Linc and Sam followed Gregory’s finger, nodding as he explained to them that the woman in the picture was his wife without a doubt.
Linc frowned. “Why didn’t you notify the police when she went missing?”
Gregory’s eyes expanded. “They told me that if I called the police, they’d kill her. Said if I ever wanted to see her again, they wanted half a million dollars in a duffle bag, dropped into the trashcan outside The Navajo Casino. I did everything…” Gregory’s voice broke, lips curling. “I did everything they asked. Why’d they have to kill her…” He buried his head in his hands and burst into sobs that made every bone in his body shake.
Linc and Sam allowed him a moment to fall apart—their brows pulled tight. Only after Gregory’s lawyer began massaging his back reassuringly, calming his cries, did Sam lean in.
“And you said you met her on a escort website, correct?” Sam said, referring to an admission Gregory had made earlier in the interrogation.
Pulling his hands away from his red, tear-streaked face, Gregory sighed heavily, leaning forward on the table with his hands clasped. “Look at me.” He nodded toward the photos. “Look at her.”
Sam and Linc smiled softly, not needing Gregory to elaborate. Kathy had been a beauty and Gregory a nerdy beast. As crass as it was, nothing short of a miracle would’ve ever brought the two of them together romantically. Nothing, except cold hard cash—and lots of it.
“I’m not proud of myself,” Gregory said. “But yes. I met her on a website. But it’s not like it sounds.” His fat cheeks wobbled as he shook his head.
“How does it sound?” Linc asked, blinking lazily.
Gregory swallowed thickly. “It sounds like I’m her… her john. But it’s not like that. I married her. She was my wife. She loved me. I loved her. I loved her from the moment I saw her. I never saw her as a… As a… a whore. Even the site itself was high end. It wasn’t like Backpage or any of the other tawdry sites operating out there. The girls are all stone cold tens. As high class as it gets. And they demanded the same of their customers. There was a $5000 fee just to create an account.”
“Five grand?” Linc’s eyes shot up.
Gregory nodded.
“I’d say that’s high end,” Sam mumbled her agreement while scribbling notes onto the paper. “So, in essence, it was a mail order bride website?”
“I hate to call it that but…” Gregory nodded.
“Please, Mr. Richardson,” Linc said. “Yes, or no?”
“Yes,” Gregory whispered. “It was a mail order bride website.”
“What’s the name of the website?” Linc asked as Sam continued to scribble.
“Raw Moon. Rawmoon.com.”
The moment Gregory said the website’s name out loud, it was already burned into Linc’s head forever.
14
It was the first time Veda found herself happy to see a Blackwater Cruise ship, catching sight of the Celeste from her Hawaiian Airlines window seat the following morning. Even as the plane descended, making her stomach do a million cartwheels, the vision of the Celeste parked at the docks on the beautiful Hawaiian island relaxed every fiber of her being. Because it was a vessel that had carried the man she loved to that very island. The man who was putting everything on the line for her, who’d risked blowing his cover to have her flown out to see him. The sun had only begun rising, making the Celeste’s stark white body stand out against the dark blue ocean waters.
After a scary descent that brought the plane’s wings unnervingly close to the skyscrapers of Kauai’s downtown area, the plane had touched down safely. And moments after entering the baggage claim area, Veda had caught sight of a smiling Hawaiian man carrying a sign, not with her name, but simply a ‘V’. She’d chuckled, wondering if Gage wasn’t being a little overly paranoid.
A blinding smile had remained glued to her face, stomach alive with butterflies, during the entire drive to an undisclosed location. The cool leather seat of the upscale sedan hummed beneath her thighs—bare in a red mini-dress meant to make Gage hard as a rock on sight—as her chauffeur drove her to her final destination.
