Grit & Glamour (Sins & Riches Book 1) Read online

  Grit & Glamour

  Cece Rose

  Grit & Glamour © 2019 Cece Rose.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

  Cover Design also by Cece Rose.

  Contents

  Author Note

  Poem

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Violence & Charm

  About the Author

  Also by Cece Rose

  Black Spells and Twisted Souls

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Author Note Continued

  Author Note

  Please be aware that this book contains scenes that some may find triggering.

  If you have concerns, please skip ahead to the last page, where I’ve given a more specific warning that does contain some spoilers. (Which is why I haven’t included it here.)

  Much love to you all. I hope this one was worth the wait. Thank you all for your patience while I’ve been unwell. <3

  For my readers,

  Without you guys I’d have to get a real job and learn to be a functioning adult. Thank you for helping me avoid that, and instead work in my pyjamas everyday. You’re the best.

  Grit and glamour,

  Bruises and champagne,

  There’s nothing to enamour,

  About the poison in our veins.

  Land and riches,

  Money and gold,

  Freshly repaired with stitches,

  And now already sold.

  Wealth can bring you terrible things.

  And what weighs you down, isn’t all diamond rings.

  Shadowed and rough,

  Lost and without love,

  A hard life makes you tough,

  There’s no room for a white dove.

  Cheap and broken,

  Shattered and slain,

  Although it remains unspoken,

  Both understand the other’s pain.

  Chapter One

  Good girls don't hire assassins, luckily I was raised by the worst.

  I stare hard at the brown eyes of my reflection as they look back at me from the dark screen of my laptop. Well, my bought cheap with cash, leave no paper trail, to be destroyed as soon as I finish here, laptop. My real laptop is safely tucked away at home, with no messy search history on ways to get rid of people.

  I swallow past the lump in my throat and switch the laptop on. I've already prepared everything on the device, ready for this moment. All I need to do is go through with it. I have to do this. It's the only way.

  After casting a nervous glance around the busy coffee shop, I pull up the site using the instructions I'd gained from a trusted source. Well, mostly trusted anyway…

  The site loads, flickering to life on my screen. It's clean, really quite professional looking, honestly. Problem solvers they like to call themselves. Efficient, priced high, but they have the team, background, and quality to match it. They’re the best. Or so they claim.

  The kind of people to boast about their skill at killing others are now my only hope for survival. Why did I have to be born into this mess?

  I click to open up an email—the untraceable kind—and slowly type in the message, giving them all the possible information they may need to complete the job. Schedules, when their target would be alone, their car registration number. I make sure to attach photos, too. Luckily, I have access to plenty of those.

  I decide to send the payment using the cryptocurrency first, getting that out of the way, before switching back to the email draft page. The price of a life is lower than I expected, though thank god I'm not trying to take out a political target; the cost on those go so much higher.

  Fuck. Am I really doing this?

  My breathing is hard, and I struggle to keep my composure. I can feel the cold sweat beginning to bead all over my skin, my hands trembling above the keypad in front of me. I have to stop this. I can't show any outward sign of nervousness or cause suspicion; nobody can suspect me. At the mental reminder, I take a few deep breaths and try to calm myself. I hover the mouse over the button and will myself to press send.

  The second I click that button, I won't be able to take this back. Without this information, they can't perform the hit. This is the last chance to back out. My last chance to quit. My thoughts flicker to him, and I know there's no other choice. Freewill in this situation is only an illusion. It’s live or die. Kill or be killed.

  I click the button to hit send and watch as the email whooshes away, and with it, a piece of me that I know I'll never get back.

  And there’s no question it’s worth it.

  For him.

  Chapter Two

  A few weeks later

  “Scarlett?” a small voice calls from the darkness of my bedroom. My eyes open, and I turn my head towards the noise, looking for the speaker. I smile as my gaze finds him, standing at the side of my bed shrouded by darkness.

  “What are you doing in here, Caleb?” I ask my little brother quietly.

  “They’re home early, and they’re shouting at each other,” he whispers, his voice is cold, defeated. The last two weeks, while mum and her boyfriend were off skiing, he’d been so happy. They walk in, and now he’s back to this shadow version of himself. It’s as if our reprieve from hell never happened.

  When it’s just the two of us, everything is better. Safer. Both of us are happy, well, as happy as possible anyway. Now that I’m older it’s gotten even better, there are more things we can do now that I can drive. Sometimes I consider just driving away and not looking back. But then they’d just hunt me down for kidnapping my brother.

