by Bree Rivers
“They aren’t coming.”
He returned to his spot behind his desk. Violet could almost hear the gears in his evil and malevolent soul turning against her. He was looking for a way out. Trying to decide why she was there. “What do you want?”
“It took me a while, I know.”
“A while for what?”
“To remember.”
“Vanity, either take off your clothes and blow me or get out of my fucking house.”
“Nice talk for a Senator. You talk to your constituents with that mouth?”
“Listen to me, you fat bitch—”
It sounded like the Senator almost swallowed his tongue when she pulled out the revolver she had in the small of her back. Conroy and Martinez were specific to her. They agreed to her plan but on the condition that she go armed. She had at least gotten a begrudging nod of approval from them when she revealed she already had a weapon on her. “I’ve about had it with you and the body shaming thing.”
“What. Do. You. Want?”
“How about an apology?”
“Because I called you fat? Look at the fucking scale.”
She drew back to hammer on the weapon, her eyes still boring into his inflated expression. “No. I was thinking we’d start with your trying to rape me when I was eighteen and move onto the whole running my dad and me off the road and watching from the bridge as we drowned. Or we could just focus on the gunshots.”
Chapter 25 - Before
Vanity gained conscience coughing up the water that was swirling around her chest. She looked at her father, her only family. His face was whiter than the clouds, the water around them turning pink from the gunshots. “Vanity,” her father coughed, and small scarlet bubbles came from the corner of his lips. “Vanity ... I love you so much. You have always been the best person in the world to me.”
“I know daddy.” She pulled her seatbelt off, crying, and tugged at his but it was stuck. Grabbing her sweater, Vanity pressed it against the seeping holes in his chest, as she tried to breathe past the panic crushing the air from her lungs. “We’ve got to go, daddy. We’ve got to get out of the water.”
“No, honey. You go. Swim under the water as far downstream as you can. Be safe. Be happy. But you have to do one thing—”
“Daddy, no. We’re gonna get out together. I’ll get you to the hospital.”
“I’m going to see your Momma, honey. I’m happy. You have to remember though. The Senator’s reach is far and wide. He’s too powerful for his own good. You’ve got to run, honey. Run and hide.”
“No, daddy. Please, stop saying that.”
“I can’t, honey. Just remember, everything you’ve ever needed, I left it with your Momma’s angel. Go and get it, honey. It’s the only way you’ll ever truly know bliss. It’s the only way you will be free.”
“Daddy, no. Nononononono. Please.” He smiled at her and closed his eyes. She heard the breath leave his body, his heart stop. Sobbing, her heart heavy, her lungs starved, Vanity dove beneath the water and swam away.
Chapter 26 - After
“So you remember?”
“I remember it all actually. I remember you trying to rape me that night. My father stopped you, and you fired him. He got us into his truck, and we drove away. Something happened, some insult to your bloated obnoxious ego and you went chasing after us. You’ll be happy to know some of your shots actually hit my father.”
“Good. The traitorous bastard.”
Violet’s hand shook, and she needed every bit of self-control she had to keep herself from shooting him in the face. “I’d be careful what you call my dad, senator. My desire to kill you is fighting with my sense of justice, and let’s just say, justice is feeling rather weak right now.”
“I’m a United States senator. I don’t fear justice, silly bitch. I am justice.”
“My father used to record you when he’d drive you around. He started to do it to get stock tips. Eventually, he realized what he was hearing was all kinds of collusion and illegal activities. You may be a U.S. Senator, but I don’t think you will be for long once everyone knows just what a traitor you really are.”
“Well, any recordings your father may have done won’t matter now, will they? After all, what wasn’t destroyed in the car crash is lost to time.”
“You forget. We left so fast, daddy didn’t have the time to pack them.”
Conroy and Martinez entered the room and flanked Violet. Conroy reached over and removed the gun from her hands. “Let me handle this, Spitfire.”
Violet widened her stance as she tried to hide the relief she felt at it being taken away. “Daddy stashed the recordings and his other paperwork in the base of the statue in the rose garden. I sent these two gentlemen to retrieve it.”
“After we took care of your security.”
“You should really pay your men better,” Martinez said.
“We barely looked at them before they were throwing down their weapons and running away with their tails between their legs,” Conroy shared. “Downright puppy-like they were. And we didn’t even have a newspaper to smack them.”
“So what does it matter if you have some ancient tapes. With my lawyers, I’ll get them thrown out no problem.”
