JAMISON (The Beckett Boys, Book Four), page 1
JAMISON
The Beckett Boys, Book Four
Olivia Chase
Favor Ford Publishing
Contents
NOTE
Want To Be In The Know?
JAMISON (The Beckett Boys, Book Four) by Olivia Chase
1. Jamison
2. Claire
3. Jamison
4. Jamison
5. Claire
6. Jamison
7. Claire
8. Jamison
9. Claire
10. Jamison
11. Claire
12. Jamison
13. Claire
Epilogue
The Debt (Books 1-6) by Kelly Favor
The Debt 1
The Debt 2
The Debt 3
The Debt 4
The Debt 5
The Debt 6
Copyright © 2016 by Favor Ford Publishing
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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NOTE
This edition of JAMISON (The Beckett Boys, Book Four) contains the following bonus content: The Debt (Books 1-6), by Kelly Favor.
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JAMISON (The Beckett Boys, Book Four) by Olivia Chase
Jamison
“This isn’t your bar. This place belongs to us now.” My words, claiming ownership of Outlaws—the bar my uncle started and his sons took over after his death—fall like a bomb in the room.
Maintaining my casual stance, I stare at my three cousins who stare back at me in shocked silence. Guess my little revelation isn’t going over too well.
But Outlaws is ours.
And it’s time to collect.
“The fuck you say?” Jax finally says, his brows furrowed. “Outlaws is our bar. You have no claim to it.”
My brother Hale is on my left, and I can see he’s itching for a fight. In true fighter stance, he’s bobbing on the pads of his feet, ready to start throwing punches. I shoot him a glare, and he settles down slightly but remains in defensive position.
Yeah, we’ll fight if we need to, but right now I want to remain calm. See if we can take the bar without it turning into a clusterfuck.
I turn my attention back to our cousins. I dig into my pocket and grab the folded document I tucked in there earlier, walking toward Smith. He’s the eldest of their brothers, and I’m the eldest of mine. I’ll talk to him, try to reason with him. “Here’s the proof,” I say simply.
Smith eyes me warily and uncrosses his meaty tattooed arms when I’m a couple of feet in front of him. I hand him the copy of the contract, the one our fathers both signed. The one that shows that my father, Butch, loaned their father the money to start Outlaws. Fifteen thousand dollars. Fifteen thousand dollars that was never paid back. Fifteen thousand dollars that means the bar now belongs to us.
Smith scans the words on the page, then motions to the girls standing behind the bar – their respective women -- to leave.
Once they’ve gone, Smith’s lips thin. “Dad would have told us if he’d borrowed money from Butch to start Outlaws.” He presses the paper back to my chest, using a little too much pressure in an effort to intimidate me.
“Our dad wouldn’t have taken a red cent from your dad,” Asher adds. He’s muscular from playing football, but I could take him if I had to. “Everyone knows they didn’t get along for shit.”
Molten anger swells in my veins. I suspected they’d try this, saying it isn’t real, but I’m still pissed about it. “Doesn’t matter if you believe it or not. Your father took a fifteen-thousand-dollar loan from my dad, and he never paid it back. The bar was never yours to begin with, Smith, no matter what bullshit your dad wrote in his will. It should have gone right to my dad when your dad died.” I push the contract back at him. “You can keep that one,” I say magnanimously. “I have copies.”
He takes the paper, crumples it in a ball, and tosses it behind the bar, using an exaggerated jump shot to land it in a bucket of ice. But then his face turns hard as he stares at me, a muscle in his jaw jumping. “Let’s be real, asshole. Despite my past efforts to give you guys a chance and mend fences between us, you’re just criminals and thugs who will do anything for a quick buck. God only knows how many signatures your family has forged in the past so you could try to swindle people.”
The anger in me turns my blood to ice, and I stiffen, along with my brothers.
The twins, Hale and Hudson, step forward, their faces murderous. My two other brothers, Zack and Axel, are inching toward our cousins as well.
In response, Smith, Jax, and Asher step toward us, too.
“We’ll give you until the end of the month to clear out of our bar,” I growl. “Then we’ll take it by force.”
“Fuck you,” Smith spits, anger flaring in his eyes. “This is our place—our dad left it to us. We’re not abandoning it for some scammy piece-of-shit paper you wave at us.” The three brothers move until they’re right in our faces.
I suppose they’re rough and tough in comparison to “normal” folk in Rock Bridge. But they haven’t spent ten minutes in the hard neighborhood where my brothers and I grew up. Compared to us, they’re out of their league. But if they’re itching for a fight, we’ll sure as fuck bring it to them. Adrenaline is surging through me hot and heavy how.
“Last warning,” Jax breathes, nostrils flaring. His fists are clenched by his sides. “Get the fuck out of our bar.”
In response, Hale pulls his arm back and lets a punch fly at his jaw. Jax’s head rocks backward as the punch connects, and then he growls and lunges at Hale.
And all hell breaks loose.
