Payback Princess (Lost Daughter of a Serial Killer Book 2)

by C. M. Stunich

  A man comes around the corner wearing a police officer’s uniform.

  Oh. Shit.

  He, too, has a gun, smiling at us in a way that gives me chills. Another pervert then? He sets off all my warning bells, the same way that Mr. Fosser did. Another minion in Justin’s stable. No wonder he warned me about choosing my pawns: he has some real winners on his gameboard.

  “You people are real pieces of work, you know that?” Chasm snarls, angrier than I’ve ever seen him. Maxx, on the other hand, is quiet and brooding, his hands curled into tight fists on either side of him. He faces the cop while Chasm stares off against Mr. Volli. “So Justin is as much of a liar as everyone says he is?”

  Mr. Volli points the weapon at the ceiling and fires it.

  The sound is so loud that I actually cry out, but I don’t tear my fingers from Parrish’s to cover my ears, and neither does he. We stay clinging to each other as my ears ring, and I lift my eyes up to stare into his.

  Parrish is talking to me, but I can’t hear him. He pauses to glance over in Mr. Volli’s direction, and I follow his gaze, looking up to see small pieces of plaster fluttering down from the ceiling.

  “Justin is a man of his word for those he cares about. If you follow his rules, he, too, will abide by his promises. You’ll get Parrish back shortly. For now, you’re going to head back to the party and listen to the official pitch for Milk Carton. You’re going to learn about the merger with Fort Humboldt Security. And then you’re going to go back to Tess’ house and wait. Do you understand?”

  We all just stand there, staring at him. I’m sure I’m not the only one whose head is pounding from the sound of the gunshot.

  I look back at Parrish, at the despair etched into his face that he tries so hard to hide. And then I strain on my toes and press my body up as far as I can. He leans in, putting his mouth to the space between the bars. We’re just barely able to press our lips together, but it’s so worth it.

  So fucking worth it.

  It’s the sort of kiss that changes the world.

  The sort of kiss that shatters boundaries and expectations; it’s beyond them. It exists in a universe of its own making. It’s a kiss filled with so much love and so much longing, so much want and so much affection, that it heals that broken, cobbled-together heart of mine in a single instant.

  The only problem is: as my heart heals, it also becomes more vulnerable.

  There’s a space there, an Achilles’ heel if you will, that will forever have Parrish’s name on it.

  If this is the last time that I ever see him, I’m not sure what will happen to me or who I’ll become, but I’ll lose something that I never realized I needed until this very moment.

  We separate just enough so that we can feel each other’s breaths.

  “I love you,” I whisper, and I don’t care who hears me. Chasm or Maxx, Mr. Volli or this crooked ass cop guy. I care only that Parrish hears it.

  “I love you, too, Gamer Girl. If this is the last time we see each other, remember that. And remember that nobody has ever fought for me the way you have.” He cups the side of my face as the cop approaches with his gun in hand, and my skin ripples in warning.

  I back up, but the moment my fingers separate from Parrish’s, that kills me.

  It’s the very worst instance in my entire fucking life.

  “Follow me, please,” Mr. Volli calls out, leading the way up the stairs as the cop takes up the rear of our ragtag little detective team. Just before I turn the corner and head up the steps, I glance back and drink in every last detail of Parrish that I can manage, absorbing this moment, this memory, just in case.

  Just in case.

  We do as we’re told—exactly as we’re told, heading outside with Mr. Volli to find Justin’s limo waiting. Raúl looks annoyed as he holds the door open and ushers us inside. We pile in together and he slams the door, leaving us alone for the three second fucking ride back to the party.

  It isn’t until I’m seated inside the luxury interior that I start to shake.

  Parrish. We found him. But he isn’t with us. He isn’t with us.

  “If he dies, I don’t think I’ll ever live a normal life,” Chasm whispers, staring down at his hands. He and Maxx are pressed close on either side of me. I reach down and take his hand in my right one, capturing Maxx’s in my left.

