Rouse (Revenge Book 7)

by Trevion Burns

  He tried to remind himself that this was just a place to sleep—just for the night—as his gaze ran the room. The chipped paint peeling away from the off white walls. The elusive cricket that hadn’t stopped chirping all night. The hunter green carpeting that clashed with the lime green bedding so badly it made him dizzy. The dollar store paintings hanging crooked on the walls, all of which were lined with dull wood paneling. The ancient 5-inch TV that only played black-and-white and had no sound, nestled into an alcove under the mirror.

  His eyes landed on that cracked mirror, also surrounded by wood paneling, and he caught sight of himself. Drawing in a breath at the vision of his face, so beaten and marred he scared himself every time he happened to see it, he flashed back to the knock down, drag out fight he’d had with the security guard at the bottom of the Celeste. The guard who was now lying his ass off about those kids to protect his father. Gage’s mouth stretched into a tight line at the thought, which only made the gash across his split lip open wider, oozing, so swollen it made him appear as if he were constantly pouting. His eyes were swollen as well, one more so than the other, making his face look crooked like Sloth—a character in one of his all-time favorite childhood movies, the Goonies.

  His eyes fell down his bare upper body in the reflection. His biceps, pulsing from where he leaned forward on his knees. His stomach, rippled with eight-pack abs. The side of his ribcage, covered in a huge bruise he hadn’t even realized was there until that moment. The bruise looked like it should’ve been painful, but when he poked it, he didn’t feel anything. If his mother were there, she would tell him to leave it alone.

  His breath came up short.

  He hoped she was okay. After narrowly escaping Gage’s house and the gun-toting man inside it, they’d driven back to the family’s white stone mansion. Celeste had given him twenty thousand dollars from the safe and insisted he leave town in the family’s old BMW because his Phantom Coupe would be too easy for his father to find. She’d insisted his father wouldn’t even notice the BMW was gone.

  Gage hoped she’d been right.

  He also hoped she was okay.

  Not just his mother, but Veda too.

  At the sound of her name in his head, Veda, his eyes went to the fresh burner phone sitting atop the wooden bedside table. The phone that had yet to ring. If Linc had heeded Gage’s request and given Veda the burner he’d hidden for her, surely she would’ve called by now.

  As if reading his mind, kindred spirits at their very core, the burner phone lit up, lighting up the dark motel room more than the dim yellow lamp sitting above it, dancing across the chipped wood as it buzzed and vibrated.

  Gage jolted and leaped for the phone, nearly losing the towel he’d tied around his waist in his haste to get it on his ear.

  “Baby?” he breathed, frantically, his eyes dancing back and forth. The sound of her deep sigh was all the answer he needed from the other end of the line, and he found himself sighing as well.

  “Oh God,” Veda’s voice petered in, laced with tears. “You have no idea how good it feels to hear your voice.”

  “You too, baby.” He couldn’t help the small smile crossing his face. Even if he couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, somehow, just hearing her voice, he knew it was there.

  “I was so worried. I didn’t know where you were, no one did. I’ve been sick over it. No one knew if you were okay, Gage, I didn’t know if you were okay—”

  “I’m fine,” he jumped in when she began speaking a mile a minute. “Don’t worry about me. If you’re stressed, the baby’s stressed, right? So don’t stress. Everything’s going to be okay. I promise.”

  She paused, giving in. “It’s a mess up here, Gage. I can’t even put it into words. I feel like a million and one things are going wrong all at once.”

  He gave the horrific motel room around him another quick scan. “I know the feeling.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Can’t say.”

  “No, I guess not.” She took a moment. “Your father was released. And your grandfather too. Awaiting a trial that might never come. They’re claiming that the police can’t prove the container was found on the ship. Everyone is corroborating their story. The shipyard captain. Port police. The security guards. Everyone is lying for them. Everyone. Except you. You’re the only one. The only one who can—”

  “Hey.” He stopped her before she could say another word. “What’d I just say, huh? Don’t stress. I’m handling it. Trust me.”

