“Without question, Veda. She was using her position in obstetrics to alert her boss to the pregnant patients she saw at the hospital. She’d befriend them to get close. Learn their habits. Gather information so she’d know where to send her goons for the hit. She’s going away for a really long time.”
“Who’s her boss?”
“She won’t say, which is why she’s going away. This is bigger than her. She’s safer in prison now that she looks like a rat.”
“She’s in jail right now?”
“Last I heard they just put her on suicide watch.”
Veda cringed, her eyes dancing back and forth in his, clenching her hands tightly from where she was leaning on the rail.
Earlier that night, Linc had made a beeline for Dante’s to tell Veda about Penny Nailer’s arrest. He’d sat at the bar, watching her neglect most of her customers for a good hour before Dante had sent her for her lunch break. The two of them had made their way out to the dock to watch Celeste returning from its month long voyage. The white body of the massive ship gleamed in the distance as it sailed toward them in the dark sea, still miles out.
Studying the shock saturating her eyes, Linc continued. “Apparently pregnant woman are a hot commodity in the Shadow Rock trafficking world.”
“So we’ve confirmed that there’s a Shadow Rock ‘trafficking world?’”
“I didn’t need confirmation. It’s the goddamn idiots that surround me who can no longer deny it. The judges who always give me grief about warrants. My co-workers. Hell, even some of my family members…”
Veda sucked in a deep breath, looking out onto the hundreds of boats bobbing in the marina waters. “Penny… we got pregnant together. We went baby shopping together. We were planning our showers together.”
“Penny was never pregnant, Veda. That was the con.” Linc smirked at her, trying to lighten the mood. “You got had.”
“She was my friend. Or at least I thought she was—Jesus.” She rested her elbows on the railing. “She made me believe she’d been desperate for a child she couldn’t have. She made me feel sorry for her…” Her eyebrows shot up when she realized that Penny had played her just the same as she’d played Penny. Veda had believed she’d been getting one over on Penny by using her to get closer to Brock Nailer, Veda’s number four. But all that time, they’d been getting one over on each other. Veda wondered if she even had the right to be angry at Penny. In a way, they’d both entered into their “friendship” on false pretenses. She rested her elbows on the railing and buried her head in her hands.
“It wasn’t all lies. I got a look at her medical records,” Linc said. “She’s completely infertile. Has been for years. Maybe she got tangled up in all this out of jealousy. Resentful that she couldn’t have any kids of her own. Or maybe she’s just a piece of shit, who knows…” He shrugged, appearing exasperated himself.
Veda lifted her head from her hands and looked off into space, her stunned eyes dancing back and forth.
“You’re safe,” Linc said softly, watching her, waiting for her to turn her head and meet his eyes
She didn’t, keeping her watery orbs straight ahead. “Yeah, well. I don’t feel very safe.”
“They’ll never try you again now that they know you’re on my radar. On top of that, they only targeted you because you were pregnant. It wasn’t a personal attack.”
“Right. They were just trying to pimp me out is all. Totally not personal.”
He sighed, unable to refute, fiddling his fingers as he watched her. He licked his lips.
Veda cursed under her breath, the frown line between her eyes ever deepening. “What the fuck is going on on this island?”
Linc didn’t answer, a lump moving down his throat as his eyes searched her face.
“Well…” She snuck a look at him, letting her eyes do the same. She tried to smile, but her lips only made it halfway. “I guess this means I can go home now… You’re free.”
“Or…” He snapped his eyes away, looking ahead while scratching his shadowed jaw. He drew in a long, lingering breath before reclaiming her eyes over his shoulder, letting their gazes live on each other for several long moments, voice softening. “Or… you could stay.”
Her face fell. “Wow.”
He gave a breathy chuckle and looked away, but he didn’t keep his eyes away for long, looking back at her while rubbing the back of his neck.
