by Pam Godwin
Copyright © 2014 by Pam Godwin
All rights reserved.
Interior Designer: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com
Editor: Jacy Mackin
Cover photographer: David Gillispie at www.gillispiephoto.com
Cover models: Matt Rich and Jessica Roland
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review or article, without written permission from the author.
Visit my website at pamgodwin.com
A NOTE TO THOSE WHO HAVEN’T READ DELIVER
VANQUISH is a stand-alone, BUT if you intend to read Book #1, DELIVER, DO NOT read VANQUISH first. There are numerous references in this book that will spoil the surprises in DELIVER.
If you don’t plan to read DELIVER, carry on.
Pain. Dense, maddening bursts of pain splintered through Van Quiso's shoulder and reduced him to a pathetic mouth-breather on the kitchen floor. Heaviness settled over him, pooling down his arm and collapsing his chest. Each slogging beat of his heart drained more blood from his body, chilling his veins, soaking his t-shirt.
He should've known Liv Reed would be the death of him. If he could focus past the throbbing wound, maybe he'd hear a haunting serenade beneath her breath, beckoning him toward the cliff of oblivion with seduction dripping from her lips. He could only hope his descent into hell would be so enthralling.
He dragged his eyes heavenward and met the bleak despair wetting hers. Their gazes clung, motionless, as shock deadened the air between them. She'd shot him. Too damned late to take it back. He wanted to slam his fist into her beautiful face. Even more, he ached to kiss the path of tears streaking her scarred cheek.
The cold linoleum pressed against his back. He'd fucked her on this floor countless times, bent their joined bodies over the wobbly kitchen table, and slammed her against the fridge until her moans drowned out the whine of the old motor.
But their best moments had happened in the attic chamber, where her ass reddened under the fall of his whip as her lithe body hung from the ceiling, the sound-deadening walls absorbing her screams. For seven years, she'd been his to discipline, fuck, mentor, and keep.
Pulsating shadows framed his vision, closing in and threatening to take him from her permanently. Final judgment awaited him in death, but his punishment had already been inflicted. She no longer feared him. She was no longer his. The burn in his shoulder ignited. If he died, what would become of her?
His lungs clenched, not from injury, but from something more debilitating. He suffocated with the need to tangle a fist in her hair and never let go. She knew better than anyone the justice of his death, yet her full lips quivered. Lips that tasted like butter-soft caramel.
She knelt over him, shocks of brown hair tangling around her arms, the curve of her body taunting him. What he wouldn't give to feel her tight, reluctant cunt gripping his cock one more time. But she loved another man.
His ribs squeezed against the swell of rejection. She'd actually pulled the trigger. How could she think he was going to kill her? Didn't she know he'd die without her?
Dots blotted his vision. From the blood loss? Or was it the tremor of ice-cold fear passing through him? Hard to deny that he'd earned her distrust, kidnapping her when she was seventeen, taking her virginity without asking, and blackmailing her into delivering slaves for Mr. E.
Despite all that, every second at her side had nurtured Van's stupid-as-shit hope that she'd grow to love him. A hope that slipped through his grasp the night she abducted Joshua Carter against her will. She’d fallen in love with her newest slave, and that betrayal hurt worse than the lead buried in his shoulder.
But the blow that turned him against Mr. E's operation came six days ago. Van had sent her to meet with a slave buyer. There was a disagreement, and the buyer brutally raped her.
Renewed rage boiled in his gut. If he'd gone with her, he could've protected her. Sweat beaded on his lip. What was he thinking? He couldn't even protect her from himself.
He stared into the gorgeous, watery eyes of his first captive as her fingers caressed his jaw. He'd beaten and fucked her into submission and failed to stop Mr. E from killing her mother. Still she cried for him. His breath hitched. He loved her suffering in a way he couldn't rationally understand.
When he'd gone after her rapist, it hadn't been some chivalrous act of heroism. He'd fucking reveled in the dismemberment of limbs, the flaying of skin, and the gurgled screams of a man as atrocious as he himself. With the stain of his first kill dripping from his hands, he'd put his exit plan in motion. One that would free them from Mr. E's operation and bind them together. A family.
