She slammed her eyes closed.
Sure, she’d been caught red-handed, but she hadn’t been the only terrible person in that tent tonight. Gage had been flirting with her shamelessly. Waxing on about the queens of the African diaspora while his dog eyes traveled across her curves, soft and supple under her slinky black dress, leaving no question to the fact that he already had her naked in his mind.
She huffed again. He was the one who should be embarrassed. How disrespectful could he be to his lovely future wife, hitting on another woman at the bar of his own engagement party?
Veda couldn’t even pretend to be surprised. Just more proof that all men were animals. Dogs. Terrible fucking people.
Just in time to verify the thoughts in her mind, a giggle rang in from the other end of the beach. Veda’s eyes flew in the direction of the sound, just in time to catch sight of Todd Lockwood.
Todd. He even had a frat-boy, douchebag name.
A slim brunette with breasts bigger than her own head stumbled through the sand under his muscled arm. Todd’s spiky blond hair didn’t move with the wind, gelled within an inch of its life. A bottle of champagne hung from his fingers, his arm tight around the brunette’s neck.
Stumbling over her own feet, the woman tripped and tumbled into the sand.
Todd watched her fall, solid as a rock on steady legs, not a hint of a wobble in his stance.
Veda wondered if he’d taken a single swig from that bottle in his hand, but she knew he hadn’t. Just like he hadn’t the night he’d offered her the first swallow ten years ago.
Before she could stop herself, she was stomping through the sand toward them.
She made it to them just as Todd was offering the brunette his hand, pulling her back onto her wobbly legs, letting her collapse in to his chest.
“Hey!” Veda cried.
Todd and the woman both looked at her, the smiles vanishing from their faces at the unexpected voice.
The words caught in Veda’s throat the moment Todd’s blue eyes hit hers. Her heart plummeted to her feet as her breathing halted abruptly. Her own knees started to wobble as badly as the drunken girl before her, even though she’d only had one glass of champagne.
“Hey,” she said again, her voice shaking along with her fingers as she reached out to the brunette. “You don’t have to go with him. I can drive you home.”
The woman looked up at Todd, still giving him all of her weight, saw his horrified face, and then looked at Veda in disgust as well.
Oh, joy. A follower.
“You’re clearly intoxicated. Not in your right mind. This guy… He could do anything to you.” He will, Veda wanted to say. “I don’t want you to get taken advantage of.”
Todd erased the disgust from his eyes, but not quickly enough. Another spoiled rich boy who’d been trained to maintain a game face, but he wasn’t as skilled an actor as the handsome groom from earlier, and she hadn’t missed his disdain. His dimples came center stage as he gave her a dazzling smile, planting his feet when the brunette began to go weak at the knees. Veda’s eyes fell to the bottle in his hand, wondering what he put in it.
“Everything’s fine here,” Todd said, motioning to the brunette. He looked down at her, poking out his lips. “She likes me. Don’t you?”
Veda’s wide eyes examined the woman. “If you’re not okay, I’ll take you home. You don’t have to feel pressured to go anywhere with him.”
“She likes it.” The hand Todd had around the brunette’s neck tightened. “Don’t you?”
She nearly purred up at him, digging her nails into the opening of his button-down shirt, accepting his tongue-fueled kiss.
Veda looked away.
“I like it, Todd…,” her baby voice slurred. “I really, really like it. A lot.”
“You see?” He shot Veda another blinding smile. “She likes it. A lot.”
Veda slammed her eyes closed.
He fisted her hair, pulling so hard she was sure he drew blood. She gagged, but that only made him push harder. Deeper.
“Damn, go easy, bro,” a voice laughed from the distance. “I think she’s choking on it.”
“Nah,” Todd whispered. “She likes it.”
Veda’s nostrils flared. By the time she’d escaped the visions that had poisoned her mind for so long and opened her eyes, they were already moving away.
