The Vigilantes Collection

by Lake, Keri

  How silly that I’d once believed something so riddled with bullshit. One thing I’d come to understand over the course of the years: it didn’t matter how many times I’d changed my mind, fate had screwed me over. Even in that moment, after I’d finally broken free of my man-drought, the dark cloud of reality loomed overhead, warning me that the harsh light of truth would steal everything away soon. Jase had a plan, one that didn’t include me, leaving a big fat question mark between us—one I was too afraid to acknowledge. “You remembered me, after all those years?”

  “I never forgot you, mia Luce.” He turned and stroked his hand down my face. The furrow in his brow deepened as his gaze fell to my lips. “I’ve been trapped in a dark place for so long, but when I’m with you, I feel different. Every day is like fucking chaos inside my head. Constantly pushing me. Driving me to this invisible edge where I’m always wired, ready to jump if I have to. But when I’m with you, it’s quiet. It’s like that edge disappears and I can just enjoy the view for a little while. I can deal with the world again, without all that anger and violence in my head. You’re like a beam of light breaking through, and for the first time, I’m opening my eyes to it.”

  I slid my arms around his neck and rose up to kiss him, pushing the camera to the side as his hands snaked beneath my thighs to lift me up. I pressed my forehead to his. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to feel what I’m feeling, Jase. But for now, I’m just going to roll with it.”

  Setting me down, he spun me around to face the scenery below—thirty-five stories below, to be exact. His palm slid across my ass, as he buried his nose in my hair and whispered, “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” My answer arrived on a forced breath as I held my body locked tight. “In a sickening, what-the-hell-am-I-doing kind of way. I’ve always wanted to shoot from the roof, but … I guess falling to my death was never appealing enough.”

  “Well, I guess when you want something bad enough, you can’t be afraid of the fall. Sometimes you have to fuck the consequences.”

  My pants slid down to my thighs, and his hands snaked their way to the apex between my thighs, across my panties that were already wet. “I want to take you to the edge with me.” He slid his finger into my panties, bringing my body to life in a hum of burning lust. Up and down, his finger glided across my sensitive mound of nerves, until he found the small bud, and like a strike of electricity had hit my spine, I arched into him.

  A tearing sound had me looking over my shoulder, to see him rolling a condom down his shaft, and a beat later, his cock filled me from behind, a slow, teasing grind, in and out. Those thick fingers of his curled around my neck, and he buried his face in my hair. “Jesus, your pussy’s so fucking tight. You’ll be my ruin, baby.”

  With his deep and gravelly voice spinning a web of lust inside my head, my desire to hear more of his sounds, his grunts and moans of pleasure, had me grinding against in him a slow, erotic tempo.

  Tipping my head back, I closed my eyes, biting my lip. “You feel so good inside of me, Jase,” I whispered.

  Palm to my throat, he squeezed, and I swallowed against the gentle pressure. “Open your eyes,” he demanded.

  “I can’t. I’m dizzy right now.”

  “I’ve got you, mia Luce. I won’t let you fall.”

  You already did. With my eyes still closed, a twinge of pain stabbed my heart at the confession. I didn’t want to think, at any point, that he might not be mine. That, after what we’d done, what we’d been through, someone else might call him her own.

  His muscles turned rigid, and he fucked me harder, his body a machine, moving in perfect sync to the cresting orgasm building low in my belly. Pumping in and out of me, he gripped my jaw and kissed my cheek. “Come for me.”

  His touch purged the pain, and as the edges fringed closer, I gripped the parapet and opened my eyes.

  The deep groaning in my ear sent me over, my body taut and hard, unraveled.

  “Let go,” he whispered. “Scream if you want to.”

  The world hummed with life below, as a buzz of ecstasy swam through my body in pulses of pleasure. My eyes rolled back, my knees buckled beneath me, and I called out his name.

  His fingers dug into my hips as he pressed his forehead into my back. “Fuck!” he choked out, still riding out his orgasm. “Ah, fuck!”