But her pretty boy was a menacing blockade to his plan. Joshua hovered behind her, his ridiculous linebacker brawn flexing to finish the job if the bullet failed. Despite the boy's apparent willingness to sacrifice his life for her, he couldn't protect her from their boss.
Was she still trying to wrap her mind around everything she'd just learned? Her face had blanched a chilling shade of white when he'd told her Mr. E was not only his father but also the police chief of Austin. And he hadn't disclosed the worst of it.
His pulse weakened, and his breathing thrashed. He needed to get the bullet out. If he survived, it would take days to recover. Days he and Liv didn't have.
“Have to kill him.” He blinked through fading flashes of light. “He'll avenge me.” Now that she knew Mr. E's identity, he was certain she'd hunt down their boss and finish the job, but she needed motivation to do it quickly. “He'll kill Livana.” If Mr. E hadn't killed her already. His throat tightened, choking his breaths.
“Livana?”
The angelic quality of her voice and the shape of her lips forming their daughter's name for the first time produced a wet burn in the corners of his eyes. There was so much he needed to tell her.
The flat line of her mouth wobbled. “Mattie's real name is Livana?”
He lifted his chin, attempting a nod. Beyond the infrequent video footage of their daughter, they'd never been allowed to see her. Liv didn't know where she lived, didn't even know her real name. For six years, she'd heartbreakingly referred to her as Mattie.
A helpless, foreign feeling stabbed his chest from the inside, over and over, pulling him further into darkness. Killing Mr. E meant he could finally meet their daughter. He was so damned close. He would not die.
Shivers wracked his body, and Liv's features vanished behind a veil of black.
“Van? Where's Livana?”
“She's...” He forced his eyes open. The outline of her face seemed so far away, yet he could make out her slim brown eyebrows as they formed a sharp V. He reached for her cheek, his fingers tingling, numb.
She leaned in to meet his hand, her eyes swimming in tears. “Van.” Her voice rasped, and the tears fell over, splattering his chin. “What's Livana's last name?”
She needed a name to find their daughter, but she wouldn't have to look far. His fingers fumbled over her scar. From her eye to her lips, the seven-year-old laceration mirrored his own. Even now, he didn't regret the actions that had led to their matching punishments. Her pregnancy had given him immeasurable relief, a means to ensure she wouldn't be sold as a slave. She belonged to him, his greatest accomplishment.
The pain in his shoulder jolted deep into his bones as he traced her lips and lingered on her jaw, dreading the answer he'd kept from her for so long. He'd had no say in who raised Livana, but he'd controlled Liv by withholding Livana's name and whereabouts. He didn
't carry Mr. E's last name, but his daughter did. Liv might very well shoot him again when she learned Mr. E had been raising Livana since birth.
He opened his mouth and strangled on the words. Pinpricks assaulted his body. His vision blurred. He clung to the edge of consciousness as the muscles in his arm shook and gave up. His hand hit the floor.
“Nooo.” She scrambled atop him, fingers trembling over his face. “No, Van. No, don't go,” she screamed.
Wails bellowed from her throat. Such an outpour of emotion from a woman who always remained guarded behind a stone-cold mask. Her anguish filled him with warmth, pumping his heart. She cared. He tried to open his eyes and failed. His body grew heavy, struggling against the leaden weight of gravity. But that was okay. She thought he was dead and fucking cared.
“Oh, Van. I'm so sorry.” She hugged his waist, weeping, nose sniffling.
He melted against the floor, blacking in and out. Time seemed to stop and start, his mind full of cotton, spinning around...something. He'd lost so much blood, but there were things to do. He needed to get up.
The warmth of her body vanished, and a scuffle of rubber soles squeaked on the linoleum. Joshua must've dragged her away. Was she fighting him? Come back.
