The Jade Garden (The Barrington Patch Book 2) Emmy Ellis (top books of all time .TXT) đ
- Author: Emmy Ellis
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The Jade Garden - Text copyright © Emmy Ellis 2021
Cover Art by Emmy Ellis @ studioenp.com © 2020
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The Jade Garden is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events are from the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
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Contents
A Word of Advice, Cass
Dear Diary
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
A Word of Advice, Cass
âOnce you get yourself properly established, Cass, you shouldnât get any shit, but itâll be a long road to get to that point. Remember, youâre my daughter, someone to be feared. Donât let those no-mark twats tell you any different. Theyâll try it on, believe me, but you stay firm, dig your heels in, and keep that chip on your shoulder. The Barrington belongs to the Graftons, and theyâd do well to remember that. Make sure you spell it out to them, or youâll get a heap of trouble on your doorstep. Youâll probably get it anyroad, no matter what you do, but so long as youâre prepared, you can get through anything.â
â Lenny Grafton, ex-leader of the Barrington
Dear Diary
This has been harder than I thought, getting rid of my old self and becoming someone new. Itâs a struggle to run the Barrington when I donât understand who I am these days. Itâs been like putting on a new layer of skin which hides the previous Cassie Grafton, holding her tight inside, never allowing her to seep out. She has seeped out at times, of course she has. Giving Doreen that bottle of perfume was a former Cassie thing, a gift to get the old gal smiling, me feeling good inside about doing something nice for a change.
The monster Iâve chosen to be wouldnât do that, but I donât regret it. Itâs a burden, always being so nasty, treating people the way I have, but if I donât, at least until Iâve been in charge for a year, everything will fall apart. Dad doesnât want bother on our doorstep, I remember him telling me that, so I behave the way I do to ensure that doesnât happen.
The weapon I createdâthe monster createdâis so far from something I would have usually done that it frightens me. The emotions I feel while using it are even more frighteningâhow can I enjoy cutting people up with barbed wire? How can I love the thrill of it?
Thereâs something wrong with me, but thatâs a diary entry for another day. I canât allow those whispering voices to get through, the ones belonging to my conscience. Theyâll take me down if I do. Iâve got to follow Dadâs orders and keep my hard shell.
And never let it crack to show the old Cassie beneath, the girl who wanted to be a teacher and live a ânormalâ life. Family is everything, so Dad said, and I canât let Mam down. So Iâll sacrifice what I want, my need to be who I wasâfor her sake.
Itâs what Lenny Grafton would expect.
Chapter One
Cassie stared at the body on the concrete again, playing for time, giving herself a moment to think. What was her next move? What would her father, Lenny, have done? The slaying of Li Junâs nephew, Jiang, out the back of the Jade Garden was either a deliberate slight towards herâa challenge for her leadership on the Barringtonâor someone had chanced his arm to snatch drugs from the Chinese takeaway while Cassie was busy settling into her role as estate leader.
Jiangâs slit throat had Cassie veering towards the formerâor was she conceited to think someone was out to get her, that this was all about her? No, it was plausible. Dad had told her this sort of thing would happen. Not the murder, but an uprising, someone stepping up to the plate, wanting to eat her meal. And anyroad, who the hell carried a machete around with them to slice an innocent personâs neck if they didnât want to make a massive point? All right, Jiang wasnât exactly innocent when it came to selling drugs along with the chow mein, but he wasnât a bad bloke.
He had kids, a wife.
Shit.
âYou know Jiang will be taken to Marlene, donât you.â Cassie eyed Li Jun to check if sheâd get any gyp off him, but it seemed he was on her wavelength.
The woman crouching over JiangâYenay, her name wasâlet out a whimper and rested her forehead on her dead brotherâs, her hair falling to obscure their faces. Of course she wouldnât want a family member meeting Marlene, no one in their right mind would, their minced remains fed to the pigs on Handel Farm, but unless this lot wanted to go down for a stretch because of drug dealing, dragging Cassieâs arse into it, what else could they do but hide the evidence? Because if they did drag her into it, theyâd end up dead, too, sheâd make sure of it.
Life, as in, actually living, was better than a life term inside the nick.
Li Jun, shoulders sagging, gazed over at his two sons, who stood in the darkness at the edge of the
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