Raw (Revenge Book 6)
Page 22
Epilogue
After working a double, getting cussed out by patients at the hospital and by customers at Dante’s—back to back—Veda was exhausted, and barely able to get her house key into the lock of her apartment door with her limp, sleepy hands. Picturing the plush king-sized bed awaiting her on the other side of the door, she managed to get it unlocked, smiling at the thought of sinking into the soft duvet and bed sheets. Fuck putting a sleep bonnet on to protect her curls. Fuck changing out of the black booty shorts and t-shirt that were covered in alcohol and sticky liquid sugar. Fuck anything but falling into bed and chucking the deuces to the world for at least the next eight hours.
Her eyes were already fluttering as she stepped in and closed the door. The only thing that would have made her bed more perfect than it was going to be that night was if Gage would be in it with her. But he wouldn’t be. Still dead set on finding out the truth about his family. Still keeping up his charade of an engagement with Scarlett Covington. Still putting his life at risk.
Veda had meant what she’d told Gage. His father scared her. So much so that her heart began to pick up at the very thought of David Blackwater—his unsmiling face, his stoic aura, and even how unnaturally white his hair and eyebrows were. Her body, dying for a good nights sleep just seconds earlier, was suddenly overrun with adrenaline, and Veda was left praying that Gage came to his senses and put an end to all of this before David Blackwater proved her suspicions right.
If she thought David Blackwater had gotten her pulse and anxiety raging, however, it was only because she hadn’t yet turned away from her front door and lifted her eyes to her living room couch. When she did, she jumped nearly a foot in the air, screaming at the top of her lungs while clapping her hand over her heart.
Sitting in the dark, on the edge of her couch, Link leaned forward on his knees with his bicep muscles flexing, as his green eyes received hers across the room. He didn’t smile or even blink. He didn’t greet her. He didn’t have any reaction at all.
“Jesus Christ, Linc!” Veda cried, throwing her purse violently down on the ground as the terror in her body slowly ebbed away, loosening the death grip it had taken on her every bone and allowing her to step forward. She breathed out a laugh. “You scared the shit out of me.”
Linc finally blinked, but it was slow—so much so that it actually looked like he was rolling his eyes.
Silence.
Veda paused mid-step, her arms falling to her sides, spine snapping straight. She sputtered for the right words to say, looking over her shoulder at the front door and then back to him.
“Wait…” She started, pointing her thumb at the door. “Did you… break in? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure cops aren’t allowed to do that.”
Linc didn’t respond, still leaning forward on his knees, hands clasped, watching her with an expression in his green eyes she’d never seen before.
It was at that moment Veda got a good look at him for the first time since she’d walked in. His red cheeks. His inflamed nose. His swollen eyes and the shattered gleam inside them.
“Oh my God, Linc, what’s wrong? What happened…?” The rest of her sentence petered away as her eyes fell to the coffee table before him.
And she knew no more words would come.
Because every inch of her body had begun a slow, inevitable descent into complete and utter collapse.
On top of her coffee table sat a Ziploc bag with a chipped piece of cow print nail polish. Another Ziploc with a half-eaten watermelon Blow Pop. Another with several marred and broken nail clippings. A photo of her and Hope, as teenagers, observing a beer pong game in the Blackwater mansion ten years earlier—where Veda wore a white mini dress that left zero to the imagination. The same dress that, later that same evening, would be stained with blood when Linc fished her out of the ocean and gave her mouth-to-mouth.
Veda waited for her body to go into overdrive. For shock to take over and render her indisposed. She waited for her eyes to widen and fill with tears. For her heartbeat to pick up. For a fear so debilitating and dominating that it became a struggle to even finish a complete breath.
But nothing came.
Her eyes slowly rose to Linc’s.
He held her gaze for a long moment, licking his lips, whispering so softly she barely heard it. “Did you kill Jax Murphy?”
Veda’s chest rose in a deep breath. She’d been worried that he’d force her to lie to him.
“No,” she answered.
Linc didn’t nod or give any indication that he’d heard or accepted her answer.
Another moment of quiet floated by.
Veda wondered if it was over.
He took a deep breath. “Are you the Shadow Rock Chopper?”
And there it was.
The question that would force her to lie.
The question she’d always dreaded might one day leave his lips.
The question that would change her life forever.
Once again, however, the shock didn’t come. The fear didn’t come. The regret didn’t come.
None of it came.
Only pure, unadulterated relief.
And with a deep breath—a breath that came easier than it had in ten long years, Veda looked Linc in the eye, allowing him to see her in a way she never had before, and answered, softly.
“Yes.”
COMING SOON
The Revenge Series: Number Seven
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The Revenge Series:
Quiver: Number One
Tingle: Number Two
Purr: Number Three
Yearn: Number Four
Pulse: Number Five
Raw: Number Six
Stereo Hearts Series:
Stereo
Encore
The Romanovsky Brother’s Series:
Taming Val
Claiming Roman
Loving Leo
Finding Gary
The Almeida Brother’s Trilogy:
Lila's Thunder
Thunder Rolls
Lightning Strikes
Stand Alone Novels:
Dead or Alive