  “Here’s what I think,” Maxx whispers, even though keeping his voice down is pointless. This entire car just has to be bugged. I don’t even need the bug detector to figure that out. “He’ll deliver on his promise, but he’s going to want something else in exchange. That’s the part that scares me.”

  I glance toward X, and he looks over at me. As soon as he sees the expression on my face, he’s leaning forward and pressing his mouth to mine. His taste mingles with Parrish’s, and, for whatever reason, that soothes me. We kiss, slow and deep, exchanging so much more than physical affection; this is bone-deep, a kiss that cuts right to the core.

  As soon as Maxx pulls away, I turn to Chasm, and I take his face in my hand the way Parrish did to me. I kiss him next, and at first, he tries to pull away.

  “This isn’t fair to Parrish,” he murmurs, but then he’s grabbing the back of my head, digging his fingers into my hair and kissing me with all of his fear, all of his worry. Once again, his taste mingles with the other two, and a sense of rightness settles in my belly.

  I don’t quite understand it in that moment, but that’s okay. It feels good; it calms me.

  My initial urge is to panic, but Maxx is right.

  I would never have found Parrish if Justin didn’t want me to find him. He gave me the key, and the book; he quoted it to me. This was all planned; I was led here. At any time, he could’ve gone to that house, slipped through the hidden door, and put a bullet in Parrish’s head.

  He didn’t.

  Because it isn’t Parrish that he wants. He wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t care for the boy either way. He truly doesn’t.

  What Justin Prior wants is me, and he knows that if he kills Parrish, he will never have me. Never.

  What he can do, however, is keep baiting me, keep me on a leash, convince me to do things that I would never do, like sleep with my sister’s ex-boyfriend. Or throw a typewriter into a car window. Maybe, if he plays his cards right, he could get me to hurt someone.

  Perhaps … kill someone.

  I exhale sharply, but I can’t stop thinking about what Maxx just said, about Justin needing additional leverage. So … who—or what—is that going to be?

  We arrive back at the party, and the very first thing that Raúl does is give me back my pink heels.

  Because nothing inside of Justin’s glittering world of shadows is allowed to be anything less than perfect.

  The fancy party with all its glittering guests might as well be a gilded cage. I can barely breathe as I stand in that crowd, my arms entwined with both Maxx and Chasm as we watch Justin take the floor in front of the massive screens. He gives a quick presentation on Milk Carton, and then welcomes Seamus up beside him to discuss the merger.

  “We’ll have direct access into the lives of every Fort Humboldt Security customer in the entire country,” Justin tells the crowd. From what I can see, it’s made up of people who are equal parts in awe and dripping with jealousy. “This adds more cameras, more raw data, more opportunities to protect our families.”

  “More places to spy on people,” Maxx murmurs, but I can’t think about the terrible implications of this app, not right now.

  Once Justin is finished with his speech, he approaches me and crooks a finger, drawing me into a tight hug.

  “I am so proud of you, princess. So damn proud of you.” He pulls back and presses a warm kiss to my cheek. It almost, almost feels like a true fatherly kiss, like he really loves me the way a good-hearted man would care for his lost daughter. But then I remember that he’s proud of me for finding my lover that he stole and rage sweeps over me a violent wave. “As promised, Parrish i
s yours. Just stay calm, go home, and wait. You’ll see him soon; you’ll have him home tonight.”

  Justin pulls away from me, reaching out to adjust my tiara, and then he heads off to do … whatever it is that the Seattle Slayer does.

  I watch him go with a frown on my face, allowing Raúl to once again shepherd us into the limo. Chasm, at least, is able to come with us tonight. We head over to Tess’ together, climbing out and moving inside to find her waiting for us.

  I do everything in my power to keep the emotions off my face.

  If Parrish can stand inside that room and use a grimace to hold back crushing despair, I can do this. I can wait.

  “I’m glad you’re home safe,” Tess tells me, studying me and then letting her gaze trail across the two boys. Her expression falls, and I just know she’s thinking about Parrish, about how handsome he’d look in a suit standing beside his friends.

  Like, say, for prom.

