Jaspierre's Last Chance (Jaspierre Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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

  26 Years Earlier

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  26 years earlier

  Chapter Twenty

  26 Years Earlier

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  22 Years Earlier

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Book list

  Severina- Jaspierre Begins Excerpt

  Jaspierre's Last Chance

  Mixi J Applebottom

  Copyright © 2016 by Mixi J Applebottom

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2016

  ISBN 978-0-692-66640-1

  www.MixiJApplebottom.com

  Let's do it.

  Let's be wonderful.

  Chapter

  One

  Lucille was gone. Jaspierre stood up, leaning forward and placing her palms on the smooth, cold prison cell floor. Her father, Pierre, was dead. Very slowly, she started to do push-ups. Chance was alive.

  It seemed completely ridiculous that she was in this cell. Yes, she had done her fair share of murdering, but her baby had been snatched from her before it had even suckled its first teat! She rolled over on the floor and began to do sit-ups.

  Pierre had been murdered right before her eyes. She stood and started punching the large, heavy bag. Everything about meeting her father had gone terribly. He had looked haunted and terrified. She never got to prove to him that she was better than Mother. And he had been slaughtered, so she'd never prove it to him now.

  Mere seconds had gone by before her entire life was destroyed. Pierre murdered, and her, bursting with baby, his body not even cold. Sirens wailed before the baby ever did, and she was caught.

  Lucille was stolen, and Jaspierre tossed into prison. It was ridiculous. She started doing jumping jacks. The world appeared to have changed in the most vicious, unrelentingly difficult way. Yes, she had made some mistakes. She murdered, but even though he deserved it, it was still technically illegal. Couldn't they cut her some slack because Lucille was stolen? Because Pierre was murdered? But no, somehow, that was not quite how it worked. They should have just given her a ticket or a slap on the wrist. It was her first offense! Shouldn't everyone get to kill at least one person before they had to go to prison? She understood men like Chance needed to be locked up. But a successful woman like her? It made no sense. Everyone was a little naughty; what was next? Every single person who was speeding while driving locked up? Anyone who smoked in a non-smoking zone thrown into prison for years? Where would they draw the line?

  Jaspierre would be locked up for the next six years. That was what the court decided was "fair." Edward, the same cop that had caught her baby bursting from between her thighs, did his best to find Lucille, but he just didn't have any luck. It was probably why he visited her so frequently. Jaspierre didn't bother hating Edward. He did the best he could. Besides, Chance was the freak who messed this all up.

  And now Chance had Lucille. The most vicious, evil man on the face of the planet. Jaspierre was absolutely sure that he had destroyed that little girl. Could Chance handle a crying baby? There was not a single doubt in her mind that he could not. Lucille was dead. Smothered or shot or drowned. Probably during that first long night of crying, or when the very first fever set in, Chance would twist her neck until she popped. Jaspierre twisted with grief, counting to ten slowly, trying to contain it. The only thing she had wanted was a true family. She wanted her father, her baby, her kitties; and Chance had ruined it completely. It would never get better. The first year in this prison cell, she completely collapsed. It was quite a mental breakdown. Mother would never have understood it. Jaspierre sat, she sobbed, and didn't do a single damn useful thing. Could she have been more of an embarrassment? She was a shell of her former self, an empty broken woman. It took her body a full year to heal from the violent trauma of birthing a baby, and for her heart to harden itself.

  The only thing she did during that time was pump milk every single day in the hopes that she would soon have a baby to feed. But one morning, when she was sitting sobbing and pumping milk for a baby that was stolen away, she realized she had no more milk to give. And how useless was it? Little Lucille might not even be drinking from a bottle anymore. She would be on solid food. She could be walking, talking; she wouldn't be an infant any longer. Except surely Lucille was dead. She was dead. Jaspierre finally accepted it. And that was the moment when Jaspierre remembered that she could be doing more. More than nothing, more than milking herself, she could be getting ready. That was the first day she started pushups. That first week, she could barely do ten at a time.

  When she first went to prison, her belly, recently emptied from baby, was still quite large. When she sat and did nothing for an entire year, her body suffered. But now that it had been through two years of this daily regimen, her stomach had grown firm and thin. Her arms had grown large and strong. Her will, once broken, had returned with a vengeance. In fact, it was when she finally started caring again that she was able to remember that prison for the very rich could be quite different from prison for the average person. Spend a few dimes and it could be quite similar to one of those fancy clubs. Many of the prisoners played tennis and drank wine at the poolside. More like rehabilitation at a spa than prison. It amused Jaspierre to no end that she spent the first year rotting in a regular prison cell. Where had her mind gone to that she would allow herself to languish in such a way? It cost her an astounding ten thousand or more each month to be in the fancy prison. But the food was decent and she had a private room and was allowed to use the gym. She only went at night, refusing to speak with other guests, ahem, prisoners.

