The Vigilantes Collection

by Lake, Keri

  “Fuck!” Unable to look at the lifeless body, I spun away from Bridger. “Dax … you … he sounded forced in the video.”

  “I don’t give a fuck. He hurt her. He killed her. He told me … when he finished, she wasn’t moving. Wasn’t breathing.”

  Trapped between anger and understanding, I paced.

  “He ever tell you how he lost his hand?” Dax asked.

  I came to a halt, staring down at the stump that he'd seemed to want to hide from me that night. “No.”

  Eyes red and bloodshot, Dax stared up at me. “Reed found the video. Cut it off. For touching her.”

  Reed? Even as I questioned it, my mind rewound to the day he'd sat on the curb at the Seven Eleven, covered in blood and bruises, like he’d been in one hell of a fight. He told me that day he’d taken care of it.

  It being Bridger.

  I stare down at my brother’s pale and bruised body. “Who did this to you?” Cuts in his skin have crusted over to dark, scabbed slits along his forearms and legs, and his eye swelled like a plum. So frail looking. His skinny frame sickens me sometimes, so weak and small, but it isn’t any fault of Reed’s. He was born underweight and addicted to crack. The kid eats like a horse, but food never manages to stick to his bones much. “Reed! Answer me. Who. Did. This?”

  “I don’t need you to fight my battles anymore. Go find someone else to save.”

  I kneel beside my brother, who smokes a cigarette, his back pressed into the brick wall. “I want a name.”

  “Well, you’re not getting a name, asshole. I did it to myself.”

  The cuts make sense. I did it to myself for years. A way to purge the anger and find some release. I stopped cutting years ago, when we finally came to live with Maria and life got back on track, for the most part. “The bruises?” My gaze locks with one particular bruise along his ribcage, which couldn’t have been inflicted by Reed unless he’d performed some fucking acrobatic act.

  “Got into a fight.”

  “With who?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He sniffs and takes another drag of his cigarette. “I won in the end.”

  I blinked the memory away, hating myself for not having looked closer. For being so lost in my own bullshit that I failed to see how he’d come to deteriorate so quickly.

  “Cocksucker stayed at my place. Never once said a word to me. Not an apology. Not a clue that he’d done this to her.” Dax rubbed his hands across his skull. “How the fuck does a person do that, Jase? How could you take so much from someone and just keep taking more?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know man. Did he … did he say who shot the video?”

  Drawing a hit from his e-cig, he shook his head. “Nope. Wouldn’t say a word. Said he’d rather die than snitch. Wasn’t Viktor, though. That much I got out of him.”

  I cupped my face and sucked in a deep breath. “Fuck!” I shouted through my hands and paced again.

  Felt like I was back to square one. I’d sworn it'd been Viktor behind the videos. That he played some role in my brother’s murder. I refused to believe he didn’t. “Viktor’s behind this shit. I know he had Reed killed.”

  The shaking of Dax’s head silenced my argument. “There’s something else, Jase.” Dax twisted to face me, his expression even more grim, if that were possible, sending the knots churning into a tight weave inside my stomach. The long red gash on his arm drew my attention toward the gun lying beside Bridger, who must’ve grazed him with a bullet. “He was the one who ratted out Reed. He gave away his screen name. He’s the reason they attacked your house that night.”

  My lungs clamped, and as I stared down at Bridger, pieces came together.

  Reed had found the video. He’d cut Bridger’s arm off. Bridger had to have retaliated by ratting him out. “He knew Pasák,” I muttered. “Thing that didn’t make sense to me was … how they knew we were at Maria’s that night.” Muscles in my forehead tightened with a frown, and I curled my lip. “He told them where to find us. He knew Reed would be there. Bastard told them where to find him.”

  I suddenly wished I’d been the one to interrogate him. Christ, I didn’t know what to think anymore.

  “For days, I tried to decide what to do.” Dax twisted, showing me the gash in his arm. “Tried to talk to him about it, and the fucker shot me in the arm. And I just … snapped. Went fucking insane.”

