Rouse (Revenge Book 7)

by Trevion Burns

  ROUSE

  Revenge, Number Seven

  Trevion Burns

  ROUSE

  Copyright 2017 © by Trevion Burns

  Edited by: Bare Naked Words

  Website: www.trevionburns.com

  Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/bAz7oj

  All rights reserved. The reproduction, transmission or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

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  https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTrevionBurns

  Email:

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  Also by Trevion:

  The Revenge Series:

  Quiver: Number One

  Tingle: Number Two

  Purr: Number Three

  Yearn: Number Four

  Pulse: Number Five

  Raw: Number Six

  Rouse: Number Seven

  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

  To Eliah

  Part One

  1

  From the moment she’d laid eyes on him, he’d always appeared enraged. Tense. Like a lion ready to pounce.

  As Veda’s eyes ran Linc’s body across the dark living room of her apartment, she realized that moment was no exception. A single sliver of moonlight peeked into the blinds, serving as the only source of light, and some part of her wondered if he’d use the darkness to his advantage and attack. Zero in with one swift leap. Take her out with one powerful swing of his paw. Tear her skin straight from the bone with one snap of his razor-sharp teeth.

  End her like she was nothing.

  From where she stood in the foyer, her chocolaty legs shook in her black booty shorts. Her chest swelled in her tight baby tee—a little higher with every moment of silence that passed between them. Her eyes drank in every inch of his body—the taut roll of his biceps under his own white t-shirt, the flex of his massive thighs under his blue jeans, and the bop of his knees where he cradled his elbows atop them from his seat on the edge of her couch. The redness of his flared upturned nostrils, the puffiness of his usually calm eyes, and the heave of his chest—coming harder every second. The disarray of the sloppy bun he’d tied low on the back of his neck, even more tangled than usual, like he’d spent all evening rolling around in the dirt.

  No, Detective Lincoln Hill had never looked more dangerous to Veda than he did right then, seconds after she’d walked into her apartment and found him sitting on her couch in the dark. Seconds after he’d blasted her with the question she’d always dreaded might one day spill from his lips.

  “Are you The Shadow Rock Chopper?”

  Her breathing picked up. The only thing more horrifying than the memory of that question was the memory of her answer.

  “Yes.”

  It was an answer that seemed hard at work tearing Linc limb from limb. Staining his eyes with a fury that spread all over his body. Making his every flexed muscle contract a little tighter. Making his every vein pulse, drawing strong lines down both his tanned arms.

  He clenched his teeth, baring themselves through his full lips, which at that moment, were tightly drawn.

  “Say that again,” he growled, his deep voice filling the silence. A dark shadow flashed across his face, making his green eyes go nearly black.

  Veda took a deep breath, hearing how badly it shook. Almost as badly as her voice as she heeded his demand, “Yes.”

  His eyebrows jumped. “Yes?”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Yes, Linc. Okay? Yes.”

  He licked his lips and then covered his mouth with his hand. His fingers trembled. Breaking his eyes from hers, he looked toward her patio doors and let another long silence fall in.

  Terrified of every word he wasn’t saying, sensing in him a retreat she never had before, Veda motioned to the coffee table between them, where he’d laid out all the evidence he’d collected on her since the moment she’d returned home to Shadow Rock Island. Evidence he’d kept contained in small Ziploc bags that were scattered all over the table. The cow print nail polish from the night she’d taken Eugene Masterson. Her broken nails from the night Jax Murphy had fallen to his death on the cliffs. A photo of her and Hope at the house party that, ten years ago, had destroyed her beyond repair.

  Her voice rose in desperation as she pointed at the Ziploc bag that held a watermelon Blow Pop inside—her hammering heart suddenly feeling like it had been lit on fire. “So that’s why you invited me to stay with you the night I got attacked, huh?”

  His heated eyes flew back to hers.

  Her chest swelled the moment their eyes locked, watching him raise a single eyebrow, still waiting for the pounce that seemed closer than ever. “That’s why you made sure there was a bowl of Blow Pops in every room of your apartment? To entrap me? And here I was, believing you were just being a good host. A good friend.” She chuckled. “Silly me.”

  “No.” He shook his head calmly. “You’re not gonna turn this around on me.”

  “Was anything real?”

  “Who killed Jax Murphy?”

  “Our friendship? Our camaraderie?”

  “Who killed Jax Murphy?”

  Her voice rose. “Was our connection something inherent?”

  He pivoted. “How did you beat the DNA screening at the hospital?”

  She continued as if she couldn’t hear him. “Something natural? Something so deep-rooted it had no choice but to bloom, the way I always imagined? Or was I always just your prime suspect? Just your means to an end? Was that night on the pier just another strategy—”

  Linc shot to his feet.

