Grayson (The Kings of Brighton Book 3)

  The Kings of Brighton: Grayson © 2021by Megyn Ward. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner, whatsoever, including internet usage, without written permission from the author, except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  FIRST EDITION 2021

  Book design by MW Designs

  Cover design by MW Designs

  Cover photo by Depositphoto

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

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Also by Megyn Ward

  The Gilroy Clan

  Pushing Patrick

  Claiming Cari

  Having Henley

  Conquering Conner

  Destroying Declan

  Taming Tesla

  Reaching Ryan

  Giving Grace

  Wanting Wentworth

  (Coming in 2022)

  Keeping Kaitlyn

  (Coming in 2022)

  The Kings of Brighton

  Tobias

  Logan

  Grayson

  Jase

  (Coming in 2022)

  The Clan McLeod

  Mr. Wrong

  Mr. Right

  (Coming in 2021)

  One Night Series

  DRIVE

  GRIND

  With Shanen Black

  My Way to You

  Paradise Lost

  Diving Deep

  Hard Dive

  Tidal Wave

  PROLOGUE

  Grayson

  BRIGHTON HOME FOR BOYS

  BRIGHTON, MASSACHUESTTS

  2005

  SUNDAYS IN THIS PLACE ARE THE WORST.

  I call it Do-gooder Day because that’s when they all show up—the church people who come in with their easy-read bibles and relatable Christian hip-hop. The mobile library volunteers with their sad cart of cast-off books. The potential fosters who watched Annie or read Oliver Twist a few times and now they’re on a mission to save the children.

  Then they’re the recruiters.

  They show up in their uniforms and service medals, waving around their brochures full of pictures of people doing cool shit—repelling off the side of a helicopter. Flying jets. Manning gunboats.

  They’re not stupid. They know this place is full of kids without prospects. No hope of college. No one who wants them. No plans. Desperate to get out of this place and willing to sign their lives away to do it.

  I’ve got a stack of brochures crammed into the plastic tote under my bed.

  I tell myself that I go to their meetings because I’m not into books or Sunday school puppet shows and unlike Jase, I don’t enjoy shining on potential foster parents, looking for a fixer-upper.

  But lately…

  “You should do it.”

  I’m crouched next to my bed, adding the latest bunch of pamphlets to my collection. Looking up, I find Logan, back from the book cart, sitting on his bed next to mine, nose buried in a coverless paperback. The 150-bed dorm is practically empty. Just a few kids like Logan and me who’ve had enough of the Sunday do-gooders and just want some peace and quiet which is hard to find in a place crammed with kids.

  “Do what?” I grumble, slamming the lid down on top of my plastic box hard enough to crack it. We’ve had this conversation before and I never like where it goes.

  “Enlist.” He says it without looking at me because like I said, this exchange is a re-run. One we could both have on autopilot. “Get the hell out of this place.”

  Shoving the tote back under my bed, I stand up. “Where’s Jase?” It’s just me now—Tob aged out a while ago so Logan and Jase are my responsibility and keeping them safe is a full-time job.

  “Where do you think?” Logan laughs like it’s a stupid question and I guess it is. It’s Sunday—that means that Jase is fishing. That’s what he calls it when he spends the day smiling and nodding and golly-geeing his way through meet and greets for the free watered-down punch and cheap cookies. When he’s really bored or the potential fosters seem to have money, he puts some extra effort into it and really turns on the charm which usually results in him throwing his shit into a trash bag and leaving with them, not that it ever lasts. His return rate is 100%. They never keep him. As soon as he gets bored again, he pulls some bullshit that lands him back here because his face is a lie. There is nothing angelic about Jase. He’s as feral as a rabid badger. The only thing he really cares about is us—Logan, Tob and me. His brothers.

  “I’m serious, you know,” Logan says, giving me a quick glance before he turns the page on his book. “You should do it.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” I stretch out on top of my bed and close my eyes. “So, don’t start.”

  “Yes you are.” Something about this tone pops one of my lids open and I turn my head on my pillow to look at him. He’s still got his nose buried in his book but he’s frowning at the pages like they’ve offended him somehow.

  “Lo—”

  “It’s not your fault.” He shakes his head, still talking to his book. “Just the way it is. You’ll all go eventually,” he says, reminding me that he’ll be the last of us. That he’ll be left here alone soon enough. “So, don’t waste your time sticking around here—not when there’s somewhere better for you to go.”

  I know what he means by better.

  He means away.

  Anywhere but here.

  “I just turned seventeen,” I remind him, turning my head away from him to stare at the ceiling. “I have time.”

  “They’d take you early.” He says it so matter-of-factly it makes me wonder how he knows. Who he’s been talking to. When I don’t answer him, he sighs. “I know you took the ASVAB last month.”

  ASVAB is the military aptitude test. I told myself I was taking it out of boredom. Curiosity. Nothing more. Not because I want out of this place. Not because I want a future. Something more than a plastic box under my institutional bed with a few changes of clothes and a pile of recruitment brochures.

