PROLOGUE
Hook
Four years earlier…
Age 26
Neverland, North Carolina
I’m getting more kids.
Those were the words I overheard earlier today that froze the blood in my veins. Just like it froze every time I heard that same voice bark my name when I was younger.
I’m getting more kids.
Over my dead body.
Fred Croc might have me on a short fucking leash, but I’ll be damned if I allow him to use the School for Lost Boys of Neverland to get a new crop of kids for his personal gain and sadistic pleasures. The school was supposed to be an orphanage—a place for boys without families to live and learn. Not with Croc running the show. As far as he was concerned, we were free labor for his chop shop and convenient targets when he wanted to blow off steam.
Or worse.
Never again.
As I pull off the main road, I cut the headlights so I don’t alert Croc and his wife, Delia, in their house behind the school. The moon is less than half full, but it’s enough to see by as I drive toward the old, two-story building where I lived for nine years as a forgotten kid in the system. Nine eternal years that I try like hell to forget ever happened. Here’s hoping tonight hammers another damn nail in that coffin.
I park in the grass a couple hundred feet away and pop the trunk to grab the two giant plastic containers. The night is quiet. Nothing but the sounds of cicadas buzzing, liquid sloshing at my sides, and grass rustling as I walk to the front stoop.
Setting the cans down, I stare at the heavy wooden door and clench my fists to stop the tremors before they can start. I told myself I’d never come back here, not for anything. My life was never great—even before I was placed here, living with a junkie mom while caring for my baby brother as best I could was no fucking picnic—but here…this was where my nightmare began.
I take three slow breaths through my nose, willing my heart to stop slamming against my ribs like a medieval battering ram. But the memories this place evokes—ones I’ve relegated to the darkest recesses of my mind—stir my sleeping demons. They’re so real I can practically feel them. Every minute I’m here, they’ll grow stronger, scratching and clawing their way to the surface. Every cell in my body wants to leave. I’m tempted. So fucking tempted. But I’m here to do a job, and if that means facing the ghosts of my past while I do it, fine.
They won’t win.
I worked too damn hard to put this hell behind me.
And I have. I’m fine.
I’m fucking more than fine.
“Jesus, this place looks like shit.” By the time I moved out, it hadn’t looked the greatest, but now… Now, I think I’ll be doing it a favor. It used to be a well-maintained brick colonial home, a place of hope run by people who were devoted to caring for children with nowhere to go. I’d gotten a brief taste of that utopia with the Andersons, the nice older couple who originally owned the school. But a few weeks after my brother and I arrived, they died in a car crash, and everything changed.
Tracing the words on the weathered plaque nailed to the door, I remember Mrs. Anderson telling me this was her favorite quote.
“The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.” ~ Mother Teresa
Difficult? Maybe. But not impossible. It’s been a lifetime since I last hungered for love. I learned early on that love isn’t necessary to make it in this world, not where I come from. Strength, respect, and smarts. Those are the things that’ll get you somewhere. Those were the things I hungered for, and they made me into the man I am today. A man who’s not afraid to kick over the hornet’s nest.
Or set it on fire.
Bottom line, I’m not about to let Croc use this place as a front for his free child labor. And it sure as hell won’t become some new kid’s version of hell. Not while there’s still breath in my body.
Armed with two gas cans, a Zippo, and a grudge the size of the Atlantic, I check the door and find it unlocked with the security system disarmed. Guess there’s no reason to secure an empty building with nothing of value to speak of. I slip inside and leave one can on the main floor, then carry the other to the kitchen where the enclosed staircase to the second floor is located.
I pause at the bottom and peer into the narrow unlit passage. My mouth goes dry and my pulse kicks higher as the memories rush in. Croc thinks I’m just another one of his abused mutts, like a thing he’s beaten so much and for so long that I’m afraid to leave my owner. He couldn’t be more wrong.
Tonight, I send Croc a message: GO. FUCK. YOUR. SELF.