Her voice grew playful. “Wow, I must have an extra pathetic pout on my face right now if you’re offering to sleep on that tiny couch for a single night longer than you have to.”
His face sobered, growing darker than it already was by nature. He went to speak, but nothing came. Some part of him visibly screamed to leave it alone, but another part hurled him forward. “I don’t want you to go.”
The playful gleam in her eyes slowly petered away as they widened, and her mouth fell open as well. Even when she became aware of the fact that she was gaping at him, she couldn’t force herself to stop. “You don’t?”
Silence.
If it was possible, his voice lowered even more, making it gravely at its deepest depth. “No.”
She smiled but felt it shaking. “You don’t have to… to feel sorry for me—”
“I don’t.”
She faltered at the short, immediate response, sputtering on as if she hadn’t heard it. “Just because I’m still a little scared to be in my apartment alone. After all the crazy shit that’s happened, I’m going to be a little scared no matter what. Now that I know for sure that something fucked up is happening on this island. I’m always going to be a little nervous. But that doesn’t mean I get to crawl into a hole and stay there until I die. I’ll have to become reacquainted with my independence. Reintroduce myself to the charms of moving through life without fear of the scary shadows lurking behind. Better to start sooner rather than later. Maybe I’ll even buy a gun. You could take me to the range and teach me how to shoot.”
“Or… you could stay with me.”
Veda’s heartbeat tripled, unable to break her eyes away from his unwavering gaze.
The first hint of a smile picked up one corner of his lips, but his eyes didn’t smile with them. He took a deep breath, and the sound trembled, barely reaching her across the small space between them before the breeze carried it away.
“Remember that day at the gym, when you asked me…” He paused, running his hand down his face and over his lips as another soft chuckle floated up his throat. His fingers shook, and so did the deep breath he drew in. “You asked me what it was like to be an addict?”
“Yeah…” Veda returned his small smile. “You said being high was like being wrapped in a warm blanket, and being sober was like being thrust out in the bitter cold. You said you didn’t even know you were cold… until you took that first hit.”
“And right after I told you that? You remember what you asked me?”
“I asked…” Her smile grew. “I asked… ‘How do you stay warm?’”
“Yeah.” His eyes fell to her lips, and he nodded. He stayed there for a while before his gaze danced across her face, over her forehead, her nose, her cheeks, and her hair before he finally settled on her eyes, voice going to a whisper. “You keep me warm.”
Veda drew in a sharp breath, and she surprised herself when tears stung her eyes.
He paused, heat creeping up his cheeks. “Does that make any sense at all?”
Veda’s eyelashes fluttered rapidly, a thick lump rolling down her throat. “It makes perfect sense. Completely. It’s just. Linc. I…” She stumbled, turning her body to face him, succinctly aware of the vulnerability in his eyes, as open and honest as she’d ever seen them, so much so that it stole her voice for a moment. She tried to recover but promptly tripped over each attempt at words.
As she fumbled for what to say, Linc pushed away from the railing and stood tall as well, towering over her as he faced her completely, the wind blowing the wisps of hair that had escaped his bun across hi
s shrunken eyes. His chest heaved the way it did when he’d spent hours at the gym annihilating a punching bag. Before she could say another word, he pressed the beds of his fingers into his chest, as if trying to build a cage around his heart. His other hand gripped the railing for dear life as if he could see the words flying through her mind that hadn’t yet found an escape from her trembling lips.
“Linc…” Veda shoved a chunk of her curls out of her eyes when the wind blew it into her face. “You know that me and Gage… we’re back together now. You were the one who orchestrated our reunion at your apartment. I thought—I mean… I don’t—” She began to stutter again.
“I know…” He searched her eyes, his voice moving to a deeper depth with each word he said as he tapped his clawed hand against his chest. “And any other day, any other time, any other woman, I would never do this. But…” He motioned to her, unable to finish.
Veda covered her pounding heart with both hands, red veins zooming to life in the whites of her eyes.
