Whiskey & Honey: Crimes of Crimson Valley: Book One

by A. Mae. Cooper

  “We know the mole is indeed a male?” I ask and Mason Rhodes nods.

  “My son has been working on shifting through each department. He is dean of students for CVU as I am sure you are well aware so he has certain advantages to be able to dig. With you joining the staff directly in the science department, it will be easier to pull out the mole especially seeing how he is a male. It should be easy enough for a woman of your stature to expose him.” His snake like eyes, features so much like his sons, slither over me and it takes everything in me not to cover my exposed chest in my dress from the old pervert’s sly gaze.

  “This task will be no problem for me.” I agree with Mason in an even tone, not too cold but also not warm and inviting. I didn’t want to give the sick fuck an inch so he could use it against me. Hawk Rhodes may look like his evil perverted father, but he had never been like him and never would be. Despite what they did to me, Hawk had a lover's heart and he would never treat women the way his father always did. I know, that’s kind of a double standard seeing how he had participated in beating me half to death to send a message to my parents. He may be a brute like the rest of the Red boys, cruel and calculated, but he wasn’t a sleaze towards women and didn’t degrade them like his father.

  “Be prepared to start Monday morning. I will have the information already gathered on the mole sent to you by tomorrow afternoon so you can prepare yourself to begin cracking this open right away. We want it taken care of before the Thanksgiving Festival in a few weeks.” Rebecca interjects before Mason can spew on about his sexist opinions like he always does and I dip my head to her. “Don’t mess this up, Miss Locke. I don’t think I have to remind you what happens to people who displease the Order, do I?” It takes all my patience and control not to reach out and punch Rebecca King right in her fucking face for that comment, and I can tell by her smirk that she must see something in my eyes that she got under my skin, but I just nod again slowly.

  Without speaking another word to any of these rabid wolves, I find my way off the stage to grab Finley so I can get home. I had had enough of this fucked up town already and I had only been back barely a day.

  Monday morning comes way too fast, and as I am slipping a pair of plain black leather ankle boots with a small four-inch heel and putting a pair of my mom’s favorite pearl earrings, a black hole starts to form in the pit of my stomach and it’s usually a feeling I have heeded in the past. Something bad was going to happen today, but I never had any idea knowing exactly what until it was too late.

  Gazing at my reflection in the mirror, I take in my appearance to make sure I am satisfied with how I look. I have on a sharp black dress suit jacket with a perfectly pressed pencil skirt with a deep red silk blouse underneath with the top three buttons undone to purposely show off my cleavage and tattoo. My ink was something I was always proud of and I didn’t care if it wasn’t University appropriate for a staff member to show off tattoos like this. The Order had already secured me the job and Rebecca King wouldn’t let anyone mess up this covert mission she had planned for me.

  The main thing I was worried about was possibly running into Hawk today. His father had mentioned he was the dean for CVU students so it was a great possibility I would end up running into him, and if any of the Red boys were able to crack my hard shell, it was Hawk. He and I had been close before that awful night. Not in the sexual sense like Silas and I had, but we had a strong mental connection that couldn’t be faked. If I were to give in to any of the four Red boys first, it would be Hawk. He hadn’t actually participated much in the beating I received from all four of them, like he had been truly reluctant to do it. Kass either.

  Not like Silas. He had been the most ruthless of all.

  I am pulled out of my thoughts when the door to my ensuite bathroom in my room opens up and Finley strides out dripping wet with a fluffy black towel slung dangerously low on his hips and my mouth waters at the defined muscles of his chest and abdomen slick with water from his shower.

  “Damn, you dress fast, Honey. I had been hoping for a morning quickie before you left for work.” He gives me a wink and a purr as he looks me over with predatory hunger and I roll my eyes even if his sultry voice does get me a little hot and bothered between my thighs.

