“Like a baby. You know why? Because—assuming he doesn’t get himself killed—I’ll be sleeping next to a wonderful man who makes me happy.”
Hope dry heaved.
Veda’s voice crumbled. “He makes me so happy, you guys. I’m happy. And for the first time in my life, I don’t need some rapist asshole’s bloody balls in my hand for that happiness to be within reach.”
“You’re making the right decision, Veda. I’m proud of you,” Jake said. Even as Hope continued making her disgust known next to him, he tilted his head at Veda with a squint. “You know, I always wondered… what do you do with them? With the bloody balls?”
Hope’s lips curled down at Jake’s question, and she shot Veda a wide-eyed look as if she was curious as well.
Veda’s eyes grew lazy. “It’s bad enough you’ve both put your jobs and lives on the line to help me sort through my madness. The last thing you need to know is where the bodies are buried. The less you know, the less you’ll be forced to lie when it all comes down to it.”
“Will it all come down to it?” Hope’s eyes lit up. “Sounds like someone’s having a change of heart.”
Veda shook her head softly at Hope, her voice soaked in judgment. “Some people really do just want to see the world burn…”
Hope rolled her eyes.
“Even if that world is their own!” Veda cried, stabbing her clutch bag at Hope. “No, Hope, I’m not having a change of heart. I won’t watch your world burn. No matter how badly your crazy ass wants it. It’s over. Period. From this day forward I’m a normal woman who does normal things. Goes to work at her normal job, comes home to her normal apartment, minds her own normal business, and occasionally chaperones school dances for the high school kid who’s stupid enough to worship her, okay? Can I just be worshiped in peace, please? Can you just tell me my dress is sexy—but still teenager appropriate—so I don’t walk into that auditorium feeling like a pedophile, please?”
“You look stunning, bub,” Jake said, jumping in when Hope remained mute. “And there’s no outfit more appropriate for a high school prom than a black lace dress with sheer sleeves and a plunging back.”
“Thank you!” Veda cried, widening her eyes at Hope. “Was that so hard? God.”
“Whatever,” Hope grumbled. “You might think you can stop, but deep down, Veda, you and I are the same. There’s something inside you that wants to see the world burn just as badly as I do. It’s the only way you could’ve gotten this far. You’ll see that I’m right. One way or another.”
Veda’s heart slammed against her ribcage as she took in Hope’s words. She pressed her lips together, terrified to her core that Hope might be right. That believing herself capable of stopping was really just her living in deep denial.
Was she strong enough to fight the beast inside her? The beast that just wanted to see the world burn—all while clutching bloody balls? Would that beast ever truly be gone? Would her deep love for Gage be strong enough to keep it at bay?
Veda’s aching heart cried yes.
Yes—love always wins!
All she could do was pray that her aching heart was right.
For all their sakes.
22
The Rose Restaurant inside The W Hotel was slow that evening in downtown Shadow Rock, with only a handful of patrons enjoying meals in the restaurant or drinks at the bar. The white marble bar top was lined with flickering white candles, its lush surface glowing beneath the Venetian glass chandeliers lining the bar overhead. Rose-colored drapes hung from every wall, giving the room a dramatic feel. The color boomed against the night sky that spilled into the only window in the room, located directly behind the bar.
Linc’s eyes remained trained to that window even as his heart worked overtime to shatter his rib cage. Beyond the liquor bottles stacked in front of it, he had a perfect view of the Celeste returning to port outside the window. Her massive white body floated through the dark ocean waters so elegantly anyone would be transfixed. Linc didn’t even feel annoyed that Gage had blown his cover on that very ship, proving himself the worst confidential informant in history. He wasn’t annoyed because the main reason he’d made Gage an informant was to help find the very woman he’d be seeing tonight.
Tonight, after the maddening wait for a judge to clear a warrant and wrestling five thousand dollars of spare money from the budget, SRPD had been cleared to set up an undercover date with “Raven.”