She watched them go, the brunette still stumbling even under Todd’s strong hold, giving him all of her bumbling weight while looking up at him with glassy eyes. “Do you know that black girl?”
Todd looked over his shoulder and locked eyes with Veda, smirking. “Never seen her before in my life.”
He winked.
And Veda nearly emptied her stomach in the sand.
If he saw the disgust on her face, he didn’t show it. In fact, judging by the smirk on his lips, if he saw, he actually enjoyed it.
Veda cringed after them, waiting until they’d both stumbled into his black Aston Martin, parked atop a short hill along the beachside road.
She tightened her fingers around the bronze coin that hadn’t left her hand all night. Rolling it, pushing it, trying to bend it under her trembling fingers. It didn’t give. It never had.
The car raced away.
After the roar of the engine, and the headlights, disappeared into the night, Veda finally allowed a smirk to spread over her own lips.
She hoped Todd Lockwood got all those stomach-turning winks out of his system now because he was her number one, and she couldn’t wait for the day when she wiped them clear off his face forever.
—
Gage Blackwater and Scarlett Covington took their time climbing the white marble stairs of their Shadow Rock mansion. Their arms brushed but their fingers didn’t clasp, and they allowed their palms to stoke the black metal railing as they ascended the steps. Hours of schmoozing at their engagement party had left them happy to wade in sweet silence.
The grand chandelier overhead made the subtle details of Scarlett’s flowy white dress twinkle. When she turned and caught Gage’s eye, he smiled.
Her blue eyes fell, heat climbing to her cheeks.
They faced one another at the top of the staircase. The black, rocky cliffs of Shadow Rock Island beckoned from the domed window. Behind each of them, the mansion split in two, leading one path to the east wing, and another to the west.
They shared tight smiles.
A red bang fell into Scarlett’s eyes as she looked down at her clasped hands, the delicate fabric of her dress blowing with the breeze sneaking through the open window.
“Our parents seemed happy tonight,” she whispered.
He watched her hair fall deeper into her eyes, hiding her face. The wind worked to destroy it. He waited for the urge to push it back.
“I’ve never seen my father so over the moon,” he responded, hearing the void in his voice.
She shook her hair away from her lowered eyes, inhaling. “If you’d like to come to bed with me tonight—”
Sensing the shake in her voice, the narrowing of her eyes, and the tightness of her lips, Gage held up a calm hand.
Her words came faster, shakier, eyes still down. “It’s not as if we can put it off forever.”
“Scarlett….” He smiled at her. “It’s okay.”
Her blue eyes rose to claim his brown. They grew wide, reminding him of a cartoon character. She wrung her hands so tightly it was a wonder she didn’t tear the skin clear from her body. She trapped her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Thank you.” The words barely left her lips.
He gave a soft nod, turned away, and then threw her a look over his shoulder. “Good night.”
Still standing in front of the open widow, the breeze assaulting her bangs, Scarlett watched as Gage entered the hallway that led to the east wing.
As she whispered back, “Good night,” she turned on her heel and began toward the west.
—
Gage entered his bedroom with a sigh.
Simple, modern, clean, mostly white with dashes of silver, his bedroom always helped calm him. He undressed to his black slacks and red button-down, undoing the top buttons while making his way onto his private balcony.
He clutched the black metal railings once he was outside, taking in the magnificent view of Shadow Rock Island, breathing in the ocean mist. A mile across the rocky sands of the beach below, atop the highest cliff in the city, sat the home he’d grown up in. He allowed his eyes to travel along the white stone mansion in the distance. Small waterfalls gushed from the jagged rocks of the cliff, splurging out at all angles, splashing into the ocean water below.
He smiled when he saw her. Tall, pale, and willowy, with silky black hair that brushed her behind and moved like a waterfall, she stepped out onto her own balcony, gripping the white stone railing and gazing out onto the water.
As if she could see him too, watching her across the way, the cell phone in Gage’s pocket buzzed to life.
He answered without looking at the display. “Hello, Mother.”
