The Jade Garden - Text copyright © Emmy Ellis 2021
Cover Art by Emmy Ellis @ studioenp.com © 2020
All Rights Reserved
The Jade Garden is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events are from the author’s 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
“Once you get yourself properly established, Cass, you shouldn’t get any shit, but it’ll be a long road to get to that point. Remember, you’re my daughter, someone to be feared. Don’t let those no-mark twats tell you any different. They’ll 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 they’d do well to remember that. Make sure you spell it out to them, or you’ll get a heap of trouble on your doorstep. You’ll probably get it anyroad, no matter what you do, but so long as you’re prepared, you can get through anything.”
– 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. It’s a struggle to run the Barrington when I don’t understand who I am these days. It’s 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 I’ve chosen to be wouldn’t do that, but I don’t regret it. It’s a burden, always being so nasty, treating people the way I have, but if I don’t, at least until I’ve been in charge for a year, everything will fall apart. Dad doesn’t want bother on our doorstep, I remember him telling me that, so I behave the way I do to ensure that doesn’t happen.
The weapon I created—the monster created—is so far from something I would have usually done that it frightens me. The emotions I feel while using it are even more frightening—how can I enjoy cutting people up with barbed wire? How can I love the thrill of it?
There’s something wrong with me, but that’s a diary entry for another day. I can’t allow those whispering voices to get through, the ones belonging to my conscience. They’ll take me down if I do. I’ve got to follow Dad’s 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 ‘normal’ life. Family is everything, so Dad said, and I can’t let Mam down. So I’ll sacrifice what I want, my need to be who I was—for her sake.
It’s 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 Jun’s nephew, Jiang, out the back of the Jade Garden was either a deliberate slight towards her—a challenge for her leadership on the Barrington—or someone had chanced his arm to snatch drugs from the Chinese takeaway while Cassie was busy settling into her role as estate leader.
Jiang’s slit throat had Cassie veering towards the former—or 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 person’s neck if they didn’t want to make a massive point? All right, Jiang wasn’t exactly innocent when it came to selling drugs along with the chow mein, but he wasn’t a bad bloke.
He had kids, a wife.
Shit.
“You know Jiang will be taken to Marlene, don’t you.” Cassie eyed Li Jun to check if she’d get any gyp off him, but it seemed he was on her wavelength.
The woman crouching over Jiang—Yenay, her name was—let out a whimper and rested her forehead on her dead brother’s, her hair falling to obscure their faces. Of course she wouldn’t 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 Cassie’s arse into it, what else could they do but hide the evidence? Because if they did drag her into it, they’d end up dead, too, she’d 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
