The Vigilantes Collection

by Lake, Keri

  “My … please!” Fingers scraping against my scalp, she writhed against my palms. “Oh, God, Jase!”

  Her tiny grunts goaded me on, as she circled her hips, telling me how much she wanted it. Goddamn the sounds, the scents—she was driving me crazy. I couldn’t take it.

  I reached down, squeezing my dick through the jeans, as I drove her to climax, eating her out like a prisoner savoring his last meal.

  Her body tightened against me, hips bucking as my finger and tongue worked in sync. I licked, tongued, sucked and fucked her, enjoying every sweet second of it. The scent of her arousal struck the primitive chord in my brain, and I growled against her pussy, wanting to consume her until she turned weak.

  Her thighs trembled, hips grinding. Faster. Muscles straining, tensing and relaxing against me. Wild, as if she’d become possessed.

  “Fuck me, fuck me now.” Her voice, laced with lust and a hint of panic, melted into a long droning moan, while I tongued her pussy.

  I shot up from my crouch, unzipped my jeans, springing my cock free, and fucked her fast and hard against the wall. Lost in her scent, her sounds, I gritted my teeth, biting back the urge to come.

  The pantry faded out of my periphery, the world around me slowed, like floating underwater, and I stared into her eyes. Those beautiful gray eyes.

  Something clicked. Like watching her through the lens, the aperture flicked and the light hit her face differently. She glowed. So goddamn beautiful, it hurt to look at her. Like an eclipse, I knew the longer I stared, the more fucked I’d be. Even so, I cupped her face, the dark ink of my tattoos against peaches and cream skin. Dark and light. Night and day. The moon and the sun. Mia Luce.

  Buried deep inside of her, feeling her from the inside, it still wasn’t enough. I wanted more of her. To know she belonged to me, and I belonged to her.

  I wanted to rain pain on every man who ever touched her again.

  I’d bleed for her. Kill for her. Die for her.

  The silent words struck my spine, and light exploded behind my eyes in a blinding flash of ecstasy. The world sped up again to the sounds of our bodies slamming against each other.

  “Jase! Oh, God, Jase!” Her nails tore at my back, thighs wrapped tight around my waist.

  I rested my head against her shoulder, feeling her stiffen in my arms, her body trembling against mine, heightening, hardening. Hot cum shot inside her, as I hit the edge and pumped out the final seconds of climax, while her pussy contracted around my dick, milking the last of my load. “Ah, fuck, baby! Fuck!”

  We’d come together—a perfect symphony of my destruction.

  Foreheads pressed together, we caught our breaths, as I pulled out of her, tucking my dick back inside my briefs. “I wanted to kill him for putting his hands on you,” I said between ragged breaths. “Still do.”

  Breathless, she let out a quiet chuckle, kicking her head back, and shimmied back into her jeans. “Dax said you don’t do clingy.”

  “I don’t. I don’t do clingy. I don’t do relationships. I don’t do kidnapping women, or sticking around after I find them getting cozy on some limp-dick’s lap. But you got my head all kinds of messed up right now. I’d probably dance a jig in high heels, if you wanted me to.”

  A clip of laughter beat from her chest, and she wrapped her arms around my neck, rising up on her tiptoes. “I think I have just the heels for you.”

  49

  Lucy

  I stood in the spray of the hot shower, staring at the water that swirled down the drain, just like my happiness that always seemed to slip down some invisible pipe, funneling into someone else’s world.

  That was the problem when things seemed too good to be true.

  Water beat against my back, my body so weak and battered, I was surprised I could stay upright. After the drug party, we'd drove Dax and Rhys home, and afterward, we’d not even gotten two steps inside the door before Jase had my shirt tossed on the floor. His brand of sex was part punishment, part pleasure, and one hundred percent unrivaled by anyone else I’d ever been with. He'd done exactly as he promised—ruined me for any other man. We fucked twice and made love after, my bones so soft and used up, I ended up sleeping the most peaceful sleep I’d had in months, maybe even years, until a nightmare had startled me awake.

  I wished it had been an actual nightmare. At least then I could have forgotten it and fallen back into his arms.

  After flipping off the water, I toweled my body and piled my hair on top of my head. My cellphone sat on the bathroom counter, and I clicked on the email that'd dinged beside me an hour ago and woken me from dreams.