“Darling….” Celeste Blackwater’s smooth, feminine voice purred in the way it only did for him. “Do you live to torture me?”
Gage smirked.
“How is it possible you’ve yet share a bed with your future wife?”
“The same way it’s possible that you’re keeping tabs on who I am, or am not, sharing a bed with.” He chuckled. “Which is highly intrusive and incredibly weird, by the way.”
A long pause. He knew she was smiling too, because he heard it lighting up her next words. “Perhaps if you just got it out of the way….”
“Still weird, Mother.” He gripped the balcony railing.
“Why do I have the feeling you wouldn’t hesitate to share a bedroom with the young lady you were enjoying at the bar this evening?”
Gage’s stomach did a somersault. “She was just some woman who happened to be at the bar at the same time I was. A crasher.”
“And yet you declined to have her removed.” He heard it in her voice when her smile grew. “How charitable of you.”
“She removed herself once she realized I’d caught her in a lie.”
“Thank goodness for that, since you certainly had no plans on taking the initiative.” A soft sigh. “I saw the way you looked at her.”
“Mother, that’s enough.”
“Why do I feel as if I’m on a constant mission to remind you how vital it is to—”
“Keep up appearances,” he finished. “I understand.”
“Thank goodness Scarlett’s father didn’t see you dishonoring her so blatantly. God only knows what kind of damage it would’ve done. You’re so adamant about being fully vested in your father’s company, yet so unwilling to do what it takes to earn it.”
“Who said I was unwilling?”
“Your eyes said it, dear son, while you were amusing yourself with that woman tonight.”
A new feeling blasted to life in Gage’s stomach. It wasn’t the lull of complacency, the agonizing roll of dread, or even the subtle pang of surrender that he’d grown used to encroaching on his gut.
No. This feeling was more like honey. Hot, searing honey, injected straight into the vein, just sticky enough to hang around until it became completely unbearable.
“I’m tired, Mother.” He pressed two fingers into the corners of his eyes.
“Get some rest. I love you.”
Gage hung up the phone and clutched the balcony rails with both hands, letting his head fall as he tried to catch his breath, slow his heart, and expel the hot honey that felt like it was melting him from inside out.
2
Ten Years Earlier
Veda’s brown eyes flew open, wider than the moon in the inky sky. It was the first thing her gaze latched on to as liquid raced up her throat, choking her, convincing her death had come knocking.
Instead she was rolled onto her side by the strength of the hand gripping her waist and the back of her neck. Salt burned her throat as water flew from her mouth by the bucketful. Enough salt water, it seemed, to empty the ocean and refill it again, giving new life to the waves she heard crashing in the distance.
Her lungs sealed shut and expanded again, over and over, black sand sticking to her lips as her body expelled every ounce of water that seemed to be choking her and reviving her all at once.
Only when she was dry heaving, sure her stomach had more to give even though nothing else came, did the tight hold on her arm let up.
She dug her fingers into the sand, vision obstructed by the strands of the shock-red, sopping-wet hair stuck to her face. Her croaks moved to gasps, and she waited for more. More fire in her center as another one of them forced himself inside. More stabs to her heart as every shard of light was stripped from her. More dread. More revulsion. More agony.
When nothing came except a gentle caress on her back, Veda pushed up from the sand, still on her stomach, and peeked over her shoulder.
His hooded green eyes expanded the moment their gazes locked. His long brown hair was sopping wet as well, pasted to his tan forehead, dripping all the way down to his shoulders, bulky and broad in a police uniform—also drenched and sticking to his skin.
“You okay?” His own chest heaved.
He reached for her, but only managed to get the pads of his gentle fingers on her cheek before Veda screamed with all her might, throwing her arm out and dragging her nails across his face. His blood rolled down her hand and arm as she kicked away, digging her feet into the sand, her heels slamming against his strong thigh in her haste to escape.