“That may be a problem,” Conroy said.
“We gave those tapes to a nice man from the FBI, Senator Long. He seemed to feel this was all they needed to finally file charges against you.”
"What?" The Senator bellowed, the veins on his neck distending.
"I believe the word treason was mentioned," Conroy shrugged.
“You did? When did you do that?” Violet asked them.
Martinez shook his head. “Who did you think we were texting on the train?”
“I just figured it was Kane and Davis.”
“My son,” the Senator said the word the same way you would a curse, and then, for good measure, he spat on the floor.
“I love you too, Father. Or not-Father as the case may be.”
Violet kept her eyes glued to the Senator, though she realized when she felt his heat at her back how close Kane was to her. Conroy took a step to the side when Davis took his spot. She kept her eyes on the Senator knowing too well that when you corner a snake is when it gets it's most vicious. And the Senator was a huge snake.
“Someone finally told you? Who was it? Maria? Traitorous bitch, just like your whore of a Mother.” The Senator barely got his last word out before Kane shot. The bullet went over the Senator’s head, but he had to have felt it parting his hair. “That the best you have, son? What a joke. Kane Long—Genius hacker. Top of his special forces crew. You are as useless to me now as you were the day you were born. Is this the idiot you decided to share Vanity with? I always knew you were a sick fuck, guess you decided you’d never be able to keep a real woman without another man to keep her interested. I should have smothered you when I heard you weren’t mine. I should have killed your whore mother—”
“No,” Violet caught Kane’s hand before he aimed the gun again. She knew he missed the Senator on purpose last time, and he wouldn’t make the same choice twice. “That’s what he wants you to do, Kane.”
“I know that, sweeting. He isn’t worth the investigation.”
“Don’t try me, Kane. I’ll get you. I always do.”
“Senator, I can promise, you will not have the time to go after my neck. You might try focusing on your own, though, because these men aren’t lying to you. The FBI has been looking into your so-called business dealings for a while. They knew you were profiting from the wrong things, they just weren’t sure how far in you were. From the few notes I saw, Violet’s father was very good at figuring it all out.”
“Actually,” David stepped inside with Magnus and Gray. “Her father’s notes encompass years of investigation. You, sir, are about to spend a very long time in a bottomless hole. That is if you aren’t just given the death penalty.”
“Good.” Violet shrugged. “Then we’re done here.”
“He almost took you from me,” Kane lifted his hand with the gun.
“But he didn’t,” Violet reminded him. “I’m right here. And I want to leave. The question is will you come with me or not?”
“Of course I’m going with you.” Kane turned to Violet, his hand dropping.
“You’re the one who always disappears on us.” Davis pointed out.
Violet threaded her fingers in his, as she reached out her other hand to Kane. “I’ll never disappear on you guys again.”
Kane turned, his eyes searching her expression. “I ...”
“It’s okay, Kane. It’s time to go. There’s nothing here for you.” His eyes glued to hers, Kane allowed their hands to combine. Together they walked out of the Senator’s office, never once looking behind them.
“You can’t do this, Kane. I own you. Do you hear me? You both belong to me.”
Chapter 27 - Now
Violet watched Kane and Davis come into the hotel suite from her spot on the couch before the fire. They both looked tense. She knew they were angry. They had a good reason. “Are Conroy and Martinez okay?”
“They’ll live,” Kane said.
“Which is more than I could have said of you if the Senator had you for more than a few minutes alone. What the hell were you thinking, Precious?”
“The nightmare ... it was him. It was the Senator. It was always the Senator. The night he attacked me, my father hustled me into the pickup, and we left. The Senator ... he shot at us. On the Mill Road, when we hit that turn, he side-swiped the truck, and we went right into the river. Daddy was shot,” her voice broke on a sob so strong it shook her entire body. “Daddy never made it out of the car.”
Davis came over to the couch and pulled her legs onto his. “I’m sorry Precious.”
“I know. Daddy managed to tell me about the tapes though, and how to find them. Conroy took out the guards while Martinez fetched them for the FBI folks.”
“And you were the one distracting the Senator.”
She sighed. Kane was clearly still furious. “Kane, look. I’m sorry. I had to do it. I had to face my fears, and nothing is scarier in my head than the Senator. I slept on the train. Slept for hours with not one nightmare.”
“What are you saying?”
“Doing what I did was a good thing, Kane. It was necessary.”