Her teeth began to chatter softly, and soon, her chest had joined his, heaving softly. “Your wife—”
“Is gone.”
She was taken aback when he said those words with more certainly, more authority than she’d even known him capable of. “You don’t know that.”
“She’s gone.”
“You said the same thing about Zena Jones, didn’t you? You said that she was gone, but she turned back up didn’t she?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Whoever Zena was before she went missing? Whoever she was before they took her away and broke her to pieces? That person was gone long before she re-appeared. She was gone, and so is Lisa.”
Veda’s swallowed thickly, hearing the emotion cracking in her voice. “Linc, that’s not true.”
He leaned in. “Veda, I can’t spend the rest of my life waiting, and hoping, and praying for a woman to return to me who’s never coming back. Even if I did find Lisa… Even if I did get her back… She wouldn’t be the same person. I can’t wait anymore. I can’t hope anymore. I can’t feel guilty anymore.” When she remained silent, he took a deep breath, tilting his head softly at her. Then, his eyes went over her shoulder, to some place far away, and his voice wafted to a distant place too. “You know, before you turned up on this island. Before you turned up in that boxing room for the first time…” He paused for a moment, mouth wide open, and then met her eyes. “I used to go at that punching bag… for hours. For hours, I annihilated it, searching for the burn. Searching for the pain. I wouldn’t stop until I found it. Until it set my body on fire. Until the agony bordered on unbearable. Then, all of a sudden, just a few seconds before my bones were about to collapse underneath me…” He held his splayed hands out in front of him, his eyes floating away once more. “Something would happen. Something that elevated me above the pain. Until I didn’t even feel it anymore. It would happen… in the blink of an eye. And I always fought through that initial agony, that initial suffering. Because…” He looked back at her. “Because I knew it was worth fighting through the pain to get to that place.”
As Linc spoke to her, Veda saw in his eyes the same feeling blazing like a tornado through her body. Once again, she saw the unbelievable amount of damage she was capable of.
She thought of Gage, who she’d put through the ringer since the moment they’d laid eyes on each other. Gage, who was now back with his family, doing something he didn’t want to do, on the verge of marrying a woman he didn’t want to marry, living the life he only saw in his nightmares, all because of her. She thought about all the ways she’d hurt him, inadvertently. All the ways she could hurt him still.
And then she thought about doing the same to Linc. She could see it in his eyes, right then, hear it in the words spilling from his lips, that he was more than willing to let her. He was willing to let her break him in the same way she’d broken Gage. Ready to let her break him in the same way she herself had been broken, ten years earlier.
But she couldn’t do it. Somebody had to pull the emergency brake on the runaway train of utter destruction that plowed behind her everywhere she went. Taking out any innocent victim stupid enough to get in her way. She could already see that train coming for Linc. She could see it had already clipped him. Just a snip, maybe right around the ankles. It might’ve even drawn a little blood. Left a wound that would take a while to heal. But it hadn’t struck him fatally.
Not yet.
It was too late for Gage.
It was too late for her baby.
It was too late for herself.
But it wasn’t too late for Linc.
“Linc… have you even met me?” she uttered, as a tear she hadn’t even known was flirting with the rim of her eye, popped free and jetted down her cheek. She shook her head wildly, teeth clenched. “I’m so fucked up.”
Linc held his arms out, trying to smile, but whatever he was feeling made it impossible. He didn’t speak, even though his actions screamed ‘join the club.’
“I’ll just fuck it up,” she said. “I’m no good for you. I’m no good for anyone.”
Licking his parched lips, he motioned across the water to the elite, illustrious side of the island. “I can’t give you what he can—”
“Linc, it’s not that—”
“I can’t buy you a mansion. I can’t hand you the moon and the stars…” He held his arms out at his sides once more. “But…”
He didn’t finish. Perhaps he couldn’t.
Another tear raced down Veda’s cheek because she realized it was too late. It was too late to save him. To spare him her unintended wrath. He was already down. When had she brought him to his knees?