Climbing the stairs, I ignore the creaks trying to drudge up those demons, until I reach the room that spans the entire second story that served as our living quarters. It’s like a mini barracks, a dozen single beds with metal frames lining the walls. Each of us had a bed and one dresser drawer to hold our clothes. There were no toys or books, no televisions or video games. We only had each other, our imaginations, and Peter’s stories to entertain us. Not that I ever joined in with the other kids. I couldn’t, even if I’d wanted to. Which I didn’t. I never subscribed to Pan’s dumbass theory that we were all family just because we lived under the same roof. We were orphans lumped together through circumstance. The end.
Even still, this room had been my sanctuary. A small part of me hates to destroy the one place in the world I felt safe, but I don’t want this to have to be another kid’s sanctuary. So down it goes.
I start on one end of the room and trail the gas along the brittle wood floor, over the beds, past the window we sometimes escaped through, and across the dressers until I get to the bathroom. It’s large and tiled with three toilet stalls, a community shower area with six sprayers, and six sinks lining the opposite wall under a long, rust-framed mirror.
The rubber soles of my boots are nearly silent on the tile floor as I move to where I can see a specific corner of the showers. My gaze falls to the wall about a foot and a half from the floor where an inch-wide groove is worn down in the grout. I tuck my thumb into my fist out of pure muscle memory, then force myself to relax my hand. My thumb isn’t bleeding. It hasn’t in years.
Turning away from the missing grout, I grip the edges of a sink until my knuckles turn as white as the porcelain. There’s a permanent sea of rage that lies beneath my surface like boiling lava. It burns with every injustice, every instance in my life someone treated me like trash. I can go from low simmer to volcanic eruption in seconds with the right trigger. And this whole goddamn place has them lurking around every fucking corner.
A growl builds in my chest as the rage funnels into my arm and I explode, my fist smashing into the face of the man roaring back at me. Shards of glass litter the tiled floor where thick drops of blood leak from busted knuckles. Lungs heave and nostrils flare with shallow breaths as I stare through what’s left of the shattered mirror. I don’t see the twenty-six-year-old man with a muscular build and trim beard looking back at me. I see a fourteen-year-old boy with shaggy black hair and too-thin frame. I see guarded blue eyes—his innocence long gone and his innate hunger to be loved plucked out and crushed under a steel-toed boot. And he’s blaming me for his pain.
Why didn’t you fight back? Why didn’t you stop him?
Why didn’t you kill him?
There it is. The million-dollar question. Answer? I was too scared. No matter how many times I wished for Croc’s death, I knew if I failed, the consequences would be unimaginable.
“All in due time,” I tell the boy. “You’ll have your revenge. I fucking swear it.”
I splash gas on anything that isn’t tile, then go back to the staircase and pour the rest of it behind me as I head down. Grabbing the full can, I make quick work of dousing the main floor—kitchen, living room, master bedroom where Croc and his wife stayed before they built their house out back, and the schoolroom…until I get to Croc’s old office.
The door is closed, but I know what’s on the other side—a metal desk that always felt cold against my bare skin, a rolling office chair that squeaked when he shifted, a dusty file cabinet he never bothered to open with metal handles that dug into my chest and stomach. I was the only one he ever brought in there. He said I was privileged. I said we’d have to agree to disagree. At no point did I ever feel privileged to be singled out by Fred Croc, but I accepted it and made sure his “generosity” never went past me. It was the longest four years of my life, and I have no desire to see the inside of those walls again, even for this.
Reaching back, I yank my T-shirt off and tuck half of it under the door, then pour enough gas to soak through to the other side. Of all fucking places, I’d hate for this to miss out on the cleansing baptism of my fire. If sins could leave stains behind like traces of gunpowder, this room would explode in a brilliant display of utter devastation.
A dog barks off in the distance, pulling me back to the present. I don’t know if it’s a stray or Croc’s mongrel, but I can’t risk getting caught before I finish. Forcing my feet to move, I stride down the hall. On my way out, I grab a framed article hanging on the wall, smash the glass, and pull out the yellowed newspaper column about Fred and Delia taking charge of the orphanage. Then spill a trail of gas behind me as I cross the lawn to my car.