  Panting breaths feathered my nape, his hands sliding around to the front of me, across my body, holding me in a possessive grip, as I stared down at the streets below me.

  In that moment, I felt free. I felt alive.

  I felt love.

  44

  Jase

  I stared down at my booted feet, where I dangled them over the fire escape’s ledge of the apartment building, four stories in the air, while Lucy slept inside. Washington Boulevard below still remained shadowed, but sunlight had begun to peek through the clouds, heating the chill that clung to my face.

  Detroit had always been a thing of beauty in the hours before it awakened. Both my home and my tomb. I was forged in the city like the steel of its rusted out factories. Infected by its unshakable hope.

  Molded and shaped by its pain and abandonment, until I’d become as much a part of it as the graffiti that colored its destruction.

  Wouldn't matter if I left Detroit. It’d never leave me.

  Tipping back the bottle of whiskey, I chugged a long swig and poured a sip over the edge, watching it disappear into air’s invisible clutches below. “Miss you, Brother.”

  My thoughts of Reed seemed much more peaceful than before. For months, the cold grip of anger had strangled every other memory of my brother, forcing me to watch a never-ending loop of his last moments. That helpless look in his eyes when he knew death loomed in the corner, waiting to swipe him up. The same helpless look that must’ve stared back at him, as I'd lay trapped beneath a boot, with my arms bound behind my back. I’d never wanted to kill so badly in my life. I'd been born with a violent streak, thanks to my mother, but it’d only served to aid my survival. Watching my brother die strapped to a chair had roused something much darker inside of me. More sinister than any measure of violence I’d ever known before.

  I wanted vengeance. To hurt those bastards for the sheer thrill of it. To laugh in their faces as they bled from their wounds.

  Death. Punishment. Bloodshed.

  It was all that'd kept me going for eleven months in hell, all I'd cared about.

  Until Lucy.

  Little spitfire spiked my blood every time I thought about her. Suddenly, dying didn’t seem like such a good idea. In fact, risking my life felt like a betrayal to her.

  I wanted justice, but I wanted Lucy, and somehow the two seemed to be mutually exclusive of one another. Even if I lived and took down Pasák, it’d only be a matter of time before the cops would eventually catch up to me. I’d be tossed in prison, just like my old man, and Lucy would be left picking up the pieces, trying to make a life for herself from the ruins.

  I couldn’t do that to her. Couldn’t watch her go down the same destructive path as my mother, and my allegiance to pain and misery overshadowed my ability to imagine anything beyond vengeance, no matter how badly I wanted Lucy.

  We could’ve run together. Gotten the fuck out of Detroit and never looked back. We’d never have been free, though. They’d never stop chasing her, which meant, I’d never stop chasing them. An endless loop of death.

  I’d hit a brick wall with Bridger’s confession and bounced back to the beginning. Fuck. I didn’t know where the hell to go from there. Though I was glad to know who'd ratted Reed out, I was no closer to Pasák than when I began.

  My phone buzzed inside my pocket, stealing away my thoughts, and I lifted it to see Dax’s name flashing across the screen.

  “Dax. How are you, man?” I answered.

  “I’m okay. Listen, remember that asshole who’s been bugging me to try his new shit? Just talked to him. He’s selling this new e-juice called Hedonic.”

  “I’m not
interested.”

  “You will be, when I tell you that he sells it to the Seventh Circle guys. They put this shit in ecigs and vape it.” His huffed breath hit my ear. “The toxicologist said Olivia had this shit in her system.”

  I sank forward, propping my elbows against my knees, as I stared down onto the street that'd become illuminated with the first rays of sunlight. “So, where do we find this shithead?”

  “He wants me to stop by and try it.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight. I’ll send you a text when I hear back from him.”

  I gave a nod he wouldn't see at what had suddenly become a renewed interest in ending the fucking nightmare. “Good. I’m in.”

