir could dare.

  Pay attention!

  Kade had never been drunk before that night. Each day after was the blackest joke as Kade’s reputation mired into gossip, base
d on muddy lies. Everyone had it wrong.

  Kade let them, knowing their enemies were close. War shored the trenches even as Bastion trained Kade to be their thuggish soldier. The truth was a war prize.

  Then Tess ran right into the middle of it: a minefield where none of them knew when the next bomb would go off.

  Her father was a combatant they hadn’t anticipated. Tess had known, her intuition and enough puzzle pieces provided by them allowed for her to sort out the game afoot. She called them out, bluffing her way through the hand fate had dealt her.

  She thought she’d swindled Keir with her con. It would have been cute if it hadn’t also been dangerous.

  Tess was so damn witty that Keir stopped laughing. She was worth getting serious about, worth fighting their father’s restrictions in order to chase after her when she ran.

  She hadn’t shied from Bastion’s dark dominance or War’s rough possessiveness. Kade might have held back from his own heated desires, but he had told Keir everything he’d wanted.

  They’d talked, when his twin had locked a part of himself away since that day. If Tess was the key to getting Kade to open up, Keir wasn’t about to lose her.

  Perhaps they had been too careful.

  Tess wasn’t a simple, sweet conquest. Her upbringing was rocky, challenges turned into a sharpening stone to bring out the edges of her soul. A girl like Tess hungered for spice and heat instead of bland, syrupy romance.

  A harder seduction provided friction to rub those sharp edges.

  When they got Tess between them, Keir would see if she still felt like acting cute.

  Did she think she could handle them like the boys she had called them in front of her father?

  Keir was eager to show her the naivety of her sweet lies. That tempting ass was going to get the spanking Bastion had playfully threatened.

  Spank.

  Spank.

  Spank.

  Tess called him Trouble and she was worth playing all his naughty tricks to win.

  Bluebell// Tess was a fighter.

  She didn’t need to knock her enemies down with her fists, or break someone’s nose to keep it out of her business. Her spirit was unbreakable. She was the type to hold a person as long as it took for them to calm their rage.

  A silly little hugger that wouldn’t last a minute in the ring with him.

  Except she’d knocked Kade out with one white lie.

  He should have known better than to let his guard down around her after he saw the risks she took in the hospital the day they met. Reckless fighters took a lot of damage to themselves before the bell rang.

  Tess didn’t care how many bruises she received as long as her mother, brother, and sister were safe. She’d even taken a bottle to the head from bullies and shook it off because it meant one less blow for Kade.

  He’d absorbed hits that would break her bones since that night when everything had changed for him and Kier.

  Their mother raised them to protect the defenceless. Chivalry was a code that she’d taught them from the time they learned how to tie their own shoelaces to getting the perfect Windsor knot.

  Boys didn’t hit girls. Gentlemen didn’t kick someone when they were down.

  Even their father was only a savage in court, albeit a well-mannered one. He’d cut his opponents to pieces, flaying their stories apart to reveal all the dirt he found on their spotless reputations.

  Dad always knew what you were hiding and how to rip it out of your soul. Their father was relentless, frighteningly powerful in his authority and how he chose to wield it.

  Kade could take any blow but the ones intended for his brother. His father never let him interfere.

  Keir had been getting the humour and his joy for life beaten out of him each day since their mother died. Tess had done what Kade was unable to, even with all of his training from Bastion to keep him standing at the end of a dirty, street-boxing match.

  Tess had brought Keir back to life. His brother was head-over-heels for their sweet girl. She was all Keir talked about when they hid downstairs, listening to their father’s footsteps leaving at all hours.

  Think she’d like strawberry pie?

  Mom made the best tarts. I bet we could find the recipe if we searched upstairs after Dad’s asleep.

  I bought so many strawberries that we could make the farm jealous. Won’t let War get all the pleasure of feeding her.

  That sound she makes—and she closes her eyes, licks those juicy berries before biting. If we weren’t at school, I would ask her to do that strawberry licking thing and keep her eyes closed while I finger her sweet lips.

