Vendetta Road

by Christine Feehan

  Peter took a step after her. Then another. The door to the club swung closed after her. He did his best to hurry but his heart beat so hard and his vision blurred. How did she know? He made it to the door, pushed it open and fell at the bouncer’s feet.

  What had she said? Poison in his drink? She’d put poison in his drink. He grabbed the bouncer as the man leaned over him, trying to tell him, but no sound emerged. He looked up to see the scary man from the bar looking down at him dispassionately.

  “Looks like a heart attack to me. You’d better call an ambulance.” He watched the man walk away as everything around him began to fade.

  * * *

  Ben Thurston and Darrin Johnson had gone to school together, worked together and done just about everything else, especially hunting and fishing. They’d even shared women. Neither was interested in having their own woman, since there were far too many to tie themselves to one. On Fridays they often went to their go-to fishing place, Lake Merced. By car it wasn’t much of a distance, and they often stayed until very late, drinking beer and just enjoying the quiet.

  Fishing hadn’t been the best, neither was lucky, but they didn’t care. They ate the dinner they’d brought with them and sat watching a storm brew out over the lake, threatening to come in on a building wind.

  Two men came toward them, walking briskly. Neither carried a fishing pole and they walked with great authority, as if they knew exactly what they were doing and it was all business. They seemed to be headed straight for them.

  Darrin exchanged a quick look with Ben. Something about the two men made him uneasy. He started to stand up as they drew near. They didn’t pause or slow down, they just kept up that same brisk walk. Both wore trench coats, both wore gloves. One had a gun in his hand. Gun. Darrin thought he shouted it, but no sound emerged. He felt the bullet hit, pain blossoming through his chest. He looked at Ben. Half of Ben’s head seemed to be a bloody mess. He looked down at his chest. It was the same. He went to his knees and then folded forward, his face hitting dirt and rocks.

  The two men never missed a step. They kept walking.

  * * *

  “Hi, Winston,” Ice greeted as the man came into his apartment. “I’ve been waiting for you.” He gestured around the apartment. “Do you like the new look? I was very careful to make certain there was no mess. I hope you appreciate that.”

  Winston had stopped at the door, shocked to see someone in his apartment. Behind him, someone crowded close, all but pushing him inside. The door closed behind him and he found himself in his own apartment with four strange men. The one in front of him, smiling that irritating smirk, had a tattoo of three teardrops dripping from his eye.

  “What are you doing in here? What is all of this? Who are you?”

  “You’re supposed to be so smart, Winston,” Ice said. “You can see I’m wearing my club colors. I’m the husband. Soleil’s husband. Soleil. The woman you were setting up to be killed. She’s my wife and you still came after her. I just want you to understand that you doing that pisses me off.”

  He kept smiling, but his eyes were glacier cold. So cold Winston shivered and looked over his shoulder toward the door. A big man stood in front of it. There was no escape that way. His mind raced with possibilities. His best bet was to try to call the cops, get attention.

  He noticed the cord running through Ice’s gloved hands. “What is all this?” He recognized the materials for explosives. They were neatly set up on his kitchen table, as if he’d been making bombs.

  “Well, this is the evidence that is going to convince the cops that you had a very big grudge against a lot of people. The poker-playing bunch, you know, the judge, cops, lawyer, even the medical examiner. Didn’t you hear the news? They all died tonight. Most of them at Conner’s house, where poker took place. Someone blew them up. The judge was shot. So were Darrin and Ben, two very good friends of yours. Unfortunately, you were heard arguing with them. That’s always bad. The gun’s over there on the table as well.”

  Ice casually walked over to it and picked it up, looked at it and then handed it to Winston. Winston took it without thinking and turned it to point it at Ice.

  Ice raised his eyebrow. “Did you think I’d hand you a loaded gun?”

  Reality hit. Winston sighed and shook his head. “What do you want?”