Tossing the empty container to the side, I light a cigarette with my silver Zippo and take a long drag, sucking the smoke deep into my lungs. Exhaling, I stare at the side of the lighter where the engraved words “Captain Hook” are illuminated by the moonlight. It was a gift from Starkey—the last of us to finally “age out” of the system, one of my loyal Pirates…and my eighteen-year-old baby brother.
Not that anyone knows that.
Not even him.
He still has that big-brother-hero-worship thing for me regardless. If I wasn’t sure he’d be okay with Smee and the other Pirates watching out for him, I wouldn’t go through with this. Starkey is my first and only priority, always has been. Which is why before I turned eighteen and was forced to leave the school, I made sure I had something big to hold over Croc’s head to keep him in line, and it worked. He was still a cruel asshole, but he never laid another hand on the kids after that.
But if Croc is allowed to reopen the school, the shit starts all over with a new group of orphans. And I can’t let that happen. My leverage on him might spare them his worst, but even his best isn’t fit for a fucking goldfish, much less kids.
Once I do this—once I destroy this last reminder—I can finally put my past behind me. I’m determined to do this, and I have no intentions on running. I want him to know it was me, and I’ll gladly serve the time. Because every minute spent in prison is one I don’t have to look my childhood tormentor in the eyes and do his bidding. I need a goddamn break. Since leaving Neverland isn’t an option—not until I find a way to bring him down—prison’s my only chance for a temporary escape.
Flipping the Zippo open again, I light the wick and stare at dancing flame. I was a lot like it before Fred Croc came along. I might have been a little fucked up, but my fire was contained. Under the right person’s care, it could’ve stayed that way. Maybe even tamped out completely. Instead, Croc pumped it full of oxygen until it blazed out of control and ravaged everything good inside me.
So, fuck him, and fuck this school.
The split knuckles on my hand throb in time with my galloping heart. I ball up the newspaper article, light it with my Zippo, then drop it on the gas-soaked grass. It catches the fire with a satisfying whoosh and races down the invisible track, straight through the open front door, and into the building.
I watch the fire grow and feed as it travels from one room to the next, lighting up each window like glowing orange dominoes. It’s not long before smoke is billowing from the windows and open door. A few minutes later, the building is engulfed in flames stretching high above the roof as they lick at the sky.
The intense heat practically bakes my bare skin, but I’m rooted to the spot. Now I get why arsonists watch their fires. It’s fucking mesmerizing and perfect in its complexity. The power is obvious in its destruction, but also in its healing. Because as I stare at the raging inferno in front of me, I feel a cathartic peace quelling the rage inside of me. Not enough to fix what’s broken—nothing exists that can ever do that—but enough to satisfy a small part of that boy I saw in the mirror.
Not much time passes before the distant sirens steadily grow louder until finally I’m engulfed in spinning colored lights and shouted commands. I don’t fight them when they grab my arms and roughly cuff my hands. I don’t struggle when they read me my rights and shove me into the back of a cruiser. And I don’t protest with my reasons and justifications for torching the school to the cop who slides behind the wheel.
A judge doesn’t need to know why I did it to find me guilty.
I know why…and so does Croc.
As my cruiser starts to pull away from the scene, I find the devil himself glaring at me with bloodlust in his eyes. I don’t dare break eye contact first. I refuse to show him any sign of weakness. But once we’re on the highway, I blow out a breath and drop my head back on the seat. All I need is a break, a chance to regroup and maybe learn some things on the inside that can help me bring him down in the future. This move is about strategy as much as it is revenge and prevention.
In the meantime, I won’t have to answer to Croc, won’t have to take his orders and carry out his dirty work. Won’t have to ignore those secret smirks that tell me he’s remembering things about our past that make me want to simultaneously vomit and rip out his fucking diseased heart with my bare hands.
