Lynne didn’t reply as a silent tear slipped down her cheek. She just stared into his eyes and JJ knew the answer they held.
JJ nodded his head. “Ok,” he said, choking back the lump rising in his throat. “I got you.” Tears threatened to fall, but instead of showing that weakness, he picked a straw up off the hood of Mike’s car and did a line of white girl.
“Someone toss me another beer before we get this show on the road,” he asked as he sniffed and snorted all the powder down and rubbed his nose.
Zeke threw him another beer as everyone remained quiet standing there. JJ popped a hole in the bottom of the can, then cracked the top and sucked it all down in a couple of gulps.
“You don’t need to drive tonight after everything that has happened and especially after drinking. You damn sure ain’t driving if you’re going to get messed up off of every party drug these boys have. I’m not going to be responsible for your head splattered across the pavement,” she stated sternly.
“Well, you can either race or hand over that pretty little pink slip and take your ass back on down to your side of the holler like a good little girl,” JJ chided. “I already told you once you aren’t responsible for other people’s decisions. So if I want to kill myself tonight, that was all on me.”
Lynne glared at JJ with a blaze in her eyes that only the Devil could withstand.
“Fine. Get in your damn car. If you die, you die. I didn’t force you,” she huffed as she walked to her car and hopped in, slamming the door behind her.
“I like ‘em feisty,” JJ jeered as all the men around him laughed nervously.
She looked around, glaring at them with deadly eyes, and one by one, they shut up. They knew who their boss was.
“Don’t let her pussy whip y’all. Take your balls back from those jars,” JJ smirked as he opened the door to his car. “If you’re afraid of losing your job, I have some openings. You can work for me and run my shit. Ain’t much difference between Mr. Brown and me. At least I will feed your crackhead looking asses.”
JJ hopped in his car as Lynne revved her motor to show her impatience and annoyance at his banter and antics. He smiled and shotgunned another beer before turning the motor over. The car rumbled alive and loped in sync with her Nova.
“You ready, you pretty little thing?” JJ shouted over the cars.
“You’re going to regret calling me that,” Lynne yelled back.
They aligned their cars on the starting line as the guys surrounded them on both sides, ready to jump in their cars to follow them down the mountain. One of the boys held their hands up and yelled out his countdown.
“Three… two… one… go!” he shouted, and JJ and Lynne put the pedal to the metal.
Their tires screeched, and piles of smoke billowed into the air as the cars lurched forward out onto the road. Lynne took the lead with JJ right on her tail. JJ toyed with her. Drag racing had always been his thing. He knew all of the tricks. He knew how to drift down the mountain and had just put fresh tires onto his car to do it. He pressed the pedal further to the floorboards, and his car gained momentum to shoot around Lynne right before the first turn popped up. He jerked his wheel and emergency brake, and his car turned to the side, sliding through the curve with ease. He kept an eye on the rearview mirror watching for headlights to see if she was still back there. He let out a sigh of relief as her headlights popped up about five seconds behind him.
JJ returned his eyes back to the road and concentrated on his descent down Spruce Mountain. He handled the curves with ease as he noticed Lynne’s headlights getting further and further behind him. He knew she was backing off because they were getting close to Dead Man’s Curve. He floored the accelerator and blew through the curve as his tires caught dirt and nearly jerked him from the road. He kept his composure and made it around the curve and bottomed the car out at the bottom of the mountain, sparks flying everywhere. He sat in the driver seat, panting as his heart raced from the adrenaline of the drive.
JJ got out of the car, stood beside it, and waited for Lynne to finish her descent down the hill. He began to worry that she had gone off the side when he heard her car and then saw her headlights. He let go of the breath he had been holding as she put the brakes on and threw her car into park.
“Are you fucking insane! You almost went off the cliff!” Lynne screamed as she stormed around her car tears threatening to spill.
“I knew what I was doing. I have been drifting mountains since I was fifteen years old cupcake. I had it,” JJ retorted.
“I don’t fucking care, you damn kamikaze! You could have died!” she seethed.
Cars began to pile in behind her to see who had won.
“Like I give a fuck that I died tonight. Wake up, darling! Over fifty people died today! One more wouldn’t have made a difference!” JJ shouted.
“It would have to me!” she cried back.
“You sure as hell made the opposite point before we raced,” JJ declared.
The boys piled out of their cars and hovered behind her.
“Who won, boss?” one of them asked.
“JJ won. Give him the title to my car,” she blurted out, hiding the welling emotion in her voice.
“I don’t want your car. Keep the title,” JJ replied, climbing back in his car. “I just wanted some fun tonight.”
“Where are you going?” she asked breathlessly.
JJ walked to his car without answering her.
“JJ!” she croaked.
JJ stopped and turned around to face her. “Anywhere but here,” JJ replied and hopped in his car, peeling off from the growing group of guys.
JJ watched Lynne’s tear-streaked face disappear in his taillights in the rearview mirror. He drove until daylight before calling to his father’s men to handle the packing up of the house and the issue with the mines. There wasn’t any reason for him to continue living in the holler anymore.