  “So what?” My own brow crumples into a frown when I say it. “Lot of guys here took it.”

  “Did a lot of them score a 99?”

  99 out of a 100.

  When the Navy recruiter gave me the printout of my test score, he was salivating like one of those cartoon wolves, looking at a giant piece of meat.

  With scores like that, you could have your choice of assignments, Gray. You could specialize in anything you wanted.

  He started talking about signing bonuses and incentives. Officer school. A military career.

  I let myself feel it for a moment.

  All of it.

  Pride.

  Possibility.

  Hope.

  But only for a moment.

  Then I slammed the door on it. Crumpled the paper in my fist and muttered whatever. I’ll think about it at his slobbery wolf face before jamming it into my pocket and walking away. That must be where Logan found my scores.

  I close my eyes again. “I catch you snooping through my shit, I’m gonna break your fingers.” It’s an empty threat and he knows it. I’d never hurt him. I can’t. He’s my brother. “I don’t want to talk about it, alright?”

  “And I don’t want you to stay here just because you think you�
�re responsible for me.” The frustration in his voice is almost palpable. “You’re not responsible for me.”

  That’s where he’s wrong.

  I have a shitty track record of keeping my people alive. Death comes for them, the second I turn my back, so I can’t leave. Can’t even blink. Not unless I want to lose them.

  “I’m not leaving,” I push it through clenched teeth, suddenly tired of this conversation. “Not until they make me.”

  “You can’t protect me forever, Gray.” He sounds disappointed for some reason.

  He’s right, pendejo. You’re going to have to leave eventually. You can’t stay here forever and you can’t take them with you.

  “Maybe not,” I tell him, ignoring the inevitable. “But I can do it for as long as they’ll let me.”

  ONE

  Grayson

  2013

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  MOST OF THE TIME I HATE MY JOB.

  I mean hate it.

  Really hate it.

  I’m a glorified babysitter.

  An over-paid referee.

  I break up dancefloor catfights and bathroom threesomes. Stop spoiled trust fund babies from running out on their tabs. Make sure the only thing the bartenders are slinging from behind the bar are drinks.

  From sundown to sunup.

  Six days a week.

  For the past three months.

  To be honest, most days, I’d rather eat glass than walk through the door.

  But this.

  What I’m doing now makes it all worthwhile because my bother just gave me the greenlight to do my absolute favorite thing.

  Pissing off rich douchebags.

  “You really love this shit, don’t you?” Angel, one of the better guys on my security team chuckles under his breath behind me.

  He’s right.

  I do.

  I really, really do.

  Instead of answering him, I tap the camera icon on my phone and aim it at the quartet of hedge fund assholes I have lined-up in the alley outside the club. “Smile pretty,” I say, demonstrating by giving them my brightest smile.

  “You’re making the mistake of a lifetime, friend,” King Douche warns me, making the word friend sound like you worthless piece of shit. “Your boss is going to find out what’s going on here and—”

  I laugh out loud. Tob’s not my boss. He’s my brother but I don’t tell him that. “First of all, I’m not your friend,” holding my thumb on the button, I take about a million pictures just to piss him off. “Second—I can promise you that my boss doesn’t give a shit who you or your daddy is.”

  “We work for the Bright Group.” One of them pipes up, earning himself a quick glare from King Douche for his trouble.

  Ohhh… they really shouldn’t have told me that.

  “The Bright Group?” I say the name of the corporation that Tob started a few years ago like it actually means something to me. Like it might actually give me pause. “The Bright Group?”

  Behind me, Angel makes a weird sound like he’s got something stuck in this throat. Probably almost swallowed his own tongue because these aren’t the first bunch of assholes that’ve come into one of Tob’s club and thought that since he signs their paychecks that somehow gives them license to act some type of way.

  “Yeah—the Bright Group,” King Douche tells me like working in one of his windowless, corporate war rooms makes him Tob’s right hand man. “This place is owned by them. You 86 us, you’re gonna lose your job.” The implication is clear—it doesn’t matter that we’re employed by the same company. He wears a suit to work and I don’t, so clearly he’s more important.

  “You don’t say…” Selecting one of the pictures I just took of him and his dumbass friends, I attach it to a text.

  Me: FYI—these

  fuckstains

  work for you.

  Hitting send, I look up at him and give him another affable grin. “You ever met him?”

  King Douche looks at me like I’m not making any sense. “Meet who?”

  “The boss—Tobias Bright.” I give him a shrug and pocket my phone. “You ever met him?”

  “Well…” The smug look on King Douche’s face loses some of its shine. “No, but—”

  “Actually, you have...” I cross my arms over my chest and give him and his buddies a crooked grin. “About twenty minutes ago—Mr. Dalmore 64.”