During the long drive, Kauai’s cityscape gradually gave way to mother nature. The smog that permeated the city air ebbed away as they entered the more remote areas. Skyscrapers transformed into palm trees, and palm trees into sprawling, mossy cliffs. Towering, dominating cliffs that vaguely reminded her of the jagged rocks back home—if the dark rocks back home had been painted hunter green with thick moss. Heavy fog lingered at the tops of the massive cliffs, but it wasn’t creepy to her. Simply beautiful. Perhaps everything would look beautiful to her that day, she wondered, because she knew it would be a day she’d be spending with him.
Him.
The kind, warm, delicious man that awaited her in front of the remote villa—the villa that her driver pulled into about an hour after leaving the airport.
Him.
The gorgeous man who smiled at her from the villa’s porch, making deep lines next to his dark brown eyes that didn’t make him look older but simply more alive. The man wearing nothing but a pair of turquoise swim trunks as he made his way off the porch and down the cobblestoned walkway, approaching the sedan as it came to a stop in the driveway, never moving his eyes from hers. The man whose eight-pack abs flexed tighter the larger his smile grew.
Veda smiled back just as widely and stupidly, unable to wait for Gage to make it down the long cobblestone driveway. She seized the one bag she’d packed for the trip and launched out of the backseat, vaguely aware of the driver’s laughter as she raced up the driveway, dropped her bag, and leaped into Gage’s open arms.
“Yes, yes, yes…” He caught her with ease, and they sank into each other as Veda wrapped her legs around his waist and arms around his neck, tucking her smiling face into the crook of his shoulder. He did the same, squeezing his arms so tightly around her he nearly stole her breath. The fervent embrace caused the bottom of her dress to ride up, exposing her ass to the chauffeur, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care about anything but being in Gage’s arms.
“I couldn’t do it, baby,” he whispered, his breath warming her neck. “I couldn’t be without you for another moment.”
“I couldn’t either,” she purred, drawing in a deep breath, taking in his delicious aroma.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” He set her down but didn’t break the hug. Their limbs remained curled tight, his so strongly it brought Veda to the tips of her sandaled toes as every inch of their bodies sealed together. The weight of his head grew heavier on her shoulder by the moment, and she sank her hands into his hair—slightly damp from the dewy air—to let him know he was free to rest it there for as long as he pleased. His trembling fingers followed suit, sinking into her silky straight hair as well.
Only then did he pull back, realizing for the first time, it seemed, that it was silky straight. His smiling eyes widened.
“Your hair,” he whispered, running his fingers through it with ease, in a way he’d never been able to before. Creating knots in her curls after getting his fingers tangled up in them had long become one of his favorite pastimes—and one of Veda’s biggest pet peeves—so he appeared to be in awe at the phenomena of his fingers raking through it with no pit stops.
“I flat ironed it. Wanted to do something special,” she whispered, hands still clasped around his neck, laughing softly at the amazed expression on his face. Her eyebrows pinched. “Do you like it?”
“It’s different,” he said softly, eyes still following his stroking fingers. A small frown crossed his face as his fingers chased her hair all the way to her waist. “It’s so long. It’s even longer than mother’s. She’d be furious.”
Veda burst into laughter, matching his smile, before coming to her toes and covering his lips with hers.
He groaned into the kiss, removing his hands from her hair to cup her jaw, holding her steady as he sampled each lip slowly, lingering long enough to get a good taste of one befo
re moving to the other.
Veda sank in, forgetting to say goodbye to the driver of the sedan that had already peeled away with a farewell honk, leaving the two of them alone. She devolved into the blindingly bright world that only existed on the other side of Gage’s kiss. The softness of his lips as the kiss grew stronger. The slippery smoothness of his tongue as it swept against hers. The hardness at the drawstring of his swim trunks as he pulled her in deeper.
Veda found herself, once again, amazed at how everything ceased to matter when she was this near to him. No longer capable of denying the tempting invitation the universe constantly sent. The invitation to stop the madness. To stop seeking revenge. To let go of the anger, once and for all, and just live. Love. She couldn’t help but realize, at that moment, the high she got from vengeance would never live up to the high she felt right then. Like a marijuana addict who’d just taken her first hit of heroin, lifted to another stratosphere, she knew they would never compare.
