“You wanted me to stop because I was getting too close to you.”
“No. I was trying to save you from yourself… because you’re my best friend, and I love you.”
“Stop saying that,” Veda roared. “You don’t love me. You’re a monster and monsters don’t know what love is. You’re psychotic.”
“Forgive me,” he begged, once more. “Please…”
And, just like that, watching him curled into a heap in that corner, with more tears spilling over his glimmering eyes than she was sure she had shed all day, Veda’s shoulders collapsed. The anger fell away, and all she felt was pity. Pity for the wretched thing before her.
Still, she didn’t feel enough pity to stop herself from leaning forward at the hip and saying the last words she ever intended to say to Jacob Emmanuel Jones.
Sick to her stomach, she spat, “Fuck you, Jake.”
Jake took in her words with a soft nod, pressing his lips together until they were pulled into such a sharp line they disappeared from his face completely. In the next instant, his tears were dry as well, the agony in his blue orbs ebbing away as if he’d been transported into a different world. A world where there was no pain, no anger, no guilt.
Then, he placed the gun to his temple.
Veda screamed when he pulled the trigger, and her entire world ground to a halt.
She couldn’t decide what had caused the sudden hum that immediately took up residence in her ears. Was it the deafening crack of the gunshot—a sound so piercing it would reduce anyone’s ears to a dull drone? Was it her heart—beating so violently it caused every ounce of blood in her body to flood her ears and render them useless? Or was it the shock pulsing through every vein under her skin? Surging with such vigor, it left her body unable to process anything else, leaving her unable to hear, move, or even speak.
“Veda!”
In the deepest depths of her hazy mind and buzzing ears, she heard Linc screaming her name. Felt the carpeted floors shaking as he raced into the living room. Saw him jump in front of her like a force field with his gun drawn, pointing it into the living room.
Linc only needed a moment to drink in the sight before him, however, the sight that had left Veda speechless—motionless—before he lowered his gun. He only needed a moment to see Jake lying motionless in a crumpled heap on the floor, a pool of blood growing rapidly on the carpet next to him, soaking into the fibers, with his finger still on the trigger of the gun lying limp in his hand.
Without a word, Linc faced Veda, buried his free hand in her curls, and pulled her in, nestling her face into his chest just as a gut-churning sob raced up her throat and warmed the valley between his pecs.
23
Twenty-four hours, and many shed tears later, Linc sat on the edge of his king-sized bed with his trembling fingers nestled in Veda’s curls. The ball she was coiled into, laying atop his bed sheets, was almost as tight as the coils of her hair, which his fingers got tangled in every time he stroked them. Her hands were in a prayer position, cradled under her cheek, and her swollen brown eyes were trained straight forward, gleaming under the moonlight spilling into the bedroom window from the starry night sky. Those big brown eyes of hers hadn’t shed a fresh tear all day.
She hadn’t moved from that spot since he’d laid her down on his bed, sobbing, the night before, and Linc realized he actually preferred Veda in tears. At least then she was showing emotion. Signs of life. Some indication that she felt anything at all. A far cry from the unmoving, stoic heap lying before him right then.
“Veda?” he whispered, moving his hand from her hair to her cheek when she didn’t respond. He stroked the soft skin of her jawbone with the back of his fingers—so warm he was worried she was in danger of running a fever. “I ordered some food. Pepper garlic pork. Your favorite.”
Veda took a deep breath, but her unblinking eyes didn’t move from the window.
Linc pressed his lips together when the promise of her favorite dish—a dish he’d learned was her favorite during the short time she’d once lived with him in his apartment—didn’t have the impact it once had. Usually, just the aroma of pepper garlic pork from the next room was enough to light up her world. Driving her to drop everything she was doing to come skipping into the kitchen to make herself a plate.
“You gotta eat something, a’ight?” He realized he was begging—and also extremely worried—as he let the backs of his fingers run all over her face, each patch of her skin feeling hotter than the last. “You’re gonna make yourself sick, baby.”
Another deep breath that made her body rise high, then slowly fall.
Breathing.
The only sign of life besides her cold, wide open eyes, still staring blankly ahead.
She really was on the verge of making herself sick, and Linc couldn’t even blame her. He thought about how much more sick she’d be if, less than a day after Jake’s body hit the floor, Gage’s hit the floor too. And if the phone call Linc had gotten from Gage the day before—the call informing him that a gunman had just taken out a room service waiter with a machine gun meant for him—was any indication, the possibility of Gage being hurt was becoming more likely by the day.
Linc wasn’t sure Veda would survive it.
If something happened to the brother he’d never gotten a chance to know, Linc realized, he wasn’t sure he would survive it.
Still, there was no doubt it would hit Veda the hardest, and she couldn’t take another hit. She couldn’t take another loss. Regardless, there were so many bullets she’d yet to dodge. So many hits she still had the potential to take. Gage being hurt. Her second baby being hurt. Coco getting caught. Four of the men who’d yet to be avenged for attacking her ten years earlier, still walking free. Still unpunished. Still lingering around every corner, ready to catch her by surprise and ruin her day with the sight of their face alone.