Punches and kicks are being thrown everywhere as the five of us take the three of them on. I hear smacking when a chair goes flying against a table. Then the sound of wood splintering—Hale has a chair leg in hand and he swings it toward Asher’s back.
I duck a punch by Smith and lob a blow to his kidney, and he sucks in a sharp breath as his body bows from my punch.
Then he clocks me on the jaw.
My head jerks to the side from the blow, and pain explodes across my jaw and face. Fuck. I blink and stagger back, then straighten and give him a one-two punch that makes his head snap.
I’m getting jostled on all sides, hit with errant elbows and body checks; soon the room is a flurry of raw chaos. Asher and Hale go flying, interlocked, toward a table, which collapses under their weight. But they don’t stop hitting each other.
A searing pain stabs me in the left shoulder out of nowhere, and I groan and struggle to stay upright from the shock. Fuck—what the fuck just hit me there? It hurts like a bitch, and I can’t move my left arm very high anymore. I spin around to find the culprit, but all I see are my brothers and cousins still slugging it out.
Then the sharp wail of sirens just outside the bar’s doors hits, and the doors fly open. We all stop in place and go silent.
“Whoa!” a police officer says as she comes in. She has a hand on her piece at her side, and is followed by another officer, a middle-aged man with a ruddy face. “What’s going on here? We got a call about an altercation.” She eyes the room, taking in the mess—furniture lying everywhere, faces bruised, clothing ripped. “Okay, boys. Start talking.”
We all remain silent.
First rule about dealing with the cops—you don’t fucking rat out your family, even if they’re the ones you’re fighting. Doesn’t matter what we’re fighting about. No getting the police involved.
We Becketts settle matters in our own way.
Our two respective clans congregate into separate groups. I wipe sweat off my brow and watch as Jax rubs the bottom of his shirt over his bloody lip.
“Nothing going on here,” Smith finally says, giving an easy smile. “Just a friendly game of touch football. Sometimes we’re a little too competitive.”
The officer narrows her eyes. “Touch football? Inside?”
“Are we being detained on any charges, or are we free to go?” my brother Hudson asks smoothly.
The male officer mumbles something about Rock Bridge punks, but even he knows they have nothing if we don’t talk.
My left shoulder is throbbing like a bitch now, and I try to ignore the streaking pains down my arm. It feels like my skin was carved open. Still, no way in hell I’m going to admit to them that we were fighting.
The officer huffs a sharp exhale out her nose, keeping her hand on her gun. Her silence stretches out as she glares at each of us in turn. “If we get another complaint about this place, we won’t be leaving so easily,” she says, then turns and walks out of the bar.
“This isn’t over,” I say to Smith.
“You got me shaking in my fucking boots tough guy,” he shoots back, smirking like the dick he is.
“Come on.” I motion to my brothers to follow me outside.
It takes all my energy to keep my back straight as I head outside. My brothers grumble, but one by one they exit the bar, as well.
There’s an ambulance pulling up to the curb – the police must have called it on the way, anticip
“I’m fine,” I protest, even as the screaming pain in my shoulder increases. Fuck, I can feel blood oozing down my arm.
“You need stitches,” the EMT says. “Gonna have to take you in.”
“Fuck that.”
“I don’t think we can fix that at home,” Hudson whispers.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Fine. Go straight home,” I tell the boys. “We’ll regroup and figure out what to do later on.”
The EMT is donning gloves and poking around the ragged flesh of my shoulder. “We need to get this shirt off.”
I sigh and try to wiggle my way out of the ripped fabric. It takes effort and I have to bite my lip, but I manage to strip and toss it to the ground.
Fucking hell.
Of all the ways I expected today to go, this wasn’t it.
Claire
Dear Michael Jones, I type. The Law Office of George Wheeling, Esq is contacting you because of your recent automobile accident on May 9.
You may remember that we visited you in the hospital on May 10, and as we mentioned during that visit, we’d like to schedule a complimentary follow-up appointment to aid you in your lawsuit.
Given our discussion, we firmly believe you have a solid case against the person who caused the accident—and we’re just the ones to assist you. With more than a dozen years of experience, George Wheeling will get you what you’re due, or you don’t pay a dime.
I pause my typing, reaching for my can of Dr. Pepper and taking a big chug. It’s Saturday. I wish this was wine. I wish I was home right now eating leftover lasagna and then finishing up the carton of rocky road ice cream sitting in my freezer. But work beckons, and George doesn’t take a rest from chasing down new clients, even on the weekend.
Which means as his assistant, I don’t take a rest, either.
“Claire!” George barks from his office. “Do you have the scanner turned on? I don’t hear it…”
I bite back a groan and turn my attention back to the police scanner. George wanted me to get an app for my phone so I could listen to the police scanner at home, too, but I pretended I didn’t know how to install it. That excuse has sufficed so far, thank God, since George has no idea how apps work. “Yeah, I am,” I yell back. I had the sound turned down so I could concentrate on finishing my letters out to potential clients, so I crank it back up with a smothered groan.