  Think she would tongue first or suck the whole digit into that hot mouth? Or would she nip?

  I’d bite her back, right on her plump, lower lip.

  She likes playing with your piercing when you guys kiss. Maybe she enjoys a little bite with her pleasure.

  Keir had talked to Kade more about Tess than about anything else for months. And Kade had talked back. He told his brother everything he was afraid to tell Tess. How fragile his control was around her, the losing battle he was fighting to keep his desires in check.

  Damn Keir tempted him to drop the kid gloves.

  His brother saw underneath Tess’s nice demeanour to the tough minx they wanted to bring to the surface. Keir offered to box her between them until they got Tess to admit she needed more than the boring college boyfriend she’d left behind.

  Kade regretted holding back, playing it safe with Tess.

  Did she think he was too weak to protect her?

  His rebel side might look like rich-punk, but the starving asshole inside him had been hungry to get out from under his father’s rigid control for years. He needed to feel. All of Kade’s primitive emotions were barely tethered.

  Seeing Tess subjected to her own father’s mad-dog bite broke the last chain holding him back.

  Kade could tear Greg apart with his bare hands.

  He didn’t care anymore if he scared Tess. Bastion had been right. Tess would keep up if they pushed her harder.

  If Kade revealed his real self.

  Some flowers grew sharp thorns under their perfect petals. Touching meant risking the prick and sting of being hurt.

  Tess called him Bluebell and he’d pull up the weeds choking her rose from the sun.

  Bossy// Tess had played Bastion.

  It had taken courage to turn around on their budding relationship and declare them fools for falling for her charms. Tess used harsh words. She ground their noses in the filth of her father’s black deeds, like they were naive schoolboys with no idea of the lawless way Jensen’s gang ruled his turf.

  Would it shock Tess if she knew Bastion had been born in the slums?

  His mom a druggie, turning tricks to keep food in his belly so that she could cash her blackmail ticket one day.

  Only, Mom hadn’t counted on the dangerous slums taking her life before the check cleared.

  Bastion was traded the day his mom passed. He’d come back to the slums later, learning to fight to protect what was his without relying on the money his father thought would keep his crooked kingdom safe.

  Money was something else to lose.

  Bastion had no fortune to rule him. No damn rules.

  He only let his father think the money mattered. Prince Charming was going to steal the castle blind. His happily ever after was ensuring his father and step-mother never had theirs fulfilled.

  All those years of having everything–stolen in a moment. No heir, no fortune to pass on. A child that spurned second chances as regrets.

  Tess was the story twist Bastion hadn’t seen coming.

  An ex-cop for a daddy?

  The long con kept Bastion from being friendly with the law, not until he finished his job. At least, Greg didn’t collect a police paycheque any longer. He was Jensen’s man now.

  A new and suddenly important piece of the criminal organization for Bastion and his friends to investigate.

  Ka
de would have his own vengeance. Bastion promised his friend, swore it over the body of another misunderstood and judged mother. The twins’ mom died because money meant more than her life to someone. They had trained and planned so that Kade could slip into the very criminal organization responsible for his mother’s death.

  And Tess had guessed.

  She was so damned smart, too smart for her own good.

  Bastion no longer had the luxury of playing the long game. He now had something to lose. A sweet girlfriend that looked at his scarred shoulder and saw there was new life underneath the tattoo.

  His heart could be reborn, a phoenix risen from the ashes of his past. Tess hadn’t flinched at the hint of his bastard origins.

  She was owed his loyalty, even if she had spat in his face to save him.

  To shield him.

  Their good girl had acted bad enough to need a reminder of Bastion’s brand of strong, protective dominance.

  Tess never should have let him in if she was planning to run. He’d had a taste of her surrender. The dark alpha in him was already hooked.

  All of them were unable to imagine a life without her sharing it with them.

  Knowing who else was after what was theirs, they wouldn’t leave her scared and alone.

  War had the unrestricted fortune and fortitude to get to the rest of Tess’s secrets, whether buying or beating them from their sources. Once Tess was located, Keir and Kade could tempt her out of hiding: candy twins to sweetly bait the trap.