  As soon as he makes the connection that the Tobias Bright and the guy he just had a run in with in the VIP are one and the same, King Douche’s mouth drops open while one of the guys behind him starts dry heaving. “Look, all we did was offer to buy her a drink. Ask her if she wanted to have some fun—I mean, chicks don’t dress like that unless they’re looking for a little fun, right?” he tells me, backpedaling like a motherfucker.

  I’d ask him if he was fucking serious, but the sad fact is that I know he is. Guys like him—rich and privileged—think they’re god’s gift to women. To his way of thinking, Tob’s new friend, the stunner in the red dress who seemed to already be tying him in knots, should’ve been tripping all over herself for the chance to get roofied and gangraped by him and his buddies.

  “A woman has the right to dress however she wants without having to put up with bullshit from pricks like you and your buddies here and when she says no, she deserves be heard and respected.” Dropping my arms, I nod. “As such, I’d also like to inform you that your pictures will be circulated and that you’re no longer welcome at Level or any other establishment owned by or affiliated with the Bright Group—”

  “Wait a minute—” King Douche comes off the wall and takes a step in my direction because he’s done the math and he knows what that means. Tob holds a stake in roughly half of New York—clubs, restaurants, hotels, galleries. You name it, if it turns a profit, Tob’s got his fingers in it. Come tomorrow morning, these guys won’t be able to buy so much as a hotdog in Central Park. “You can’t do that.”

  “Welp.” I give him a shrug and close the space between us until we’re practically standing nose-to-chin and I make a show of tilting my head so I can look down at him. Sometimes being the biggest guy in the room has its advantages. “I just did,” I tell him while silently praying that he’s dumb enough to take a swing at me.

  Just then, the earbud I have tucked into its shell crackles and hisses against my drum.

  Hey, Gray… we got a code blonde in progress.

  Fuck.

  You want me to—

  “No,” I say, pressing the mic clipped to my shirt collar. “I’m on my way.” Taking a step back I cock my head at Angel and give them a chin jerk. “See to it that these gentlemen get home safely,” I tell him before turning away from the lot of them and making my way back into the club.

  TWO

  Grayson

  WE HAVE A LOT OF CODES.

  Dozens of them.

  Code Blue = drug deal in the bathroom.

  Code Red = possible weapon/physical threat inside the club.

  Code Black = paparazzi inside the club.

  Code Pink = clubgoer in need of assistance.

  A shorthand used to let each other know what type of situation we’re dealing with—and sometimes who we’re dealing with.

  Only one of those codes is specifically reserved for one person.

  Code Blonde.

  It means Delilah Fiorella is in house and on her usual bullshit and I’ve heard it uttered in my ear almost every single night since I started working here.

  Leaving Angel behind to get rid of King Douche and his buddies, I stalk my way down the hallway while I press my mic again. “Where?” I growl as I push my way onto the club’s main floor while I scan the crowd.

  As soon as I’m swallowed by the crush of people, I hear them. See them. People whispering I think that’s hers and Get your phone out. Take a video. Gawking and staring at what I’m sure is something that could get us shut down if Tob didn’t own half the city.

  Something that Delilah Fiorella is at
the center of.

  “Never mind,” I grumble into my mic before turning toward a couple of club kids who have their phones held high in hopes of catching a few seconds of whatever’s going on. “Put your phones away.” I push it through clenched teeth about a hundred times, coupling the warning with a harsh glare that has everyone it lands on scrambling to do what I say. Whether it’s because they know who I am and what’ll happen if they piss me off or because I’m huge, bearded, tattooed and they can guess what’ll happen if they piss me off, is anyone’s guess. Either way, by the time I make my way to the center of the crowd, I have the risk of whatever they’re all staring at ending up on Page Six practically cut in half.

  Head down, I wedge my shoulder into a crack in the front line and shove my way through it, earning myself a what the fuck asshole that quickly turns into a sorry, man as soon as they get a look at me. Picking my chin up, I get a load of what’s drawn the crowd.

  Jesus.

  The stripper poles were Jase’s bright idea.

  They’re fun.

  That and a shrug was the sum total of his argument when he had them installed a few weeks after I took over the club’s security. We fought over it—at one point physically—until Tob told us we were either going to find a compromise or he was going to close the place down. Me? I don’t give a shit either way but this club is Jase’s baby and as much as I want to wring his neck most of the time, I don’t want to be responsible for him losing something he’s put his blood, sweat and tears into. So, the compromise was hiring dancers to go with them.

  Not strippers—dancers.

  As in professionals who keep their clothes on and know how to follow the rules.

  Delilah Fiorella isn’t a professional, but she moves like one, her entire body rolling and undulating in time with the swell of music that’s pumping out of the club’s sound system.

  She’s also mostly naked, her usual barely-there club dress that probably cost as much as my car, lying in a discarded heap at the base of the pole. Because people like Delilah Fiorella don’t give a shit about rules or the kind of grieve their antics can cause for a worker bee like me.

  All they care about is themselves.

  What feels good in the moment.