He couldn't lift his arms. Couldn't open his eyes. Her hiccupping sobs teetered off. Or did he teeter off? He strained his ears through the hum of white noise. Somewhere, water dripped. Plop. Plop. Too soon, his world faded to nothingness.
He woke to the silence of an empty room and blinked rapidly, catching the low rays of the sun where it had dipped below the kitchen window. Christ, he'd passed out. For twenty, thirty minutes? Long enough for Liv to determine him dead and leave, but it wasn't dusk yet.
Now that the shock of watching her pull the trigger had passed, he needed to find his balls and get the fuck out of there. He wiggled his fingers and toes and tested his strength in his wrists and ankles. Breathing noisily but still coherent, he slowly bent his elbows and knees. With a surge of impatience, he rolled his shoulder and jerked against the sudden stab of pain. “Fuuuuck.”
If she failed in her attempt to kill Mr. E, the cops would come. If she succeeded, she might alert the cops anyway. He needed to get his ass up, make a call, and disappear.
Getting shot wasn't part of his plan, and dealing with a lodged bullet magnified his aggravation. A hospital would report the gunshot wound. He could wedge it out with a steak knife. And inflict nerve damage. And gouge a damned artery. Or he could drive to Mexico and pay a seedy doctor to take care of it.
Fucking Mexico. Ahi vamos.
He tugged a disposable phone from his pocket and dialed.
“Yeah?” rasped the CTS Decon technician.
“Change of plans.” Van had approached the professional cleaner a day earlier and offered a quarter of a million to discreetly and quickly mop up a crime scene. The blood was supposed to have been Mr. E's, the prearrangement to remove Van's DNA from the scene, therefore, eliminating him as a murder suspect. Liv's bullet changed that. Now, she would have to deal with Mr. E on her own while the technician dealt with Van's blood.
He rattled off the address of his location. “Need this done by the end of the hour.”
“On my way.” The technician disconnected.
Now for the grueling part. He gnashed his teeth and dragged his body up the side of the counter, stars invading his vision. After a few long, ragged breaths, he finished the climb and stumbled to the medical kit beneath the sink.
As he collected bandages, he tried not to think about what Liv was doing, if she had killed his father or if he'd killed her. He pulled his shirt over his head, and the damnable pain staggered him sideways.
He gripped the counter-top and panted through the blades of heat ripping up and down his arm. The pain was real, pushing his pulse and inflaming his skin. He was breathing, hurting. Alive.
With Liv and Livana's uncertain future, he had a helluva incentive to live. And to avoid arrest. He draped his upper body over the sink, splashed water over the dime-sized wound, and taped up his shoulder. He needed a bottle of Tequila Herradura and a long nap in the worst fucking way.
Blood smeared the counter, the cabinets, and the linoleum. He had no choice but to trust the expertise and discretion of the technician to erase all evidence of his existence. Hopefully, it would be enough to deceive detectives if they went hunting for DNA.
He dragged his feet to the kitchen table, each step heavier than the last. Two mannequins sat in the chair where he'd left them. When he reached them, he slid his fingers through their silken mahogany hair. Liv's hair. He'd collected it for years, meticulously weaving it through the mesh caps made for the dolls, one large, one small. His perfected replicas of Liv and Livana. No one could fucking take them away.
Liv didn't understand his need for the dolls. Only someone who'd experienced a lifetime of loneliness could comprehend what they meant to him and why he couldn't let them go.
With his arm hanging limp at his side, he gathered them under the other, careful not to overextend their joints, and carried them to the van in the garage.
Liv thought he was dead. And he was certain she would succeed in killing Mr. E, which meant she would be free for the first time in seven years. Would she leave town and try to disappear or would she stay in Austin, near their daughter? Either way, he'd find her. He'd always find her.
One year later...
Simple, mutually-satisfying sex was an acceptable way to alleviate loneliness, even if it was just twenty minutes in the dark with the delivery guy. At least, that's what Amber Rosenfeld told herself as she flicked off the table lamp in her bedroom, perched on the bed, and waited.
