JUDE: Book 2 The Justice Brothers Series Read Online Free PDF Page B

politicians including the secretary of defense, Hughes was able to keep his only child out of prison. After which, to what I’m sure was Professor Hughes’s distress, make that fury, his preternaturally talented daughter decided not to follow in her father’s academic footsteps. She decreed that she liked the bloodier side of the human psyche and insisted that she wanted to be a criminologist. Five years and four degrees later, the DOD hired her, planting her at the DEA, which, no big surprise, is where I met her.”
    Jared shrugged. “I’ll grant you that she is odd. That kind of brainpower and the fact that she grew up as the companion of a brilliant and overpowering genius helps to explain her unusual personality. Not to put too fine a point on it, her father may be one of the most imperious men I’ve ever met. He controls his world and everyone in it—except to his surprise and distress, his ‘unusual’ daughter. Add to that, her mother bailed on them when Sky was four. Thanks to her domineering father, she never had the benefit of normal teenage crisis like catty girlfriends or rutting pimpled boys trying to get in her pants. So yeah, she’s unusual. Let’s just say that her social skills lag behind her intellectual ones. But according to Hailey and the other female cops, once you get past her ‘oddness,’ they find her as funny and clever as I do.”
    Jared’s expression hardened and his voice dropped dangerously. “She’s also shy and vulnerable as hell, bro, so I’d appreciate it if you’d let up a bit.” Before Jude could answer, his brother added, “Oh, and by the way, it isn’t only her brain that’s beautiful. Skylar is one of the more attractive women I’ve ever met.”
    He rose to his feet and shoved back his chair. As he headed to the door, Jared said over his shoulder, “You might want to give her a fighting chance, dude. Don’t know about you, but I’m thinking that we can use all the help we can get to make sense out of this fucking nightmare.”
    Watching the door slam behind his clearly annoyed brother, Jude dragged his hands through his tousled hair. Thoroughly embarrassed by Jared’s well-deserved chastisement, Jude glanced at Jake and strove for self-deprecating gallows humor.
    “You have to admit, bro, those glasses are something else. Talk about wearing protective armor to keep away chauvinistic assholes—like me.”

Chapter 4
    “Congratulations, Sky. I heard that last night you finally met the biggest and baddest of the Justice brothers. And most importantly, you survived!”
    Hailey Michels’s sky-blue eyes sparked with excitement as she raised her glass to Skylar.
    “Isn’t Jude amazing? I mean, good God, the whole bunch of the Justice men are as gorgeous men as ever walked the earth, but to say that they are a tad overwhelming is an understatement! And from what I’ve seen, Jude is the most overpowering of all. But, my goodness, even their eighty-year-old grandfather can scare the bejesus out of you by just frowning at you.”
    Hailey’s excitement morphed into concern as she glanced around the table and heaved a troubled sigh. “Sorry, ladies. I shouldn’t make light of what has to have been a horrible night. Do you want to talk about it, Sky?”
    Mitzi Olson and Tara Peterson, who like Hailey were uniformed officers, didn’t hide their interest.
    Mitzi grabbed the conversational ball as she always did and shot to the crux of the matter.
    “Yeah, Sky, out with it. I hear you were involved in the whole fucking murder scene and even participated in the debriefing this morning. From what the guys told me, we should hope that we never see anything like it if we ever want to eat or sleep again.”
    Sky felt her cheeks heat, remembering how annoyed Detective Justice was with her that she ate two doughnuts at the briefing. She still didn’t understand why he seemed angry. She wasn’t sure what she’d done wrong. For goodness sakes, why did they put the doughnuts