BOSSY BROTHERS: JOHNNY

by Huss, JA

  I smile as he runs around the yard sniffing everything he can boop his little snoot against, and then open the flip phone and accept the call. “Clark, my man. This had better be good because you woke us up.”

  “Johnny,” he says nervously. “Sorry about that. But I just finished translating that letter you gave me a couple hours ago and I figured you’d want to know what it said right away.”

  I think my heart skips a beat or seven. Because if this was just another translation of the Epic, Clark would not be so wound up.

  “What’s it say?”

  “I think you should just… read it yourself. And also, I’m sorry dude.”

  “Why?” I say. Trying to breathe.

  “I don’t think… well, actually. I think… well. Man….”

  “Clark. Just spit it out.”

  “It’s… very personal. I had to improvise some of the words. Ancient Akkadian cuneiform and English, not exactly word for word translation, if you know what I mean.”

  “Got it,” I say.

  “And if reading this overstepped any of your boundaries, I just want you to know…”

  “It’s fine. Just send it to me.”

  “OK. One sec. I’m sending now.”

  A few seconds go by and then my phone beeps an incoming email. “Got it,” I say.

  “OK. Welp. It was nice working with you, Johnny. You know where to find me. I won’t be taking a new job and leaving town... I’ll be right here, business as usual.”

  He’s so nervous, I start to get a very bad feeling in my stomach.

  “Thanks, Clark. And no matter what it says, I really appreciate it and it’s all good. I promise I won’t hold you responsible for whatever is in this letter.”

  “Cool,” Clark breathes. “Later.”

  I end the call and pull up the email. My eyes wandering over the short lines of text.

  Then I sit down in the cool, wet grass, and start reading.

  My boy,

  I don’t have much room to write this message so I will be short and blunt but I would like you to know that my heart is filled with regrets.

  The day I brought your brother home I saw you there as I argued with your father. You were standing in the hallway. Puddle of fear at your feet. Eyes looking up at me in terror.

  The reasons why your brother came to us, and why your father objected, and why I had to insist he stay, are too many to list and explain here on this one document.

  So that is not the story I want to tell.

  The story I want to tell is this:

  There is only one way to take down an evil thing and that is to do it from within.

  So here I am. Inside.

  And there you stand. Outside.

  Stay there, my son. It is my gift to you.

  Have your own daughters. I will keep them safe.

  Have your own sons. You will teach them well.

  Live and love.

  Be happy.

  One day my heart will be empty of regrets and this nightmare will be over.

  Your mother,

  Christina Boston

  A blanket falls over my shoulders and when I look up Megan is there. Wrapped up in a robe held tight around her body. “Hey,” she says, sitting down beside me. “What’s going on?”

  I look at the phone in my hand. “I gave that cuneiform contract to a friend for translation on the off chance that it was some secret message from my mother.”

  “Was it?”

  I take her hand, place the phone in it, and then say, “Read it and tell me what you think.”

  Megan takes the phone as I lie back and look up at the sky. A few moments later she opens the blanket, pushes her body up to mine, and covers us back up.

  “What do you think?” I ask.

  She kisses me on the cheek just as Jasper comes bounding onto my chest to lick my face. Whimpering with happiness and big expectations.

  “I think it says we won.”

  I turn to look at her. Study her blue-green eyes.

  “And I think it says she loves you.”

  I swallow down the sadness.

  “And I think it says she’s sorry.”

  “All that in one short message?”

  “She is nothing if not efficient.”

  Which makes me smile.

  “I think it says… we should get on with our life.”

  “And make babies,” I huff.

  “And they will be safe.”

  “Not yet,” I caution her. “One day. She made that clear.”

  “But she also said it will all end soon,” Megan says. And then she kisses my cheek and lies back to look up at the sky with me. “And our job now is to be happy.”

  “Is that what you think we should do, then? Forget about it? Let her handle it?”

  She climbs on top of me, fighting for attention with the still whimpering and licking Jasper. Then holds my face in her hands. Stares right down into my eyes. Leans over so her long hair brushes against my bare chest.

  “Hell no, Johnny Boston. I did not go on this long journey, and learn these dark secrets, and become a weary Mrs. Captain Hook just so I could be some trophy wife—” I laugh here. “—or president of the motherfucking PTA.” She kisses me on the lips.

  A very soft, gentle kiss.

  “But…” she whispers into my mouth. “We have been given a one-year break from the action. And our first directive was to have a child. And that we will do.”

  I sigh. Push her wild blonde hair away from her face and tuck it behind her ear. “It’s a trap, Megan. You know that.”

  She nods. “I do. I know that. But that was the deal. And you singed it. So now we have to trust that while we are doing our new job, someone else is doing theirs.”

  “Who though? Who is doing that job?”

  “Your mother. My father and his new lab partner. Those three people in those pictures she showed you.”

  “Nick Tate,” I say.

  “And that little girl.”

  “Yeah. Indie. And her team.”