  “Perhaps you just don’t shower fast enough.” I point out, strapping my Apple watch to my wrist before turning away from the full-length mirror on the back of the walk-in closet door. “Remember what we talked about, Finley. Stay here at the house until I return later. I don’t need you roaming over Crimson Valley and getting snatched up by the Reds to be brutally maimed and tortured just because you are associated with me.” I give him a pointed look when he drops his towel and pulls on a pair of grey sweats from his side of the bed and then proceeds to dry his hair with the same towel he just used to dry his balls. Ugh, men. Gross...

  “I’m still having a hard time coming to terms with the fact you really think these guys are that dangerous that I can’t be out in public without you being there.” He says and he follows me out of the room after leaving his towel on the floor. God, he’s two for two this morning. Jesus. Disgusting. Hopefully, Sam would have Cinthia come in and tidy up my room while I was gone. Having Finley in my space was going to give me an aneurysm. “Honestly, it is playing a little at my pride, Honey. I may not be strong like you, but I can handle myself.” He laughs.

  “You are an outsider here. You know nothing about the dangers of the Order of Red here in Crimson Valley. Just listen to me for once and let me handle things here. If you really want to help, you need to take my warnings to heart. The last thing I need is to be contacting your sister back in Tampa to let her know that her brother was murdered under my watch.” I chastise as we come into the kitchen, Violet and Sam are bustling around to get breakfast and coffee ready for me. Bless their souls.

  “If I got kidnapped and murdered, Gayle wouldn’t blame you, Honey. You know she loves you. If my body turns up here in Crimson Valley, she will make sure whoever murdered me paid for what they did.” He assures me but I just shake my head when I sit at the Island with him and Sam places heaping plates of food in front of both of us. “Fuck, I may never leave here, Honey, if your staff keeps feeding me like this.” He groans as he starts shoveling his food in his mouth while I pick at mine, mostly drinking my coffee as I scroll through my phone, going over the documents sent to me about the mole inside of CVU.

  “Do you need more help in the kitchen, Vi? You know Sam is supposed to be manning the front entrance to the manor, not helping cook in the kitchens.” I point out after a moment and look up at the elderly Vietnamese woman bustling around my kitchen. She pauses and gives me a sheepish look.

  “Of course not, Miss-”

  “Don’t Vi, it’s really not a problem I have more money than I know what to do with, honestly. I can get you another hand in the kitchen. Sam, I will also be hiring more staff to help man the perimeter fence around the Manor. One can never be too careful about security when in Crimson Valley. I would like your assistance with going over protocol when they arrive.” I address my butler next and he just nods and gives me a weak smile. Sam had been a new hire here a few months before that dreadful night ten years ago. He had been the one to find me on the front steps after the Red boys had me dumped back on Locke Manor’s front stoop. He knew all too well about the importance of security around here.

  With that, Sam leaves the kitchen and Violet returns to cleaning up the kitchen. Finley continues shoveling food in his mouth and I send a quick email to the head of the private security firm I used to work with for a year back in my filler year before I had headed to college, requesting some staff to be added to my manor with double the usual rate they usually get paid by the firm. I was taking no chances with my security anymore. I was only one little woman. I may be a certified badass now, but I needed all the hands-on deck I could get.

  Those Red boys were bigger and badder than they used to be.

  It wasn’t until my scheduled lunch per
iod that I took on campus in the staff section of the large courtyard that I actually got to meet any other members of staff at CVU let alone ones from the Science department. As expected, most of the staff steered clear of me, already knowing who I was and choosing not to involve themselves in Order business as would be the wisest move on their parts.

  I am answering an email that had already came in from yet another male student in my advanced physics course about a question they had on the upcoming introduction to themselves I had requested they all complete by Friday afternoon, when I am approached by one of the Chemistry Professors that had a lecture room three doors down from me in the Science building.

  Setting my phone aside, I raise my eyes to smile brightly at the older male in front of me, but my smile falls short at the cold deadly glare the guy has leveled on me already, his fists clenched at his sides and that instantly tipped me off that there wasn’t something right about this guy. Letting my friendly face fall, I level an impassive look back at him and instead of going forth with my plans to greet him first, I keep my damn mouth shut until he deigns to speak to me first.