Gage broke the kiss just long enough to whisper, “I love you so much.”
Their noses nuzzled as she breathed back, “I love you too.”
Silenced once more by the joining of their lips, she tilted her head with a soft moan, pushing her tongue past his parted mouth, deeply sighing as his hands traveled down her back, lighting a fire to every part of her he touched, and landing on her ass. He squeezed. Squealing softly, she gave him the same love, sneaking one hand between their tightly sealed bodies and cupping his erection.
“Take me to the bedroom,” she breathed before covering his mouth with a fervent kiss once more, her center aching, desperate for the fingers cupping her ass to move a little deeper. Begging for his touch to invade the barrier of her thong and slip inside her pulsing walls. To eventually replace those fingers with the bulge that filled her palm.
“Hold on.” He broke the heated kiss with a smack, taking a few deep breaths, hissing as she stroked his throbbing dick. He set his forehead against hers, and his eyes fell closed. “We only have a day and a half, Veda. And I want to do it right.”
“What better way to do it than in the bedroom, making love?”
He opened his eyes and smiled at her, biceps pulsing like softballs under his taut skin as he used his hold on her ass to pull her in closer. He gave another defenseless hiss as she continued to caress his arousal. “Fair point, but… when I called Jake—”
“Weird time to bring up Jake. I literally have your cock in my hand.”
He chortled. “I’m serious.” He took a deep breath when she heeded his words, releasing his hardness and wrapping both arms around his neck once more. “When I called and gave him the code word, I knew I wanted to do this right.”
Veda smirked with a soft roll of her eyes, wondering where she’d been when Gage and Jake had secretly become allies. Even if Gage didn’t know it, he was working just as hard as Jake to coax her away from her quest. Unlike Jake, however, Gage wasn’t doing it purposely. The effect Gage had on the euphoria centers in her brain—the ones that could drive her to throw her entire life to the dogs for just one hit—really was as potent as a sample of Grade A heroin, and he didn’t even know it.
He licked those plush pink lips. The ones she’d give anything to have between her legs, and she wondered if he did know. If he was purposely teasing her.
His dark eyes ebbed even darker until she was sure she could see shadows looming over them. “I want to take you out on a proper date. The kind I wanted to take you on from the first moment I laid eyes on you, but somehow never got the chance to. Our relationship… it…” He softly stroked the arms she still had around his neck. “It started in a pretty unique way.”
“Friends with benefits,” Veda nodded, willing to call it what it was.
“Yes,” he blushed. “I never realized it, but we never had a chance to go through the dating phase. We just evolved from casual to serious without any of the wining and dining that makes it so exciting. You deserve that. You deserve the getting-to-know-you phase.”
“I can name five different birthmarks in the area covered by your swim trunks. I’d say we know each other better than most.”
He laughed heartily.
Her eyes shifted to the deep lines next to his eyes as he did, unable to stop herself from reaching up and stroking them with the beds of her thumbs. “What did you have in mind, baby?”
“Nothing crazy. A walk on the beach. A romantic meal on the terrace. A bubble bath with champagne and strawberries to finish off the day.”
“So you’re basically going to tease me all day?”
“That’s kind of what dating is. So yes.” He took on a fatherly tone. “See, this is why this is necessary. You should know these things.”
She nibbled her bottom lip, eyeing him playfully. Then, she swatted his chest, biting her lip harder around the smile trying to bloom.
He took a deep breath. “Just being together, baby. That’s all I want. Just being. Without any of the other bullshit clouding it.”
She searched his eyes, and even though she still yearned to be carried up to the bedroom, something bigger won out. Some part of her she hadn’t even been aware of until that moment.
“Let’s go,” she said.
15
After a quick tour of the modern villa, built amongst a family of soaring, mossy cliffs, Veda and Gage found themselves hand in hand at the bottom of those cliffs. Encased in their tall, beautiful, domineering presence. The sun continued its slow rise as they walked and talked, the dark blue ocean waters slowly transforming as it did, revealing its true, magic mint hue.
