Not A Peep: A Forbidden, Bully, Dark College Romance, page 1
Not A Peep
MT Addams
Wet Ink Publishing House, LLC.
To the readers who like to read one-handed
Content Notes
This story contains themes that can be considered uncomfortable or downright harmful to some readers. Themes that are included but are not limited to are: domestic violence (of a non-main character), blackmail, sexual assault, physical assault, non consensual and dubious consensual situations, stalking, murder, bullying, painful edging, forced orgasms, humiliation, degradation, and conversations of cancer (of a side character).
Everyone in this story is over the age of 18.
Reader discretion is advised.
Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
‘Sup Readers?
Books By MT Addams
Prologue
My heart races as my car barrels down the dirt street. Most of the trailers I pass have their lights off for the night. No one notices as I fly by, going well over the legal speed limit to make it to my friend’s house in time. In the cupholder, my phone lights up with frantic text messages from my best friend.
I’m coming, Pianna!
Her screams of terror over the phone earlier, haunt me. The venom in her boyfriend’s voice as he promised from somewhere in the background, that she’d never see sunlight again, had caused a stone to drop in my chest. Joey has always been a loose cannon but tonight, something changed. I don’t know if it’s alcohol or drugs driving this behavior, but I know from past phone calls from Pianna, he’s capable of anything.
Yet she’s stuck with him each and every time he’s messed up.
I mean, I can see the initial appeal. Joey Perez is a relatively attractive guy. The tattoos, piercings, and bad boy look have always been my thing. But personality is important for me too. The guys I end up with usually lack any, and no matter how much I want it to work out, I end up calling it quits when it’s clear they only want one thing from me.
There’s no way in hell I’d ever tolerate anything that Joey has ever done. But Pianna has a thing for broken guys, so of course, she gravitated toward this one.
And now look where her bad choices have led her.
My foot presses on the gas as the last trailer comes into sight. The headlights of my car cast light onto the dark trailer. I hit the brakes. My car fishtails, skids a few feet, then comes to an abrupt halt. Quickly, I turn it off and scramble out into the night. My feet hardly touch the ground as I run. Without hesitation, I jump up the three steps and fling open the front door.
“—bitch! You took it back to them? Do you understand that you just signed my death warrant?”
Joey’s roar of anger weaves through the house. The sound of shattering glass follows.
I follow his voice to the master bedroom. Flinging open the partially cracked door, I find Pianna on the floor, bleeding from her temple, and blood staining the carpet. She’s laying on her side, barely moving, while Joey towers over her. Her sobs are cut off as she looks up and Joey turns around to face me. His face is ruddy, covered in sweat, and veins bulge from his temple.
“You!”
A cold, half smile pulls at my mouth as I hold his gaze. “That’s right, it’s me.”
I know this house almost as well as I know the foster one I grew up in several miles down the road. I’m here more often than not, so when I reach for the baseball bat leaning against the dresser beside me without even looking, the motion comes naturally.
“Get the fuck out of here you stupid bitch!” Joey snaps, turning all the way around to face me.
I can tell by the glaze in his dark black eyes that he’s high as hell.
“Get away from Pianna, now!”
Joey bares his teeth at me as he snarls. “Mind your business or you’ll be next, do you hear me?”
“I’m giving you one more chance, Joey. Move!”
“Briella,” Pianna whimpers as she sits up slowly.
At the sound of my name, Joey looks over his shoulder and kicks his foot back. The heel of his foot strikes Pianna in the middle of her face. Anger rages through me and helps add some much needed strength to the swing of my attack. Joey turns around too late. The crack of the wooden bat against his jaw sounds like I’ve hit a home run. Joey goes flying sideways before crashing into the bed and slumping over. My breath catches in my throat. Oh god, did I just…?
When he groans, I let out a heavy sigh of relief. Keeping hold of the bat, I race over to Pianna and kneel down beside her.
“Pia? Can you get up?”
“Y-yeah, I-I can get up,” she gasps as tears slide down her face.
I want to break down with her. Having been my best friend since I was seven, Pianna and I have been through everything together. She’d been there when potential adoption opportunities had arisen only to pass me by. Pianna was always there for me when my foster father occasionally got drunk and took his anger out on me rather than my foster mother. She was even there when I’d lost my virginity to the high school quarterback who’d left me on the side of the road once we were done fooling around. She’d stolen her mother’s car, picked me up, and together, we cried about the loss of my innocence. She’s my ride or die and I’m hers.
Seeing her in pain has my heart breaking and my vision turning red. No one touches my Pianna. Ever.
On the bed, Joey groans and starts to move.
