Veda came to a stumbling stop, still laughing.
But Hope wasn’t so amused, crossing her arms over her black tank top and cocking her leg out in her black shorts. “Bitch, I thought we agreed. No new friends.”
“Actually, I think you were the only one of us who agreed to that, Hope. Lauren’s just a friend from the hospital.”
“Like Jake Jones was just a friend from the hospital?”
Veda shifted in the sand, crossing her own arms tight. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came. Not because she didn’t have anything to say or was at a loss for words, but because the sharp, intense blast of white-hot pain that usually lit through her body at the very mention of Jake’s name wasn’t there. She waited several seconds, sure it was well on its way, but when a full minute passed, and it didn’t come, she found herself at a complete loss for words.
Taking her silence as surrender, Hope charged on. “You could’ve gotten us both locked up by confiding in that raving lunatic. You’re too trusting. Our friendship? This friendship, right here?” She motioned between them rapidly before swiping arrow-sharp fingers across her neck, as if she was slitting her throat. “Closed. Closed for life. You hear me? From this day forward, it’s you and me only. No Lauren—whoever the fuck she is. No more friends. No one else. Ever.” Hope hesitated, her eyes moving past Veda and landing on Gage, Coco, and Lincoln. One side of her mouth curled up again, even as the other side slowly rose into a smile as she nodded at Lincoln’s wiggling body. “I guess the little shit machine can come too, but I still haven’t decided whether or not Gage is allowed to stay.”
“Gage?” Veda looked over her shoulder, back and forth, between Hope and Gage. “My future husband?”
“Like I said, jury’s still out.”
“I had no idea you were capable of this level of jealousy.”
“Not jealousy. Vigilance. Clearly, your judgment is shit. You can’t be trusted.”
“You can’t stand the idea of me making new friends,” Veda beamed, linking their arms together. “You’re cute when you’re jealous.”
“I don’t know how to be jealous.”
“Sure, Hope. Sure. Look, we have drinks.” Veda motioned toward the bonfire just as the inhabitants that encircled it exploded into uproarious laughter. “And it seems like you need one. Badly. Wine. Beer. Champagne. While you continue lying to yourself about how not jealous and possessive you are over me, why don’t you go and pour yourself a nice adult beverage? As a doctor, I recommend one glass every five minutes until you pass out. No arguments, please.”
“Aye…” Hope rolled her eyes, already backing up toward the fire with her arms held out at her sides. “You had me at ‘we have drinks.’”
Veda chortled, and in the next second, exploded into full on laughter.
Hope returned the laugh before swiveling on her heel, tossing her brown hair away from her face as the breeze blew it in what seemed to be every direction on her way to the fire.
Veda watched her go, and when she saw Coco on her way to the fire at the same time Hope was, she realized one person was missing—just in time to see Gage come up behind her, still holding Lincoln.
“I think he’s getting hungry,” Gage said as Lincoln’s cries rose up from the swaddle to prove his words right. “Getting a little fussy.”
“How did I know he was going to force me to take my boob out in public?” Veda took Lincoln from Gage’s arms, her eyes traveling around the beach.
“Well, you’re the one who left the breast milk in the refrigerator—”
“Gage, once again, that’s not my responsibility. I provide the boobage that keeps our child alive. I don’t think it’s a lot to ask for you to do everything else, okay? It’s your fault that our baby doesn’t have bottled milk and is about to watch his mommy flash half of Shadow Rock Island on the beach at New Years.”
“Well, I suppose he’ll have to learn who his mommy really is sometime,” Gage teased, shoving his hands into his pockets with a grin as offense washed over Veda’s face.
“Yeah, keep laughing,” she whispered, her eyes traveling the beach before landing on a tall black cliff in the distance. “See if you’re getting any booty tonight.”
When she turned her back to him and began toward the tall black cliff in the distance, where she and Lincoln could have some privacy, she didn’t have to look back to know Gage was right behind her.
Just like he always would be.
——
It wasn’t until Veda had made the long trek up that tall cliff, with Gage right on her heels, that she realized this wasn’t just any cliff.
But the cliff.
The very cliff she’d stood on, all that time ago, looking off toward the white stone mansion that still glowed in the distance. Still radiated in the darkness, as vivid and luminous as the fat moon above. The same mist still rose up from the rolling waves of the ocean as they crashed into the black boulders below, and it still tickled her cheeks.
As Lincoln went to town on the open flap in her yellow nursing dress, Veda waited to feel what she’d felt the first night she’d stood on the cliff. The night she’d returned home. But just like the shot of pain that never was when Hope had mentioned Jake’s name in the sand down below, nothing came.
Feeling the warmth of Gage’s body behind her, where he was softly massaging her shoulders, as well as the warm weight of her baby in her arms, Veda realized it never would.
Her eyes traveled the island slowly, drinking in the stunning view that waved to her from the peak of one of the island’s highest cliffs. The Celeste, straight ahead to the north, still parked in the water along with dozens of other Blackwater cruise ships that had been left abandoned on the black sea. The city skyline, twinkling from the east—where the real New Years Eve parties were certainly raging on—with dozens of glowing skyscrapers that reached for the sky with as much fervor as the bonfires that still lapped through the air below. The dips and valleys of the hill next to the cityscape—the hill where she’d grown up, still rife with poverty and destitution, even though the man behind her was doing everything he could to reverse it. The hill that would always be her home, in one way or another. Her eyes moved slowly down that hill, from the thick fog that lived at its peak, to the waters of the marina glittering at its base. To Dante’s, where she knew an epic party was raging—as it often was—sitting right at the marina’s edge. The island’s most popular bar that, upon the untimely murder of Brock Nailer, was now majority owned by its true proprietor, the young African-American man it had been named for in the first place.