  A long pause came through, and then her voice was softer. “I miss you so much.”

  “I miss you more.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

  “I just want this all to be over.”

  He licked his lips and ran a hand down his face. “Where are you?”

  “In bed.”

  A slow smile crossed his face.

  “I can see your devious grin from all the way over here,” she whispered.

  He chuckled. “I’d give anything to be lying next to you right now.”

  “I can’t sleep without you next to me.”

  “Me either.” He took a deep breath, lying back on the bed, head sinking into a pillow as he spread his limbs out, the cheap bedspread itching the backs of his thighs. “What can we talk about? What can we talk about that’ll relax you? Put you to sleep?”

  “Well…” A smile replaced the sadness that had been taking over her voice, and he pictured her swirling one of her curls around her finger. “I was thinking about the baby? And what a miracle he or she is?”

  “Right. Thanks to my magical sperm.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Or was it legendary? I think legendary is the word I used.” Gage’s eyes slowly began to flutter. He knew he’d been tired, but he hadn’t realized how much until that moment, with her sultry voice reducing his bones to melted butter. “Nope. You know what? It was magical. That was the word.”

  Any other day she’d yank his chain for deeming his sperm “magical”, but at that moment, Veda let it slide. “I was wondering if… if we would stop at one? One miracle? Or maybe try for a few more?”

  “Well, now that we’ve determined, once and for all, that my sperm really is magical, legendary, and outer worldly—”

  “Oh, God.”

  “I can’t see any reason to stop at one.” Gage’s eyes danced across the ceiling, unable to help a small smile as he thought through the answer. “When I was a kid, I was always jealous of the other kids in the neighborhood who had siblings to play with. Someone to race home with when the streetlights came on. Someone always in their corner. Someone who always had their back, by default, even when they were dead ass wrong.”

  Veda laughed softly.

  Gage let the sound enter his body and turn it to Jell-O. “Maybe I was so envious because I spent most of my childhood an outcast. I felt like a sibling would be an automatic companion. The partner-in-crime I wanted so desperately. A built-in best friend. A brother.” He raised his eyebrows.

  “I get it,” Veda said, her own voice a little sleepier than it had been a moment earlier. “I didn’t like being an only child either. I didn’t even care if it was a brother or sister. I just wanted someone. Anyone. I didn’t understand why my parents stopped at me. I mean, I know I’m great but damn. Give it another go and maybe you’ll make another great one that I can play games with!”

  “I definitely want our first child to have someone once we’re gone. Maybe even a few someones,” Gage said, his smile growing. “Just in case one of them turns out to be insane or something.”

  “Which, in our families, is highly likely.”

  “Not a single lie told, baby.”

  “You haven’t even met my parents, yet,” she laughed. “You haven’t even met my grandma. Once you do, you might rethink your stance on procreating with me multiple times.”

  “Never.”

>   “Honestly, though, I really did hate that my parents stopped at me.”

  “I did too—” Gage stopped himself, emotion taking over. “Until…”

  “Until what?”

  He took a deep breath. His eyes slamming closed when the Raw Moon profile that had broken his heart days earlier flashed across his mind for the millionth time. The profile showcasing his mother, as a teenager, on an escort website. Less than a year before she’d given birth to him. Suddenly, Gage felt guilty for all the years he’d given his mother grief about never giving him a sibling when the act of conceiving him had probably hurt her tremendously. Even if, over the course of his life, Celeste had gone out of her way to show him that he was the best thing that ever happened to her, the guilt was still there.