  “What is the Headmaster doing letting a child take the open Advanced Physics teaching position without doing the proper interviewing required? My son didn’t even get a chance to finish putting in his application for the position before we were all informed Friday evening you would be taking the spot.” He sneers at me and I raise my brow at him. Not because of his tone and obvious disdain for me, but because of his mention of me being announced as the new advanced physics professor before I had even found out on Saturday night.

  “I’m terribly sorry, but it is no business of mine how Crimson Valley University’s Headmaster chooses to run his establishment. Perhaps I am far more qualified for the position than your son?” I ask innocently and this causes the color in the older male’s face to reach an unflattering shade of blood red as his temper flares even more than it already was. I inwardly smirk, being the ruthless bitch that I really am deep down.

  “Who do you think you are you little bit-” He begins to lean down over the table I am seated at to get in my face when a hand clamps down on his shoulder and stops him before he can get too close to me. Irritated someone had interrupted before I could show this asshole a thing or two about trying to get in my face, I looked over at the newcomer and blanch. I shouldn’t be surprised.

  “I wouldn’t insult a sitting council member of the Order of Red if I were you, Reemus. Wouldn’t that be a shame if that news got back to Clarke King. He would surely have your balls for that.” Hawk is leaning into the male Chemistry professor, Reemus, and grinning wickedly while he murmurs in a low tone into the guy's ear. His face quickly goes from enraged to panicked when he glances over at Hawk and then back to me. He blanches even whiter than I probably appeared at the arrival of my biggest weakness within the ranks of the Red boys.

  “I-i what- I didn’t kno-” He splutters unattractively and Hawks' menacing grin seems to spread even further. He looked just like he did that night. Cold and unyielding.

  “You can’t be seriously thinking of telling me you didn’t know who she was. Everyone knows who Honey Locke is. Run along before I also let this little infraction slip to Silas too. You know he is an even more ruthless bastard than his father is. Especially when it comes to Honey.” What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

  Hawk releases Reemus and he speed walks away like the devil himself is personally chasing him without even glancing back at me and it takes everything in me not to smile with Hawk when he finally looks at me fully. Plopping down on the bench seat on the other side of me, directly in front of me, he rests his elbows on the stone top. I watch him place his chin in his open palms, grinning broadly at me, a familiar grin that lit up his whole face, despite the ever-present shadows in his eyes.

  “I can handle my own problems, Mr. Rhodes. No need to step in like I am some useless airheaded damsel in distress.” I quip at him and this only makes his grin spread wider and I just want to smack it clean off his stupid ruggedly handsome face. He had no right to smile at me like that anymore. We were never going to be as close as we used to be ever again.

  “I would never classify someone who is certified in both Taekwondo and Taijutsu, as well as various other forms of combat and self-defense, as an airheaded damsel in distress.” Hawk grins at me and I narrow my eyes at the little fucker. It wasn’t a secret really. If he had wanted to know that stuff about me, all he would have had to do is have someone dig around in my father's financial records to see what all he paid for me after I left Crimson Valley. I never kept it a secret what I did in my free time from school after I escaped here to Florida clean on the other side of the country.

  “So, one might say it would be wise for you and those other idiots to steer clear of me, wouldn’t they?” If it were even possible, Hawks stupid grin only grew more, stretching his handsome face into a glorious piece of art that would make even angels weep.

  “I don’t think I was ever classified the wisest guy around here, nor is Silas, Kass, or Gabe.” He winks and I clench my fists on my lap underneath the table as I scowl at him. He knows he’s getting to me with this playful banter and that’s why he is taking a different approach than Silas’s pleading or Kassim’s lustful charm from Saturday night’s party.

  “I told you all to leave me alone and stay out of my way, Hawk. You’ve done enough damage in my life as it is. Wasn’t it enough for you?” I snap at the boy that used to be my closest confidant, aside from Des before Silas went and ruined that for me too, and Hawk actually flinches a little, letting his smile drop but only a fraction. The smile now beaming back at me is tinged with sadness when he decides to speak again.