There’s no one who needs my protection right now. Smee will look out for Starkey; they’ve always been tight like brothers, too. For the first time in my life, I’ll only have myself to worry about. And since I’m not worth the trouble, that officially makes me a worry-free man.
I’ll pay the price later, one way or another. Croc won’t let this go without finding a way to punish me for it. But there isn’t anything he can do to me that he hasn’t already done. So, whatever it is, I’ll survive it. I’ll survive him.
It’s what I’ve always done. It’s what I’ll continue to do until I take him and his entire operation down. And maybe someday I won’t simply be surviving, I’ll actually be living.
But I doubt it.
CHAPTER ONE
Hook
Present Day
Age 30
London, North Carolina
Fuck, I hate the club scene.
I’d rather choke down a glass of metal shavings than admit it to him, but I’d take the hyper-jovial atmosphere of Pan’s Friday festivities over going to a nightclub any day. Both settings are rowdy as hell, but the acres surrounding the house where the Lost Boys live is lit up with bonfires and tiki torches instead of strobe lights and lasers. The DJ’s playlist is hard rock and heavy metal, not this synthesized EDM shit. Most importantly, you have room to breathe and walk around without having to squeeze through a sweaty sea of people rubbing and grinding on each other like it’s mating season for the desperate. It’s fucking suffocating.
But the clubs are where the young twentysomethings go to party, and by party, I mean get high. Especially on MDMA-based drugs. Ecstasy used to be the big thing in the early 2000s. When that went out of style, people started rolling on Molly. Now there’s a new drug on the scene, engineered and manufactured by a team working for none other than Neverland’s up-and-coming crime boss, Fred Croc.
Fairy Dust.
Looks like body glitter, feels like flying. That’s the pitch. It’s a more intense version of Molly with the added bonus of making the user sparkle under the club lights. They just swipe the ultra-fine powder onto their skin, and, less than a minute later, they’re flying high and getting all touchy-feely with everyone around them. Not my thing—no drugs are, thanks to Mommy dearest—but it’s only been on the market for a month, and the club kids can’t get enough of it, so business is booming.
Tonight, I’ve set myself up in the VIP lounge at the Quarry, one of the hottest new dance clubs in London, North Carolina. I have three Pirates with me—Smee, Cecco, and Cookson—who are mingling and moving the product. I prefer to sit back and supervise, which is my right as captain. I might not have a choice about selling this shit, but at least I don’t have to do it myself.
“Hey there.” A girl sits next to me on the couch where I’ve been nursing my beer, waiting for this job to be over so I can get the hell out of here and get back to my loft.
“Hey, yourself,” I force myself to say. Sounding like a normal person who gives a shit about anything doesn’t come naturally to me. My instinct is more growl-and-glare than grin-and-gaze. But the surly shit scares off potential customers, so I’m trying to dial it back. For Starkey’s sake.
“I’m Brandy. That hot redhead over there said you could help me out,” she says, pointing to the edge of the VIP area.
I flick my eyes over to where Smee, my right-hand man, is standing. He shrugs and holds the sides of his leather jacket open, signaling he’s out. But as soon as she looks back at me, he smiles and gives me a wink, then disappears into the crowd.
Fucking Smee. He’s not out of Dust. He’s sending her over as an offering. The Irish bastard doesn’t think I get laid enough. Not that anyone does, compared to him. The man acts like he needs sex to survive instead of air. He enjoys fucking men just as much as women, and he’s not shy about it, either. There’s a constant parade of ass coming and going from his cabin. But Smee thinks my all-work-and-no-play rule needs bending, so sometimes, he tries to “help out” his captain by playing the role of pimp.
Sometimes, I even let him think it works.
But lately, every time I tap into my spank bank—my mental version of Viagra for when I fuck women—I don’t pull up memories of former hookups like usual. Instead, I’m picturing the dozens of filthy never-gonna-happen fantasies I have on a constant reel in my mind about one man in particular—a fucking cop, of all things. And as much as I hate this insane attraction to a man I want nothing to do with for multiple reasons, it refuses to go away, so I’ve learned to live with it. Eventually, I’ll have to do something to scrub him from my mind, but I have more important things to worry about right now.