Butterflies assaulted his stomach. Not just because his wife was set to arrive for her “date” any moment, but because of the text message staring up at him from the screen of his phone. The text he’d written for his mother weeks ago, but had yet to find the stomach to send.
Linc: Is David Blackwater my father?
His thumb lingered over the ‘send’ button, and just as he went to press it, an incoming text came through.
Veda: You don’t call, you don’t write. Just wanna know you’re alive, friend.
He had every intention of ignoring Veda’s text and turning off his phone. Moments before he did, however, another indicator bubble popped up on the screen. This time an email from SRPD’s cyber forensics team, who’d been working hard to find the owner of rawmoon.com. Their last update had informed him the website was being paid for using an offshore account, but they still hadn’t nailed down an owner. His eyebrows pinched as he opened their email.
The email wasn’t in regards to the owner of the site, however.
Came across this buried deep in the server’s cache. Thought you should know.
A hot link to the mail order bride site was pasted below the short message. Normally he didn’t click links, but since he recognized cyber forensics’ address, he didn’t hesitate that time.
The site popped up, prompting him for his username and password. Linc typed it in, and the profile that greeted him the moment it was approved left him speechless. Shaken. It left him staring at his screen, mouth agape, motionless. He couldn’t think of a worse time for cyber forensics to send him this link because he knew he couldn’t give it the attention it deserved. He couldn’t give anything the attention it deserved that night unless that thing’s name was Lisa Hill.
Raven.
So he copied the link, opened a new text conversation and proceeded to send it to someone who could. He could only hope, as he typed in a phone number, that Gage hadn’t yet gotten rid of the burner phone he’d used to call Linc with just hours earlier.
After sending the link to Gage’s burner phone, along with the username and password, he shut his phone off to avoid any further distractions.
In seconds, he became reacquainted with the real reason he was sitting at that bar. It hit him in waves until his nostrils were flaring in time with his hammering heart once more. Until he was sucking in each trembling breath, and staring at the glass of ice water before him, hungry to switch it out for a shot of tequila.
But tonight wasn’t the night to become a slave to his temptations. His eyes flew down the empty bar and landed on Lieutenant Chavez, sitting on her own bar stool several chairs down. She’d traded in her pants suit for a slinky red dress and had freed her A-line bob from its usual bun, allowing it to frame her face. Her makeup was heavier—lips redder. Playing the part of a lonely woman hoping a handsome stranger approached, not a hardass police lieutenant with an earpiece hidden behind her perfectly trimmed hair.
Linc reached into the hood of his black sweatshirt, pulled low to conceal his face and hair, adjusting his own earpiece. His eyes moved through the room, taking in the other officers working the sting before his gaze landed on Sam. She sat alone at a two-seater table in the restaurant, several feet away. Nursing her own glass of water, with an empty place setting across from her, Sam donned a simple black cocktail dress and black leather stilettos. Hair slicked back into a sleek ponytail, she also wore more makeup than normal.
She didn’t wear an earpiece, but a wire that had been strategically taped to her chest so it wouldn’t show under her dress
. If she was nervous about going undercover that night, it didn’t show. If she noticed Linc’s eyes on her, she didn’t show that either. Nor did any of the other officers in the restaurant. Everyone was doing a phenomenal job remaining nonchalant, but not over the top collected. Maintaining just the right amount of curiosity in their surroundings, as if none of them had any idea who the other people in the bar were.
Linc was relieved that everyone else was remaining calm as he felt himself teetering on the verge of complete collapse. Facing the day he’d been dreaming of for five long years, remaining professional would prove difficult. He’d already had to beg Chavez to allow him to work this operation. She’d been understandingly hesitant but had eventually given in, realizing Lisa was more likely to talk to Linc than anyone else. Once they cornered her in the hotel room upstairs, Linc would take center stage. It would be up to him to crack her.
A moment later, two massive men entered the restaurant with serious eyes, surveying every patron and employee as they moved. They wore expensive suits too tight for their muscular bodies, both their heads shaved bald.
Linc looked away, his stomach tightening as the female detective stationed outside the hotel spoke for the first time that night.
