She’d let herself lose sight of that promise, but as she stood there, drinking in the déjà vu, she swore she wouldn’t lose sight of it twice.
She’d destroy all ten of the monsters who’d destroyed her in that white stone mansion across the water, and she’d do it by any means necessary.
Starting with Jax Murphy.
As if he were reading her mind, the crunch of wheels wafted into the air, joining the crashing waves, and Veda knew she was one step closer. She looked over her shoulder, the soft breeze blowing a few strands of hair out of her bun and letting them tickle her forehead.
Jax pulled his car to a stop in the spot Hope had just driven away from. Veda followed the path Hope’s car had made, breathing in relief to see it wasn’t visible in the darkness.
Jax stepped out of his car, wearing all black, his skin so pale it was almost translucent, glowing in the black air as brightly as the moon.
But unlike the moon, the light Jax cast wasn’t inspiring. It wasn’t illuminating. It simply made her stomach sick.
He smiled at her when they came within a few feet of each other.
“Good evening, Veda Vandyke.” His eyes ran her body, filled with a suggestion that made her stomach turn. “As much as I enjoy our normal meeting place in the rose garden at the hospital, I suppose this will do as well.” He checked their surroundings with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Quiet. Secluded. Great for a handoff.” He met her eyes. “I hope you’ve kept up your end of the bargain.”
“Yes, Jax, I have your oxy.”
He hissed, cutting his eyes at her as if he were disappointed. “And my money?”
Veda’s eyes narrowed. She took a moment to let the lump in her throat die down as she shot her back to the night she’d been crying herself to sleep over for days. When her eyes reclaimed Jax’s, they were watery.
“Gage and I broke up,” she said, her voice trembling softly.
Jax’s face grew furious. “I have no idea what that has to do with my drugs… or my money.”
Veda held her hands out. “I can still get you the money, but I’m not with Gage anymore… so it’s going to take me a little more time.”
For a moment, he appeared seconds from lunging at her. He spoke through clenched teeth. “How. Much. Time?”
She took a deep breath. “I can afford about five hundred dollars a week—”
He turned his back to her with a laugh, covering his mouth with his hand as he took a few steps away. He kept his back turned, allowing a long silence to fall in, before swiveling on his heels and meeting her gaze. A new hardness was in his blue eyes, so powerful it made Veda take a step away.
She looked over her shoulder, only returning her gaze to Jax when she concluded she was a safe distance away from the edge of the black rocks and the waves crashing below.
The wind blew his dark hair into his eyes, shading them, but not the anger that had taken up residence. He spoke slowly, as if speaking to a child.
“Five thousand a week.” He stepped toward her. “Every week.” Another step, his skin humming red. “Until we reach two-fifty.” He sliced his hand through the air. “Period!”
Veda jolted. “I’m a Level One resident, Jax. Until I complete my residency, I only make fifty thousand a year—and that’s including overtime. I’m not rolling in money like a full-blown doctor. Not for another four years. Five thousand dollars a week would bankrupt me.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“I can’t do five thousand a week.”
He shrugged. “Then I guess I can’t hold on to these pictures anymore. I guess, come tomorrow morning, this entire island will know who The Shadow Rock Chopper really is.”
Veda’s lips curled down. “Please.” She dug into her pocket and pulled out a pill bottle, the tablets clinking together and singing into the night air. “I have your oxy. Can’t that be enough?”
“I. Want. My. Money!”
Veda blinked out a few tears, watching as they fell to the dewy rocks below, splashing off them. “I can’t.”
Jax’s chest heaved. His eyes ran her body, so blue under the moonlight they almost spilled into the whites. His gaze lingered on her sneakers, where the tears still splashed down, before slowly climbing back up her body. When their eyes met once more, he licked his lips, his yellow teeth bared as he stepped closer.
Every bone in Veda’s body screamed for her to step back, but she knew stepping back would mean going over that cliff, so when Jax took her arm in his hold, his touch sweaty and clammy, she had nowhere to go.