His head fell at the blow, and he brought the gentle touch he’d just laid on her cheek to his eyebrow. When he came away with his own blood staining his fingers, his eyes reclaimed hers. He held that bloody hand out.
“I’m not going to hurt you, sweetheart.” His voice was deep. Just like theirs. Filled with authority she couldn’t match. Just like theirs. His arms were twice as big as theirs had been, bursting to be freed from his short-sleeve navy top. His chest and legs were broader too. She knew she wouldn’t stand a chance in overpowering him. Just like she hadn’t with them. “I found you floating in the water and gave you mouth-to-mouth.”
When he reached for her again, Veda whimpered and he stopped halfway, holding both his hands out so she could see his palms.
“Okay,” he said. “I won’t touch you. That’s okay.” He searched her eyes for a moment. “How old are you?” When she didn’t answer, he licked his lips, faltered, and then reached into the breast pocket of his police shirt. He came back up with a bronze medallion in his hand, holding it out between their big, wild eyes. “Do you know what this is?”
Veda peered at the chip in his hand, cringing.
He shook the chip. “This is my mother’s. It’s a one year sober chip she got from AA. Whenever I’m scared, I just hold it in my hand, real tight, like this.” He gripped the chip, hiding it in his big palm. “And it reminds me that… that everything’s going to be okay.”
When he reached out again, she stiffened but didn’t retreat. He nodded, offering the chip to her. After another long hesitation, she snatched it, tightened her fingers around it, and then retreated again, pulling her knees to her chest, her entire body trembling.
Her eyes traveled over him. The soaked police uniform, the long brown hair, those green eyes, so patient and kind, even as a string of blood—unleashed by her own hand—raced from his eyebrow and down his chiseled jaw.
His own eyes took a voyage over her body, lingering at the bottom of her form-fitting white party dress.
Her eyes followed his to the hem of her dress, landing on the large bloodstain that saturated the front. When she realized her panties were still off, she yanked the dress down around her thighs, but it was so short that it caused the low-cut neckline to race down too, exposing her pert breasts.
His gaze seemed to rise to her chest before he could stop it, darkened, and, if it were possible, grew even more hooded.
Veda sla
pped her forearm over her breasts, biting her bottom lip and fighting back a cry.
The man looked away a moment later, a heavy lump moving down his throat. “We should….” He ran a hand over his mouth, avoiding her eyes. “We should get you to a hospital so they can do a rape kit. Whoever threw you in the water did it to wash away the evidence, but we should still…”
Veda waited for his eyes to come back to hers. They did. She knew what she saw in them. The same shadows, the same wickedness, the same depravity she’d seen in the eyes of the monsters who’d bent her over the white stone rails, still glowing in the distance at the top of the cliff behind him.
She looked down and saw the same tent in his navy pants as she’d seen in theirs.
He showed her his palms again. “I’m a police officer. I would never hurt you. You can trust me.”
Before he could say another word, Veda leapt to her feet and raced away. Her legs shook and made her stumble a few times, but when she imagined him coming after her, chasing her in the sand, how easy it would be for him to catch her, outrun her, hurt her the way they had, the race of adrenaline—of blind fear—forced her to find her footing.
She didn’t stop running until she’d made it all the way home.
—
Veda clutched the bronze chip in her hand. The sharp corners stabbed at her palm and she tightened her grip, breathing in the scent of plastic and sanitizer that permeated the sterile operating room at Blackwater Hospital.
She bobbed back and forth in her rolling chair, staring blankly at the state-of-the-art anesthesia machine before her. It was a machine she’d studied so thoroughly she could operate it in her sleep, so naturally she found her mind drifting, trying not to think about the dream that had woken her up that morning, two hours before she’d been set to check into Blackwater Hospital for day one of her four-year residency.
She tried not to think of the face that had filled her mind in that dream. The only face from her past that didn’t make her sick. The only face she’d yet to see since she’d landed over a week ago.
Quiver (Revenge Book 1) Page 2