It was silly the way she collected those twenty minutes, treasuring them like souvenirs. Her mementos of normalcy. Proof that fear didn't own every minute of her life.
The overhead light flipped on, and her breath caught. She blinked through the unexpected glare, narrowing on Zach's finger where it poised over the wall switch. Oh no. Something was wrong.
She straightened her spine as he regarded her with a heavy slant in his eyebrows. She fidgeted with her hair, arranging the curls to lay in a sensual fall down her chest. Maybe he didn't like blondes. She brushed it behind her shoulders, out of view. Did he desire a prettier girl? If he turned the lights off, he wouldn't have to look at her.
“The lights, Zach.” Her tone held steady despite the pleading drum of her heart.
He fingered the collar of his Saddler's Tool Company work shirt and freed the buttons down the front, revealing a thin, hairless torso. Brown hair hung in strands around his whiskered jawline, his blue eyes watching her with too much scrutiny. “Let's mix it up today.”
A swallow stuck in her throat. The only thing he was mixing up was the neat edge of carpet beneath his boots. He rocked on the molding between the hardwoods and the bedroom, the rubber-soled toes smashing the fibers with each lift of his heels.
Why did he insist on disturbing the carpet? Couldn't he see the uniformity of the vacuum lines, how the threads lifted in one-foot rows of symmetry? Her walk to the bed had followed the outskirt of the small room. She’d hopped the lines easy enough, leaving four tiptoed indentations she would comb after he left.
Fuck, she was doing it again. She pinched the bridge of her nose. The carpet didn't need to be perfect. She wasn't perfect.
He shrugged off the shirt and tossed it on the floor, flattening two rows.
Her stomach clenched, but she forced herself to look at the disorder, to accept it. “It's better without lights.”
“No, it isn't.” He bent to remove his boots, trampling more fibers. “What if I trip in the dark and put an eye out?”
What a joke. The floor had been spotless before he arrived. Besides, “You don't need eyes for this.” She shaped her mouth into a smile, lifting a shoulder. Did he notice the hollowness in her movements? What if he gave her an ultimatum about the lights or said something hateful? Did he have a cruel side?
Fa
t, worthless cunt.
When are you going to do something about your udders and schedule a boob job?
You're a fucking head case. Just like your mother.
She bent her fingers and cracked each knuckle in order. Index, middle, ring, pinkie. Zach wasn't him.
As he watched her knuckle-cracking ritual, lines formed in his brow. He should've been used to it by now, but something was off. He had never put this much focus on her quirks.
Finally, he blinked away, pushed his jeans and briefs to his ankles, and stepped from the unfolded mess. Pale skin smoothed over a narrow thirty-something physique. He scratched his flat stomach, eyes on hers, his partial erection hanging long and lean like the rest of him. He was attractive in a nonthreatening, easy-to-please manner. And he seemed to like her in a way that hardened his cock. A tingling awoke between her legs and fanned heat through her body.
But the light remained on. He touched the switch, staring at it as if he were asking it useless questions.
Her palms grew sticky and hot. For six months, he'd delivered her supplies, brought in her mail, taken her to bed, and left with her shipments. If she had trash, he would kindly drop it at the curb. He didn't make demands, express opinions, or try to complicate the routine. However, their unspoken arrangement had already extended twice as long as the previous delivery guys.
She knew what came next, and her gut twisted. “Just say it, Zach.”
His attention shifted to the hem of her dress where it covered her thighs, roamed over her chest, and rested on her eyes. “I want to see you. Just once with the lights on and your clothes off.”
A cringe jerked her shoulders, and her tongue thickened with all the wrong things to say. He waited for a response, one she knew she'd fuck up. She raised her chin. “I like it dark.” For twenty minutes, every Tuesday and Friday.
His jaw stiffened, and he averted his eyes.
An empty feeling gutted the pit of her stomach. Please, don't leave. He was her only tether to the outside world, but she needed to nip this desperation for his company. Distancing herself kept her safe in her self-made asylum.