  How are they to realise that I’d really be trying to save him?

  “Okay, just let me lock the door, and then you can take my bed. I’ll curl up on the sofa,” I tell him as I slide out from under the covers, once I’ve collected my thoughts. I shiver from the coldness in the air.

  There’s no question my mother’s home. Someone turned down the temperature in the house to freezing, and only she would set it that low. She likes the house as cold as her heart.

  I push across the bolt lock I’d installed on the door of my bedroom. They’d tried taking it away, they’d even removed my door once—but I’m resourceful. I made sure I had a new door by the end of the day. They hadn’t made too much of a fuss. I’m sure they’re happier with the house appearing normal.

  A missing door on the bedroom of a teenager could draw too much unwanted attention. And that’s something they can’t allow.

  I’d put a lock on Caleb’s door, too, not that he ever uses it. Whenever they’re away he doesn’t bother locking
it, and whenever they’re home he creeps in here. I can never turn him away when he looks up at me with those big, brown eyes of his and says he’s scared.

  It’s a good thing my room is so big. Big enough for a king-size bed and a large, white sofa sitting at the foot of it. I’ve got a dressing room and an ensuite, too, but I’d trade it all for a dirty one room bedsit on the other side of the world from here. Anything to escape.

  “Why do you think they’re home early, Scar?” Caleb asks me quietly, as he slides under my bed’s covers. I shuffle over to the walk in wardrobe to grab a blanket while I consider it.

  I’d hoped they would have taken care of them by now. It would have gone better for us if they’d done it while they were away, but I understand things like this can take time to plan and execute. If they take much longer to complete it, then I’ll get nervous. There’s every chance some guy in a dark corner of the internet is laughing his way to the bank having scammed me. I let out a breath and try to push the thought from my mind. They’re just taking time to plan.

  After snagging a fluffy white blanket, I stroll back into the room and sit on the sofa, facing Caleb to answer him.

  “I don’t know. Maybe they just got bored? Or maybe it’s a work thing. Let’s just do our best to stay out of their way for now.” I try my best to give him a reassuring smile, but from his reaction, it’s not as effective as I’d hoped.

  “But what about what’s going to happen on your birthday,” he begins, his voice wavering. “You're going to leave me.”

  His words strike me right in my chest, sending shockwaves through me. I can't bear to hear him sounding so lost and abandoned. Not that I would ever even think to leave him behind. I may turn eighteen in two days, and my mother may intend to more or less throw me out, but I’d burn this house to the ground before I’d abandon my little brother.

  “I will never leave you. I promise. We're in this together.” I get up off from the sofa and head over to the bed. I sit down next to him above the covers. “Why are you talking like this? You know I will come and see you as much as possible. You’ll just need to keep your head down and lock your own door for a little while. Just until I can get something sorted.”

  Until the killing of our mother is sorted, anyway.

  “How are you going to sort anything?” he whines. “You can't just take me away, you've told me so yourself.”

  “I'll find a way. I'll get guardianship of you, and then we will get as far away from here as possible,” I answer somewhat honestly. That is the plan… I've just already found the way to make it work. I'll be eighteen in two days, and with our mother dead, I'll be Caleb's closest relative, and the only one who would have him. I can take legal custody of him, and we will finally be free.

  “How are you going to do that? She is never going to sign it over, Scarlett. Maybe we need to just take our chances and run,” he suggests, surprising me at how thoughtful he's being about it. I stare down at him curiously. My brother Caleb is thirteen, and yet he's also somehow both three and thirty in his head.

  My mother described him as broken, but I preferred the term different. His brain may work differently, but he's perfect as he is. I've risked my life to protect him before, and I won’t hesitate to again. I've raised him more than our mother ever has, and protecting him comes second nature to me now.

  “I don't know yet, dude, but I'll figure it out, okay?” I tug up the covers to bring them under his chin.

  “You promise?” he asks, pulling his hand out from the covers and offering his pinky finger. I intertwine mine with his.

  “I promise.”

  Chapter Three

  “Are you fucking stupid?” a harsh, feminine voice wakes me, the yelling from downstairs so loud, I swear our oversized home shudders from the power of it. I spare a glance at Caleb, thankful to see he’s still fast asleep. Over the years he's developed the brilliant ability to sleep through any kind of noise, but he’s quick to wake the second anyone actually gets close to him. Among a few other special quirks of his, this is one of the more useful talents that he's acquired from our unique upbringing.