“I like your ring,” Brandy purrs, touching the pewter skull ring on my right thumb.
“Thanks.” I found it lying in the dirt the day I took back control of my life, so I kept it and it became the inspiration for the Pirates. It’s a reminder of who I am and why. It’s a symbol of my mission to end Croc’s reign in Neverland. To end his reign over me, and now my brother.
“So, what do you say?” Brandy prods. “Can you help me?”
I turn my full attention on the girl, getting my first good look at her. Time freezes as an image from the past superimposes over her for the briefest of moments. A young, black-haired beauty with a hint of desperation shining in her green eyes…
Blinking the image away, I take a long pull on my beer. Yeah, no. Normally I can fake my interest in the fairer sex, but this girl reminds me of my mother. My very dead mother. Without knowing a thing about Brandy, a mix of resentment and pity for her burns in my chest. There’s no way I’m touching this girl, even to keep up appearances.
I itch with the need to get out of here, but I have to stay focused. I have a job to do. My brother’s life depends on it. “You lookin’ for some wings, angel?”
She glances around the roped-off area, but everyone around us is doing their own thing—drinking, laughing, dancing, taking selfies. The usual self-absorbed bullshit of a barely legal crowd. Brushing her long black hair behind her bare shoulder, she smiles coyly, batting her thick lashes at me. “I am. Wanna fly with me?”
“Not tonight, babe. That’ll be fifty.”
“Dollars?” she says, her eyes flaring wide. She’s young, probably around Starkey’s age, and I’m guessing she’s not well-versed in drug deals.
“That’s the cost of admission. You want it or not?”
She leans in and slides a hand over the zipper of my jeans. “Are there any other forms of payment you’d accept?”
Keeping the bored expression on my face, I look her dead in the eyes. “Sorry, cash only.”
She pouts, but I’m sure it’s more about having to pay fifty bucks than missing out on a quick fuck with me in some darkened corner just to score her and her friends their high for the night. Once the cash is in my hand, I reach inside my jacket and pull out a small resealable bag filled with pearlescent powder. I tuck it into her palm, thinking she’ll go to the bathroom to put it on, but apparently, excitement overrides her previous paranoia. She doesn’t waste a second before dipping her fingers and painting her body with it. In a handful of seconds, her pupils will dilate, and she’s liable to climb into my lap despite my earlier rejection.
Except I’m not sticking around for the show. I saw enough of it the first nine years of my life to last me until I’m cold and dead. I don’t know if it’s the girl looking like my mom or all the pent-up sexual frustration riding me, but I need air. Right fucking now. Shoving to my feet, I stalk out of the VIP area and weave through the crowd until I finally get to the front entrance and escape outside to suck in the crisp January night.
Firing off a quick text to Smee, I tell him to take over. I don’t give him any explanation as to why I’m bailing. I don’t have to. I’m his captain, and he never second-guesses me. It’s been that way since we were kids at the school—the one I burned to the ground and did two years of a five-year sentence for arson. I’d still be serving my last year right now if I hadn’t gotten out for good behavior. Not that my behavior was even remotely good in that place. No, I’d gotten out early for one reason and one reason only—because Croc wanted me out.
Just like he wanted Starkey in.
Now the only way for me to get Croc to let my brother out of prison is to sell this first batch of Fairy Dust. Doesn’t sound all that hard, but it takes a while to move a million dollars of powder.
I light up a smoke, the crackling sound as I inhale and the sweet taste of the cloves coating my tongue both working to calm my nerves. I climb behind the wheel of my new blacked-out Challenger and focus on the hot shower and the book waiting for me back at my loft in Neverland. But fate has other plans for my evening. I’m only a couple of miles from the Quarry when a set of cherries lights up in my rearview.