  “One year,” Megan says. Leaning down to bump her forehead against mine. “We have one perfect year of guaranteed happiness. So let’s take your mother’s insider advice and enjoy it. It’s what you wish for, right?”

  “What?”

  “Your wish. Remember? Things are calm and life is easy. No more thoughts about the Way or the money. You and me and a little house.”

  I take a deep breath and let it out.

  “A house with a yard and windows that open. And a dog. And maybe,” she pauses. “One day, a kid.”

  She’s right. That was my wish. “I just don’t like the idea that it has an expiration date, Megan.”

  “Johnny Boston. Are you fucking serious right now?

  “What?”

  “Mr. Death-is-only-really-choice-we-get? Ringing any bells?”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “It is the same. We just have more to lose now than we did that night. But it’s exactly the same. We are in control. Remember that gem?”

  “I feel like you’re throwing my words back at me.”

  She laughs. “What comes around goes around. Mister.”

  “It’s not a little house, either. It’s a fucking mansion.”

  “This is your freaking house, Johnny. How can you complain about that? And you even got the damn dog. I mean, how specific does a wishing star have to be, for fuck’s sake.”

  I smile. Can’t help it. But then I point at her.

  “Fuck you,” she says. Slapping my finger away. “You don’t get to complain about my swearing when you’re talking crazy. That’s the rule.”

  “The rule, huh?”

  “It is.” She kisses me again. “Enjoy it, Johnny. We know better than most that nothing lasts forever. So take this gift in the spirit it was intended.”

  I think about those two nights we had back in the Bahamas. Those two nights when Logan took over and I pushed the pause button.

  I picture a who
le year of that. Swimming in a neon blue glow, spilling my deepest darkest secrets, being understood, and accepted.

  I wasn’t looking to be anyone’s Prince Charming and I certainly wasn’t looking for a princess to save.

  But to this woman I am that prince.

  And to me, she is that princess.

  So I give in and let it go.

  Let someone else handle it.

  And agree to one perfect year.

  Or… at the very least.

  The illusion of one.

  BOSSY BRIDE IS UP NEXT!

  RELEASING DECEMBER 18, 2019

  GET IT HERE

  END OF BOOK SHIT

  Welcome to the End of Book Shit where I don’t edit anything and the typos are acceptable. :) This is just like an author’s note only I don’t thank anyone at the end. lol I just ramble on about anything I want. Though I probably should thank some people. Like RJ, my editor. And Michell and Melissa my proofers. And my whole ARC team. Thanks you guys! But really, if I thank them personally then I have to thank all of you personally too. Because everyone had a little part in all the books. Every comment you guys make, or review you leave, and every post you put up in the Shrike Bikes group – I read it all. (Well, not all of the reviews unless you point them out to me – then I do read them). But all your comments over the years have an impact on what I do here at home when I write. So I owe all of you a THANK YOU.

  That’s how I see it.

  But most authors do “author’s note – Regular” and that’s cool. I just always read those author’s notes at the end of books and think – Well, I don’t know any of those people. So that’s nice an all, but I’d rather hear something about the book from the author. So that’s part of the reason I started doing these back in 2013. I can’t even count the number of EOBS’s I’ve written at this point. Definitely over 60. Probably over 70.

  This book in particular, and the whole direction it’s going, was very much due to you, the reader. Because this is a Company book. And after I wrote the end of Wasted Lust in 2015 I thought I was done with the Company. All the characters were perfect at that point. All the endings complete. And there was nothing else to revisit.

  But people keep asking about Nick Tate. If you didn’t read Wasted Lust then you don’t know what happened to Nick (and I’m not going to spoil that ending here). But people wanted more from Nick. I *thought* Nick was complete. Mostly because I could not imagine a story where he had more to say back then.

  Believe me, I LOVED Nick Tate. So much. He and Sasha were my creepy little prince and princess of the Company world. But there was no story inside my head for him. I just couldn’t think of any way to write more about Nick and do that original story justice.

  Until Now.

  I have eluded to the Company in other books. The Silver Society in the Mister Series WAS the Company, just under a different name. I was still just very hesitant to directly say they were Company because the Company story was DONE. Like DONE. And all the other secret society stuff that came after was a REGROUP of the original Company story. So they were Company, but different.

  That was how I wanted it because it was realistic. I didn’t want to negate the ending of Wasted Lust (and Coming For You – the original Book Three of the James, Sasha, Harper, and Nick series) by telling everyone that the Company was still around. That ending was Happy. I wanted it to stay Happy. And that’s another huge reason why I never went back to tell Nick’s story.

  And let me be very clear – this Johnny book, and the books coming up in the Bossy Brothers Series, is not Nick’s story.

  I will write Nick’s story, but it will come in bits and pieces at first in a new series that I am revealing tomorrow (the day after Johnny releases –which is September 26, 2019) called CREEPING BEAUTIFUL.

  Johnny is also part of the Company. That was a big step for me to take in this book. The first time that I have admitted that Company was still around. BUT – there is a HUGE BUT HERE—but the time line is not what you think.