“Shit, come on, he’s getting up!” I drop the baseball bat to grab one of Pianna’s arms and fling it over my shoulder. She leans heavily on me when she gets to her feet, and as best I can, I shuffle us out of the room and then out of the trailer.
“Get back here, you bitches!” Joey’s voice, though weak, is full of wrath.
My heart races. I’ve never hit anyone before, but it just came so naturally in the moment. Joey just has a hittable face. But I don’t know if I have it in me to strike him again. I also left the bat inside. Trying to find something out here in the dark to protect us with will be impossible. We just need to get to the car.
I practically drag Pianna over to my vehicle. I help her into the passenger seat quickly, click on her seat belt, and slam the door shut. As I race around to the driver’s side, Joey throws open the front door and comes barreling toward us. He stumbles at the top step and falls down the other two. Dust kicks up around him as his body hits the ground.
“You bring back my girl right now! I’ll fucking kill you, do you hear me? Pianna! Get back here!” he yells as he scrambles to his feet.
I ignore him as I yank open the driver’s door and climb in. I fumble with my keys as Joey runs toward us.
“Bri, he’s coming! He’s coming!” Pianna shouts.
She reaches in front of me and locks the door just as I get the key in the ignition. My car roars to life. Rather than back up, I peel forward and make a large circle in the dirt driveway. As my car comes around and faces the street, Joey stumbles into the way a few feet ahead of us. I rev my engine as a warning. Joey doesn’t move except to pull something out of his waistband and point it toward us.
“Oh my god,” Pianna gasps, her hands covering her mouth. “He has a gun!”
Before I can react, the sound of the weapon going off booms through the night. The first bullet hits the hood of my car. The second bullet hits the grill. My heart leaps up into my throat as terror causes my body to freeze up.
“Go, Bri, go!”
The gun goes off again. My left side mirror is blown clean off the car. We both scream as Joey swears before stumbling toward us. Without thinking, I hit the gas. My tires spin and the back of the car whips side to side. Then we’re jerked forward, going zero to sixty faster than I ever thought possible.
I make eye contact with Joey just before my car strikes him. He disappears, almost like he was never there. The grotesque thump, crunch, and bounce of my car rattles my bones and soul, the moment imprinting on the very fiber of my being until I know I’ll never forget it.
My foot hits the brake. The car skids to a stop a few yards away from where I started.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” Pianna squeals in horror.
I stare straight ahead, my fingers wrapped tight around the steering wheel.
“Is he dead? Bri, is he dead? He has to be dead, right?”
“Stop saying that! He can’t be dead.” My eyes flicker to the rearview mirror but I can’t see anything except for floating dust in the dim red light of my brakes.
“N-no, I felt him being crushed.
I gasp, trying to stop my head from spinning and my heart from slamming so hard against my rib cage.
“What? No! We can’t just leave him,” My breathing comes in gasps as I try to figure what to do. “W-we need to call the ambulance or something!”
“No! We can’t do that! The EMTs will report this to the police.” Pianna whips her head back and forth. “Joey said that some of Cassy’s guys are the police. That’s how the Firebirds own Cohawk. It’s why the gang gets away with anything and everything! And if Cassy finds out we killed Joey, a.k.a. one of his guys, he’ll come after us with everything he has. They don’t take lightly to this type of thing. We can’t call for help, Bri!”
“No, you’re wrong. There has to be someone on the police force we could trust.” My body is trembling so hard that everything seems to vibrate around me. “Someone can help us.”
“Get your head out of one of your books, Bri. There’s not going to be a knight in shining armor coming to save us now. We have to save ourselves!”
A loud bark of hysterical laughter slips past my lips. One of my books? God, if only this was one of my books. Then maybe there would be a happy outcome. Now? It looks like we’re about to do some jail time.
“T-then what do we do? This is your house, Pianna. We can’t just leave his body here!”
Pianna wipes a shaky hand down her face. “We can take him back to his place?” The suggestion comes out more as a question but then her body stiffens as her determination solidifies. “Yeah, we take him back to his place and leave him there to rot.”
I stare at her in horror.
“Don’t look at me like that, Bri! He was going to kill us. This is all his fault!” Pianna snaps, wiping away the trickle of blood running from her nose. “I was trying to help him. He stole so much coke from Vincent’s gang, I thought that if I could return it, hell wouldn’t come raining down on him, and subsequently me. It would’ve started an all-out turf war between the Firebirds and the Brown Scales if I didn’t take that shit back.”
My mouth opens but only a squeak manages to make it out. Pianna groans as her fingers dig into her hair.
“This is so bad, Bri. Like, really bad. We need to come up with a story or something.”