“Shit.” I briefly contemplate putting my foot to the floor and outrunning them. I know I could with what I’ve got under the hood, but by now, they already have my plates and info. If I bring attention down on the club—and by extension, Croc’s operation—I’m fucked.
As I pull over and squint against the spotlight shining directly into my side mirror, practically blinding me, I realize that I’m not out of London city limits yet. That means that London PD’s finest is behind me. And the man I haven’t been able to get out of my head the past several months is a London cop. Fuck me.
A man gets out of the cruiser and makes his way forward, but with that light behind him, I can’t see shit. My pulse kicks up a few notches, and I tighten my grip on the steering wheel.
“Can you step out of the car, please, sir?”
Not him.
I release a heavy exhale and tell myself it’s relief washing over me, not disappointment. “What happened to ‘license and registration’?”
“Sir, I’m not going to ask you again. Step out of the car,” he says, more forcefully this time.
A shadow passes over me from the passenger side. So, the pig has a partner. Something’s off about this, but I don’t have much of a choice other than to do what they say. They have the upper hand, what with the guns and the badges they’re toting. I’m just a small-time criminal with no one to care if I disappear. Something I can’t let happen before I make things right for Starkey.
“Sure thing, Officer.”
Making sure they can see my hands at all times, I do as he says. As soon as I rise to my full six-foot-three height, the guy spins me around and pushes my chest against the car. I grind my teeth together, using every ounce of control I have to keep from turning and busting this motherfucker’s nose open with my fist. Just like I did to the Neverland cop who tried to keep me from Starkey the night he was arrested.
Turning my head, I glare at him over my shoulder. “What the fuck is your problem, man?”
“Shut up and hold still,” his partner says from the other side of my car, shining his flashlight in my face.
The guy behind me starts patting me down. I don’t make a habit of carrying my gun on me, but—
“Got a four-inch switchblade,” Handsy Cop says after retrieving it from my jeans’ pocket and flicking it open before setting it on the trunk of the car. I’m about to really start bitching when he reaches into my inside jacket pocket and comes up with several one-ounce baggies with the picture of a fairy on them. “What have we got here?”
Goddamn it. This night just went all to hell. I can’t believe I forgot to stash them in the secure container under my seat before driving away from the club. Just goes to show how fucked up my head’s been lately. All because of him.
“My niece asked me to sell some of her body glitter,” I say calmly. “I think it’s important to support our young entrepreneurs. You want some?”
“Funny,” Bossy Cop snarls. “Let’s see how funny you are down at the station.”
Handsy yanks my arms behind me and slaps the cuffs on my wrists tight enough that I wince. I’ve had plenty of jerk sessions that involved thinking about a cop and handcuffs, but not with this cop and I’m never the one wearing the cuffs. “James Hook, you’re under arrest for possession with intent to sell. You have the right to…”
I tune out the rest of the Miranda rights as my head spins with what the hell is going on here. They never asked for my license, didn’t follow proper protocol. I never gave them my name. This wasn’t an ordinary bust. I was targeted. They probably would’ve hauled me in for possession of a deadly weapon or littering because I tossed my cigarette out the window had they not found the drugs. Because something tells me they were sent to bring me in no matter what. The question is, what the hell for?
An hour later, I’m still sitting in an interrogation room at the London Police Department, chained to the plain white table and waiting for…who the fuck knows. No one’s giving me any goddamn answers, and it’s not helping my mood.
“Hey!” I shout, staring at the one-way mirror. “The least you could do is give me my smokes while I rot in here for no fucking reason.”
A minute later, the door to my left finally opens. A tall man with a muscular frame walks in wearing a pair of black cargo pants, a tight-fitting black polo, and a badge hanging on a metal chain around his neck. His head is bent as he looks at the files in his hand, but I don’t need to see his face to know who it is. It’s the bane of my existence and my biggest fantasy all rolled into one magnificent, irritating package.
John fucking Darling.
For information about HOOK, book 2 in the Neverland Novels, click here:
www.ginalmaxwell.com/books/hook
