Carnival Hill (The Harlequin Crew Book 3)

by Caroline Peckham

  Fox's arms wound around my waist as he tried to heave me off of his father, but I fought him with everything I had, kicking and thrashing, biting down on his forearm and stamping on Luther's leg as he shoved himself backwards beneath me.

  JJ was yelling my name and Mutt went from savaging Luther's hand to attacking Fox as he lifted me full bodily into the air.

  Fox swore as sharp teeth sank into his ankle and I managed to lurch out of his grip, throwing myself at Luther again with a furious yell, but JJ caught me before I could reach him a second time.

  Fox grabbed hold of me too and the two of them heaved me back again while I continued to fight against them with all I had.

  Luther pushed to his feet, drawing a gun and stepping forward to press it to my forehead with a sneer as he used his other arm to swipe blood from his bleeding nose.

  "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't put a bullet in your skull right now!" he bellowed, his eyes a dark, furious abyss which hungered for my end.

  I spat at him, still struggling against Fox and JJ's grip on me and not giving a single fuck about the gun which was jammed against my skull.

  "You should!" I roared. "You should pull that trigger and end me now because if you don't then I'll come for you again and again until you're nothing but dirt in the ground, you ruthless motherfucker. I'll kill you for what you did to him! I'll fucking kill you!"

  Luther pulled the hammer back, his eyes flashing with my death but Fox was there first, drawing his own gun and aiming it right back at his father.

  "I don't know what the fuck this is about," Fox snarled. "But you know the deal. You touch her, you die. Don't go thinking for a single second that that won't happen."

  "What the hell is this about?" JJ demanded, his arms tightening around me as he tried to heave me back a step and I continued to fight for my freedom.

  "Ask him," I spat. "Ask the great Luther Harlequin what he had his men do to Maverick while he was in prison. Ask him about the four guards he ordered to haul him out of his cell every fucking night to beat him bloody. Ask him about the psychotic rapist cellmate he arranged for him to be locked in with after dark!"

  Luther's eyes widened at my accusations, his gun pulling back an inch as he glanced between me and Fox.

  "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," he said, a frown etched into his brow and a flash of fear in his eyes like this was goddamn news to him.

  "Liar!" I screamed. "You did that to him. You hated him for loving me. You punished him for trying to come after me. You put him in that hell and when it wasn't enough to force him to come crawling back to you, you upped the stakes. I heard the truth from his own lips, I saw it in his eyes, and I felt it in my soul. He was meant to be your son. How could you do that to him?" My voice was raw and jagged as the hurt of that truth ripped free of my chest and my cheeks felt wet with tears, but they did nothing to lessen this desire in me to rip Luther Harlequin's fucking head off.

  "Is that true?" JJ demanded in horror, his grip on me slackening just a little.

  "What the hell did you do?" Fox asked his dad, his face written in pain as he raised his gun a little higher, a decision forming in his deep green eyes as his finger kissed the trigger.

  Luther shook his head, stumbling for words as he realised his son was really gonna do it. And I was ready to see him die for his crimes.

  "Stop!" Chase's voice boomed from the stairs.

  I couldn't help but glance towards them as the sound of him half falling down them reached us and he appeared on his back at the bottom of them, cursing his broken leg.

  "It's not true," he gasped. "It wasn't Luther - it was Shawn. Fucking Shawn and his mind games. He told me about it while he had me locked up in that fucking basement. He said Maverick arrived at the prison while he was serving time there and he took the opportunity to fuck with the Harlequins. He paid off the guards, made them get Harlequin tattoos so it would be more convincing."

  I shook my head as I tried to compute that. It didn't make sense. Why would Shawn have gone to all that effort to strike at Maverick back then? Rick was just a kid, barely a member of the Harlequin Crew at all and no real threat to him.

  "Why would he do that?" JJ barked, clearly thinking along the same lines as I was.

  "Because Luther killed his brother," Chase explained, gripping the doorframe and heaving himself up onto his good leg as he gave us all pained looks. “Didn’t you?”

