By
J. Bree

My life was simple: I kill for money and I’m the best in the Bay at my job.

That was enough for me until I met the woman of my dreams, only to deliver her to hell itself for a pretty penny.

Nothing will stop me from getting her back and when I do… there isn’t a man in the Bay that’s safe from my vengeance.

They’ll pay in blood for their crimes.

This duology is dark and as bloody as the title implies.

I read the Hannaford Prep series before this as is suggested. Here we meet some of the people before the timeline of Hannaford. These books are very intricately entwined.

The prelude of this book is the day Lips becomes the Wolf. The Butcher is there watching, at this point he is still friends with the Jackal/Matteo D’Ardo.

As the Butcher’s tale begins, we meet Odette/Odie. Her father has just sold her to pay off his debts, what he doesn’t know is that she isn’t the virgin he proclaimed her to be. She thinks what she’s been through with her father was the worst and that things could only get better. She is wrong.

We meet Harbin and Roxas from the Unseen MC, as they try to convince The Butcher/Johnny Illium to break ties with the Jackal. He won’t at least not yet their ties go too far back for that. We see the Viper’s bar and cage fights where the Butcher reigns at the top of the food chain. The Wolf is there too, but for a job.

The Butcher takes on a job for the Viper, information from Chance Graves, this will be important later on. Harbin lets him know that the Devil is stalking the mark’s father Grimm Graves, an interesting turn of events. The most important job that comes his way on this particular night is the one from the Vulture. He needs a package delivered, one that is going to change the Butcher’s life.
Both the D’Ardo and the kid/Wolf are present for the exchange and that’s when he realizes the mistake he just made.

This is a favorite scene.

She glances up at me and her shoulders roll back, her eyes taking me in one last time, flaring wide with the fire she has, and then she speaks.

“Thank you for delivering me to my rapist, Monster. I look forward to seeing you in hell, because helping these men will certainly get you there.”

I have no fucking clue what she’s saying but, fuck, my dick likes the sound of it. Fuck, I’m going to pay for a week with her. As I walk over to D’Ardo and the Vulture I do the calculations in my head and I think I can afford a couple of months with her if she’s not interested in anything else.

I’ll fuck her right out of my head.

The Vulture smirks at me and kicks a duffle bag of cash towards me. Fucking cockhead. I ignore it and jerk my head at D’Ardo, glancing down at the kid by his side. She’s glaring at the ground, scuffing those big boots of hers against the cracks in the road and the weeds sprouting up. D’Ardo leans down to murmur something in her ear and the change is instant; the glare is gone, her face is that perfectly blank mask that she wears around him.

I fucking hate it.

Tugging at my jacket, I pull a cigarette out and light it. I’ve never given a fuck about the kid before, why would I suddenly give a fuck about D’Ardo’s mind games with her? Today is messing with my fucking head. I glance over my shoulder at the car again, as if the bombshell is a magnet and demanding my attention.

Fuck I want to give it all to her.

Every fucking second of it.

“She sure is something, isn’t she, Butcher?” The Vulture says, and I turn back to him with a sneer.

“We’re not friends, I’m not here to flap gums with you, Vincenzo.”

His lip curls, and he slicks his hair back like some two-bit, slimy gangster. “Zero respect. I don’t know why you keep this guy around, Jackal.”

D’Ardo shrugs and slings an arm over the kid. She shifts away from him, so minutely that no one else probably notices, but I didn’t become the best of the best because I miss shit.

Fuck, am I finally growing a fucking conscience? Is that pro’s power so fucking good to a man’s soul that you only have to sit in a fucking car with her to become a changed man?

I need a drink.

I need some violence and chaos. I need blood on my hands and a man screaming at my feet and I need it fucking now.

The Vulture leaves with his men and D’Ardo steps forward to finish his business with the lucky fuck from the cartel with the hottest woman in the world in his backseat. I stand there, looking out over the water and try to contain my jealous, blood-thirsty nature.

The kid just stands there with me and stares at me like I’m a pile of shit.

I frown at her. She never does that shit, she always treats me better than I deserve, especially considering how fucking badly I treat her. The bad feeling only gets worse.

D’Ardo finishes up with the cartel, a shake of their hands and the deal is sealed. If this guy can drop high seven figures on that amazing piece of ass for the night then I can only guess how much he’s just sold to D’Ardo. His business is getting fucking huge, big enough that he’s taking out the other dealers in the state.

He’s probably going to be the biggest player in the damn state at this rate.

I already hate the idea of that, he’s a fucking dick half the time as it is, but he’s a grown man and that’s his own business. I’ll just stick to my own shit and refuse to drink with him if he brings all of his fucking posse with him. There’s eight men here now for this little meeting, for fuck’s sake. It’s pathetic.

I crush the cigarette under my boot and light another one, watching the car drive off with my girl.

Fuck.

I need a drink.