  Will Parrish really come back tonight? Could he, maybe, possibly, in some alternate universe go to prom with me? But then what about Chasm?

  Ugh. Nope. Chasm warned me not to obsess over the romance, so I won’t.

  I don’t give a shit about that in the scheme of things. If Parrish dumps me, I’ll be heartbroken, but it’ll be offset by the fact that he’s alive, that he’s safe, that I was able to fix what my horrible father broke in the first place.

  “We’re exhausted,” Maxx offers up politely, taking over whenever Chasm and I are tongue-tied or, in this case, just too stressed to make small talk. “Is it cool if we go upstairs?”

  Tess looks a bit worried as she crosses her arms, but she nods slightly, her eyes tracking me up the stairs. Next chance she gets, she’ll ask me all about the party, I’m sure of it.

  The three of us end up sitting in Parrish’s room together.

  I change into a pair of mismatched Chucks and cuddle GG, Chasm sits on the roof and chain-smokes, and Maxx paces the floor.

  We barely talk. Time ticks by. Every minute feels like agony, like a rusty nail being shoved into my chest. Thump, thump. My heart beats, slow and even. Calm. I’m calm. I’m fucking calm.

  We all pause at the sound of frantic footsteps, of screaming.

  Someone is screaming.

  For the briefest of seconds, I can’t ascertain who that person is and if they’re happy or emotionally destroyed.

  He’s dead, I think in a sudden panic. Oh my god, we left him, and he’s fucking dead.

  “They found him!” Tess is screaming. She throws the door open so hard that it smashes into the wall and scares the bunny. She’s shaking and crying, and she looks very similar to the way she did when I met her for the first time. “He’s alive; they found him. Get up!”

  She turns and takes off as the three of us exchange looks.

  There’s a flurry of activity as we scramble up, put the bunny away, and sprint down the hall, down the stairs. Kimber is at the bottom, shaking and crying as Paul wraps the littlest kids in their coats and Tess opens the door to the garage.

  “You take the babies and follow me,” she barks out, not bothering to see if Paul heard her or not. She climbs into her Mercedes as I stumble over to the front passenger side, opening it and slipping in while the boys—and Kimber—squeeze into the backseat.

  Tess is reversing out of the garage before the door is even fully open, whipping us around to face the gate in a jerky motion that reminds me of Parrish’s driving. I see now where he gets it, I think, curling my fingers around the edge of my seat and digging my nails into the leather.

  “Mom, what’s going on?” Kimber asks, leaning between the two front seats and trying to look at Tess.

  She is a woman possessed, her eyes fixated out the windshield, her foot pressing the gas pedal to the floor. She barely manages to avoid killing any of the bloodsucking paparazzi at the end of the street, rolling through the stop sign and skyrocketing down the road.

  “Your brother is alive; they found him,” she whispers, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Milk Carton found him.”

  I go completely still, resisting the urge to look over my shoulder at the boys.

  “Between the traffic cam footage that was found this morning, and an image of him on the dark web …” She trails off. “They found him, that’s what matters.”

  The dark web? That doesn’t sound good.

  The dark web is like … like the pit toilet of the internet. It’s only accessible via an anonymizing browser, and almost sixty percent of the content found there is illegal, illicit, and totally fucked-up. Murderers for hire? Yep. Sex trafficking? Uh-huh. Buying bundles of other people’s credit numbers? You can do that. Counterfeit cash? Absolutely.

  So, what was Parrish doing on the dark web? Why did Justin put him there?

  Tess stays stone-still and silent as she drives, and the rest of us follow suit. The atmosphere is too thick with tension to make any sort of conversation feasible.

  My mind spins with possibilities as I reconsider Maxx’s words over and over again. Justin will be looking for more leverage. But how long will it take him to get some? Who will that leverage be? My mind strays back to Maxine, back to my grandparents, to Saffron.

  They’re all prime targets, right?

  I think about what I might do when I see that Parrish really is here, that he’s truly okay. If I just open my mouth and scream that Justin Prior is the Seattle Slayer, that he was holding Parrish hostage in the house he’s just put an offer on, if I give the authorities the Maxine-phone … Could I end all of this now? Will I have an opportunity here to blow his cover?