  “Go ahead and fire it. I could have left one in the chamber,” Ice encouraged. “Of course if you hit me, my friend right behind you is going to put a bullet in your head.”

  “It isn’t loaded,” Winston said and pulled the trigger.

  To his shock, there was a bullet, and he’d fired it into the wall. Ice whistled and went to look at the wall. He dug out the bullet. “You could have shot your way out of here, Winston. That was careless of me. You’d better give that to me.”

  Winston tried firing it straight at Ice, but the gun was empty. He flung the weapon from him. Nothing made sense.

  “They’re all dead, you know.” Ice indicated the beam above his head. “Every one of your friends is dead, and you’re implicated in just about every murder. Even the poison used to kill Peter is in your cupboard. You feel really bad about it, don’t you?”

  Winston was so busy watching Ice push the cable through his fingers, he’d all but forgotten those behind him. Something bit into his neck and then choked him. It happened so fast there was no way to determine what was happening. Then he was hanging, his feet off the ground, a chair knocked over right under him. He kicked with his feet and reached with his hands to try to free the cord choking him, but it was already too late. The world was going black.

  Ice looked him directly in the eye. “You tried to kill my wife, you son of a bitch.”

  That was the last thing Winston heard before he choked to death.

  * * *

  Soleil rolled over and looked up at Ice. He thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. When she was like this, drowsy, her eyes half-closed but that soft, welcoming smile on her lips, his heart always stuttered, and his stomach did that slow roll. He loved her. That was the bottom line. He didn’t even care anymore that he was so far gone over her.

  “Hey, honey,” she said softly. Her voice was an invitation, even though he’d woken her from a sound sleep. “Did you finish the floor? What time is it?”

  “Yes, we finished it, but it took a little longer than we thought it would. Ran into a problem, but the apartment is ready to rent. Bannister is going to move into that one, and we’ll start working on the next one. It’s around three.”

  “You sound tired.”

  She pushed her fingers through his hair and his scalp tingled. She made him feel good. Welcome. She made him feel as if he belonged there—with her.

  “Come get into bed, Ice.”

  “I don’t know if I’m cut out for carpentry work,” he said.

  “No, you’re not cut out to be a carpenter. You’re a jeweler. Your pieces are beautiful.”

  “We all pull our shift,” he said. “I don’t really mind.” He tugged back the covers. She was naked, the way he liked her to be. He slid in next to her and wrapped his arm around her, needing her close. “I love you, princess.” He whispered it to her, uncaring that he was giving so much away.

  She put her arm around his chest and snuggled close. “I love you too. Go to sleep.”

  Thank fuck she hadn’t looked at the clock.

  EIGHTEEN

  “Thank you for seeing Soleil here, rather than at your office,” Absinthe said. “She’s been through a lot what with losing her lawyer, and now all this coming out about her former fiancé.”

  Jonas Harrington, the local sheriff, and his deputy, Jackson Deveau, both smiled down at Soleil as she stood close to Ice, unknowingly seeking his protection while they greeted the two law enforcement officers at the door.

  “Ice,” Jonas said. “Absinthe.”

  “H
arrington, Deveau,” Absinthe returned while Ice just nodded.

  Ice stepped back and gestured toward the great room. “We can go through here to the smaller sitting room. Soleil prefers that.” He took her hand and brought her knuckles to his mouth, smiling at her over their joined hands. She gave him that faint smile that told him she was nervous as hell and didn’t know what to expect.

  “Ice, you don’t mind if we speak to Soleil alone for a few minutes?” Harrington said smoothly. “That was part of the deal.”

  Ice didn’t need the bullshit reminder. They weren’t kidding anyone. The two men wanted to make certain the club wasn’t holding her hostage or in any way putting influence on her that would make her feel she had no choice but to stay with them.

  “I have no problem with that,” he said. “I’ll get coffee. Would either of you like some?”

  “Sounds good,” Jonas said. “I take mine black.”

  Deveau, a man of few words, just nodded. “Same.”