  And her behavior had been good. So they said that instead of three long, endless years left of her sentence, she only had one left. While she was in that plain cell the very first year, she found herself thinking about Lucas. He had taken captivity so incredibly well. She had never considered this before, having never herself b
een locked up for years at a time. But now, now she knew. Her biggest regret was not letting him out earlier. He didn't really deserve this kind of punishment. But it was too late; she couldn't apologize to Lucille's father because he was dead. Chance was a virus that would catch and kill everyone she loved. But now she was at her peak. So bring it on. He consumed most of her plans. She would take him home and kill him slowly, patiently. His punishment would be no shorter than hers; the loss of everyone he loved and four years imprisonment at the very least. In her imagination, she had skinned, mutilated, and gutted him thousands of times already.

  Jaspierre was preparing--preparing to get her daughter back, even though she'd just be a corpse. Getting back Lucille meant she had to face Chance. And so, she got ready. She went back to push-ups, this time one-handed. Her lean body had grown hard with muscles. Jaspierre never had been fit like this in her entire life.

  One more year until freedom. And one more year until she slaughtered Chance.

  Chapter

  Two

  Edward stood in front of the two large metal doors, waiting with two cups of coffee in his hand. He had been waiting for this day for a very long time. In his mind, a grievous tragedy was about to be righted. Jaspierre stepped out of the large metal door, and it was the first time he saw her in regular clothes in the last four years. She was wearing a loose red dress and tall black heels. She had on no wig, instead embracing her long grey and brown hair. She looked amazing; the muscular definition of her arms, legs, and her excellent ass took his breath away for a moment.

  "Hi, Jaspierre," he said, trying to play it cool.

  "You can give me a ride?" she said. "I could go for a ride." She had the cutest little smirk, and her eyes lingered on him for a moment.

  His heart pounded. "It seems like prison did you pretty good; you look fantastic."

  "This dress is like five sizes too big now. Well, consider me rehabilitated."

  "You ready to go home?" he said.

  "No. I'm going to go to work." She really didn't want to go home. As far as she was aware, Dru was still in her house; perhaps the home was littered with ruppies, and, quite frankly, she didn't want to deal with him. Not yet, at least. She had not been able to get in touch with him for the last six months, and that concerned her greatly. She was certainly not going to take Edward to her house. Dru had been running everything while she was in prison, visiting regularly, but somehow, in the last few months, she could feel something had changed. It was extremely likely that any confrontation with Dru could end in bloodshed. Edward didn't need to see that at all. He, being an excellent, moral man, would handcuff her and drag her right back to her cell.

  So instead, he dropped her off at Kyller and Co. It was foreign to her after all this time to walk up the marble steps, through the glass doors. In fact, she couldn't recognize the place. Everything had been redone; floors, walls, even the secretary had been changed.

  "Hello, I'm Jaspierre," she said, standing her tallest and attempting to look at her most powerful.

  "Do you have an appointment?" the secretary said with a forced smile.

  "I, I am the owner. I am Kyller, I'm the Kyller in Kyller and Co." Jaspierre clicked her heels crisply on the floor. "Do you understand what I mean? Has my office been redone also?"

  "I... I... I... I," the secretary said, extremely nervous. "I'll buzz the CEO and let him know you are here."

  "Who is the CEO?" Jaspierre asked, a bit startled. CEO was her job. She was, as far as she still knew, the owner of that title. Surely they would have had to notify her if they removed her position? "Actually, instead of buzzing me up, I'll stop by the office." She turned and walked up to the elevator, stepping inside and pressing the button for the top floor. The secretary mumbled some sort of complaint, but Jaspierre didn't particularly care what she thought. How could there be a new CEO?

  The elevator purred underneath her feet. She considered what this meant. Had she been fired? Surely they would have had to contact her. Yes, she had been in prison, but she had still been running her office. Or at least she thought she was. Her secretary met with her every Friday and they would discuss business and sign papers. Where was he?

  By the time she got to the top, and the doors slid open, a security officer stood in front of the office. There was a new blond secretary sitting at a desk. Where was her secretary? The man who had come to prison with papers and discussed strategies with her? Where was he? The office door was lined with gold letters on the glass. Jaspierre gasped as she recognized the name instantly. Dru Valentine Brummel. Fuck.

  Dru had her motherfucking job. Maybe she should have gone home first. Her mind whirred. If everything her secretary told her was a lie, then she was fucked. The security officer ushered her back into the elevator, and they slowly sank back to the bottom floor. Jaspierre didn't bother saying anything at all. What other lies had been told to her? What the hell had happened?