The scanner crackles in the background with various voices discussing local minor issues, like storage room break-ins, a stolen bike, etc. I listen with half an ear as I wrap up typing up the letter, then sign it on behalf of George. I have his signature down pat.
One letter down, seven more to go. Sigh.
When I got this job with George, who was seeking an assistant for his “booming law firm,” according to the ad in the local paper, I didn’t quite expect it to be like this. I thought I’d be helping him with case research, maybe even some trial assists. Instead, I found out rather quickly that George is a one-man show, and his show is to listen to the scanner for accidents…and then send me to the site of the accident or the hospital in the effort to garner new clients before any other attorney can.
George Wheeling is the very definition of “ambulance chaser.” If you looked up the term in the dictionary, you’d see his face next to it.
But since I haven’t yet earned my law degree, I can’t really complain too much. At least I have a job in the field…though not exactly an ideal job.
The scanner crackles and I sigh again. I’ve been doing that a lot lately.
Hang in there, I tell myself. My last online class is almost over. Then I’ll take the bar exam. And once that’s finished, I’ll get my ass out of Rock Bridge, Michigan and to The Big Apple, where I belong.
New York City…away from this ridiculous small town, away from my dysfunctional parents…away from everything.
A fresh start.
It’s the only thing that keeps me going some days, knowing I’m going to soon be able to follow my dream. Yes, I want to work defending injured clients, getting them what’s rightfully due to them. But not like this. Not skeevy, sketchy, desperate, pushing George’s business card into any shaky hand that will take it.
George doesn’t care how he gets his clients or how many barrel bottoms he has to scrape to find them.
But until I work somewhere else and, eventually, start my own law firm, I have to shut up for now and do what my boss wants me to.
“Fucking A, did you hear that on the scanner, Claire?” George asks me, stepping out of his office. Today’s wardrobe is just as cringe-worthy as usual—he has on his “power” green-striped pants, paired with a shirt the color of green baby puke and a red tie. He looks like a demented Christmas elf, especially with his notoriously curly black hair springing out everywhere and his thick black mustache overwhelming his face.
“Hear what?” I ask him, trying not to stare too hard at his outfit. That way lies madness.
George practically bounces, his eyes wide with glee. “There’s been an altercation at Outlaws.”
I roll my eyes. “So basically, it’s a day ending in Y?”
Outlaws has a solid reputation for being a rough bar where all the bad boys and girls go. Granted, it seems like it’s started to clean up its image in the past few months. But a fight there isn’t exactly unexpected.
I’ve only been to Outlaws once. It was on a dare with one of my good friends, Rebecca. On her twenty-first birthday last year, she wanted to go to the wildest bar in town and get drunk. Stupidly, I agreed to go too and tagged along with her. We made it about fifteen minutes before a massive brawl among bikers broke out behind us and we snuck out the door, afraid we were gonna get punched.
I haven’t been back since.
George rolls his eyes at me and steps closer. “This one’s different. It’s a fight among the family members—apparently, like, over half a dozen Becketts got in a fist fight. With a fight that big, I bet one of them needs a visit to the hospital…and maybe obtain some legal advice. Anyway, I want you to go to the bar and find out what’s happening, see if maybe there’s a potential client in there for us.”
Ugh. That whole family is a mess. I know about the Becketts. Everyone in town does. They’re a wild clan with a notorious reputation for trouble. I went to high school with a couple of them and made sure to keep my distance. My parents drilled in me the importance of positive associations even at that age.
“Are you sure it’s worth the effort?” I ask. “There will probably be no money in it.” Not to mention I really don’t want to go to that bar and deal with any of them.
His eyes get a greedy gleam. “Oh, there’s always money to be found, Claire. You just gotta be clever about it. Bars, as you know, have insurance.” He says this slowly like duh, shouldn’t I remember this from my classes? “And since bars have insurance, bars can be sued in a civil lawsuit. If one of the owners is at fault, we can take them to the cleaners. That’s how we stay in business. What do I always say? ‘We take all cases, the big and the small.’ Every client matters.”
My stomach gives a flip of discomfort. I don’t like George’s methods. I loathe this sort of thing, actually. But until I’m on my own, I’m stuck doing what he wants. I need the experience. Plus the money, to be honest. Living on my own isn’t exactly cheap.
I save the doc I was typing on a thumb drive, then shut down my computer and grab my purse. “Okay, I’ll go there. But I’m taking the rest of the day off, since I’m already well over my overtime for the week. I’ll finish the letters tomorrow morning.”
“Fine, fine, whatever,” he says, waving dismissively at me. He flips through the stack of mail sitting on a table near the entrance of the office. I’m already forgotten.
I head out the door before he can change his mind and decide to go himself—at least I can cut work the rest of the day. I hop in my car and drive toward Outlaws. Soft classical music from a local NPR station plays in the background in my car as I weave down the streets with my windows open, breeze rushing in.