Part II
Chapter Eight
It had been seven years after the mining accident that took the life of Paul Alexander. JJ had driven all night and through the next day to NOLA. When he arrived, he went to the bourbon cabinet and poured himself a nice glass of Old Rip Van Winkle whiskey and sat sipping it in his dad’s favorite chair still covered with the white sheets from when they moved. He was on the phone with lawyers for the entire day and didn’t get to sleep until after all of the housekeepers came and freshened the house up room by room. The next day a package awaited him that had been delivered by one of his dad’s lawyers. Within the package was everything he ever needed to know about his dad’s businesses, his underground ring, and even things JJ needed to know about family affairs, such as his real last name.
JJ filed the paperwork to get his diploma early without having to go to graduation and headed off to an Ivy League school just as he had planned. He left his dad’s lawyers in charge of the businesses until he had his Master’s degree, so he knew what he was doing. Upon his graduation, he signed every single page of the contract to close the mines down in Sycamore. He did it without batting an eye too. He knew the repercussions. The Browns would want war with him. After all, they only signed the mines over with the stipulation that they would be mined until they were dry. However, with his dad’s death still lingering in the back of his mind and all of those people that had previously died, he couldn’t with good conscience keep it open and risk more people’s lives.
“Sir, what do we do with all of the men that are going to lose their jobs, their pensions, and their savings in stock they had in the mines?” Mr. Brubaker asked as he finalized the documents for the closure.
“Offer them a job working for the family. Make it well known that some of it isn’t legal work. They will be peddling,” JJ replied.
“Are you sure?” Mr. Brubaker asked. “I mean, I didn’t think you were going to continue that line of work. Your father has enough businesses to keep you well off for the rest of your life and your children’s lives.”
“I w
as bred into this world. It is my duty to take it over as heir, just as my father always intended. I wouldn’t want him rolling over in his grave because I handed the Southern Mafia off to someone else instead of keeping it in the family as he wanted,” JJ replied, fixing his tie. “So, until I can find someone suitable to hand over the family lineage to, I will be forced to keep it going.”
He was getting ready for the reception party for his graduation and wanted to look presentable as the richest man in the room. It took hard work and dedication to let the West Coast know what and who the Southern Mafia was with each punch that landed on the jaws of those that opposed JJ.
“One more thing, Sir,” Mr. Brubaker began. “What would you like to be referred to as? Mr. Jay or Mr. Alexander?”
“Mr. Alexander for formal and Jackson for informal from this point forward,” JJ replied.
“Yes, Sir,” Mr. Brubaker replied. “Have a nice reception party, Sir.”
“I shall try, Mr. Brubaker. I shall try,” JJ sighed and grabbed his suit jacket from the back of his chair. “I want the sales report on my desk for my return so I can see what our numbers are at and if we are down or up, understood?” JJ demanded.
“Yes, Sir. They will be there waiting for you,” Mr. Brubaker replied.
JJ donned his suit jacket and rubbed it smooth in a downward motion. He looked at himself in the mirror with his honey hazel eyes piercing the space, barely recognizing himself. So much about himself had changed since he left the holler. His once smooth, baby skin features were now a bit hardened with a nice beard growing in. He picked up a comb and ran it through his whiskers. He kept it a decent size, not too long, but not skin short. He had packed on some weight, but it wasn’t weight as most would think. He was all muscle from working out every second he wasn’t studying. As the boys back home would say, he was yoked, with muscles rippling through his shoulders, chest, and down his arms. His waist remained chiseled and contoured, with prominent hip muscles protruding above his waistline.
Most nights, he didn’t wear a suit out at all, not even to business meetings with prospective clients. He liked to keep it simple with a pair of blue jeans and a button-down shirt, most times just a white beater. He gave himself a once over in the mirror straightening his tie once more and then slicking down his hair. He hated ties and couldn’t wait until he could take it off later in the evening. He picked his keys up from the counter and walked to his garage.
JJ had been living on the West Coast for several years. As he spent his nights studying for exams and writing dissertations, he multitasked and began making deals with the crime bosses of the West Coast, most specifically those in California. He had forged a criminal empire that in the next ten years, would comprise the entire United States and take the “Southern Mafia” further than his dad had ever attempted. Even though he had the south in his pocket, he was technically starting at the bottom to build his own empire from the ruins his father left. There were many family mafias around the United States that he had brokered family alliances with and even dealt with the Italian and Irish mafias of the Northern East Coast. He made sure their deals wouldn’t come to hardships with other mafia families. He was the business middle mad. He had already done a lot to get most of those businesses out of deficit that his father had let fall to ruin while trying to broker the same deals he had accomplished. He sold some of his father’s business, traded them, rebranded, and pushed more money into them and then flipped them for the mafia network. The ones that were left thrived under his belt. However, all of those plans were changing here soon for JJ. Real soon.
JJ walked out to his Bentley Mulliner Bacalar that sat tucked neatly into his garage. It was the only car he kept in this garage, with most of his cars stockpiled in warehouses, with the exception of his classic cars. He kept those in NOLA at his parents’ estate locked up tightly. His Bently was from the Menlo collection; Cobalt blue paint job with yellow accents that pinstriped highlighting it in just the right spots. He hit his garage button, and the doors rolled up as he started the car and revved the engine. It didn’t have the muscle of his classic cars, such as his Charger, but it was still fast and classy.
