Brazen (B-Squad 1)

Okay, shitty so far but not illegal. “So where did she go wrong with the law?”

“The ex was contesting the guardianship and the courts had declared that Tamara had to stay local with the kid and give the father unsupervised visitation until the case was decided. It seems she took exception to that.”

It was a world of suck all around and he was in the middle of it. “Any news about the divorce papers?”

“Still waiting to hear back from a court clerk in New York.”

“Not a hot clerk you could sweet-talk?”

Camacho snorted. “Got stuck with the one woman on the planet who doesn’t find me charming.”

Normally that would have gotten a laugh, but not this time. Being on the lam would explain why she needed the money, why it needed to be wired to an offshore account and why she’d shown up in his loft in full bitchy beauty queen mode willing to bleed him dry of a million dollars.

“Thanks, Isaac.”

“You need anything else?” the other man asked.

“This whole thing sits like a concrete block in my gut. Keep digging, focus on the ex-husband. Nice or not, Tamara isn’t the motherly type. If she’s

sticking her neck out like this, there has to be more to it.”

“Will do.”

Taz ended the call with even more questions than he’d had before talking to Camacho. The whole thing made his left eye twitch.

In all the years he’d known her, he’d never even seen Tamara hold the door open for someone, let alone risk everything for another human being. There was more to this than family obligations and he was going to find out what.

“Tamara.” He stood up and crossed the narrow aisle to the kitchenette cubby and opened the curtain blocking it from view. “I need to speak to you.”

She sighed and her shoulders dropped for an instant before she jammed them back up into place. “Anything you want, Honey Bear.”

As a unit, his brothers turned and watched as she strolled over, passed under his arm, entered the small kitchenette and went out of view of anyone in the cabin.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Duke asked, giving the closed bedroom door Bianca had walked through earlier a meaningful look.

His eye spasmed. Shit. He wasn’t even sure he’d know a good idea if it ran him over and backed up to have a go at him for a second time. That didn’t change the fact that he had to find out what Tamara was really up to before her presence fucked things up even more than it already had.

Bianca

Standing naked, except for her thong, Bianca held her arms out in the bedroom’s makeshift spray tan booth while Elisa turned her orange. Okay, not orange exactly. It was more of a light bronze. Still, it definitely wasn’t her regular shade of pasty.

The fake tan was step one in the total body makeover into Bethany Alderson before they touched down at Indulgence Resort. She’d always thought having her own Miss Congeniality moment would be fun. She was wrong.

Bianca shook her head. “This is weird even for us.”

“After everything we’ve been through, I don’t know if there is such a thing as weird anymore.” Elisa put down the tanning airbrush and took off her goggles. “Do you remember when we spent the night in the air shaft at St. B’s to keep Lexie company when she got put in solitary for a week?”

“How could I forget?” she asked as she slipped on a thick spa robe. “I’m surprised I don’t still have dents from your elbows in my sides.”

Elisa shrugged. “Hey, it was a tight fit.”

That was putting it lightly. Even as skinny pre-teens, they’d had to squeeze to fit into the narrow vent shaft. She’d had bruises for a week after the night spent in there, but it had been worth it to hear Lexie’s voice. She’d been in “the closet” for three days before they’d figured a way in. They hadn’t been able get the vent cover off, but Lexie had sounded almost like herself by the time they’d army crawled their way back to the B dorm.

“The closet” had been just one of the ways the school administrators had kept the students in line. The others weren’t any more humane. Extreme food rations. Extra chores to be completed between the hours of one and four in the morning. Revoking the few privileges students had, such as Sunday afternoon in the library. Life at St. B’s had been rough. So much so that three students committed suicide and the administrators tried to cover it up.

On the way back from “the closet” when Elisa was having her turn being shut in the tiny room, Bianca had overheard the administrators talking about the students’ deaths and how they’d covered it up to make it look like they’d run away from St. B’s. She’d told her girls, and Lexie had hacked into the school computer system to access the automatically backed-up security video feed that showed the girls hanging themselves in the gym. Headmaster Sterling Walsh was on tape, cutting the girls down and ordering the janitor to take the bodies into the city and dump them in a drug house so the police would find them there.

After seeing that, the girls agreed they had to do something. They’d hatched a plan. Vivi, Lexie and Elisa started the mother of all brawls in the library while Gidget and Bianca snuck into reception and made the call to the cops. After that, the school got shut down and she’d been sent back to the Sutherland ranch outside of Houston. The other girls had been scattered across Texas. For years they’d been apart, but they were back together now—and all because that shithead Walsh had kidnapped Gidget and put targets on Vivi’s, Elisa’s, Lexie’s and Bianca’s backs.