The fact that any of the ten bastards who’d attacked her were still walking at all boiled Linc’s blood. Still walking. Still living. Still breathing. Still smiling, even as she lay in a tight ball on his bed, hurting.
“You don’t deserve this,” Linc said softly, stroking her jaw with his thumb, the vacant expression in her eyes tearing him apart a little more with each second it remained. “You don’t deserve to be in this kind of pain…” He swallowed heavily, a deep line forming between his eyebrows. “And I’m gonna fix it. A’ight?”
She blinked softly, still staring ahead. If it was possible, her eyes grew even emptier.
“I’m gonna fix it,” Linc promised again, taking a deep breath. He gave her cheek one last caress of his thumb before leaning down and replacing it with his lips. His eyes fluttered slowly closed as he let the kiss live on her skin long enough for her to feel it there. With a deep breath, his lips left her skin, and he studied her face for another long moment before leaning down and pressing a kiss onto her curls as well. He lingered there too, this time more for himself than her, before standing and leaving the room, his heart and lungs sealing shut with every step he took away from her.
Any step away from her was a step he didn’t want to take.
But he knew he had no other choice.
——
Less than an hour later, with Veda still curled up in a ball in his bed across town, Linc found himself face to face with his mother, Grace Hill, as she threw open the door to her house on the bottom of the hill. The gentrification that had taken over the hill’s south end was in full swing all around them. Coffee shops and yoga studios littered the street on one side, serving as a direct contradiction to the broken down houses and shacks that lined the other. The rapidly evolving neighborhood had left his mother waiting with baited breath for someone to offer her ten times what she paid for her house. If the new bar across the street—one that was quickly becoming the island’s most popular—was any indication, that day would come sooner than she thought.
The thought of her getting out caused waves of relief to fill Linc’s chest, swelling high under hi
s black t-shirt. Her brown eyes lit up at the sight of him, and he massaged his clammy hands on his black jeans, unable to speak. For the entire drive there, he’d planned out the question he was going to ask her. The question he was terrified to ask, promising himself he’d somehow find the courage to do it.
But as Grace smiled at him from across the doorway of the home he’d grown up in, her ratty, dirty-blonde hair blowing in the ocean breeze sneaking inside, Linc couldn’t do it. He couldn’t ask the question he knew would wipe the joy clear from her brown eyes, one of which had a soft tick. An involuntary reflex from her days as an addict. He couldn’t ask the question that would take her back to those dark days. Days she’d fought hard to escape. Days that had nearly stolen her away from him, many times. Days that should’ve won.
But they hadn’t won.
There she remained, all four-foot-nine, ninety pounds of her, victorious. Stronger than ever.
And Linc couldn’t do it.
“What a nice surprise, babe.” Grace’s eyes shone as she stepped aside, waving him into the small two-bedroom home. “I wasn’t expecting you. Come in… come in… I’ve got some mac and cheese on the stove.”
His favorite. Any other day, his stomach would roll in anticipation for the cheesy dish. But as he stepped into the house and accepted her kiss on his cheek, his mind was too plagued to even process the phenomena of hunger pangs. Too racked with thoughts of Veda, lying solemnly in his bed. Thoughts of Lisa, breathing her last breath in his arms. Thoughts of Emma, missing, lost, probably scared, and alone.
He took a deep breath that set his lungs on fire, looking down at his mother as they made their way into the living room, promising himself that he would just do it. He would ask the question that would wipe the smile off her face, no matter how much he hated the sight. He couldn’t run from it any longer.
When he looked at her, however, he was surprised to find the smile had already vanished from her face. In fact, as she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, her fingers involuntarily twitching as well, she was actually cringing.
“Did you hear?” she asked, voice hoarse as they entered the living room full of old, second-hand furniture and an ancient TV sputtering in the corner. She moved to the middle of the living room with her arms crossed, her back turned to Linc as she nodded at the TV. “They dropped all the charges, babe.”
Linc’s heart fell to his feet as he came up behind her and glared at the TV as well, which was playing the evening news.
Sure enough, there it was. The top news story of the night. David Blackwater and Pierce Kincaid—cleared due to lack of evidence. As the blonde newscaster gave a play-by-play, live footage of Pierce and David leaving the courthouse, looking downright smug in their signature suits and knowing smiles, came up on the screen. The two men were flanked by security guards as reporters screamed questions at them from every angle, holding up their cell phones to record the two exonerated men, shoving microphones over their guard’s shoulders in the hopes of getting an answer to their non-stop, incessant questions.
The newscaster’s voice continued over the footage of David and Pierce being led to the car awaiting them outside the courthouse. “After being brought in to investigate the largest sex trafficking bust in Shadow Rock history, the FBI has concluded that they’ve found no evidence that the shipping container of underage stowaways originated on the Celeste, the Blackwater’s largest cruise ship—and the largest cruise ship in the world. While the FBI investigation is still ongoing, David Blackwater and Pierce Kincaid are no longer being considered people of interest, and the ‘City on the Sea’ is free to set sail once more.”