  “I always knew she was trapped,” he said, his voice growing vacant. “But I just couldn’t… I couldn’t understand why. I didn’t know how to get her out.” He paused as he thought of his parents. “I always figured they hated each other the way most married couples eventually grow to hate each other. A hate that still has real love underneath. But none of it was real. None of it was, but I believed every lie. Every bullshit story about how he loved her from the moment he laid eyes on her. How he asked for my grandfather’s blessing since she was underage, and that he’d given it to him. I believed her when she said she’d been in love with him too. Now I have no idea what’s real. Where is she really from? Is her name really Celeste? At some point in her life, was she in the same position as those kids? Did my grandfather… sell her to my father? How could he do that? Is he even my grandfather at all? Or just some sick, demented, goddamn stranger?” He drew in a trembling breath when the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, stunned that he’d managed to go off on a rant, almost forgetting that Veda was still on the other end of the line.

  “Gage…” Veda’s voice came after a long silence. “I have no idea what…” Her voice grew slightly panicked. “Baby, what on Earth are you talking about?”

  “Nothing,” he lied, realizing for the first time that he hadn’t yet told Veda the whole story about Raw Moon. About his mother. About his family. Recalling the words he’d just said to her—that he didn’t want to cause her or the baby any stress—he covered his hammering heart with his hand and bit his tongue around the rest of his words. “Nothing, baby.”

  “Doesn’t sound like nothing,” she said, sounding breathless. “What’s happening with Celeste? Is she—I mean—is she okay? Do you want me to go check on her?”

  “No! No, Veda. I was just… I was just talking nonsense. I’m delirious from the drive. A lot has happened, and I promise I’ll explain everything later. But right now… I just need you.” He knew, one day, he would have to tell Veda everything, but at that moment, he didn’t know how to even begin telling a story that he didn’t even fully understand himself. And he definitely didn’t want her anywhere near his family—who weren’t even above hurting their own blood—let alone Veda. “Just talk to me. Keep talking to me until I fall asleep.”

  “Okay.” After a long beat, the worry in her voice slowly fell away, growing more playful. “Why don’t we start with why Wyatt is an awesome name…?”

  “Oh, Jesus, here we go,” Gage laughed softly as Veda went down a bullet point list of reasons why their first son should be named Wyatt, each of which Gage refuted, with less and less passion each time, until his eyes had fluttered slowly shut and he’d fallen into a deep sleep.

  18

  Gage awoke in his cheap motel room the following morning, burner phone still on his ear, glued to the lobe by sweat that had accumulated overnight. The phone beeped due to its dead battery. The memory of Veda’s whispered voice lulling him to sleep the night before, restoring in him a strength he’d almost forgotten he was capable of, lingered. Its residual effects were still hard at work, giving him the strength to climb out of bed, still wrapped in a towel, and get dressed.

  When the simple act of pulling on his clothes, however, left him on the verge of passing out, he ordered himself a little room service. With another long drive ahead of him, he couldn’t risk operating heavy machinery on an empty stomach.

  After buttoning his black slacks and white button-down shirt—both stiff as a board thanks to the cheap soap he’d used to wash them the night before—he was in the midst of fastening the cuffs when a soft knock came through the door. Soft as the knock was, the door still wobbled against the frame.

  “Room service,” a skater-boy accent floated through.

  As Gage approached the door, part of him worried that the person on the other side could easily be preparing to serve him a platter of bullets to the chest. A platter of silence—of stone cold death—hand delivered with best regards from his own father.

  But as Gage looked out of the peephole and caught sight of a pimply-faced teenage boy, about a hundred pounds soaking wet, he realized he was hungry enough to take his chances. Stomach growling, he unlocked the door and opened it a crack, peeking out at the teenager while keeping most of his body behind the door.

  “Morning, sir.” The teen waiter, dressed in a wrinkled burgundy suit that was two sizes too big, along with a crooked gold tie, gave Gage a wide yellow smile. As soon as his smile was there, however, it was gone as his eyes traveled Gage. “Whoa. Doppelgänger.”

  Gage gave a bashful smile because the waiter was right. With their black wavy hair, dark brown eyes, chiseled bone structure and olive skin, the two of them really did look alike. Gage realized he wouldn’t even be surprised if he and this kid were related in some way. If the insane revelations he’d been blasted with over the last few days were any indication, he didn’t put anything past his family anymore.