  Rubbing my hand across my chin, I stared down at all the blood seeping into the gravel. “We’ll take care of this, Dax. I know a crew. Cleaners. They’ll take care of this.” A thought struck me. “Hey, Bridger said he was given the chip that night. The one he delivered to you at the Hotel Savarine party. Did he say who gave it to him?”

  Dax shook his head, wiping drops of blood trickling down the back of his palms onto his jeans. “He gave me that fucking chip like he wanted me to see it. He asked for this.” After kicking back a swig of liquor, he sniffed. “Livvie, you know … I never had a sister before her. She was something special to me.” Brows pinched to a frown, he dropped his gaze toward the gravel beneath him and swallowed hard. “She had it pretty bad before she ended up in the system. Never had someone lookin’ out for her. I wanted to protect her.”

  “Reed did, too. I think Livvie was the only person he ever really gave a shit about in the world.” I rubbed a hand down my face and blew out a breath. “Fucking Bridger. He was like a brother. He lied to our fucking faces.”

  Shaking his head, Dax tapped the bottom of the bottle against the gravel, his lip forming a tight line. “Never thought I’d have to go after him, but … at least now I know the truth.”

  Crouching down beside Dax, I yanked the bottle from his hand and swigged the whiskey, before handing it back to him. “You gonna be okay, man?”

  He nodded, eyes vacant. “Yeah. I think so. But whoever Pasák is, he’s next.”

  39

  Lucy

  I adjusted my breasts inside the tight black halter and matching mini skirt I’d found in my duffle, courtesy of Craig. Maybe it was stupid of me to try to seduce Jase, but damn it, a girl could only be rejected so many times before she pulled out the big guns.

  The door clicked open, and I finger-brushed my hair one last time, before I exited the bathroom.

  Jase stood in front of the window. Not moving. Just staring off, with his back to me. When I cleared my throat, he twisted around, his gaze roving me top to bottom, but his face carried a dark expression—one that had goosebumps prickling my skin.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked, not all that convinced he’d tell me, especially when he stood with his brows furrowed, his nostrils flared like he was pissed.

  “Some shit’s got my head all messed up. So I just …”

  A red stain, like blood, streaked up both of his forearms, over his tattoos. Part of me wanted to ask where it’d come from, but he probably wouldn’t have told me that, either. I didn’t know what bothered me more—that I wasn’t shocked to find blood on him, or that I stayed in spite of it.

  I slipped into the bathroom, where I wet a washcloth, and crossed back to where he stood by the window. Without a word, I lifted his arm and wiped away the blood there, until crimson swallowed all traces of the cloth’s white cotton.

  “You wanna talk about it?”

  “I don’t want to talk at all, Lucy.” His voice held an undertone of self-deprivation and pain.

  I studied the hardening of his muscles through the shirt he wore, lifting my gaze to his face.

  His eyes turned cold. Shadowed. Hungry. The intensity in them had my limbs melting, my pulse skipping. How could someone incite both desire and fear? I was fascinated by the man, but had seen his violence firsthand. He scared the shit out of me, yet aroused me at the same time.

  Whatever was troubling him, I wanted to take it away, as ridiculous as that sounded. He could’ve killed a man in cold blood, for all I knew, though something told me the blood I’d just cleaned off his arms belonged to someone who'd probably wronged him somehow. I wanted t
o steal away the agony I could see burning behind his eyes and make him feel good.

  With a harsh swallow, I anchored my stare on his chest, before daring an upward glance, where the magnetism of his eyes held me entranced. “You want to fuck me?”

  He shook his head, the grooves of his forehead deepening. “No, I don’t. I need to fuck you, though. I need to hurt myself, and fucking you is the only thing that’ll hurt me the most.”

  After setting the washcloth on the nightstand, I circled him until flush to his back and, wrapping my arms around him, trailed a finger down his abs. I slid my hands inside his jeans and, with a firm grip of his erection, smiled when he exhaled a ragged breath. “You need it rough, though.”

  His head kicked to the side. “You okay with that? If you’re not—”

  “Yes.” I silenced his words and kissed his shoulder blade. “Can you do me a favor?” I came back around, head bowed to keep from looking at him.