Nowhere to run.
His nostrils flared as he came in close enough for her to smell his breath and the garlic he must’ve had for dinner, as well as the red veins shooting across the whites of his eyes.
He licked his dry lips again and smiled at her, showing both rows of his shark teeth as his hold left her arm and circled her body. He clutched her ass. “I suppose I could think of a few other ways you could repay me.”
Veda cringed as he pulled her body to his. She shrieked when he leaned in for a kiss, craning her head away. If it weren’t for the hold he had on her, she was sure she’d have flown over the edge of the cliff in her desperation to escape him.
He clapped his other hand on her ass, his breathing picking up, becoming more excited the more disgusted she appeared. “I told you this pussy was so good it could make a man have a nervous breakdown.” He leered while moving his invasive touch deeper, brushing her center with his trembling fingers. “I think it might be just the thing to hold me over until you get me my fucking money,” he spat, taking the back of her neck in his hand and turning away from her, shoving her with all his might.
Veda flew forward under the force of his push, stumbling over the jagged, uneven rocks until she finally lost her footing and fell, catching herself just before her knees slammed into them. She gasped in each breath, hearing her frantic breathing as she shot a look over her shoulder at Jax. As he came forward, also struggling to stay upright on the rocks, she faced him completely, cradling one of the larger rocks behind her for leverage as she took the hem of her T-shirt and yanked it up over her purple bra.
At the sight of her pulling her shirt up, Jax seemed to believe that she was already surrendering, undressing, and ready to give him her body in exchange for his silence.
Veda saw the exact moment when he realized how wrong he was.
She saw the exact moment his eyes landed on the wire strapped to her chest. The way the color drained from his already pale face. The way he came to a sudden stop, wobbling on the uneven rocks.
“What the”—he cringed, and his eyes rose to hers—“fuck?”
Veda’s stomach expanded and tightened like wildfire, and it was her turn to smile up at him, never so happy to have Lincoln Hill’s brooding ass in her life. He’d taught her so many tricks.
“You know, Law & Order is my favorite show,” she started. “And I always wondered how nice it would be if I could get my hands on one of those tiny little wires they use to spy on people.” With each word she said, and each flash of realization that crossed Jax’s stunned face, Veda’s heart eased, her breathing slowed, and her world centered. “Turns out, it’s actually pretty easy to get one of these bad boys online.” She craned her body to the side so he could see the large receiver she’d clipped to the back of her jeans. She patted it as his eyes slammed shut. “Thirty bucks!” she beamed, laughing into the night air.
Jax opened his eyes and nearly lit fire to her with the fury in them. But another gleam in his eye, one that was stronger than the fury, was winning over.
Acquiescence.
Defeat.
Veda drank in his defeat like water and began speaking conversationally, as if she were regaling a friend about a sale at the mall. “It’s pretty amazing, actually. The way it picks up any conversation within a hundred foot radius and immediately uploads it to some wireless cloud in the sky?” She nodded. “A cloud that my friend is already accessing and backing
up to a thumb drive… right as we speak.”
Jax looked on the verge of exploding, mere seconds from closing the space between them and making things violent, but that wire taped to her chest and the receiver on her back were proving just as powerful as Veda hoped they would.
Her false smile fell. “As it turns out, Jax, while castrating the pieces of absolute shit who raped me ten years ago is definitely a federal offense”—she shrugged—“turns out blackmail is a federal offense too. As is attempting to extort sex from an unwilling participant, which you’ve also proven yourself guilty of tonight.” She took a deep breath as if she’d just breathed in fresh spring air. “If I’d have known you’d give me this kind of material to work with… gosh, I’d have worn a shorter dress.”
They held each other’s eyes across the small space between them, nothing but the waves and the howling wind to fill the silence in the air.