  45

  Lucy

  I lay on my side, somewhere on the fringes of sleeping and wakefulness, as Jase’s fingers traced my back in a figure eight pattern.

  Infinity.

  Rolling onto my back, I allowed myself to be pulled into him as his arms smothered me against his chest. “What happens after this?” I asked, outlining the ridges of his muscles with my fingertips. “Now that we’ve breached the line of kidnapper and kidnappee?”

  He folded an arm beneath his head, unraveling from me a bit. “I’m not gonna lie, Lucy. I want you to stay with me, but I can’t watch you dodge death left and right. You’d be committing yourself to hell by staying with me.”

  “I realize you think I’m this small, helpless little damsel, who constantly needs saving, but I have taken care of myself for the last twenty-three years, living alone in Detroit. I think I can deal with hell.”

  He arched a brow and rolled over top of me. “Do you know what I’d do if something happened to you?” At the shake of my head, he kissed my jaw. “I’d lose my mind and burn this whole goddamn city to the ground.” His voice rumbled against my throat, and I smiled.

  “Can’t have that. The press would surely spin that wrong, and you’d lose the serial killer rep for some unstable, passion-glutted arsonist.” I lifted his face from my neck and stared into a forest of green. “You’re crazy, you know that? I’m not worth burning down a city for.”

  “You are to me.” His gaze dipped to my lips, and he leaned forward, kissing me in a way that stole my breath, until he pushed off of me, leaving a cold emptiness between us.

  I shot up from the bed, holding the sheet to my breasts. “Where are you going?”

  “Dax and I are meeting up with a buyer he thinks might have some connections to Seventh Circle. Sells the same shit that was found on his sister a while back.”

  “I want to go with you.”

  He shook his head. “Too dangerous. We’re meeting up at a party. Shit goes bad and—”

  “I’m not safe anywhere I go. If I stay here, someone could break in. All I know is, I’m safest with you.”

  His forehead crinkled with a frown, as he scratched his chin and slid Black Betty into his holster. “Fine. But I want you to lay low, and don’t draw attention to yourself.”

  I crawled out of bed, gathering clothes from my duffle, and slid a pair of panties up over my hips.

  “Goddamn, you make me want to tell the world to get fucked and stay in bed.”

  I smiled over my shoulder, as I tugged the skinny jeans over my ass, then pulled a black shirt with a deep V-neck over my head. When I turned around, Jase stood watching me.

  “That’s what you’re wearing?”

  I pinched the fabric between my fingers. “Doesn’t get any frumpier than jeans and a Tee.”

  “Unless you’re you, and you make jeans and a T-shirt look like a wet fucking dream.”

  Hands on my hips, I tipped my head. “Would you prefer I wear a garbage bag tonight?”

  “Christ, it’d probably look like a catsuit on you.”

  I shook my head, tugging on my boots. “You’ve got issues.”

  “Wouldn’t have anything to do with the two rounds of sex in the shower, now, would it?” In my periphery, he strapped his holster around his hips and threw a jacket on over it.

  “That’d wear down any other man. I think you might have a slight addiction.”

  “Only when you’re the drug.” He leaned forward, pinched my chin, and kissed me. “C’mon, let’s get out of here before I knock you to the floor.”

  * * *

  Squished between Dax and Jase, I straddled the gearshift of Jase’s car, with one leg beside Jase, the other beside Dax. Not the comfiest spot, especially when Jase made a point to rest his elbow between my legs while shifting. Meanwhile, Rhys stretched his arms across the backseat, his big body taking up most of the room.

  “Why are we smashed together in the front?” I asked, trying to keep my arms within the narrow threshold between the two men either side of me.

  Jase glanced over and shook his head. “Big baby over there doesn’t like sharing the backseat with Rhys.”

  “Motherfucker can’t keep his legs on his side. I hate when our knees touch.” Dax leaned in to me, and sucked in a breath through his nose. “'Sides that, you smell damn good. I’d press against you over that asshole any day.”