  Taking Gage’s silence as impatience, the waiter cleared his throat and focused on his job, motioning to the cart of food he’d parked next to the door. “Pancakes and eggs, sir?”

  “Yes,” Gage said, stomach rumbling at the fragrant scent of the food floating in from the rolling cart. Deciding this kid had no ill intentions, and disarmed by the promise of food, Gage opened the door the rest of the way.

  The teen lifted a silver tray from the cart, stepping into the room without invitation the moment Gage opened the door. “Where would you like it?”

  Gage held out a hand. “That’s really not necessary. You can just leave in on the floor next to the—”

  “No way, dude. Not at The Mosley Motel where our home is your home,” the waiter insisted, surprisingly hospitable for a teenage employee at a motel that didn’t ask for names or credit cards. He strutted into the room, his skater accent more poignant than ever. “It’s our pleasure, sir.”

  “Alright.” Gage ran a hand through his hair, noticing they even had the same haircut as he pointed to the bed. “The foot of the bed is fine.”

  “Sounds good, sir.”

  As the waiter set the tray down at the foot of the bed, Gage grabbed his suit jacket, still hanging in the closet, and put it on. Then he sank his hand in his pocket and fished out a hundred dollar bill from the two thick wads folded up inside it. The money Celeste had given him was drying up fast thanks to food, gas, and hotel costs—and Gage highly doubted this kid had enough change to break a hundred. But he was a nice kid who’d gone out of his way to treat him well, so Gage didn’t bat an eye as he folded the hundred in his palm, ready to hand it over as the waiter made his way out. A part of him enjoyed that he was about to make the kid’s day with an unexpectedly generous tip.

  “Thanks a lot,” Gage said as he finished setting down the food.

  As the waiter began back toward the door, Gage offered him a handshake to exchange the money.

  The waiter held out his hand to accept Gage’s shake, his eyes falling as he did, and he appeared to catch sight of the hundred clutched between Gage’s fingers. His eyes widened at the sight, and then he snapped his finger and did a ball change, hurrying back into the room.

  “Let me open your blinds before I go, sir,” the waiter insisted, clearly mov
ed by the generous tip he’d caught sight of as he took the lime green curtains in his hands and pulled them open, letting the morning sun blaze in. “It’s a beautiful day!”

  Gage held a hand out. “No, that’s really not necessary. I don’t want the blinds open—”

  Gage’s words were cut off when the window suddenly shattered, and a flurry of booms screamed out into the air. In an instant, dozens of bullets were piercing the glass, non-stop, coupled with the unmistakable rat-tat-tat of a machine gun, each bullet catching the waiter in a different part of the boy’s chest. The bullets kept coming in rapid fire, some hitting the edge of the window and buzzing as they ricocheted, but most catching the waiter square in the heart, dozens of times, before his body even had a chance to crumple to the floor.

  The few bullets that missed the waiter zoomed toward Gage, blazing by him at the speed of light from every possible angle, each only a breath away from hitting him. Operating on blind instinct alone, Gage dropped to his stomach.

  The moment Gage hit the floor, the waiter did too, his lifeless body collapsing into a limp heap on the carpet, head turned towards Gage. Face covered in dozens of bullet holes, spurting blood, the waiter’s eyes remained wide open, staring straight at Gage, even as the blood dripping from his wounds leaked into his barren eyes and turned them blood red.

  Gasping wildly at the sight, his heart pounding too ferociously to even manage a scream, Gage tore his horrified eyes away and began a desperate crawl across the hunter green carpet and toward the bathroom. Bullets blazed by him every second, leaving him terrified that one would surely hit.

  But he wasn’t hit, and only when he felt the bathroom’s dirty, gritty tile under his body did he jump to his feet. His vision blurred and his veins pumped with adrenaline as he raced across the bathroom and leaped into the tub.