  Ice opened the glass sitting-room door, stopped Soleil just inside and tipped her face up to his. “I’ll only be a few minutes, princess. Absinthe will be right outside the room if you need him. You okay with this?”

  She nodded. “Yes, of course.”

  Ice didn’t like leaving her when she looked so vulnerable. He hesitated beside Harrington, who was a very perceptive man, and lingered to wait to hear what he had to say. He detested giving anything away to a cop, but he would if it helped Soleil. “Treat her gently,” he advised Jonas.

  Harrington studied his face, seeing too much. “You really love her, don’t you?”

  “I married her,” Ice said, and turned and walked out. He had to. He needed to be certain he was under control.

  Czar had warned him from the beginning that there were too many leads back to Soleil and that, although they’d tied up everything in a neat package for the detectives, they would want to make certain Soleil was where she was because she wanted to be, and that Winston, who appeared to have killed a lot of people, had really done so.

  Soleil had a lot of money. More than he’d first realized. He hadn’t cared, so when Code had whistled and pointed to the amount, he’d barely flicked a glance toward the screen. He had plenty of money. They didn’t need hers. He didn’t even want hers. But her money could have paid for some very experienced hit men. He supposed he couldn’t blame the cops for having that question in their minds. They could look at her financials and see she hadn’t touched her money.

  Absinthe had gone over and over with Soleil the questions she was allowed to answer without him sitting beside her. The moment the police were satisfied that she wasn’t being coerced, she was to call him into the room.

  Soleil had been trained in the best boarding schools both in the country and abroad. She carried herself perfectly, shoulders and back straight, hands folded neatly in her lap, her head up and no fidgeting. That had been drilled into her and came in handy on so many occasions. She could look haughty and annoyed, or vulnerable and sad, depending on what the situation called for. She had confidence in herself, but she was concerned about Ice.

  No one believed someone like Soleil, an heiress to a fortune, could possibly have fallen in love with a man like Ice. Law enforcement actually believed the club had kidnapped her or coerced her into staying with them. They believed the club—and Ice—was after her money. She found it insulting on Ice’s behalf.

  She waited for either to open the conversation, betting it would be Harrington. He reminded her a little of Czar, where Deveau was more like Maestro or Keys.

  “Thank you for seeing us, Soleil. There’s a lot of people who are very surprised that you married Ice,” Harrington said.

  “Because he’s in a club? I love the club and being on his motorcycle with him. Given my past history of adrenaline sports, I wouldn’t call it that surprising.”

  “Do you know his real name?” Deveau broke in.

  They were going to play good cop, bad cop. She’d heard of that routine. “Of course I know his real name. We’re married. When one gets married, you normally share names.”

  Deveau didn’t wither as he should have under her haughtiest, very perfect dry-up-and-die look. He didn’t seem the least affected.

  “It is?” he challenged.

  She didn’t even stumble. “His name is Isaak, his brother’s name is Dmitry and his sister’s name is Alena, just in case you were going to ask their names as well. My last name is now Koval. Is that what you need to know?”

  Jonas sent Jackson a quelling look. “Yes, we did need to know those things, Soleil. Winston Trent made some pretty nasty accusations before his death. He claimed you were being held prisoner, that these men were after your money and that you’ve been ill for some time.”

  “Ah, yes. The ‘mentally ill, I need to take care of her and her money’ scam. Do you know how many men actually think that’s going to work? Winston inserted himself into my life and I couldn’t get him out. Kevin Bennet, my lawyer—” She stopped and swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. She shook her head to clear it. Every time she thought of Kevin, she wanted to cry.

  “Kevin was helping me get rid of him. With Winston, no didn’t mean no. Even after I made it clear we weren’t getting married, he hired an attorney I didn’t approve of, or want for one. I had to go behind his back to get rid of the man.”

  “Why didn’t you call law enforcement and file a restraining order?” Deveau demanded. “That seems like the smart thing to do.”

