Page 63 of Bells
I’d probably live but I wouldn’t be feeling good about it.
I brushed the dirt off my hands and scanned our surroundings. We were in the middle of the woods, but not the same woods as Briarwood. We were farther north than that. The sun was starting to set over the trees and the animals were preparing to come out of hiding. I could hear them rustling around the bushes and branches.
I looked out towards where Bellatrix was staring at the shadow of a large estate. She didn’t even acknowledge me creeping up behind her.
She jumped when I placed a hand on her lower back and quickly shot a glare at me over a shoulder. She was hot and cold like that. All about me licking her pussy but anything more was crossing personal boundaries.
She stepped forward but that only had my hand skimming over her ass instead. She ignored it and continued to move towards the silhouette breaking through the tree line.
I peered back at the hole we climbed out of, which I now realized was built up to look like an old well, then straight out in front of us again and suddenly recognized where we’d ended up.
I jogged over to Bellatrix as she made a beeline for Prescott Estates. I’d been here a time or two over the years, mostly doing grunt work for the Bossman and his missus—the woman had a decent body count and was shit at hiding it.
Bellatrix didn’t stop walking until the trees disappeared behind us and the old manor towered over us. It was one of those houses that might as well have been a small village with a million doors and windows and a million more secrets on the inside. Rich people always had secrets and skeletons and usually a fewbastard kids attached to their last names. Bossman was one of those kids. He also had more to do with Briarwood than any of us thought.
I glanced towards the woods and cocked a brow, even though no one was looking. Bellatrix was still too focused on the house.
“This is whereIgrew up,” she whispered under her breath, and I couldn’t be sure if I was supposed to hear her.
“Can you get us inside?”
Dr. Adrian Lambert’s wife was out of the country for the next few weeks, which meant he was too. That was just the way it was. Wherever she went, he went along with her. He probably had a bunch of cameras hanging around the property, but he wouldn’t be paying attention to them if he was next to her. So now was as good a time as any to go snooping.
“Why?” Bellatrix turned in my direction, and I could see a haunted look on her face. I knew that look. People got it when they were stuck in the past or at the very least visiting for a brief period.
“I wanna know what they have to do with Briarwood,” I answered her honestly.
“Who?”
“The Prescotts.” I jutted my chin towards the estate. “You don’t have secret tunnels on your property for no reason.”
“What does it matter? They’re all dead.”
“Not all of them,” I reminded her.
“Adrian?” she asked.
I nodded. He might not share the same last name as the man who fucked his mom, but he sure as shit shared the same DNA. The courts agreed when they gave him this house, and he responded by marrying his brother’s widow so she could keep it.
You’d think most men would list their wives in the will. Not the Prescotts. Only blood mattered, even the sort that was tainted by years of sticking their dicks in all different holes.
“So, can you do it?” I pressed.
Bellatrix shook out of whatever memory had her frozen to the spot and grinned. “I want the rest of the pages.”
I cocked my head to one side and looked her up and down. My glare finally hinging on the sparkle I saw in her eye. “Half.”
“Half of what’s left, not the total page count.”
My grin widened. She was smart to clarify. Else I would have used that little loophole against her. “Deal,” I extended a palm.
She swiped it aside, pivoted on a heel, and stomped towards the front of the estate.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
BELLATRIX
There was nothing stopping him from going back on his word. There was also nothing stopping me from ramming the knife in my boot through the pulsing vein in his neck that seemed to call to me when he leaned forward to get a closer look at the sewer grate.