The tires on the car squelched as he hit the gas and peeled out of his garage. Within moments, he was on the freeway on his way to the graduation party. It would only be an hour or two there before he left, heading to the strip clubs. He owned those as well as the women that danced the poles and fucked the men in the back.
He pulled his Bently up to the club for VIP parking, and the ushers hurriedly opened his door. He stood from the driver seat and buttoned his jacket button before smoothing it down and running his hand through his hair, tousling it. Two bodyguards met him where he stood and escorted him into the building while the usher parked his car. He was led through the darkened hallways with the beat of the music vibrating in his breastbone. They cleared the hallway and stepped out into an open dance floor that was bustling with people dancing to the techno music that blared through the speakers of the club.
As JJ made his way to the VIP section roped off just for him, he watched the different couples that either danced or sat at the bar drinking and taking ecstasy provided for a pretty penny by the bartender in his pocket. He kept the patrons drugged up on whatever they wanted, and they kept him with money in his pockets.
JJ sat down in his VIP booth as his bodyguards stood on the outside of the booth to make sure he wasn’t disturbed. A topless, busty blonde server walked through to take his drink order.
“I want a bourbon,” JJ stated. “Neat. Don’t go adding any shit to it.”
The waitress bowed her head in reply and turned around to leave the booth as he smacked her on the ass.
“Good girl,” he shouted as she left to go retrieve his drink.
“Sir, may I?”
JJ looked up to see his club manager standing in between the bodyguards. JJ motioned with his fingers to enter, and the club manager hurriedly walked in and took a seat.
“What can I do for you, Thomas?” JJ asked.
“We are at max capacity tonight, and the footman keeps letting more people in. If he keeps on, the local PD will be here to shut us down, and we will lose out on major profits tonight. We have ten bachelor parties going on in VIP sections as well as some big meetings with mutuals of yours in the others,” he replied.
“Tell the footman that if he lets one more person in that pushes max capacity, he won’t have to worry about looking for a new job because I will rip his arms off and beat him to death with them. Understood?” JJ sternly stated.
“Yes, sir. Understood, sir. The message will be passed, sir,” Thomas replied, standing from his seat.
“Don’t disappoint me tonight, Thomas. It’s a night to celebrate,” JJ said as the server walked his bourbon for him. “Find me a girl. A new girl working. I don’t want the sloppy seconds that we have traipsing around. I want to celebrate without contracting some STD.”
The server’s face pinched into a look of contempt and shock.
“Do you want to say something, love?” JJ asked with a smirk.
“I quit,” she said, walking from the booth.
“How am I going to keep girls around if you keep calling them whores and diseased bitches?” Thomas asked, shaking his head.
“I was just joking,” JJ laughed as he took a sip of his bourbon. “They need to learn that where I come from, the girls that partied, partied with a needle in their arm,”
One of the bodyguards stepped in and whispered into Thomas’ ear. He nodded, and the bodyguard stepped back to his spot that he was standing in and resumed his post.
“Sir, you have someone asking for you specifically. No one knows her name or who she is. But she demanded to see you in person,” Thomas stated.
“Very well. Maybe she will be the lucky girl that gets to suck my dick tonight,” JJ chided. “Send her up.”
JJ sat sipping his bourbon and nearly choked when the face of Lynne Brown walked through his VIP curtain. He
jumped to his feet, nearly dropping the glass from his hand.
“Lynne, what… Why… I didn’t expect to see you here?” JJ stammered.
It had been seven years, and the sight of her face still made his heart race with adrenaline as he remembered that night on the mountain.
“I flew out here because we heard the big news,” Lynne replied, taking a seat.
“What big news was that?” JJ inquired.
“Congratulations, you did it, news,” Lynne laughed out.
JJ’s face turned a bit red. “Yes, of course. My graduation. I’m surprised it was broadcasted back in Sycamore.”
Her smile stayed steady on her face. “It wasn’t. They shut the mines down today. There had been talk for several months that it would be your final decision once you graduate to either close it or sell it. You closed it.” She no longer had a smile and stared angrily at JJ.
“I figured you of all people would appreciate the closing of the mines. You nearly lost your brother to its death grip,” JJ hissed as he snapped his fingers, tossing his bourbon back. “Bring me the bottle,” he said, tapping his glass. “Want anything?” he asked, turning to Lynne.
“A double Scotch on the rocks, please,” she replied icily.
The server nodded and went to grab their drinks.
“When did you start drinking?” Lynne asked.
“Seven years ago on a mountain,” JJ replied. “Did you fly all this way to yell at me for closing the mines or what? What do you want, Lynne?”
“Keep the mines open. There are over a hundred families that depend on that income,” Lynne begged.
“I offered each and every man that was willing to work for me a job,” JJ replied.
Them Holler Boys (A Southern Outlaw Series Book 1) Page 11