“Muscle just entered the hotel,” she said, her voice crisp in Linc’s state of the art earpiece even though the Celeste’s honks as it approached port nearly drowned it out. “Target just arrived in a different car. Stepping out now. Black mesh bandage dress. Hair pulled back. Four-inch red-bottomed stilettos. Aztec tattoo on the shoulder.”
Linc prayed for strength as she described Lisa to the letter. He lowered his hoodie-clad head as the two men moved past behind him, squeezing tight and nearly shattering the glass clutched in his hand. Better the glass than the heads of the bastards behind him. At least for now.
For now, he couldn’t allow the ache in his chest—the fury squeezing his bones—to move him to violence. Not when Lisa was still in danger. He had to keep it together until they got her upstairs. So he held his breath as the two men moved, feeling their eyes burning into his back. He also felt Chavez’s eyes—as if she too were worried he was moments from blowing his cover.
He didn’t, drawing in a deep breath once the “muscle” passed him. They settled into a quiet booth in the corner of the room, where they could see Sam’s table clearly, declining to place an order with the waitress who approached. Their sharp eyes maintained their intense scrutiny of the room.
Linc turned his head away from the muscle and spoke softly. “No appetizers. No dessert. Get her up to the room as quickly as possible, Sam.”
Knowing the muscle was watching, Sam didn’t dare respond, but Linc knew she’d heard him.
Another officer in the room, out of the muscle’s line of sight, spoke, his view filtering through every earpiece. “Eyes on Lisa. Twelve o’clock.”
Every bone in Linc’s body begged to look—shattering under their own rigidity and crumbling to his feet with every second he didn’t. Tears stung his eyes as the click of heels entered the restaurant, just loud enough on the marble floors to lift over the soft music playing overhead. He knew the click of those heels belonged to the red-bottomed stilettos they’d just been informed about. Stilettos donned by his wife. He clenched his teeth when they began to chatter, sniffling softly when his nose grew stuffy and sucked in a gasp when he realized he’d stopped breathing.
Only when the click of the heels began to slow did Linc realize that ignoring Lisa completely might prove more suspicious than allowing himself a glance. When a beautiful woman walked into a room, it was natural for every man to look—if not gape. And his wife was one of the most beautiful he’d ever known. So for the sake of remaining surreptitious, coupled with the fact that he simply couldn’t help himself, Linc tilted his head towards Sam’s table, ever so softly.
He caught sight of Lisa. Her back was turned to him, wearing a black knee-length dress that hugged her every curve. He didn’t see the “mesh” that the detective stationed outside had referred to, assuming it must be at the front of the dress. Probably exposing a bosom, he knew for a fact, was hypnotizing. She’d pulled her jet-black hair into a sleek ponytail, similar to Sam’s, and it was curled at the ends.
Linc only needed one look at the back of Lisa’s head, her slender body, and the tattoo on her shoulder before his body went into overdrive. So many different emotions blasted through him, he almost felt out of his body. The need to race up to her and take her in his arms was debilitating.
A hostess approached Lisa and dropped a menu with a smile before leaving Lisa and Sam alone once more.
“Raven?” Sam asked with a hopeful smile, her friendly voice entering the wire strapped to her chest and arriving in every earpiece in the room.
“Yes,” Lisa spoke with a smile in her voice, sending shot after shot of white hot pain flashing across every inch of Linc’s body, including his eyes, which burned with emotion. Lisa motioned to Sam with her black clutch. “Melanie?”
Sam nodded, confirming she was “Melanie”, and invited Lisa to take a seat.
He knew his staring was departing normal territory and bordering on creepy, but Linc still watched Lisa take her seat. Even from behind, he knew his wife on sight. The manner in which she sat. The ease of movement as she crossed her long, milky legs. The tips of her red toes from where they jutted out of her peep-toe heels. The way the second toe was a little longer than the first. Her delicate neck, and the wispy blond hairs that dusted it, even though she’d dyed the hair on her head black. He remembered the softness of those wispy blonde hairs against his lips, every morning when he’d curl up behind her in bed and kiss the back of her neck. He remembered those long, milky legs wrapped around his waist whenever they made love. He remembered locking those red toes between his teeth when things got especially heated.