Or maybe I need to wade my ass into the mess that is the Chaos Demons and find that kid. Piss his daddy off. Start a war and keep myself real fucking busy with blood and pain for a few months, clear my head some before I go after this girl.

I glance down at the kid and pure loathing is rolling off of her in waves.

Not having that, not today and not with the mood I’m now in.

I catch her arm and pull her into me, murmuring under my breath where D’Ardo won’t hear us, “Why do you keep looking at me like that, kid?”

She shrugs like it’s nothing but her voice betrays just how fucking pissed she really is. “I always knew you were a killer, Butcher, but I didn’t know you were a shitty human being as well.”

This little girl has watched me torture men, kill them, carve them to pieces as they beg me to stop. She’s seen me in the ring and knows no man ever leaves those fights with me alive. She’s seen me bend chicks over barstools and fuck them in the middle of raves.

One sentence from the bombshell and she hates me?

Something is fucking wrong here.

My fingers tighten around her arm. “You speak her language?”

She nods. Fuck. “What did she just say.”

The kid tries to pull away but my fingers tighten even more around her arm, enough to leave marks but bruises mean nothing to this tiny little slip of a kid.

She huffs and rolls her eyes at me. “Don’t act innocent now, Butcher. You did the deed, you got your money, all is right in the Bay. That’s how you work right? No lines, green is green, fuck everyone else.”

D’Ardo turns to see us both glaring at each other. I see the jealousy from a mile away, he doesn’t like me touching her, but I ignore it. Too much is at stake here.

The kid doesn’t like that jealousy at all though, and leans forward to snap, “She said ‘thank you for delivering delivering her to her death. She looks forward to seeing you in hell, because helping her rapists will certainly get you there.’ Nothing too out there, right? She was pretty generous with her words, if I’d been sold off to the cartel at a skin auction my speech would have been a little more fucking colorful.”

No.

Absolutely fucking not.

I did not just deliver her to someone against her will.

She didn’t run, she didn’t ask for help, she was calm the whole fucking way. There’s no way. No way.

My hand drops but I don’t step away. “She was there for a job, not against her will.”

I don’t know if I’m trying to convince myself or the kid but she scoffs at me. “Whatever you say, Butcher. She seems to think otherwise.”

D’Ardo saunters up, ready to start shit because there’s nothing he hates more than being ignored but fuck him, I don’t care. “Why didn’t she say something to me? She understood what I was saying, kid. She knew English, she could have-“

D’Ardo snorts at me, cutting me off and I straighten up, reminding him that I could kill him without fucking sweating if I felt the need.

I’m kinda feeling the need.

“So you delivered a piece of ass to the cartel here, who gives a fuck. She’ll be dead before dawn, Alvaro doesn’t like them being around for too long. Fuck, she might be dead already! Word is he likes fucking them once their cold too, sick fuck. So there, all over with. Let’s get a fucking drink.”

D’Ardo and I have been as close as brothers since foster care.

That means sweet fuck all to me when I knock him the fuck out, right there at the docks, surrounded by his twitchy, blithering flunkies who don’t make a move to stop me.

The kid just watches as her little stalker crumples to the ground, then glances back up at me. “You really didn’t know?”

My chest starts to heave as I suck in air to try to contain the rage in me. I’m such a fucking idiot! “Kid, there was no fear in her. Nothing until she got into that other car and spat those words at me. Nothing fucking like it. What was I supposed to think? Not once did anyone say she was bought against her will.”

Fuck.

Now I need D’Ardo conscious and awake to tell me where the fuck the cartel were heading. I can get her back.

I can fucking get her back.
Bree, J. The Butcher of the Bay: Part I (Mounts Bay Saga Book 1) Kindle Locations(847-913). Kindle Edition.

My heart breaks with every scene with Odie, she didn’t deserve any of this. The lengths that the Butcher is going through to find her win him my heart, in spite of or maybe because of the bloodshed.

Lips/Wolf helps him get her back since she is fluent in French. He has to win this broken woman’s trust and then her heart. It’s going to be a long journey. The way Odie starts finding her way back is through cooking and sketching. I loved that ‘her monster’ bought her all the supplies she could ever need to begin painting again.

We see Aodhan in this book, and we get a better understanding of Colt and Chance Graves. To say there’s a lot of twists and turns in this book is an understatement for sure.

I love the way Illi loves her, I love the way he treats her, and I love the way he now supports Lips. I love that Lips and Odie become friends.

I think I screamed bloody murder at the ending of this book though. Once again I’m very glad the next book is already out.

5 Contented Purrs for J. Bree!

J. Bree

J Bree is a dreamer, writer, mother, farmer, and cat-wrangler.

The order of priorities changes daily. She lives on a small farm in a tiny rural town in Australia that no one has ever heard of.

She spends her days dreaming about all of her book boyfriends, listening to her partner moan about how the wine grapes are growing, and being a snack bitch to her two kids.

If you want to hear more about all things Mounts Bay then join my readers group! There’s a lot of creative ways to dispose of a body in the Bay so come join the fun.