  “Anything. Except cut you. I’m not fucking cutting you.”

  “I want a blindfold.” Green eyes met mine when I peered up at him, and I studied the trepidation in his stare. “And duct tape. My hands tied.”

  “I said rough. Not rape.”

  “It’s not rape. I’m asking you to do this.” I cast my stare toward the floor again, away from his. “And I might try to stop you. But don’t stop.”

  Cupping my jaw, he brushed his thumb across my chin. “What happened to that frightened girl in the woods?”

  “She grew up jaded by the world, and her fears became her fantasies. Now … are you going to fuck me, or make me beg this time?”

  In truth, I didn’t know why I’d become the way I had. I liked the combination of fear and arousal. A therapist might’ve told me that was the reason I ventured into abandoned buildings alone—if I’d ever gone to a therapist. Perhaps it was my grownup mind attempting to master the victimization of a young girl. Or maybe I was just fucked up and liked rough, forced sex, as long as it was consensual. Maybe the two weren’t related at all.

  The logical side of my brain battled that it was wrong to be so attracted to someone who’d taken me out of my home and tied me to a bed. A man who’d killed in front of my eyes. Perhaps the shadowed side, the one that had me watching gangbang role play and erasing all traces of it afterward, needed to comfort my logical half by convincing it that I was forced, that I didn’t have a choice but to give in to him. The fact was, I’d fantasized about the man for a long time, and not even the brief interlude of being his unwilling captive could change the fact that I’d finger-bang to visuals of him long after he let me go.

  I’d become obsessed with his dark and moody persona, and irrationally drawn to the idea that he might be the biggest and scariest bastard I’d ever met.

  I’d watched him slice the throat of a man and simply wipe the blood off his blade afterward. A normal woman would’ve walked—no, hauled ass, away from the man, and hoped he wouldn’t hound her tail. That I stuck around proved that there was madness in sanity, or rather, sanity in madness, and I seemed to be drawn to it like a magnet on a hot stove.

  I'd wanted him that night in the club, when he had me wet without laying a single hand on my body. I'd wanted him when he had me tied to the bed, watching me squirm as he pleasured himself.

  I wanted him to do things to me that would’ve had the logical side of me covering her eyes.

  He reached back, nabbed his blade from its holster, and handed it to me.

  Frowning, I stared down at the heavy cold steel in my palm, then back to him. “I’m not fucking cutting you, either.” I tossed the blade onto the floor beside me. “No knives.”

  “Fair enough. Just don’t be gentle. I don’t know what the fuck to do with gentle.”

  “I’m shocked,” I said through a half smile. “You mean you’ve never made love to a woman?”

  “I wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with love, either.”

  “Then, we have a deal. I won’t be gentle, and you’ll tie me up.”

  He leaned in, and the kiss he pressed to my lips, a whisper of touch dancing across my skin, charged my senses. The scent of him struck the primitive side of my brain, a scent of pure virility—manly, delicious, and completely intoxicating. I swallowed back the urge to lick it from his skin.

  “I’ll be the bastard you need me to be, Lucy. Whatever darkness you crave, I’ll give that to you. But no matter what, you’re still my light. You’ve always been my Luce. Even if I won’t allow myself to have you after this.”

  He slipped his hands beneath my thighs and hoisted me up into the air as if I weighed nothing. His solid body pressed into mine, and heat blazed from his skin beneath my palms, as I massaged his muscles, probing the hard ridges in his biceps, shoulders, and across his back.

  Hands gripping my thighs, he slammed me against the wall beside the window, breathing deeply against my neck, as if sucking in my scent, and exhaling a quiet rumble of satisfaction.

  That was the beginning, the calm, and my body tensed the way it did before a storm. Before the sky shattered into thunder and lightning, when I’d find myself caught between exhilaration and wanting to hide under the covers. He electrified me, had my skin tingling with the promise of pleasure and the strike of pain. I didn’t want shelter or safety from his storm. I wanted to be swept up and taken away, spiraling out of control with him.