He remembered it all, and it took everything he had to look away, lest he become too obvious.
Sam’s voice came through his earpiece. “Your pictures don’t do you justice.”
Lisa gave a bashful laugh. “Thank you. You’re absolutely beautiful. I love your dress.”
Lisa spoke clearly, with an effortless ease that could calm even the most anxious personality. It was another thing about her that hadn’t changed. What had changed, however, was the hint of flirtation—of invitation—that now lived behind her every word. A playfulness—a subtle tease—that a woman for sale quickly learned to master.
Linc’s stomach curled into knot after knot until he was sure he had no more stomach left to give. Tears stung his eyes, but he fought them back. Soon, Sam would get Lisa upstairs, and this would all be over. He’d have her in his arms again. And once he did, he’d never make the colossal mistake of letting her go again.
The provocative, inviting tone remained in Lisa’s voice for the duration of dinner. If Linc didn’t know any better, he’d call her “date” with Sam a roaring success. Lisa carried the conversation with an easy aura and a genuine kindness that would fool anyone into believing she’d fallen madly in love after just one dinner. It killed Linc how skilled she was at her “job”. The thought of how many men and women she’d been forced to entertain the way she entertained Sam right then. Asking questions that showed just enough interest without being invasive. Volunteering information about herself that—while false—was just revealing enough to form a counterfeit bond. A bond that had surely felt very real to all the men and women who had come before Sam.
There had even been a few instances, Linc noted, where Sam herself appeared to get tangled in Lisa’s seductive web. Going off script. Her laughter a little too heartfelt. Her participation in the conversation a little too real. Sam, he suspected, was teetering on the edge of being totally seduced as she invited Lisa up to her hotel room, eyes shining. Lisa accepted, using a tone perfectly balanced between excitement and grace.
At Lisa’s acceptance, Sam gave the cue. A subtle cue that told Linc she was minutes from asking the waitress to drop the check.
<
br /> Releasing a breath of relief, Linc fished a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket and left it next to the water he hadn’t taken a single sip of. The glass was nearly overflowing since the ice inside had melted over the course of the dinner.
The bartender was in the midst of reminding him that the water was free, but Linc left his seat before he could finish. He moved toward the exit with his hoodie pulled low. Avoiding eye contact with everyone, he crossed the lobby on a calm foot, approaching the golden elevators beckoning several feet away, clutching the keycard in his pocket. The keycard to the hotel room Sam would be escorting Lisa up to in just a few minutes.
The hotel room where everything that had gone wrong in his life would finally be righted again.
23
Across town, Veda sighed at the millionth unanswered text she’d sent to Linc, pouting at the lonely white bubbles stacked down the screen of her phone—sealing the state of her and Linc’s pathetic, one-sided friendship in SMS infamy forever.
Giving up, she closed out of the messenger window and was greeted by her phone’s wallpaper—a photo of Gage kissing her on the cheek, his dark brown eyes smiling into the camera as he did. Something beautiful washed over her, taking everything dark and dirty with it as it went. She had an amazing moment of clarity. A moment that proved her aching heart had been right. The aching heart that beat for the only man who could make her give it all up. The heart that was ready to let go of the anger. The pain. The debilitating need for vengeance.
She smiled at her thoughts as her eyes danced across the massive gym at Blackwater Prep, boasting an ice age theme that reminded Veda of the movie Frozen. They’d kept the décor simple with baby blue lighting and icicle adornments. Even the intricate ice sculptures scattered all over the room had a frosty blue hue. Hundreds of high school couples were gathered on the floor before her, slow dancing to an Adele song and watching each other with innocent love in their eyes. The same pure love she’d once believed herself incapable of. The same love she felt every time she thought of Gage.
Raw (Revenge Book 6) Page 15