  I’m going to do it, I decide. No matter what. I’ll just do it. If I’m quick enough, clever enough, this is my chance. It might very well be the only chance that I’m going to get.

  We turn down a long gravel drive, trundling over potholes at such high speeds that I keep bouncing up off of my seat. Not that it matters. I would run over here if I had to. I’d fucking crawl.

  In the distance, I see several police cars with their lights flashing—and try my best not to think about the fact that a cop just held a gun on us at the Vasquez house. There’s an ambulance, too, and my heart starts to pound, my pulse racing. I take my seat belt off before we even come to a full stop.

  As Tess slows the car down, I throw my door open, even as she lets out a small sound of surprise.

  I hit the ground hard, stumbling as I catch myself, and then I take off running around the front of the ambulance toward the back, feet skidding in the gravel.

  When I look up, I see him.

  Parrish.

  He’s limned in the white light from inside the ambulance, shirtless but wrapped in a blanket. As soon as he sees me, his eyes widen and he’s throwing himself off the ambulance’s bumper.

  His arms wrap around my neck so tight that I can’t breathe, the blanket fluttering around us like wings. His smell overwhelms me, that clean linen and citrus and dewy clover scent. Tears prick at the edges of my eyes as I squeeze him back just as tightly, smearing blood from his chest across my body and not caring.

  His lips move to press against my ear.

  “Maxine is with Justin; don’t say anything.” Parrish’s words make my eyes go wide as he pulls back, looking down at me with so much love in his gaze that I can barely stand it. He blinks and it’s gone, turning his attention over to Tess as she scrabbles around the corner of the ambulance just like I did.

  “Parrish!” she screams, and then she’s hugging him and I’m stumbling back, trying to process some horribly mixed emotions. Pure, unadulterated fear for Maxine. Endless, boundless joy and love for Parrish.

  “Maxine is with Justin; stay quiet,” I whisper as Chasm and Maxx appear on either side of me, panting and quivering.

  Kimber screams and launches herself at her brother, throwing her arms around his waist while Tess sobs and kisses him all over his face. The paramedics and police officers hang back to give them a moment.

  “He what?” Maxx whispers, his face absol
utely stricken when he looks at me. His eyes flick back to Parrish’s and warm slightly, but he can’t shake that bitter cold. “We just traded one hostage for another?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I breathe, trying to reconcile two very different, very powerful emotions. “Go … go greet him, and I’ll … I’ll deal with this.” I slide my phone from my pocket—my Maxine-phone, actually—and hope that Tess is just too overwhelmed with Parrish to notice that it’s a Samsung and not an iPhone.

  “We’ll be right back, okay?” Chasm chokes, and then he’s running forward and grabbing Parrish just as tightly as I did, squeezing him with an arm around the neck as Parrish wraps his own arms around Chasm’s waist.

  Maxx is right behind them, and Chasm welcomes him under his other arm, dragging him into a three-person hug. I clutch the phone to my chest for a moment, watching them with tears in my eyes. I want nothing more than to be a part of that, but I have to put my sister first.

  I dial Justin’s burner phone immediately (he has a real valid number, but this isn’t it), and wait with shaking hands for him to answer. He does, but it isn’t his face that I’m looking at. It’s the feed from a camera mounted near the ceiling of a large, formal dining room. Seamus McKenna’s house, probably. But Chas will know that.

  I can see my sister tentatively walking in, her eyes sweeping up the towering walls toward the ceiling and the massive person-sized chandelier above the table. Justin is there, which is a new development. Not once, not fucking once, did he ever allow himself to appear in any of the previous videos.

  An employee moves forward from the shadows to pull out Maxine’s chair for her. She seems surprised, but I can see her smile from here as she accepts the offer and sits down, allowing the person to push the chair back in as well. Another employee—this one has a maid uniform on that reminds me of the Vanguard house—brings a tray with a tea set in and sets it down on the corner of the table between Justin and Maxine.