“So you can turn in those photos, and you can tell everyone I’m The Chopper, and you can watch them carry me off in handcuffs, but you better believe, Jax, that if I’m going down?” Veda shook her head. “I’m taking you with me. I’m taking everybody with me.” She tapped the receiver one more time.
With each second that passed, Jax’s breathing grew heavier, his eyes darkened, and his fists clenched tighter.
When Veda and Hope had discussed this plan, they’d concluded that Jax could react in one of two ways. He’d either give in, or get violent.
Veda had hoped for the former, but when a growl flew from his tightly clenched teeth, his fists tightened so hard his bones nearly broke his skin, and he charged at her, closing the space between them in one furious stride and taking her neck in his hands, she realized, sadly, that it was the latter.
“You can’t take me down if you’re dead, you fucking bitch.”
Veda tried to plant her feet but he proved too strong, clenching her neck and forcing her body toward the edge of the cliff with ease. She stumbled over the rocks, clapping her hands around his wrists.
“You’re going to throw me over the edge?” Veda cried, bending at the knees when she came within inches of that very edge, her watery eyes meeting his, her voice hoarse as she spoke past the squeeze he had on her neck, not enough to choke her but just enough to take control. “Do it!” she croaked. “Just know that it’s all on tape, you son of a bitch. I meant what I fucking said. If I’m going down….” She paused when Jax seemed to relent, when he seemed to realize that killing her wasn’t the answer either. She saw that moment of introspection and took advantage, reaching out and shoving him with all her might, a desperate scream splitting her lips as she put every inch of power she had into the shove. She gasped when the push was enough to send him stumbling backward.
She took advantage, attempting to race past him, but he caught hold of her ankle before she could. She screamed as she lost her footing and went flying down onto the rocks, her body slamming against them so hard it stole her breath.
And then he was dragging her, his hold on her ankle too strong to break free from. Veda clawed her nails on the rocks as he pulled her back toward the edge.
“You’re not the only person who isn’t afraid to die, you crazy bitch!”
Veda clawed and clawed, watching the tips of her nails breaking as she dug them into the black boulders, fighting for any leverage, kicking her free leg and screaming with all her might.
He was going to do it, she realized, her heart frozen with fear.
He was going to take them both over the edge.
Veda had always believed she wasn’t afraid to die, but right at that second, when death was moments away, looming over her like a black cloud, she realized how wrong she’d been.
Her scream proved it. Her flailing bones proved it. Her nails, all ten of which were broken to the quick in her desperation to stop him, proved it as well.
She didn’t want to die.
So when a pair of black combat boots came into her view, stomping on the rocks just as Jax was seconds from the fringe, Veda screamed again, but that time it was a scream of relief.
She looked up from the rocks just in time to see Hope barreling toward Jax. Hope found her footing with ease and, with her own scream, reared back and threw her fisted hand straight into his jaw.
The punch caught him off guard, stunned him so badly that he seemed to forget how close he himself had come to the edge, and he gave himself a little too much room to fall as Hope’s punch sent him flying backward.
Because when he went to plant his back foot, it had nowhere to go.
Jax’s blue eyes exploded to twice their size when he realized what was happening. His mouth fell open, stunned gaze latching onto Veda’s for only a moment before he went flying over the edge, arms flailing before he disappeared from sight.
“Holy shit!” Veda screamed, pushing herself up on her arms.
“Holy fuck!” Hope cried, clapping her hands over her mouth and bending over at the waist while meeting Veda’s eyes.
Silence.
Once again the howling wind and the crashing waves were the only sound to permeate the air as Veda and Hope’s widened eyes met, breathing so hard their stunned gasps joined the wind and the waves.
For a moment, it was quiet. Still.
Veda was the first to snap out of it, bumbling to a stand before racing away from the cliff’s edge.
Hope’s boots clomped behind her, following her to the pile of rocks that led a climbable path down to the black sands of the beach. The sands where Jax had taken his fall.