  I bent forward, slanting my mouth over his, and felt his moan tremble against my lips. His fingers dug into my thighs, as his mouth held me captive against the wall, and within seconds, his kiss turned urgent, frantic. My fingers scraped against his skin, climbing upward toward his scalp, where I held his crown. Tightening my thighs around his hips, I dug my heels into his back and bit his lip, exhilarated by the approving growl that rolled through his chest.

  His jeans hit my core, and the bulge told me he was on the verge of tearing through the fabric. “All week, only thing I could think about was getting inside you,” he said against my mouth. “Are you ready for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll see.” He carried me to the bed and threw me against the mattress. “Hands and knees.”

  “No,” I dared, sliding away from him. I’d done kinky role play before, but never with a man as dangerous, and who wound my senses as tightly as Jase.

  His hands vised my ankles, and as he dragged me to the edge of the bed, I kicked at him, the tip of my shoes catching him in the stomach, though hardly a flinch crossed his face. Gripping my hips, those calloused hands flipped me over, and I planted my palms against the bed, the pathetic excuse for a skirt barely covering my ass, my black heels hanging over the edge. Completely on display for him.

  “Lower.” His nudge to my head forced my ear to mattress, before his palm skimmed down my back. His thumb slid against the thin fabric that did a piss poor job concealing my pussy. “Did you wear this for me?”

  The husky tone of his voice cast a shiver down my spine. I needed to hear his moans and grunts in that gruff, desperate voice. I wanted those sounds echoing inside my head as he slammed into me. “Yes,” I whispered.

  His calloused palms squeezed my ass, as his agonized groan rumbled in my ear. “Why do you tease me? You like driving me crazy? Huh?” He bruised my skin with his fingers, as he dug them into my ass. “You like getting me so keyed up that all I can think about is fucking violating you?”

  I opened my mouth for a snarky comeback, and a cold sting struck my ass. My bottom lip curled into my mouth at the lingering burn, and a quiet whimper escaped through my clenched teeth.

  “I’ll show you what happens when you taunt a man like me.”

  Oh, God. The thought of him punishing me damn near made me come. “Do it.”

  “You like it dirty?” My head jerked back, a sharp sting zapping my scalp where he tugged at my hair. “Because I fuck dirty, Lucy, and I’ll fuck you in every sense of the word.”

  “Yes.” Please.

  “You’re gonna suck me off first. Give me the release
I need, and I’ll do whatever you want. Whatever you need. Pain, pleasure. It’s all yours.”

  At his release of my hair, I flipped onto my back and slid over the edge of the bed until on my knees.

  He pushed his pants over those sculpted hips. Letting my gaze follow that perfect V, I licked my lips when his impressive bulge sprung from the jeans, watching as he backed away toward the window, stroking himself in front of me. Teasing me. The sight of him had me soaking wet, squirming in the thin panties I wore.

  “Come get it,” he ordered.

  Across the floor, I crawled toward him, mesmerized by the long, lazy strokes he made up and down his shaft. Jesus, he had a beautiful cock—thick, standing tall and proud, and hard enough to plow right through me. I wrapped my arms around his thighs, hard steel against my palms, and when I squeezed his muscles, my fingers glided down the solid flesh.

  “Open those pretty lips and show me how much you can take.”

  Mouth watering at the thought of having his heavy cock against my tongue, I nodded. Circling his tip with my tongue, I closed my eyes, taking in the spicy scent of man as it pervaded my senses and tingled the back of my jaw.

  I didn’t know why I wanted to please him. Maybe it was some messed up psychological crap, or the fact that his voice held so much promise, but I gripped his shaft and savored every inch of him, impaling my mouth all the way to the hilt. I reveled in the irregular landscape of his flesh dancing across my lips, and when he palmed the back of my head, guiding me up and down, I wanted to devour him all the more.

  I moaned around his cock as a sting hit the back of my head where he gripped tight to my hair.

  “Good girl. You like me fucking your throat, don’t you, baby?”

  His grip fell away, and I looked up, still sucking him, to find both of his hands planted on either side of the windowsill. His expression, brows upturned, seemed to carry a hint of pain and that was when his need hit me.

  I grabbed hold of his balls and squeezed.