Veda took a deep breath, letting the warmth of that thought enter her heart and relax it as her gaze came full circle and landed, once again, on the white stone mansion in the distance.
She waited.
She waited for the anger. For the pain. The debilitating need for vengeance.
Before she could decide, once and for all, that it was gone for good, her cell phone vibrated in the pocket of her dress, causing her to jolt in shock.
Gage felt her jolt, his hands freezing on her shoulders.
“My phone’s ringing,” she explained, her voice hurried but hushed, since Lincoln’s eyes were beginning to flutter as he approached the tail end of his meal.
Gage didn’t need any further explanation, releasing her shoulders and circling around her body with a soft gasp, sinking his hand into the pocket of her dress and fishing out her cell phone.
They both looked down at the number glowing on the screen’s display before lifting their wide eyes up to each other’s.
“Unknown,” Veda whispered.
Gage’s fingers trembled as he brought the phone to his ear. His deep voice almost frantic as it floated through the night air. “Hello?”
Veda studied Gage’s profile. The way his jaw moved under his skin, the soft purse of his lips, and the emotion that filled his eyes.
She knew instantly what he heard on the other end.
Silence.
&n
bsp; Gage’s Adam’s Apple bobbed in a heavy swallow. “Happy… Happy New Year.”
Veda’s breathing picked up.
Gage shook his head as if his lips couldn’t quite keep up with the million-and-one things his mind wanted to say. As if he couldn’t decide what would be the right thing to say—the best thing—when he knew there was so little time to say it.
He decided on something that brought a hint of irritation to his previously eager tone, looking down at Veda as he spoke. “They’ve been coming to our door more lately. A lot more.”
Veda saw the silent question in Gage’s eyes as he spoke, and nodded softly.
Gage returned his attention to the phone. “They might even be listening. Not saying stop calling…” He slammed his eyes closed. “Please don’t ever stop calling. Just… no longer than a few minutes. Okay?”
Veda knew he wouldn’t get an answer to his question.
She saw the moment Gage realized it too. “We love you…” He stumbled to add. “I love you. We want you to come home. We can’t wait for you to come home. And just to be clear… Home? That’s wherever you are. Wherever we can all be together… that’s where we’ll be. That’s home—”
Veda reached out her free hand to cover Gage’s shoulder when his voice broke.
“Without you…” Gage shook his head, taking a moment. “There will always… always be two missing. We love y—” Gage’s words were cut short, and when he pulled the phone away from his face, Veda saw why.
‘Call ended’ glowed up from the screen of the phone, still wobbling in Gage’s hold.
She squeezed his shoulder, speaking exclusively to the look she saw in his eyes. “He’s okay. We know he’s okay. At least we have that, right?”
Another lump moved down Gage’s throat, and he gave the phone one more cursory glance, somehow hoping the call hadn’t actually ended, before lifting his eyes back to hers.
“He’s okay,” he whispered.
“I love you so much, Gage—”
He caught the rest of her sentence in a kiss, laying his lips softly on hers and keeping them there until they’d both lost their breath, Lincoln full and fast asleep in her arms between them. Gage pulled away just long enough to draw in a gasping breath before his lips were on hers once more.
She sank into the kiss, so deeply she didn’t even realize the hundreds of patrons singing and dancing on the beach had begun a slow countdown. Not even the first firework that blazed through the air, painting a silver streak across the night sky from whatever skyscraper it had originated from was enough to steal her away from the comfort of his lips.
Only when that firework came to its final destination at the height of the sky and exploded did Veda pull her lips from his with a gasp.
Smiling, they both looked down at Lincoln who, miraculously, remained asleep despite the boom of lights.
Veda looked back up at Gage, her eyes running along his face, even more spit-shined under the glare of the colorful fireworks popping to life overhead.
He reached up and cupped her cheeks, his loving brown eyes nearly gold under the streaming lights—running her face too, whispering the words that their fellow beachgoers were screaming down below.
“Happy New Year, Veda.”
A smile lit up her face, and even though he couldn’t see it, she could feel that it was even more luminous than the pyrotechnics lighting up the sky. “Happy New Year, Gage.”
His lips were on hers once more, and at that moment, it was solidified.
The anger. The pain. The debilitating need for vengeance.
It was gone.
Perhaps she’d passed it on. To a man who’d least expected it.
The heir to her darkness.
Had Linc inherited her black clouds the moment he’d laid eyes on her? Or had they been there all along? Veda didn’t know. She could only hope, one day, the anger, the pain, and the debilitating need for vengeance would be gone from him too.
She prayed for him, ten times harder than the night she’d stood on that very cliff and prayed for herself.
Ten times harder than the night she’d looked upon that white stone mansion radiating in the distance and vowed to destroy every last monster who’d destroyed her, ten years ago, on that sleepy island called Shadow Rock.
COMING SOON
Lincoln Hill’s story:
Captive
News and Updates on Trevion Burns:
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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
Pulse: 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
Rouse (Revenge Book 7) Page 27