Veda sucked in each breath through burning lungs, the panic in her heart so furious it shot adrenaline to every bone in her body, making them shake so badly she was barely able to climb down the black rocks that led to the beach.
In minutes she’d made it to the bottom, her sneakers sinking into the dark sand. She froze at the sight of Jax’s shoe, peeking out from behind the mountainous cliff. She held her breath and looked over her shoulder, catching sight of Hope, who’d stopped descending the rocks halfway down, apparently just as frozen with fear as Veda was at the sight of Jax’s unmoving foot.
With a deep breath, Veda turned back to Jax, approaching his body on wobbly legs, one hesitant step at a time, as if she were worried he might pop up and get her around the neck again.
More of his body came into view with each step she took. His black jeans. His belly button. The black T-shirt that had come to a rumpled stop just above it. His arms, splayed on the dark sand, skin screaming out against it. And his head, face down, dark hair blowing with the breeze.
With a gasp, Veda leapt for him.
She took his wrist in her hand.
She waited for a pulse.
After several minutes went by, she dropped his wrist like it was on fire, her panicked eyes flying back toward the rocks where Hope was frozen, unable to proceed.
Hope’s big hazel eyes seemed to reach across the sand and latch onto Veda’s.
As always, Hope understood.
Her eyes said she knew.
She knew the truth before the words even left Veda’s mouth, the wind blowing her long brown hair to shade the realization staining her hazel orbs.
“Oh my God,” Veda held her trembling hands over Jax’s body, already regretting having touched him at all, hearing the fear lacing her voice, a fear that matched the dread in Hope’s eyes like they’d been tailor-made for each other. Veda heaved out a breath, tears filling her eyes as she spoke the truth they both already knew but couldn’t quite accept. “He’s dead.”
29
“Shit, Linc, you’re still here?”
Linc looked over his shoulder, smiling softly at the sight of his partner’s lithe frame entering the briefing room of the precinct.
“Even the rats have turned in for the night, Linc. You gotta get some rest.” Samantha Gellar approached the whiteboard, coming to a stop next to Linc while crossing her arms.
They glared at the board, at the scant evidence they’d collected on The Shadow Rock
Chopper, both their eyes saturated with the mix of determination and frustration that could only exist when a cop couldn’t close a case.
On the whiteboard, photos they’d collected, but that hadn’t gotten them anywhere, were pinned up chronologically. The syringe they’d found on Eugene Masterson’s floor. The chipped piece of cow-print nail polish. The incisions that had been made on both Todd and Eugene’s testicular sacs, both neat as a pin. An extensive list of every business that sold the drug sodium thiopental without a prescription. Even photos of Todd, Eugene, their friends, their families, and any enemies they may have made in their lives were pinned to the board. Other random slivers of evidence they’d collected where pinned up as well.
But nothing was coming together.
Nothing was making sense.
“It’s driving me insane,” Linc spat, pressing a fist to his lips while frowning at the board. He motioned to the photos, his eyes nearing agony. “I feel like it’s right here.”
Sam nodded. “I feel you.”
“It’s, literally, right here, staring me in the fucking face, but I can’t see it.” His breathing picked up and he shook his head at himself.
Sam cut a look at him. “You think she’ll strike again?”
Linc took another moment to peruse the board. “She’s angry. Furious, even.”
Sam raised her eyebrows in question.
“Blinded by rage.” Linc sighed. “Aggressive. Unapologetic. Relentless. She won’t just strike again….” He met Sam’s eyes, his brows rising. “Sam, she’s gonna escalate.”
Sam sucked in a breath, not because she was shocked by his words but because she knew he was right.
The Chopper would escalate.
All the signs were there.
And it was both their heads if they didn’t catch her before she did.
——
“There’s no other choice, Veda.” Hope’s hazel eyes, feverish like a wild animal’s, struggled to remain calm. “There’s no other way.”
Purr (Revenge Book 3) Page 22