  Veda gasped and took a healthy step back, craning her neck to drink in his six-five frame—nearly a foot taller than her. She wasn’t sure what shocked her more—how quickly he’d just jumped to his feet, or the streaks of crimson red plastered all over his white t-shirt. Streaks of red she hadn’t noticed until that moment. Streaks of red that looked suspiciously like dried blood. Brown eyes wide, she waited for him to circle the coffee table and pounce.

  When he didn’t, she drew in the deep breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

  She thought back to the night on the pier—the night he’d poured his heart out—her voice growing sarcastic as she mimicked him as best she could. “ ‘I don’t want you to go, Veda.’ ‘You keep me warm, Veda.’ Was that all just bullshit? Just hot air to open me up so you could nail The Chopper? Close your case? Seal your promotion?”

  “Maybe I should be asking you the same questions, Veda. Huh?” He sidestepped the coffee table.

  Veda straightened, her eyes falling to the red on his shirt once more, feeling the dumbfounded expression on her face as her heart pummeled her chest before lifting her gaze back to his.

  Linc gave a soft nod, gnawing his bottom lip as his eyes expanded. “Cozy up to the lead detective? Lure hi
m in like a chump?” He took a step toward her, which prompted her to take a step back. “The soft touches. The long looks. Doing just enough to get my dick hard only to take it away… Maybe that was all part of your strategy, huh? If that’s what we’re gonna do…”

  A cringe curled her face. He’d never spoken to her that way. Combined with the distress in his eyes—a distress whose origin she still hadn’t managed to pinpoint—and the blood on his shirt—Veda couldn’t help the tears that prickled her own orbs.

  He winced at the sight.

  For a moment, she wondered if he’d reach for her.

  He didn’t.

  “So… what? You gonna read me my rights now?” she whispered, craning her neck to hold his eyes as he continued to move closer. When he was less than a foot away, she squared her shoulders. “Am I under arrest?”

  “Who killed Jax Murphy?”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Stop pivoting and answer the goddamn question.”

  She squinted at him. “Did you know the night you let me go? In the O’Dair guest house? Did you know long before then? Did you know all along?”

  Silence.

  As the quiet stretched on, longer by the moment, Veda reached into the pocket of her black booty shorts, the shorts that always got her the biggest tips during her bartending shifts at Dante’s.

  His eyes traveled her body as she did, lingering on the deep V of her black baby shirt.

  She curled her fingers around the bronze chip in her pocket, cool to the touch, before she lifted it in the air between them. It gleamed under the glare of the moonlight.

  The moment Linc caught sight of the chip, the pounce she’d been seeing in his eyes from the moment she’d walked in vanished. Gone. As if it’d never been there at all. His shoulders collapsed, as well as his face, and when he lifted his eyes back to hers, they gleamed with moisture.

  The coin shook in her hold, the number ‘1’ that had been branded in the middle of it blurring in her teary vision. A ‘1’ that signified his mother’s first year of sobriety. A year of sobriety that had grown from one to ten since the night he’d handed that coin over to her. Veda let the sight of the gleaming bronze between her fingers sink in for him, waiting until every rigid bone in his body—once pulled so tight they’d seemed seconds from shattering—had relaxed.

  “I wasn’t even human to them,” she whispered, the first tear jetting down her cheek.

  Linc’s eyes filled even more, shining brighter by the second until his own emotion was seconds from spilling over the rims and down his cheeks. But they didn’t. Something stopped it from happening.

  Veda sniffled. “You said it yourself. What they did to me…” She clenched her teeth. “Was heinous.”

  He slammed his reddened eyes closed and then covered them with his hand, his chest rising in a deep breath.

  “Those animals helped themselves to my body…” She swallowed thickly. “So I helped myself to theirs.”

  He dropped his hand from his eyes, tilted his head at her, and shook it, a heavy frown drawing deep lines all over his face.

  “And if that means I’m under arrest…” Even as the thought of being under arrest sent a shot of terror slicing through her, Veda squared her spine. “If that means I rot in prison for the rest of my life then… Then so be it, Linc.” She offered him her wrists, upturned in surrender, priming them to be cuffed.

  He didn’t move.

  Veda kept her wrists up, letting him know she would go without a fight, but when nothing came, she lifted the chip again, shaking it. “There’s nothing in the world I wanted more than to return this to you. It always hurt me, knowing that I never could. Not without exposing myself. But I guess I’ve been stressing over nothing. I guess you’ve seen me all along.” She slowly lifted her eyes up to his, sniffling again as she offered him the chip. “So, here…”

  Linc didn’t take the chip, and a moment later, his voice came, softer than it had been all night. “Part of me—” He ran a hand down his clammy face when his voice broke, shaking his head softly and wetting his lips with his tongue. “Part of me knew at Todd Lockwood. The way you were always down my neck about him after he raped that girl. Stealing my badge to go after Eugene Masterson. The cow print nails…” A lump moved down his throat. “Part of me always knew. But another part…”

  Veda hid the chip he’d yet to take in a tight fist before letting both her hands fall to her sides. Her chin hit her chest next, causing more tears to spill from her sopping wet eyelashes.

