Easton's Claim (Colebrook Siblings Trilogy Book 3) by Kaylea Cross Read Free Book Online

wouldn’t end until she got her house sold and left for Minnesota.
     
    ****
     
    Not so arrogant now, are you, asshole?
    Brandon pushed away from the wall where he’d been watching one of his men beat Greg Rutland to a bloody pulp and signaled for him to stop.
    He stepped into the light so the prisoner could see him. Greg groaned and raised his head, struggled to open his swollen eyes, his hands bound to the chair he sat on. Blood spilled down his lips and chin and his breathing was choppy.
    “From the way you hightailed it back here, I guess you heard the news that I was out,” Brandon said softly, folding his arms as he stood in front of his hostage. He’d lost years of his life in jail because of this piece of shit. Time for payback. “Too bad you weren’t quick enough to get what you needed and then skip town.”
    Greg dragged in a painful breath and leaned forward to spit out a mouthful of blood.
    Brandon smiled at the sight. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. It filled him with a sense of vengeance to see his old enemy this way. Helpless and afraid. Wondering what would happen to him, unsure how far Brandon would go. But as sheriff Greg had been the one to put him behind bars, and had the unique privilege of knowing exactly what Brandon did to people who dared cross him.
    Four years in federal prison. Four years of living with a depraved cellmate, of having every freedom stripped away. Of having to strip naked and have his ass searched. While the motherfucker in front of him had been free to live off his parents’ wealth and do whatever he wanted—which turned out to be fucking up his life royally.
    Brandon loathed Greg and his kind. A rich, trust-fund baby born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Parents respected professionals connected to society’s elite. They’d bought him a new car when Greg had gotten his license at age sixteen. They’d paid for his college education and a swanky apartment off campus. They’d done everything but wipe his fucking ass for him. And how did their son repay them?
    By snorting all the money they gave him up his nose and becoming the worst embarrassment Sugar Hollow had ever seen.
    It disgusted Brandon. He’d been born poor and had stayed poor until he started running drugs at the age of twelve, after escaping one abusive foster home too many.
    That kind of poverty left its mark. He still smelled the stink of it when he woke up every morning. He still remembered the grinding pain of hunger when he went to bed at night. Even when his stomach was full, that grinding sensation was always in the back of his mind. He’d vowed at age fourteen to make sure he never lived like that again. For fifteen years, he’d had a good life. Financial security.
    Until this fucked-up loser had taken everything from him with the arrest.
    Brandon pulled in a deep breath and released it slowly, letting the anger drain away. Anger clouded his judgment. For this he needed to be calm, in control. Greg had betrayed him, used him to get product and then turned on him to save his own skin. He would pay. “I want what’s mine. What you took from me.”
    Those swollen, bruised eyes focused on him. “I don’t have it,” he slurred out of busted lips.
    “But you know where it is.”
    He shook his head slowly, winced. “No.”
    “Bullshit.” Brandon was going to establish himself back into DC’s drug scene. He’d lost face, respect of the people who’d once feared and admired him. He was going to make a name for himself again, gain back the power he’d lost, and keep rising.
    “I looked. Couldn’t…find it,” he wheezed.
    Brandon balled his hands into fists, battled the urge to let his hired muscle break a few more bones in that pathetic face. “You will.”
    He was going to make Greg suffer for what he’d done to him. Beginning with taking back everything that was stolen from him without his knowledge. While in prison he’d toyed with the idea of targeting Greg’s parents, the wealthy