  He turned to Luther who nodded mutely, seeming in shock over the news descending on him, lowering his gun as he looked between all of us. Fox’s gun was still pointed at his head and he didn’t seem inclined to lower it until he had more proof.

  Chase went on, "It's been playing on repeat in my head over and over again since Shawn told me, but I didn't know what to believe. He put so many twisted ideas into my head that they all started banding together. I'm sorry, I should have told you."

  "So why didn't you?" Fox snarled.

  "Because that motherfucker was trying to get in my mind the whole time I was in there. He told me all kinds of crazy shit. Stuff to fuck with me. Stuff designed to worm its way into my brain and lay eggs there. I don't know what to think of any of it anymore, but it seems to me like this has to be true."

  "I only wanted Maverick to come to his senses and realise that family was the most important thing," Luther said in a hollow tone. "I had men inside who were tasked to keep an eye on him, to keep the other inmates away if he seemed to be getting into any trouble and though he refused to have anything to do with my men in there, they reported back to me saying he had no issues with any of the other prisoners..."

  "That's because his nightmares were the guards. The only inmate to hurt him did it behind locked doors where no one else could see," I hissed, the rage in me still running rampant through my flesh. Maybe Luther wasn't wholly to blame for what had happened to Maverick in there, but he was still the reason he'd been sent to prison in the first place. And I was the reason he'd felt the need to do that.

  The fight went out of my limbs and JJ tentatively released me.

  I made a move to walk away and Luther grabbed my arm, making me look up at him as blood slowly trickled down his chin from the wounds I'd given him.

  "I didn't know," he said, his voice cracking just enough to show me how much this truth was costing him, but it was all a little too late for that.

  "That doesn't fix it though, does it?" I muttered, shrugging his arm off and crossing the room towards Chase.

  I wrapped an arm around his waist, noticing the way he flinched at my touch. No doubt his tumble on the stairs made his ribs flare with pain again. He leaned on me as I half heaved him back up to his room, the silence stretching between us as we went and the conversation between the others downstairs breaking out again as they came to terms with what I'd just told them and what it meant.

  Mutt scampered along at my heels and I helped Chase back into bed as we returned to his room.

  "Rick's right to hate us, isn't he?" he murmured as I headed to his nightstand to get his pain pills from the drawer, knowing he wouldn't have taken them without me here.

  "Maybe," I said in a low tone, a frown pinching my brow as I held the pills out for Chase and his lips parted obligingly. "Or maybe I'm the one you should all hate after all. It all comes back to me in the end, doesn't it? Rick went down for killing Axel, you were all forced into the Crew for helping me cover it up. Whatever way you look at it, without me in the picture, things could have been a lot better for all of you."

  Chase frowned as I held the glass of water to his lips, swallowing the pills for me before I placed the glass back on his nightstand.

  "Without you in the picture, I don't think any of us ever would have gotten a taste of happiness, little one," Chase said, taking hold of my wrist to keep me there beside him.

  I sighed, leaning in to place a kiss on his cheek and lingering with my lips against his skin for a moment as my eyes fell closed and I breathed him in.

  "Even
poison can taste sweet at first," I said in a low voice. "But it will still kill you in the end."

  I pushed upright again and backed away from him, trying not to feel the slice of pain in my heart as he looked at me like he wanted me to stay. Because he was better off without me. They all were.

  The problem was, I was too selfish to let them go.

  I rode in the truck beside my dad, feeling like a sixteen-year-old who’d just been grounded. Luther was quiet, I was quiet. And I could feel our shared pain rolling between us in the silence. I didn’t want to acknowledge it and clearly he didn’t either, but something had to be said. It had to be. Because now I knew what had happened to my brother in prison, I felt like I was gonna throw up or destroy something.

  “He thought I did that to him.” Luther punctured the quiet at last and my chest twisted sharply. For all the things I’d thought Maverick hated our dad for, it wasn’t this. I’d never even considered that he’d been harbouring something like that. Sure, I figured prison had been bad for him, had changed him. But this? Never…

  I ran a palm over my face and tried to contain the raging beast rising to the edges of my flesh.