  Chapter

  Three

  Jaspierre called a cab. She had intended that her secretary would run and grab one of her many vehicles. One thing was obvious: he had been lying to her for quite some time. How long? Was it years? Was it months? Fuck. How much worse could it get? She stood outside Kyller and Co., her mother's company, her company, her family's legacy. And she waited for the yellow cab to draw up. Was her legacy lost forever? She stepped into the cab and sat down. Her fingertips pressed into her temples as she tried not to panic. It was about an hour drive, and very slowly, they made their way down the dirt road. Finally, she recognized the rock wall that curled around her mansion. When they drove up to the gate, it did not automatically open for her. She got out and put in her code; it wasn't a surprise to her that it didn't work. However, she remembered the overrides.

  So, finally, the gate slid open, but it squeaked and rattled. Why the hell hadn't it been maintained? Blood was rushing to her ears. How bad was this going to be? She climbed back in the cab and rode up the long driveway. When she had been put in prison, the road was smooth, perfect in every way. Now it was riddled with salt marks, potholes, and cracks. She could feel her heart start to pound. Stay calm. Stay very calm. Now is not the time to let your rage fly free. Wait for the perfect moment.

  The serval bushes that normally grew perfectly in front of the long marble steps up to the ornate carved door had been chopped down. Jaspierre clenched her fist and counted to ten, slowly trying to calm herself. It would take five years to grow those bushes back to that state. Five years. It was a new form of prison, waiting for her bushes to grow. Dru had declared war. How long ago did he do this? At what point had he begun to hate her?

  She got out of the cab and walked up the marble steps. Her hand froze as she touched the handle of the door. If the bushes had been cut down, and her secretary had lied about her job, then where were Tessa and Ikali? Fuck. It seemed very unlikely that they were inside. The hairs on the back of her neck rose furiously. The door was left unlocked. Her throat grew dry and she suddenly lost the urge to call them. Tessa and Ikali were certainly gone. She stepped inside and looked around. Her previously polished marble floors were scuffed and dirty. She turned and went up the stairs to the right and peered in her room. It had been destroyed. Her massive bed with the four wooden posts each a servals in various positions. The one licking its paw had its face burned. The sitting serval was crushed. The third one stood on its hind legs, its paws lifted as if ready to bat at an invisible fly; well, it used to. Now it was splintered as if hacked at by an ax. The final cat with bared teeth had been coated in red paint. The bed had been snapped, the mattress sunken into the middle. She turned and looked down the hall. She didn't even want to look in her closet. If she had only known this was going on! She could have stopped him. But she didn't know; she never knew. She had been spoon fed lie after lie after lie. She never once suspected that her house was being reduced to ruins.

  She stepped into her closet. The clothes and shoes were missing; only a few pieces left. She rummaged through her jewelry box and
found only one remaining piece. A small golden chain with a heart charm. The heart had the words "Mine Forever" stamped into it. At the prison, they had given her back the one piece of jewelry she had on when she was arrested. Her father's ring. And now she put on the second piece of jewelry she still owned, Chance's declaration.

  Mother's room had two large double doors; one was swinging open freely. She looked inside. It was dirty but not destroyed. Surely all of her jewelry had been stolen, sold, or given away. She didn't step into the room because two naked women lay sleeping on Mother's bed. She turned and walked back down the hall, glancing to the right into her large exercise room. All of the equipment had been removed, and a disco ball was now installed in the ceiling, with two stripper poles installed in front of the mirror. It figured that once she was fit and ready to use the gym equipment it would have been removed.

  She walked back to the pool. The cargo net and the jumping rock were gone. The pool now looked plain and boring, still curling under the pane of glass to the outside area. The pool was also tinged with algae. What to do next? Dru would be murdered, of course. But should she wait here? Did he even know she was out of prison yet? Hopefully, that secretary had forgotten about her, just assuming she was a weirdo who wanted to see the CEO. She walked to the large table that spiraled like a snake with little wooden planks. Thankfully, the table did not look destroyed. She wasn't sure that it was replaceable. The entire table was made out of wood, wooden gears, and wooden carvings. At the press of a switch, the conveyor belt would slide into the kitchen and slide out with food. The last time she used it was with Lucas.

  Had Dru found the maze and the prison in the basement? Probably. She walked through the kitchen, which was a mess, and into her library. The books were strewn on the floor, half of them charred. Her desk was broken. But worse than that, the carved servals on both sides of the fireplace had been smashed. The cold, smooth marble had been destroyed for no reason. No, they were destroyed for a reason. The servals were all destroyed to send her a message. The message was received loud and clear: Jaspierre had been betrayed. The ear on the right serval was still intact, and the fireplace was open.