Chapter 10
Vapor
I returned her Veyron, and yet she’s been driving her other car—the one I call trash heap.
It’s obviously some kind of sentimental tank of a car, otherwise, why would she drive that old black Camaro around?
The damned thing is falling apart and so rusted, my trackers barely stick to it.
She’s locked me out again, and she keeps changing phones, so I can’t get to her.
Fuck—I’m crawling the walls, trying to get back inside.
I’ve sent her gifts—art. And I didn’t steal them. I purchased them like any sensible lawyer would do.
It’s not my fault she found out I was a thief before she found out I was a lawyer. She wasn’t supposed to ever see me that day I stole her car, but she was so beautiful, I couldn’t stop myself from saying something to her before we took it, and I’d been dying to see her after talking to her online for a month.
Why is she doing this to me?
I got through to her. She broke down in my arms as I made love to her two weeks ago.
Yeah, asshole—you broke her. That’s why she’s evading you.
“Is it working yet?” I hover over Jason.
“No, goddammit, and quit asking me that. You’re driving me nuts,” he says, keeping his head tucked down as he works feverishly at the chip. “If you want it fixed so badly, why don’t you try?”
“I have. I’ve gone through it over and over, but she’s got me so fucking . . . God, what a bitch—doing this to me.” I grip the back of my neck.
“I’m surprised she hasn’t broken in here and taken back what you stole from her,” he says, continuing to tinker.
“She knows I wouldn’t keep it here, just like she wasn’t keeping it at her place.” I circle around him once more.
“Stop the fucking pacing. You’re making me nervous. Go get a beer or somethin’.”
“I can’t drink. She doesn’t do that shit—she wouldn’t want me to,” I say, gripping the edge of the table now instead of my body, still moving in on his space.
“The things you know about her without actually spending any time with her other than stealing her stuff and fucking her . . . Well, it’s disturbing.” He stretches his back for a moment.
I chuckle. “She’s probably watching me, too.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. A genius like her is not going to waste time using surveillance on your pathetic ass. She knows what you’re doing without watching.”
“Not you, too,” I groan. “Westin won’t shut up about her ever since he met her. He was dying to help me break into her place, so I let him clown around on her roof while I waited for her to come out.”
“I heard it worked.” He chuckles.
“Of course it did,” I huff.
“No, I mean your rocket or rock, or whatever the hell you called that thing. Didn’t it work for a while?”
“Pffft!” I blow out. “Nope. It never worked. I just told him that.”
“Why’d you lie?” He looks up at me briefly, then goes back to picking apart the chip. It’s useless, and I know it. With the advancements she’s made on her new chip, this one’s dinosaur technology.
“Because he doesn’t need to know all my secrets. And besides—he’s a bigger gossip than any bitch you’ve ever met. He’s probably already spread it around that I have this awesome way of breaking into any place with that thing.”
Jason snickers louder, his back shaking. “He’s not as gullible as you think he is.”
“Whatever.” I stand up tall, let go of the table and pace again.
“Why don’t you just forget about breaking in? Sabotage her some other way. Work on that remote you stole. Figure out how to get the impulse from that chip to her brain, and make her come to you.”
“Fuuuuck.” I run my hands down my face. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because all the blood’s in your dick—hard to think with no fluid in the brain. You’ve been that way a while now. Your twenty-six-year-old ass is acting like a thirteen-year-old with his first boner. I haven’t seen you work on any of your own inventions anymore. All you care about is what she’s doing.” He watches me from the corner of his eye.
I sigh. “You want me to say it, too?” I cross my arms over my chest.
“No. I don’t give a fuck about your pissing contest with her.”
“I’m better than she is at this game and at inventing new technology.” My heart hurts. All of me hurts—for her.
“The mark to beat is five-hundred grand,” he reminds me.
“I know!” I say, my voice raising.
“Get it together, man, before your dad comes after your ass and straightens you out.”
“He already knows I’m psychotic about her.” I stare at the chip. It has to fucking work!
“And he hasn’t stopped you?” He sets his tools down and shoves the small metal piece at me.
“No. How’s he going to rein me in? And, besides, just because he’s the boss, and he’s my own blood, doesn’t mean he owns me. I do what I want.” I will the chip to spring to life, but of course nothing happens.
He grins. “Yeah, good luck with that. Better give him some blood thinners, ‘cause I can see you’re about to give him a heart attack.”
“Fuck you.” I grab the chip and head to the living room.
I take a seat at the couch, and set it on the coffee table.
He walks in after me a few minutes later as I sit, staring at the remote and chip, laying side-by-side.
“Swallow it.”
“What?” I ask, my head tipping back as I look up at him, wide-eyed.
“You heard me. You know how to regurgitate stuff. You’ve done it before when you’ve stolen other small valuables,” he says.
“Yeah, but they didn’t have knife blades on the sides that could cut my larynx open on the way back up.” My right eye twitches and my throat constricts, recalling how much that hurt every fucking time I did it.