  “No wonder he hates you,” I muttered.

  Luther’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, the trident he had inked along his thumb turning nearly white with how hard he was gripping it. “I should never have sent him down for Axel. It was only meant to be a couple of years in juvie to straighten him out, show him the consequences of him going against my word when he tried to find Rogue, but then he wouldn’t respond when I tried to get him to file an appeal, let himself be packed off to state prison out of sheer stubbornness.”

  “Maybe if you didn’t treat us like members of your Crew and send your goddamn son to prison, this wouldn’t have happened,” I snapped, the rage in me boiling over.

  “But you were my Crew after that night. You initiated, wet your hands in blood for the Harlequins,” he barked back. “If I’d showed lenience to him, my men would have lost faith in me, you must know that more than anyone now that you’re in a position of power yourself, kid.”

  “Don’t call me kid,” I snarled. “And maybe I have done things your way for a long time when it comes to my family, but maybe I’m starting to see that your way just pushes them further and further away from me. You know what JJ said to me the other day? That I’m like you. And that’s the last thing I ever wanted to be.”

  “All I ever tried to do was protect you,” he snapped.

  “If you think sending Maverick to prison was protecting him then you’ve got a twisted idea of what being a father looks like.”

  “And what would you know about that, huh?” he growled. “It ain’t easy ruling the Harlequins and raising two boys with equally rebellious souls. I knew you’d leave. Both of you. The second you got a chance to take off with Rogue, I knew you’d be outa Sunset Cove off into some dirt poor life where you had nothing and no one to protect you.”

  “I would have had her,” I threw back. “And I would have had my brothers, including Maverick. He despises me because of you.”

  Luther’s shoulders tensed at those words and I knew I’d hurt him and I fucking relished it. “Alright, I fucked up. I know I fucked up. But I’m trying to fix it now. I let your girl in the Crew, I showed her leniency, I-”

  “It’s ten years too late!” I bellowed. “Do you know what Shawn did to her? Do you have any idea what she’s been through because she had nowhere to go and had to rely on that motherfucker just so she had a roof over her head?”

  “I’m sorry, alright?” he barked, his eyes pinned on the road.

  “It’s not good enough,” I said bitterly. “I’ll never forgive you for it. For all of this. It’s your fault we’re in this mess.”

  “Come on, son,” he tried, his tone softening a little. “There’s gotta be something I can do to make this right.”

  “There isn’t,” I said coldly. “Unless you can turn back time and take us all back to the day you drove Rogue out of town and pardon her of her so-called crimes against the Crew, there is nothing you can do.”

  He reached over to lay a hand on my shoulder and I jerked it off, looking away from him out the window. He was an asshole, and I made a vow to myself and my family that I would dig out the pieces of him that I’d embodied and destroy them.

  “Sometimes hard decisions have to be made. You banished Chase, so you must know-” he started and I cut over him sharply.

  “That was different. He betrayed us. He betrayed Rogue. And if you’re not getting the message yet, that’s where my lines are drawn. When it comes to crossing her, I will show no mercy. And that includes you.”

  “So this is my punishment, huh?” he muttered. “You’re gonna freeze me out for the rest of my life?”

  “It’s what you deserve,” I growled and he nodded, pressing his tongue into his cheek and taking a turning onto the cliff roads.

  Silence descended again as we travelled up the winding trail, eventually pulling up at the peak where Shawn had declared war on the Cove. Maverick was already there, laying on the hood of an old green Chevy with a baseball cap pulled low over his face. His chest was bare as he sunned himself, but as casual as he looked, a revolver was gripped in his hand and I was sure he knew we were here. I’d had Rogue call him to meet us, knowing he’d never agree if I asked. But for her, apparently he’d do anything.

  “What’s the occasion?” he called as we strode towards him. “It’s not Thanksgiving already, is it? Or someone’s birthday? Shame I didn’t bring any cake, I guess you’ll just have to have a feast on my bullets.” The gun twitched in his grip and I slapped a hand to my dad’s chest to stop him from approaching my psychotic brother. Luther shook his head at me, knocking my hand away and kept walking, making my jaw grit as I followed.