Kane collapsed onto the couch on the other end. He ran his hand over his face as he sighed heavily. “I should put you over my knee and spank you.”
“Did I make any money at the fashion show?”
“Now she asks,” Kane rolled his eyes.
“Why do you need money, Precious?”
"I'd like to find Daddy and have him moved to be with my Mom."
Kane squeezed her hand. Davis nodded, "We'll make it happen. Anything else?"
“I want to ... well, if there’s enough ... I want to give Maria money to start a restaurant or something.”
“There’s no way in hell David will let Maria leave the compound. He’s offered her a small fortune to stay, and she accepted. She told him she doesn’t need money as much as purpose, and between our four families she had plenty of purposes to work with. I suspect all of the guys from the squad will be bunking close.” Kane shrugged. “I’m lucky I got her to agree to move in with us.”
“Oh.”
Davis’s eyebrow rose. “Did you wish to do anything else with your money?”
“It’d be nice to give some to RAINN. Or pretty much any rape and incest prevention network. Maybe a program that teaches girls how to protect themselves like you all taught me.”
Davis and Kane started to chuckle.
“I mean just a little. Maybe a few hundred?”
Their chuckles turned to full-throated laughter that shook the couch with their force.
“What’s so funny, you guys?”
“Oh, my Precious.”
“Just a few hundred,” Kane wheezed.
“What? What the hell is so funny?”
“Precious, didn’t your father tell you he was using the Senator’s phone conversations to learn what stocks to buy?”
“Well, yeah, but so what?”
“Sweet,” Kane turned her head to look at him. “Your dad invested thousands into your future. Didn’t you look at any of the paperwork in that statue?”
“No,” she shrugged. “I didn’t even realize what my dad meant what he said it was all with my mom’s angel. I just ... I mean I’d had the dream for a long time, but I never took the time to examine it. I just never dared to even try until you guys, until Conroy and Martinez taught me to fight ... I just ...”
“It's okay.” Kane pulled her onto his lap and worked at the knotted muscles in her back. “Sweet, your dad put what looks like everything he had into his investments. He created a trust in your name with a lawyer in town. That trust continued to grow and increase over the years. Thank God your dad picked the right lawyer.”
“He had to be right,” Davis joked.
“True, he knew how much the lawyer hated the Senator.”
Davis and Violet shook their heads. “Well, if that was how he picked him.”
Kane settled to smoothing his hand over her back. “The lawyer kept the trust intact waiting for you to show up and take over. It’s over ten million dollars, sweet. You not only have more than enough to donate to a charity, but you can also create your own if you want, or pretty much whatever you need.”
“It’s a hell of a lot more than we have,” Davis confessed.
“How do you feel being our sugar momma, sweeting?”
"So I guess I can't call you gotrocks anymore, huh?"
"The title goes to you, sweeting."
Violet laughed and felt all of her fear flow out of her body. It was going to be okay. They were going to figure things out. She would find a way to learn to stop running and hiding in the shadows. She would find a way to live a life of sunshine, and happiness, and so much love it would awe her every single day. And she was going to do all of this with two men that were everything she ever dreamt of.
“You haven’t answered Davis’s question,” Kane said sternly.
“Before I do,” she crossed her arms over her chest. “Tell me how much I’m going to have to put aside for medical attention for Conroy and Martinez? They tried to get me to go back, but I wouldn’t listen.”
“The only punishment I’m going to talk about right now is yours,” Davis glowered at her.
“Martinez and Conroy will be fine ... eventually.”
“Eventually?” she squeaked.
"You may have to sew a new Godzilla," Kane confessed.
"Oh, you didn't." Her mouth fell open in shock. "What about the rest of them?"
"What do you mean?" Davis asked.
"Is there any part of the guys themselves I'm going to have to sew back together?"
“Don’t worry so much, Precious.”
“Besides,” Kane pulled her into his lap and began to nibble at the pounding pulse in her neck. “That’s what Doctor Shane’s for.”
Also By Bree Rivers:
Frozen Ivy
Fiery Ivy
The Complete Ivy
Daisy’s Dance
Daisy’s Song
Daisy’s Bow
Unbroken Heart
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About the Author
Bree Rivers, a romantic at heart, was raised in a family of soul mates. After realizing she had found many men she loved, just not enough to love forever, she decided to take the passion she saw all around her and put it to good use. Releasing Frozen Ivy was the first step to finally realizing her dreams, she is honored that you have chosen to share in the journey. Don't miss a moment.
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