  “By the time I realized it would come to that, he had already started his campaign to make me look like I needed to go to a hospital.”

  “How did you meet Ice?” Harrington asked.

  “In a bar. Winston had gotten very violent. I ran. I’d met Lana in a restroom of all places, and she’d given me her number just in case I got into trouble. They were all in Vegas because Steele and Breezy were getting married.”

  “Winston got violent?” Harrington echoed.

  She nodded. “I made it very clear I wasn’t going to marry him. He got angry and punched me several times. I was scared and I ran. I ran the opposite way of where I thought Winston would look for me. That way took me away from the strip and down toward the bars.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police then?” Deveau persisted.

  “He had a lot of cop friends. I didn’t know who to trust. I saw the bikes and someone outside wearing the Torpedo Ink colors like Lana had shown me and I went inside. I was too distraught to think it was a dumb idea to go into a biker bar. Fortunately, I met Ice right away, and he took care of me.”

  “Did he know you were an heiress?” Deveau asked.

  “Not then. Probably later, when we talked marriage and I said he had to sign the prenup Kevin had drawn up. He signed it without hesitation.”

  “Ice signed a prenup drawn up by your previous lawyer,” Harrington echoed, exchanging a long look with Deveau.

  “Yes,” she reiterated. “Without hesitation. If you’re thinking he coerced me into this marriage in any way, he didn’t. I wanted him almost from the first moment I set eyes on him. He was so sweet to me. He hated that Winston had put bruises on me. I tried to get him drunk and I deliberately tried to seduce him.”

  Both men exchanged grins. She ignored them. No one ever seemed to believe the truth, that she was the one at fault, not Ice. He always had to take the blame in everyone’s eyes. It hadn’t been that way, but everyone seemed determined to make him take the blame.

  “I will admit I’d been drinking and so had he. When we woke up, the first thought was to dissolve the marriage, although I didn’t want to. I liked him. I liked everything about him. I knew it was wrong to trap him into marriage and eventually I thought he’d be really upset about it. Then I saw Winston in the parking lot with a bunch of cops and I panicked. I got on Ice’s bike and came here to Caspar. To this house.”
>
  Soleil looked around her. “It’s so beautiful. He was offering me so much. A home. A family. And him. He’s amazing. Caring. Very loving all the time. We don’t have fights. We don’t even argue. When I’m in the kitchen experimenting, he’s right there with me.”

  “I’m sure you’ve been kept apprised of the investigation into Winston’s death,” Harrington said, abruptly switching subjects.

  She smiled at him and sat back in the chair. “I think I’d like my lawyer with me now. I’d feel a lot more comfortable.”

  Before either of them could object, she waved at Absinthe, who was watching carefully. Ice had told her that he was able to lip-read and they’d determined ahead of time which chair for her to sit in so it would force the two law enforcement officers to sit in the ones that would give Absinthe the advantage of reading their lips. He came in immediately and took the chair beside hers.

  “Gentlemen,” he greeted.

  Soleil was a little shocked at how different Absinthe looked when he dressed in a suit. Like the others, he was tatted and had defined muscles. He was blond with strange, crystallized eyes. They were so light blue they looked almost cloudy at times. He had one scar that curved along the left side of his jaw. Incredibly handsome, whether he was in blue jeans or a suit, he was intimidating. He was quiet, and spoke softly, but when he did speak, his voice was so compelling, she noticed the room would go silent.

  “Are you all right, Soleil?” he asked, his voice incredibly gentle.

  She could tell he was genuinely concerned for her, and that warmed her. She did have a family. She’d been accepted into Torpedo Ink’s circle and they were there, making certain she wasn’t alone. Ice had given her that. Her Ice.

  “Yes. We’re just getting into the investigation into Winston and those horrible people. If I’d stayed with him, he would have murdered me.” She rubbed her arms with her hands. The chills were real. She’d had no idea that there were so many people involved.