  If my dad thought Maverick was beyond shooting him then he should have taken a closer look at the scar on my neck that my adopted brother had put there. He wanted us dead, and after what I’d just found out about his time in prison, I was surprised he hadn’t fired a couple of those bullets at Luther already.

  “I’m only here because Rogue’s gonna suck my cock in payment later,” Maverick taunted, sitting up at last and twisting his baseball cap around so it sat backwards on his head.

  I swallowed the growl in my throat at those words, focusing on why we were here as he sprung off the hood of the car, cocking his head and glancing between us with a sneer on his lips. “Why are you looking at me like that, assholes?”

  A ball tightened in my throat as I stared at him and my dad gave me a look that prompted me to answer. I guessed he thought it might be better coming from me, but I hardly fucking thought so.

  “Rogue told us what happened to you in prison,” I let the bomb drop, figuring it was best to cut to the chase.

  Maverick’s stony expression didn’t flicker, but his eyes did. “Did she now?” he muttered, working over that knowledge. “So you’ve come here to what? Enjoy the look on my face when you told me you knew my darkest fucking secret? Like you didn’t know all this time anyway?” he spat.

  “No,” Luther growled passionately. He took a step towards him, but Maverick raised his gun to warn him back and he didn’t go any further.

  “She also told us that you thought those guards were Harlequins,” I went on, my skin prickling from what I knew had happened to him and despite the years of hatred between us, I fucking cared about that. Because it changed things, I just didn’t know how.

  “Thought they were?” he echoed with a scoff. “I know they were.” His eyes swung onto Luther with seething disgust in his eyes. “You planned to bring me to heel the brutal way, didn’t you, Pa?”

  “Those men had nothing to do with me,” Luther said fiercely, his shoulders pressing back. “They weren’t Harlequins.”

  “Bullshit,” Maverick snapped predictably.

  “Chase found out the truth from Shawn,” I said quickly. “Shawn boasted that he orchestrated it. He was
in prison the same time you were. He paid off those men to wear the Harlequin symbol on their flesh and fuck with your head.”

  Maverick fell entirely still, his eyes moving from me to Luther then back to me. “What is this?” he demanded. “What are you after?”

  “We want you to know the truth, son,” Luther said, his voice full of pain. “And we want you to come home.”

  I gave him a look that said I was not in agreement with that second part, but my dad just set his jaw and fixed his gaze on Maverick.

  “Nah, you’re up to something,” Maverick growled, glaring at Luther. “You’re always fucking up to something. You’re the Harlequin King. Lord of the fucking rats and now you’ve just come up with a new little idea to try and manipulate me into doing what I’m told.”

  “Why would Chase lie?” I pressed. “He has no reason to.”

  Maverick wet his lips, looking back at me. “Strange. I thought Chase was dead. You been playing with a Ouija board, Foxy?”

  “Oh don’t give me that,” I laughed dryly. “He told us what you did for him and I’m…grateful.” I forced the word out, needing for it to be said even though it was sharp in my throat.

  Maverick shrugged. “I didn’t do nothin’.”

  “Are you really so stubborn that you won’t even listen to the truth?” Luther interjected, steering the conversation back onto the point of it. “I didn’t send those men. I’d never fucking do that. It was only meant to be a couple of years in juvie. I was gonna get you out, but you wouldn’t even fucking talk to me.”

  Maverick’s upper lip curled back. “Fuck you, Luther. I see what you’re doing and it ain’t gonna work.”

  “Rick,” I snapped, his old nickname spilling from my lips before I could stop it and he arched a brow at me in surprise. I took a step forward, desperate for…something. I just needed him to know the truth, because as much shit as there was between us and as much as I knew we were never going to be anything but enemies now, I still couldn’t bear the thought of him thinking the Harlequins were responsible for what had happened to him in prison. That he maybe blamed me in some part for it too. Even Luther didn’t deserve that. “Shawn Mackenzie is responsible. It was a revenge plot, and this war is another part of it.”