  Bossy Brothers is happening in time one year BEFORE Wasted Lust. And NINE YEARS AFTER Coming For You. Because the Company was taken down, or at the very least knocked out, by a thirteen year old girl called Sasha Cherlin at the end of Coming For You – now and forever more to be referred to as “The Santa Barbara Incident”.

  By the way – if you haven’t read these Company books – all three of the original books (Come, Come Back, and Coming For You) are now in one volume collectively called THE COMPANY. And this is the series I sold TV and Film rights to back in 2017.

  So the Bossy Brothers “secret society” THE WAY is actually a smaller, less significant, subgroup of the Company. And Johnny Boston just got a promotion. I thought that was kind of a cool twist. I know this is romance and you all want the neatly tied-up bow of Happily Ever After at the end of a book. But sometimes I want to take my time in getting there. And that’s what I’m doing with Bossy Brothers.

  The next book in the series is Bossy Bride: Emma & Jesse. This is a fun, rom-com that will be very similar to the final book in the Misters series called Mr. & Mrs. If you read that you know it was just a whole bunch of rompy fun, a little bit of angst, and a wild and crazy wedding at the end.

  After that is Bossy Brothers: Alonzo. And we will switch gears to see what that Dumas Family is up to. Because they are up to something, right? Yes. The answer is yes. It’s not creepy and secretive like the Boston Brothers. It’s much more romantic than that. At least I think so.

  So Alonzo’s book will be very much like Jesse’s book. Mostly rom-com with a twist at the end. And then the Boston world and the Dumas world will begin to collide in Tony and Luke Dumas’s books, and the whole thing will come to a close in Zach’s book last.

  I tried to answer as many questions in this book as I could without spoiling the books to come. So if you’re still confused or still have questions – that’s OK. It will all be answered before I’m done.

  Now… I want to talk about this new series that will go up on pre-order tomorrow (as I write this the day before Johnny releases into the world).

  The new series is called…

  CREEPING BEAUTIFUL.

  Full stop.

  Because this story deserves a full stop when you read the title. It’s THAT FUCKING GREAT.

  This book is where Nick Tate’s story will collide with the little girl I introduced in this book called Indie. And if you haven’t figured it out yet, Indie is another Sasha.

  Sasha was a straight up Company assassin at age twelve.

  Indie is not.

  Indie’s has taken a different path. She was sold to a team of Company men at age ten and trained to do “clean-up jobs”. Kill people, steal biological weapons, you name it, she’s done it. And if you read Wasted Lust then you know Nick was hunting Company kids like her in that book. And he is hunting Indie now in Johnny’s book.

  But—I have another HUGE BUT for you – BUT – CREEPING BEAUTIFUL is so much more than that. The book opens when Indie is 24 years old and all the terrible things she’s done have come back to haunt her. Nick is long gone. At least in the present. But he’s trapped in her past and in her head too. Her team is still around but she left them years before and disappeared without a trace when she learned they were keeping a secret about her life.

  I could spend another two hours telling you about it in this EOBS but I’m just going to drop the cover and synopsis here for you to read instead.

  READY? HERE WE GO:

  Creeping Beautiful

  By JA Huss

  Romantic Suspense

  Publishing February 17, 2020

  McKAY

  I wasn’t the one who broke her but I played my part.

  She came to us when she was ten. I raised her. I loved her.

  I taught her how to survive in a world of evil men.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  ADAM

  I wasn’t the one who saved her but I did my best.

  She needed me as m
uch as I needed her.

  Bought and paid for on the auction block.

  But not for the reasons you think.

  She was my weapon.

  DONOVAN

  I wasn’t the one who lied to her but I hid her truth.

  She was broken before I got there.

  Wild and angry. Defiant and bratty.

  But she trusted me most. She loved me best.

  So I set her free.

  Indie Anna Accorsi is a woman lost in her past.

  A pretty little nightmare.

  A gorgeous piece of misery.

  A mess of lovely darkness.

  She is creeping beautiful.

  And now we want her back.

  ******

  This book is dark, but NOT sexually dark. It’s actually really romantic. And there is no violence in the romance. There is no dubious consent, there is no underage sex with older men, there is nothing rough about the love story in this book.

  It’s NOT a “typical” MMFM like Bossy Joey was. AT ALL. These men play very different roles in Indie’s young life and that carries through to her adult life.

  It is very sweet at times (Indie’s first kiss - which does NOT happen with the grown men in her life), heartbreaking at times (the twist will kill you the way it does Indie), and it is a thrilling romantic suspense.

  But make no mistake. These four are together. Forever. THIS IS A LOVE STORY.

  The loyalty, love, and romance in this book will fill you up. And the audiobook WILL BE FREAKING AMAZING! I can’t wait for the audiobook.

  I hope you enjoyed Johnny’s book and I hope you stick around for the rest of the series because we’re not done here. Not even close.

  Until next time – THANK YOU for reading, THANK YOU for reviewing. And I’ll see you in the next book!