“Diamonds have sharp edges.”
I look at him like he’s lost his damn IQ from working on this chip too long. “They do, but it’s not the same.”
“What’re you afraid of?”
“That I’ll actually prove I can do this, and that I am better than her,” I say, my head dropping.
“Why’s that a bad thing? Is it really a competition?” He shifts away from me.
“No. She doesn’t treat me that way, I just . . .”
“Your dad, right?” I can feel him shaking his head at me like I’m a pathetic waste of a man.
A moment later he sets his hand on my shoulder.
I don’t have to answer. He’s right, and he knows it.
“Swallow it. I’ll help you figure this remote out. Once we’ve got it situated, we can refashion the chip, make it smaller, and you can make sure she gets it back inside her body.”
“How’m I gonna do that?” My voice breaks. I’ve never sounded more pitiful in my life. Well, if I discount the times I’ve already begged her to let me fucking hold and touch her, and get my dick inside her. Woman makes me insane for her.
“I’m sure you’ll think of a way.” He picks up the chip and slips it into my palm.
“You know this has to be insanely fast, right? If it gets down in my stomach, we’re fucked.”
“I think I already know how to fix the remote. Just get it trapped in your throat—keep it there—and we’ll prove it works in less than two minutes.” He smiles and looks confident.
I nod and toss that fucker in my mouth.
He has the remote dismantled and working in one minute and thirty-four seconds.
But only because I helped him when the edges started feeling like they were shredding my throat apart on the inside.
Nothing like the thought of a trip to a hospital to make my genius kick in.
* * *
“Jerry Smith,” I say, checking in.
“He’ll be right out. Take a seat over there,” the
prison guard tells me.
I’m still surprised he approved me as a visitor when he has no idea who I am. I guess he’s so hard-up for anyone at all to see him it doesn’t matter much to him who they are.
I sit at a table with my chip in my pocket. It was cleared through the warden after he questioned me extensively about it. I showed him all the permits I’d forged, along with the paperwork and signed documents he needed to see.
I sit and breathe deep, going over in my head what I can possibly say to this monster that shot at Dena, obviously beat her more than once and stole her money along with her ideas. He makes my dad seem like a saint with the wings and golden loop above his head.
“Fucking thief,” I mutter, cursing her father.
A pang of guilt sweeps through me, since I’ve stolen from her, too, but I’m not selling it or lying to her about it, making her believe I’m something I’m not. And I didn’t do it on my own. It wasn’t my choice to make.
A woman across the room smiles at me, and though she’s attractive and her tits are piled up under her chin in her revealing, tight shirt, I’m not interested.
I turn away and keep my eyes on the entrance.
Several minutes later, the man I’ve seen dozens of pictures of, have read and heard about, comes strolling in the door in his prison-issued garb.
He stares at me, and those eyes, though they’re the same color and shape as Dena’s—they hold none of the warmth, intelligence and heart hers do. Automatically I have the desire to kick his nuts into his throat so he’ll choke on them and die right before my eyes.
He glares at me.
That instinct shifts into an overwhelming urge to jab something in his eyes so he can never gaze on his wonderful daughter ever again. He doesn’t deserve to see her. It overwhelms me until I can barely breathe, and I have to grip my legs to keep from attacking him and telling him what a worthless piece of shit he is.
He deserves to be behind these bars.
“Who’re you?” Gregory asks when he sits down.
The guard asks if I want him to stay directly next to us, and I say no.
He takes up a spot near the door where he can still keep an eye on us but can’t hear our conversation.
“My name’s Nick Reid, and I’m in love with your daughter.”
“P-hah!” he snorts and slaps the table, smiling at me like I’m joking.
“I’m serious. I love her more than anything.” My pulse races, and my legs threaten to carry me out of here—he’s that upsetting to me because he’s emotionally damaged the one person I truly care about more than anything.
“Then why are you here to see me? Shouldn’t you be out, worshiping her?”
“That’s exactly why I’m here,” I say.
His face drops.
“She sent you after me?” His voice is tight—almost as much as his jaw.
“No. She doesn’t know I’m here, and I’m not going to tell her I visited you. I came to bring you something and offer you a deal in exchange for something.” I grin.
“Not interested,” he says, and motions for the guard.
“Not even if I was to tell you your daughter has placed a trust in your name, in the amount of five-million dollars, and I’m willing to double it if you do this thing for me?”
He puts up a hand to tell the guard to go back to where he was.
“I’m listening,” Gregory says.
“She loves you. She’s hurting, and she’s grieving for the father she wishes she had. I can’t stand to see her in pain like this. I want you to write to her, ask her to visit. And when she gets here, you’re to tell her you love her, even if your black heart is incapable of doing such a thing.”
He frowns. “I do love her.”
I clear my throat with a scraping cough. It’s still raw from sort of swallowing this chip. “Odd way of showing it. Why haven’t you ever contacted her if you do?”