  “I know more than anyone what you are trying to do here, Honey. Erecting these mental barriers around us will only make us fight harder for you. You might not believe it right now, but we have always been on your side. It took that awful night and you leaving us to fully understand the magnitude of what we all feel for you. You are a Red, Honey Locke, whether you agree or not. You are and will always be our family.”

  And just like that, Hawk began making the first chips in my ironclad barriers I have formed around my stupid bleeding heart. They were minor, but they were there nonetheless and Hawk knew just how to get to me. I had to guess that this was part of their plan. Sending in the one Red boy in the whole group they knew could get to me and emotionally wreck me enough to make me drop my guard for them. I needed to stop this, needed to get away from him before he started to push too far. Ten years had passed since their betrayal, but it still sat like lead in my stomach like it had just happened yesterday. That kind of betrayal wasn’t something I was likely to forget any time soon.

  “Whatever you say, Hawk.” I shrug, feigning indifference and he just smiles at me with that knowing smile of his. Hawk was always able to see right through me, it had been what had made him such a good friend in the first place. Good enough to infiltrate my whole soul, then help rip it to shreds with the rest of them. Betrayal was a fickle thing. Most things are forgivable for me, but not broken trust. And Silas… well, he broke me in a whole other way and I have spent the past ten years trying to pick up the jagged and broken pieces he left my fragile heart in.

  Hawk actually stands back up then and this time when I meet his eyes, I see turmoil behind his happy go lucky expression as he looks down at me. It forms another crack in my defenses at seeing him like that, but I don’t let it show. He searches my face for another silent moment before he sighs. His boyishly handsome face twisting in an expression I couldn’t quite read.

  “I should get going. The mole shouldn’t see us together and associate you with me and blow your cover. Think about what I said, Honey. Please. We aren’t giving up on you. We are going to spend the rest of our miserable lives making up for what we did to you.” And with that, he knocked on the stone tabletop twice with his knuckles before he turned and strode away, disappearing inside one of the main academic halls
that probably housed his office or something.

  Sighing, I stare after him for a long moment as I seriously contemplated packing my bags and using the money in my parent’s offshore accounts to really disappear from this fucking place. My phone beeps beside me on the tabletop and I glance down at it, noticing another five emails from students in my class, all male, reaching out to me for ‘assistance’ on their assignment for Friday. I take it they weren’t used to having such a young, clearly attractive, female professor on campus let alone one who Majored in both Physics and Astrophysics. I was the definition of that cliche teacher/student forbidden relationship stereotype. These young college students were going to do anything they could to get into the pants of their new hot Physics professor.

  Cursing Hawk out for distracting me when I notice what time it is, I snatch up my phone and briefcase and make my way back inside the science building where my lecture hall was for my next class in five minutes, ignoring the stares of students from all different minors and majors around campus. I didn’t even get to eat anything and that was only going to make me even crankier as the day finished up.

  It’s one in the morning on Tuesday when I find myself freezing my ass off, standing outside the only local junkyard here in Crimson Valley, waiting impatiently for Des to show up to this little breaking and entering mission I had set up with him the night of the party. Getting the job at CVU had put a wrench in my plans as I had wanted to do this Monday morning when the town was dead asleep, but I had needed to prepare a strategy for how I would sniff out and locate the mole inside CVU’s science department for the Order.

  The faster I disposed of this mole for Rebecca and the others, the less they will be looking at me as I start to dig into their lives and businesses to unearth what really got my parents taken off the board and disposed of. It wasn’t that I didn't believe Silas when he had said their parents were becoming too corrupt and delving their filthy fingers into things they shouldn’t be bringing into Crimson Valley; it was just that I had wanted to be the one to expose them all for the rotten human beings they really were. I couldn’t accept help from anyone, let alone those boys. I also wasn’t under the impression that this task would be my last task. The Order had a way about them and wanting their new council members to prove themselves.