Linc waited to feel anger. He waited to feel fury. He waited to feel anything. But nothing came. At that point, it was par for the course. He’d have been more surprised if Pierce and David hadn’t gotten off with a slap on the wrist. This was Shadow Rock Island after all, where money was king, and the cruise line was beyond reproach.
“Bullshit,” Grace whispered, her entire body trembling as she crossed her arms tighter, still facing the TV. “They’ll never be stopped. Even with the evidence right in everyone’s faces. You know the mayor had a hand in this. Refusing to hold them to any standard because the city relies on the profits from the cruise line to keep this island economically stable. No cruise line, no Shadow Rock. So to hell with a bunch of trafficked kids, right?”
Linc watched the back of his mother’s head as she shook it, allowing her to finish her rant without interruption. He waited until she was done. Until silence reigned.
“Is David Blackwater my father?” he asked.
Grace jolted.
And then she was frozen. Still. Not even David Blackwater’s voice on the TV, answering an eager reporter’s question about what he was going to do next—“I plan to put all this nonsense behind me and have a dinner party with my beautiful wife,” he’d answered—was enough to pull Grace out of her shocked stupor. The footage of David’s pleased smile continued as his chauffeur opened the back door of a gleaming black Cadillac. He climbed in, ignoring any further questions, the tinted windows erasing him from view as the door was closed behind him. The picture switched back to the newsroom, where the reporters looked just as disturbed by the breaking news as Linc and Grace themselves.
The newscasters were lucky enough to move on to a different story, but Grace had no such luxury. Linc’s question still lingered, locking itself around her ankles like an undertow, pulling her beneath the surface and down to her deepest, darkest depths. Depths that she loathed to revisit. For a long moment, she kept her back to him as a silence pervaded. Not even the sound of her breathing filled the quiet air because she was holding it.
Then, slowly, she turned on her heel, her wide brown eyes rising to meet his, full of tears that hadn’t been there before.
Linc hadn’t realized he was frozen too. Until their eyes locked across the small space. Until his lungs tightened from the lack of oxygen as he held his own breath. Until every bone in his body began to shake. Whether his bones shook in anticipation of her answer, or the breath he’d yet to take, he wasn’t sure.
She drew in a sharp breath. “No—”
“Please don’t lie to me,” Linc stopped her before she could finish, giving a soft shake of his head.
Grace’s mouth fell open.
“Gage is my half brother. I have proof. I don’t wanna hurt you. I never… ever…” Tears filled his own eyes. “Wanna hurt you, Mom. But please, tell me. Tell me the truth. I need to hear it from you.”
Grace’s arms collapsed to her sides as she released a heavy breath. She tried to speak, but nothing came. She tried again and managed. “Only if you promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
“Mom—”
“Promise me.”
He searched her eyes, pulling his hands into tight fists at his sides, feeling the veins in his arms pulsing. “I promise.”
She considered his answer. If she believed him, it didn’t show, but regardless, “No,” spilled from her lips again.
Linc’s heart hit his feet.
He saw the moment hers hit her feet too, clear as day in her eyes. “David Blackwater isn’t your father.”
“If Gage is my half-brother…” Linc paused. “Then David would have to be my father.”
“He’s not your father.”
Linc’s eyes widened, and he clenched his teeth. “Then who is?”
“I just…” The first tear spilled over Grace’s eyes, jetting down her cheek and plummeting to the carpet. “I just don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost you.”
He fought for control as pain tried to race up his throat, sealing his lips together when it transformed itself into a deep, stomach-churning sob. He fought hard, stopping the sob from leaving his lips, even as every inch of his skin ebbed red for the release, his body shaking wildly.
“If David Blackwater isn’t my father… if he isn’t Gage’s father…” His breath wobbled as he sucked it in, his voice deeper, lower, as
he asked again. “Who is?”
Grace’s eyes ran his face. Somewhere in the deepest, most bottomless pit of her gleaming brown orbs, she knew the truth. She knew the promise he’d just made her was a promise he wouldn’t keep. A promise that would prove to be a lie. She knew it would have to be.
She knew.
But, still, she answered in a whisper, telling Linc his real father’s name.
24
Pierce Kincaid’s turquoise eyes shot up from behind the desk of the Blackwater’s expansive study, and he caught sight of Lincoln Hill, whose heated orbs were locked on his across the room. The moonlight spilling into the domed bay windows behind Pierce bounced off his pointy bald head, making it shine. Beyond those windows, a dinner party had been set up in the mansion’s sprawling backyard—a party Pierce had abandoned after only one drink—where the dinner guests were already on their second course.
Pierce jolted at the unexpected sight of Linc’s massive frame filling the double doors of the study.
With both arms behind his back, every muscle in Linc’s body pulsed against his black t-shirt and jeans. He stood out like a sore thumb. The kind of man’s man who would never quite fit in a room that was flanked with bookcases from floor to ceiling, amongst the scent of old pages, with a candle chandelier hanging from the ceiling. A chandelier that gave the room a mysterious feel, sending deep shadows across Linc’s incensed green eyes, illuminating every deep line his muscles made as they flexed and rolled under the skin of his arms and jawbone.
Rouse (Revenge Book 7) Page 17