“You think I didn’t want to?” He smacks the table again, leans toward me, and I can almost see his hackles raised. “I didn’t think she wanted anything to do with me after what I did to her, and I was too ashamed to look her in the eyes.”
I cross my left ankle over my right leg. “Well, you’re gonna get over it real fast, and I’ll make sure you can access that money anytime you want to. She set it up so you’d gain access the day after your release.”
“Why would she have done this to begin with?” he asks, shaking his head in disbelief.
“She figured if you wanted it so badly, it wasn’t worth keeping it away from you.”
“I guess.” He hunches his shoulders.
“So my friend, Jason Michaels—he’s in charge of the account now.”
“Jason?” he asks like he knows him.
“Yeah.”
“Michaels?”
“Yeah,” I repeat, my brow creasing.
“He’s a good man,” he replies.
“You know him?”
“Yeah, he served two years and helped me get ahold of a few items I needed.” He blinks and shifts in his seat. “How is he?”
“He’s fine,” I say, my tone harsh. “I don’t wanna talk about him, though.”
“Fine—whatta ya wanna talk about then? It seems like you’ve already laid it all out for me.” He looks away and rolls his eyes.
“You’re going to give her this chip. Tell her it’s your way of saying sorry, and you can say you stole it from her a long time ago and want to give it back.”
“Why would I do that?” He scratches his right arm and picks at a scab that’s old, brown and crusty.
I want to gag for Ides. She’d be almost puking if she saw this.
“Because if you don’t, then that money will never be yours.” I shift my eyes to his.
He barks a laugh. “Whatever the fuck happened to you wasn’t a small thing. Let me guess . . . Mom dropped you off on the side of the road and never came back?” He chuckles. “Or maybe she put a helmet on your head when you were an infant, and it was too tight, cutting off the circulation. Either way—couldn’t’ve been good, pal.”
“Nope. Worse. I kissed a girl and fell in love with her. And then her deranged father ruined her life and she was taken away from me because of it. My family moved not long after, making it even more difficult.”
He shifts away from me.
“Not a day goes by I don’t want to exact revenge and suck the life out of him, but I can’t because for some inexplicable reason, she still loves the lousy fucker. I searched for her for years, and finally found her. Now, listen up, you decrepit old fart—she needs to swallow this thing. If you don’t wanna go with this story I made up of how you got this chip, then put it in some food and give it to her that way, but you have to make sure she ingests it or I might forget all about how she likes the fact you’re still breathing, since I doubt you’re worth using up the oxygen on this planet.”
His eyes go wide and his breath catches. “How’m I supposed to do that?”
“I don’t fucking care how—just do it.” I push myself up to standing and hope to God that Paco guy, Ides likes to tease me about, actually exists, resides here and that he loves old men in orange suits with a penchant for harming his daughter. “And I’ll know the second she swallows it. If you try to give it to someone else, I’ll know that as well. It’s encrypted to her DNA.”
I pat him on the shoulder and give him a patronizing smile.
“Who the hell did you say you were?”
“Vapor, because I’m gone before you even realize I was here,” I say and then saunter out of the room.
* * *
Three more damn weeks pass by without hearing from her or seeing her, and my remote sits idle, collecting dust.
I’ve got to figure out a way to see her, but she’s become even more of a recluse as of late.
“Hi, Vapor,” Riot says, walking into the room as I sit on his couch, his gun on the coffee table in front of me. “Enjoying yourself?”
“Where is she?”
“She does want to see me—she just doesn’t realize it yet,” I retort.
“Will you listen to yourself? You sound like a stalker or serial killer or some shit.” He grips the back of his neck. “Stop this. You have to stop. It’s creepy as hell and not good for your prostate—it’ll make your dick fall off.”
“No, you have to stop! You never told me Jason knew her father,” I say, pointing at him, stabbing my finger in the air with each word.
“Look—you asked me to reach out to her and take care of her. I’ve done that.” His eyes turn dark and are filled with turmoil.
“I did not. I didn’t know it was her until . . .”
“Well, your father did, then, and I figured if he planted me into her life, he’d have told you. I thought you knew.” He exhales with a grating sound. “I love her, man. I’m not gonna let you hurt her.”
“It’s too late for that. And if you ever say you have feelings for her again, you’ll be scraping my boot print off the inside of your esophagus. She’s mine!” I growl.
“You scared her, and I can see why. You think she wants to be around a criminal that threatens people, steals her stuff and acts like she’s his sexual slave?”
His shoulders are practically wired up to his ears. I can barely see the prick’s neck. Oh well, I guess I don’t have to see it when I crush my fingers around his throat.
“She’s sensitive and skittish, and damned near scared of everything around her—including you.” He scowls.
“Shit, I . . . What exactly did she tell you about me?” My face goes cold as it drains of blood. She told him all this—that I’ve scared her with my aggressive sexual appetite?
“You tell me. I know you monitor every little thing she does.” He leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “She’s not amused by your infantile antics.”
I stare at him, unblinking.
“No one is. It’s sickening.” He brushes some lint off his pants, or pretends to.
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