She tried to speak, but only a small croak left her trembling lips. She tried to say his name, but only hot air floated out, disappearing the moment it touched the cool night air.
Whatever Veda couldn’t say must’ve shown in her eyes because Linc took a healthy step away. He turned, giving her the side of his body, taking the railing in both hands, wrapping his fingers around it and clutching them with all his might.
“I’m really sorry,” Veda said. She couldn’t even decide what she was apologizing for. For bringing him to this point without realizing it? Perhaps even against his will? Only to tear him down when he finally spilled his guts out?
At her apology, his head snapped back to her, a flash of shock dashing across his face. When her silence persevered however, with only the unspoken words behind her apology there to fill it, he dropped his chin into his chest while giving the railing all his weight, taking several deep breaths before he pushed away from the bars once more and stood tall.
“Nah, don’t,” he said, looking over her shoulder. “Don’t be sorry.”
Veda stepped toward him.
He stepped back, holding a hand out to stop her from moving any closer, eyes falling to the floor of the dock. “You don’t have to do that. You don’t have to say anything else.”
Veda shook her head.
“Gage…” Linc avoided her eyes completely, his voice becoming vacant at the core, devoid of feeling. “He’s a good guy, and he loves you a lot. I shouldn’t have put you in this position.” As if the words he spoke were flashing on idle light bulbs in his mind, Linc raised his eyebrows while shaking his head at himself. “I’m sorry.”
Veda wrung her hands together and gnawed her bottom lip.
Gazing over her shoulder, Linc motioned to Dante’s at the top of the pier. “Your lunch is almost over. I’ll uh…” He chuckled softly, scratching the back of his head. “I’ll walk you back up.”
Veda’s heart felt like it was seconds from climbing out of her throat, muffling her words as she whispered, “Okay.”
And, side-by-side, they made their way back up the long pier to Dante’s.
For the entire walk back, all Veda could do was pray that she hadn’t just lost her very best friend on that sleepy, fucked up, terrible, horrible, no good miserable island called Shadow Rock.
—�
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Hours later, Linc found himself leaning forward, elbows cradled atop the gleaming wood bar at Dante’s, minutes after re-entering the bar and barking his drink order at the owner the place had been named after.
Just minutes after the gut-churning conversation with Veda on the pier, earlier that night, Dante had sent her home early. A long drive back to Linc’s apartment to gather her things had followed, and then he’d dropped her off at her apartment. The entire drive, both ways, had been abysmal. Awkward. Tense. Linc could still feel it tightening his stomach right then.
With lips puckered, Dante approached Linc from behind the bar, a bar that had gone uncharacteristically quiet that evening, which was why Dante had been able to cut Veda a few hours early.
Dante came to a stop in front of him. He didn’t give Linc his usual gleaming smile. The white teeth that contrasted against his brown skin so brilliantly it was impossible for anyone on the receiving end not to smile back.
Thankful he wouldn’t be made to smile, Linc looked up from where he’d been playing his fingers together on the bar top and met Dante’s eyes.
Head cocked, Dante let a long moment pass, naked judgment staining his dark brown eyes.
Linc raised his eyebrows high.
Dante’s eyebrows shot up too, chin falling into his chest. Sighing deeply, Dante set an empty shot glass on the bar with one hand. He slid it to Linc, paused, and then slammed a full bottle of tequila on top of the bar with the other.
Linc smirked as the shot glass slowed to a stop before him, understanding that Dante was going to make as big a production out of this as possible.
When several seconds passed, Linc buried his forehead in his hand with a breathy laugh. When he looked back up, and Dante still hadn’t moved, Linc swirled two fingers in the air, motioning for him to get on with it.
Dante shook his head, yanked the tequila bottle from the bar, tipped it, and filled Linc’s shot glass to the brim with the clear liquid.
Pulse (Revenge Book 5) Page 26