How about the real story where your boyfriend was beating the shit out of you and then tried to stop you from leaving but ended up accidentally getting hit by your best friend’s car? I want to scream.
But I know the Firebirds. Most people in Cohawk, New Mexico know of their violent tendencies and drug dealing. I don’t think any of them have a reasonable bone in their body.
“Oh, god, they’re going to kill me!”
I’m hearing Pianna, but I’m not really here in the car. It’s like I’m looking in through the windows, watching us talk. The moment is so surreal that this has to be a nightmare. I should be calling the police. They would see the blood in Pianna’s room and the bruises on her body, the marks on her face. Then there are the bullet holes in my car. There’s no disputing that this was an accident. But I hit Joey with my car. I guess I could’ve gone around, but I didn’t. It would look like I did this on purpose. Isn’t that manslaughter? Would I do time? Maybe I’d go to jail, or if Pianna is right and Cassy, Joey’s gang leader, really did have his hands in some of the pockets of the police, we could end up dead next.
My stomach roils uncomfortably and I’m starting to feel dizzy.
“Bri, are you listening?” Pianna shakes my shoulder, bringing me back into the moment.
Gulping dramatically, I nod. “Yeah, I’m listening. Ok, well, why don’t we just go see if he’s, um, actually dead?”
Pianna nods and together, we both scramble out of the car. I stumble toward the back, dreading every step. When Joey’s limp body comes into view, my knees nearly give out. Pianna squeaks, freezing a few feet away, staring down at her boyfriend. Blood drips from his ears and his arm is twisted up behind him unnaturally.
“I-is he breathing?” I ask breathlessly.
Pianna looks from Joey, to me, and then back to the man on the ground. “I can’t tell.”
I guess it doesn’t matter. Given his state, if he is breathing, it won’t be for long. “Are you sure you want to, um, dump him off at his place?”
Pianna doesn’t answer right away. I look up at her face and see the resolve wavering. I jump on it.
“Look, we can figure out an alibi and lay low at my place until—”
“Lay low? No, Bri. Everyone in the Firebirds knows I’m with Joey. The Firebirds are going to wonder where Joey went when he doesn’t show up, and they’ll come to me first, looking for answers.”
“Are you sure they know about you? Maybe if it was a passing glance, they would’ve forgotten your face or—”
“I’ve hung out with Joey with the rest of the Firebirds. Not only that, but I’ve even helped smuggle some drugs for them a time or two.”
I didn’t think I could be more shocked, but at her confession, I’m taken to a whole new level.
“Pianna!”
“Oh c’mon, Bri. You got comfortable in your real estate gig, despite finishing your Master’s years ago, and I don’t blame you. You’re making good money. But you could do this anywhere. Hell, you could go be the librarian you’ve always wanted to be now that you have the education for it. But me? I’ve been stuck at dead end jobs forever. I needed the extra cash!”
“But drug smuggling?”
“I know, I know. But I was in love, and Joey can be persistent, and the money looked good,” Pianna whines. She throws her hands up in frustration and looks around. “I-I think I need to run, Bri.”
“Run?”
She nods. “Yeah, like get out of town. Avoid the police and Firebirds altogether.”
She wants to leave Cohawk? But—
“But… but this could be a good thing,” she adds quickly, her face brightening as a plan begins to form. “Joey would’ve never let me leave Cohawk, but that’s been our dream for a while, right? It has been since we were little. The police can find Joey’s body in his trailer. We could make it look like a drug deal gone wrong. He’s already bloodied and looks beat to shit. While they close his case, we get the hell out of Cohawk, and start fresh. This is our chance at a new beginning, Bri.”
I lick my dry lips, but the motion is unsatisfying since my tongue is dry too. My doubt must be written all over my face because Pianna pushes on.
“Come on, Bri. You know if I leave, the Firebirds are going to come snooping around your place to ask questions. You can’t stay either. You’re a shit liar.”
“Pianna, you’re crazy, you know that?” I can barely keep up with her train of thought. But as her words start to sink in, they’re actually starting to make sense. That, or maybe I’m just starting to crack and go crazy too.
“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. But you know running sounds a whole lot better than dealing with the Firebirds or the police.”
I swallow hard. “There’s no one else that will wonder what happened to him?”
There’s a short pause as Pianna thinks about it. As she thinks, I roll my shoulders, trying to ease the crushing weight that’s being applied to them. After a moment, Pia shakes her head.
“No. He has an older brother, but they’re estranged, and I think he’s in the military. He won’t care what happens to Joey.”
Ok, well, all we have to worry about are the police and a violent gang. Good, good… I’m nodding to myself as if this makes everything less horrific.
“Wouldn’t that look suspicious if we both up and leave tonight? And what about my car?”