  His voice came again. “The part that loved you…”

  Her eyes flew back up.

  His teeth clenched. “So damn much…”

  She heaved out a breath.

  “That part of me didn’t want to.” He shrugged, trying to smile, but the corners of his lips barely had the strength to lift. “I didn’t wanna know. So, I didn’t.” He made a fist and motioned to her with his knuckles. “I tried, Veda. I tried to not know. But you just couldn’t stop. You wouldn’t stop. So don’t you dare—don’t you goddamn dare try to turn this around on me.”

  Veda closed the small space between them before she could stop herself, hesitating for only a moment before she reached up.

  He lifted his chin.

  Her hands froze in mid-air at his retreat. Rebounding, she reached for him once more. When she took his jaw in both hands, his eyes fell closed, a pained expression crossing his face.

  Then his hands were on top of hers. Covering them, his callused fingers scratching their backs. Veda couldn’t tell if he was trying to keep her hands on him or pull them away.

  “I swear to God it’s like I can see you falling to pieces right now.” She ran the backs of her thumbs along the corners of his beet red, puffy eyes, realizing she’d never seen him like this. “Little slivers of you, peeling away, bit by bit.” She shook her head slowly. “And whatever it is, it’s not about Jax Murphy. It’s not about The Chopper. It’s not about me at all. Is it?”

  With his eyes still closed, he jutted the tip of his tongue out and trapped it between his lips as if trying to stop it from speaking.

  She shook him softly. “What’s wrong? What happened before I walked in here?”

  His green eyes blinked open and searched hers. Somehow full of feeling and completely devoid of it, all at once.

  He went to speak.

  Her hammering heart ground to a halt in anticipation.

  Just as the words were about the leave his mouth, however, his cell phone rang from the pocket of his jeans, drawing a gasp from both of them. Linc broke their gaze, looking toward the window. The movement caused her hands to fall from his face.

  He fished the phone from his pocket and clapped it to his ear. “Hill…”

  Veda studied his shadowed profile.

  After just a few moments listening to the person on the other line, Linc’s face caved in, cheeks going from beet red to ashen white in an instant, his mouth going slack.

  Veda’s eyes widened at the sight.

  Still looking away from her, lost in whatever he was hearing, Linc’s eyes moved back and forth like a scanner as if his mind was going a mile a minute. “No,” he spat in response to whoever was on the other line. “Don’t call the police. Get off the ship, and I’ll handle it.”

  Veda’s heart fell, knowing who was on the other end of the line without even having to ask. Before she knew it, she’d taken Linc’s t-shirt in two desperate fists, feeling the crusted blood chipping off it as she pulled, tugged, searched for any leverage—anything to stop her knees from giving out.

  “No, maybe you didn’t hear me,” Linc snapped, his voice going deeper and darker. “Get the hell off that ship—right now!”

  2

  “No. Don’t call the police. Get off the ship, and I’ll handle it.”

  Gage Blackwater’s dark brown eyes widened as Linc’s voice floated into the cell phone trembling on his ear, unable to tear his frantic eyes away from the sight before him. A sight he cou
ldn’t believe Linc had just demanded he walk away from. If he were standing next to Gage in that ship’s cargo hold right then, with dozens of innocent, terrified eyes looking back at him the way they were at Gage, Linc would never fix his mouth to ask him to walk away.

  Circular windows, built at the top of the hold’s fifty-foot walls, allowed bright beams of moonlight to blast in, flushing the inside of the dark shipping container before him with light, illuminating each child’s pale, dusty cheeks. Large fans spun in each window, and shadows from the fan’s blades spun on the children’s ashen cheeks as well.

  A cold chill raced down Gage’s spine and spread across his body, a chill not even the jacket of his black suit had the power to fight. He couldn’t tell whether the chill was from the cargo hold’s sub-zero temperatures, or the helpless children before him—nude, trembling, canned into that royal blue shipping container like animals. With every second he stood there—flanked by the double doors he’d thrown open seconds earlier, gaping at them, more of the kids began to scoot away, cramming themselves into a huddle at the back corner of the dusky container. The farther back they scooted, the more their sickly faces disappeared into the shadows. Their soft weeps, however, remained in their wake, filling the white walls of the ten-foot container and floating out into the cargo hold, echoing off the walls.

  The stench of urine and feces—soaked into the dirty king sized mattress on the floor of the container—had seemed faint when he’d first opened the doors, but grew stronger by the second, invading his flared nostrils and sending a sour bile surging up his throat, more difficult to swallow back every second.

  Gage’s knuckles went white as he clenched the cold steel door of the container, certain his wobbling knees were seconds from giving out. The door, however, held him upright. The very door those kids had been entrapped in for God only knew how long.

  The door was now open.

  And they weren’t even trying to run.