  “Watch it.” Jase’s voice carried a warning.

  “I’m just fuckin’ with you.” Reaching behind my back, Dax knocked Jase in the shoulder. “Possessive bastard.”

  I bit back a smile and leaned toward Jase. “You got a girlfriend, Dax?”

  “Every night.” He took a puff of his vape pen and blew it out the crack in the window. “I like a more diversified portfolio, know what I mean?”

  “You’re a man-whore.”

  “I take offense to the word whore.”

  “Oh, right. You’re a multi-client stockbroker.”

  A beat of a laughter burst from his chest, and he hiked a thumb toward me as he shook his head. “I’m diggin’ this one.”

  “Have there been many?” I twisted my body to block any eye signals Jase might’ve thrown at him. “A lot of diversity in his portfolio, I mean?” Mostly, I asked in fun, to calm my nerves, as the scenery outside the car window morphed into a shit part of town.

  “Jase is … ah, fuck, I’m not gonna lie. He’s had a few at a time. But you’re the hottest, so if he’s smart, he’ll stick with you.”

  A glance over my shoulder showed Jase’s stoic face, his attention forward. “And if I decide I don’t want to stick around?” A squeeze of my inner thigh told me he didn’t like the question.

  Dax rested his arm against the window, leaning back with a grin stretched across his face. “You and I can always meet up for some day trading.” A sharp movement behind my back ended on a thump, and Dax curled into his side. “Fucker,” he choked out.

  The car stopped at the curb on a street lined with houses, worn down like they’d been through war. None of the lawns were kempt, but overgrown with tall weeds, caked in autumn leaves, and windows had been boarded up, sprayed with gang signs or trap house.

  The fence around the house directly across from where we’d parked stood half torn down, like soldiers holding up the wounded. A rusted bike sat against the crumbling concrete that made up the front porch.

  “Ready to party?” Dax parked his vape pen between his teeth and lifted his ass off the seat, removing his wallet from his back pocket. He slid his driver’s license out of the plastic sheath and popped it into the glove box. “Never walk in with any particular identity.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  “Because you have to be prepared to be the bad guy if shit goes south.”

  “So, what am I supposed to be in all this?”

  “No name, Lucy,” Jase instructed beside me. “The guy knows us by our user names and nothing else. You’re not my girlfriend in there, understand?”

  “Yeah.” He’d just implied I was his girlfriend outside of there. “So, what’s my gig?”

  “Your gig?” His brow kicked up. “I’m your pimp. You work for me. All business. No connections, got it?”

  “My pimp.” My flat voice captured the same level of amusement swi
mming through my head. “And how exactly does a … prostitute? Is that the role I’m going for? How does a disconnected prostitute act?”

  “Flirty. But not too flirty.”

  “Shouldn’t I have dressed in skimpier clothes for this?”

  Dax said, “Yes”, alongside Jase's, “No.”

  Jase leaned forward, casting a glare in Dax’s direction, then slid his gaze back to me. “You’ll be fine. We’re just getting some information. No hookups.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  All three of us exited the car and strolled up to the house. While I should’ve been freaked out by the dark neighborhood and the broken down home pocked with bullet holes, flanked between three exceptionally large men, who carried themselves with a sort of lethal grace, I merely felt perfectly insulated by brawn and muscle.

  Dax knocked at the particle board where a door must’ve been at one time, and a voice inside told us to go around to the back.

  After slipping through a narrow gap between the house and the fence, we made our way to the rear, halting at the bark of a dog. I twisted, squinting my eyes in the darkness, and just made out a jumping shadowed figure about a hundred feet away, with the glisten of a chain attached to him.

  Ignoring the barking, Dax opened the door, and all three of us stalked through the dirty kitchen, where dishes sat piled in a sink half-caked with food. Patches of dirt and garbage scattered the floor, and what looked like a failed science lab, with beakers and flasks, cluttered the table. We followed the music to the front of the house, and about halfway down the hall, I recognized the band as Massive Attack.