  “Shut up, Ally. You've got a text message,” a slightly softer, male voice shouts back. A few seconds pass, and then something shatters downstairs. The house falls into silence following the sounds of destruction below. Other than Caleb's gentle snores anyway.

  My nerves ratchet up, the quiet putting me on edge, and I shift into an upright position on the sofa. Licking my lips I try to steel my nerves as I stare intently at my bedroom door. My protection mode comes out, and my defences up after the snippets I heard of their conversation. It sounded like they were arguing over if they trusted what someone else had told them. I'm not sure who it is or what they've told them, but whatever it is, it's worrying. Especially considering my recent actions.

  Hearing footsteps coming up the stairs, I spring off the sofa, leaving the blanket abandoned in a heap on the floor. Without thinking, I dart over to my bed to grab my hockey stick from underneath it. I've never played hockey, but a hockey stick is a lot easier for a seventeen year old girl living in London to explain away than a gun. The stick would have to do for my protection—if it becomes necessary.

  As I stand up, my gaze flickers down to Caleb, now awake from my rustling under the bed. I give him a quick smile, before turning back towards the door, holding the hockey stick with both hands.

  Ominous footsteps make a direct path to my bedroom door, and my grip tightens on the stick. There’s a light knock on my door, followed by an exaggerated sigh, and then a rapid, more insistent, three tap knock. I don’t speak, waiting for her next move.

  “Scarlett, open the damn door. We need to speak with you immediately,” my mother’s voice insists through the door, in a fake, pleasant tone.

  “What do you want?” I call back, trying to sound bored and disinterested, as per usual. I turn back to Caleb and mime for him to go out the window the way we practiced. Luckily, there’s a small balcony on the next room over that’s reachable from my window, and a rather large tree which is good for climbing next to that. My stomach twists at the thought of him scrambling down without me there to spot him, but it’s better than him being stuck in here if they decide to break the door down.

  A loud thump rattles the door, followed by another, and then a grunt, before my mother’s voice starts ordering me around again. “Unlock the door right now, Scarlett. You wouldn’t want to make us unhappy, now would you? We’ve just returned from such a lovely holiday, and I would hate for you to be the cause of our ruined mood, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?”

  Caleb shakes his head at me, pointing instead at the door. He knows the punishment for not doing what you’re told, and so do I. Unfortunately, I think the punishment for hiring an assassin to kill them is a lot, lot worse. I make more frantic gestures at him, before giving up and herding him to the window. I lean down and kiss his forehead, before tilting to whisper in his ear. “Go to the safe place. I’ll come and find you. I just need to know you’re clear before I leave, to make sure you get enough of a head start, okay?”

  Something thumps into the door again, more forceful this time. I cringe at the sound of the wood beginning to buck and crack underneath the assault. “Hurry!” I urge Caleb, pushing him towards the window as he pulls on his hoodie. He always keeps an extra in here, same with shoes. He grabs his spare pair and shoves his feet into them, tying the laces haphazardly. I’d moan at him for it, if it wasn’t for the continued smashing into my bedroom door.

  “Promise you’ll be there?” Caleb asks me, as he stands frozen by the window. A small part of the door cracks and splinters open.

  “I promise that I’ll do everything I can to get back to you. I promise that I’ll never abandon you. Ever. I promise you that I will always have your back and keep you safe, okay? Now move your ass before I push it out of the window, damn it!” I snap at my brother quietly. He grabs me in an unexpected, awkward, one-armed hug, and my heart melts. He despises hugs.
>
  “I love you, Scar,” he mumbles, before stepping back and moving to the window. Too shocked from his actions, I just stare after him as he climbs out and onto the balcony. I lean my head out of the window and watch him scrambling onto the tree. He does this cute little combination of a climb, shimmy, and shuffle down, and thankfully sticks the landing on the ground. He takes off running without pause, and pride rushes through me at his determination.

  Another crash against the door busts it. It caves in and breaks away from the frame, allowing my mother and her boyfriend to enter the room. Her eyes survey the room, taking in the fact both the bed and the sofa have been slept on, before looking towards the open window, and then back over to me. She gives me a forced, saccharine smile

  “What did you do, Scarlett?” she asks, stepping towards me. I grip my hockey stick tightly and bring it up to torso level, ready to strike. She doesn’t bat an eyelash, paying it no mind. “Tell me what you did, honey,” she requests again.

  “Nothing. I didn’t do anything.”

  “Then why did you lock your door?” she presses through gritted teeth, her left eye twitching slightly.