Hours came and went, and soon, shards of the afternoon sun blasted into the domed entrance of the rocky cave they’d found themselves in. Their voices echoed in the enclosed area, quickly carried away by the waterfalls pattering in the cave’s deepest depths.
The unique cave had a small, remote beach all its own. The waves rolling in wet the sand between their toes from where they sat side-by-side, taking in the beautiful ocean view beyond the jagged dome, arching overhead. Veda’s eyes rose to the cave’s tall ceiling, where smatterings of green plant life sprouted from the dark rocks, hinting at the luscious beauty she knew lived beyond it. It was one of the most beautiful places she’d ever seen.
Almost as beautiful as the nook she’d made in Gage’s arms, cuddled up against his taut body. Watching him, she became completely oblivious to the shards of sand that had snuck past her red bikini bottoms and was working hard to infiltrate her every orifice. Oblivious to anything but his sharp, gorgeous profile, the buttery depth of his voice, and the feeling in his eyes as they took in the bright blue sky ahead, dotted with fat white clouds.
“The things I’ve already seen, Veda…” He shook his head, voice nearly inaudible over the roll of the waves and the crash of the waterfalls.
Veda stroked the backs of her fingers along his profile, hating the pained look in his eyes.
“There’s something terrible going on on that ship.” He wrung his clasped hands, elbows resting on his bent knees. “And not just ‘I’ll never forgive you’ terrible, but ‘I don’t know how I’m ever going to sleep again’ terrible.” He met her eyes.
Veda hugged his bicep, frowning. “And you have no idea what those guards are trying to hide?”
“No. But I’m going to find out.”
“Gage, I want you to stop. Please don’t get back on that ship. Come home with me.”
“I’m sorry, baby, but the answer is no.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed.”
His eyes searched hers like a scanner, and then he licked his lips. “When we got back together? When you gave me a second chance? I swore to you that I’d never let anyone hurt you again. That I’d never stop fighting for you. That I’d lay my life on the line to protect you—no matter what. I wasn’t just talking. I meant every word.”
“You keep saying you’re doing this for me. If that’s true, shouldn’t I get a say?”
“Veda, don’t you u
nderstand? The moment the barrel of that gun touched my neck, I saw the barrel of that same gun touching yours. I saw him pulling the trigger. The trigger that almost killed you. The trigger that did kill our child, however indirectly.”
Tears filled Veda’s eyes. She clenched her teeth to fight them back, but couldn’t.
Gage’s jaw tightened and moved. “I’d rather be dead than let that go unsettled. I’d rather be dead than wake up every morning knowing you’ll be looking over your shoulder for an enemy you can’t even see. Knowing our kids will have to look over their shoulders. I’ll do everything in my power to end this. Not for me. But for us. For our future family.” He paused, taking a shaky breath. “For him.”
She swallowed thickly at that word—him—her voice cracking as she gave in “He would’ve been proud of his father’s bravery. He would’ve been really proud of you, Gage.”
His eyes grew vulnerable in hers. Then, they fell to her mouth.
Veda heeded his silent invitation, leaning in and placing a kiss on his lips. Their eyes fluttered closed in time, basking in the embrace for as long as they could—until they could no longer breathe—before pulling back. They pressed their foreheads together, the tips of their noses nuzzling, their nostrils flaring in sync with their racing hearts. Gage crossed an arm over his body to bury his hand in her hair. Her signature curls had begun their reemergence thanks to the warm, humid air.
Placated by that one kiss, Veda exhaled. “Just… don’t you dare…” Her eyelashes—soaked from the ocean mist or her tears, she wasn’t sure—remained fluttered closed. “Don’t you dare get hurt. Don’t you dare leave me.” Her voice grew strained. “I wouldn’t survive it. I’ll never make it in a world that doesn’t have you in it.”
“I promise, Veda.”
He was just saying what she wanted to hear. As long as he was sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, his safety was not guaranteed. Veda knew that, but still, she made herself believe his vow.
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