  I paused for a moment, listening for any sign beyond the closed bathroom door that Jase wasn’t still sleeping as I’d left him. At the stillness out there, I scrolled through the message that’d been sent to me by an anonymous stranger in an encrypted email.

  Lucy,

  Give up the location of Jase Hawkins, along with the video, and no one will be harmed. As collateral, we’ve taken your friend. If you fail to disclose your location within twenty-four hours, you will be sent an engaging compilation of Miss Danovich’s final hours.

  My stomach churned, and I clutched there as I sagged against the counter. They'd figured me out. I’d been backed into a corner.

  I had to report it to the police. Even if I risked that one of them might possibly be the shady cop I’d seen a few weeks back at the slaughterhouse, I couldn’t take the chance of staying quiet. Not when Jolana’s life was at stake. I couldn’t sit idly by and let some psycho whack-job hack her up and dump her body somewhere no one would ever find her.

  What the hell was so significant about twenty-four hours, I didn’t know. I only knew I didn’t plan to wait and see.

  50

  Detective Matt Burke

  Burke sat in the booth of the greasy spoon, where he and Anderson sometimes stopped for coffee. Eggs steamed on the plate in front of him, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually dug into a meal with any enthusiasm, as he stared out the window, waiting for Anderson to arrive.

  The chat he'd had with Katy had helped make up his mind, and the sooner he could tell Anderson his decision, the quicker his stomach might settle.

  He’d also been assigned the murder at the slaughterhouse, after telling Corley he’d gone back for a second sweep. The bastard had even commended him for taking another look. In reality, Anderson had probably given it a half-ass sweep the first time and missed it himself—another issue that needed confronting.

  Out the corner of his eye, Burke spotted Anderson strolling up to the café's door.

  The cop removed his sunglasses and entered the restaurant, offering a wink to the girl who took their order twice a week.

  “Usual?” she asked, her smile flirtatious.

  “Eh, I’ll change it up and do eggs over easy, sweetheart. Thanks.” Anderson fell into the booth across from Burke, his body twisted around toward the waitress. “If I wasn’t already attached to a ball and chain, that fine thing would be getting her ass pounded in my bed.” He spun back to face Burke, who did his best to hide the repulsion—the girl must’ve been twenty, at most. “So, that gig I told you about.” With a quick glance to the side, he lowered his voice. “There’s been a change of plans.”

  Burke leaned in, slapping on his serious face. “I’m out.”

  Anderson’s smile slid into a frown. “What?”

  “I said, I’m out.” Swinging his gaze away from the accusing stare of his partner, Burke explained, “I can’t risk it. I thought about it, and I want to back out.”

  Leaning in closer, Anderson’s eye flinched, his lips screwed up into a snarl. “You don’t get to back out, asshole. Shit’s already in motion, and you’re going to be there. You back out? You become a liability. A problem.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I don’t think you’d want anything to happen to that pretty little girl of yours, now, would you?”

  Burke’s spine chilled as a rush of adrenaline exploded t
hrough his veins, and he snatched a handful of Anderson’s shirt, yanking him into the table. “You fucking touch her, and I’ll cut your balls off and shove them down your throat, cocksucker.” Nostrils flared he held him there, staring at the bastard’s impassive face.

  Anderson’s hands slid up to either side of his head, as if in surrender. “I’m not saying I’d touch her, Boss.”

  Fury blazed through every muscle, Burke's grip trembling as he breathed hard through his nose in an attempt to calm himself.

  So badly Burke wanted to mention the slaughterhouse, to seize the upper hand and have him shrinking in his seat, but after a threat like that, he couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t take a chance the fucker would flip and go after Katy just out of spite. He’d have to keep it under wraps until he could gather the evidence he needed to hand Anderson’s ass over to Corley. Which he would. First chance he got, he’d fuck him over royally, but for right then, he’d play along.

  Looking around the room, seeing only a handful of people had turned, Burke released him and settled back in his chair. “What’s the fucking change in plans?”

  Anderson’s jaw shifted, his lips sliding into a grin like a snake preparing to strike. “They want Jase Hawkins.”

  Burke couldn’t help glowering back at the little bastard. Everything about the job suddenly left a sour taste in his mouth. “Who’s they?”

  “Nobody knows the guy’s real name. He goes by Pasák.”

  “So, how’d you hear about the job?”

  “Guys that work for him.” Anderson sank back in his seat, while the waitress set a steaming plate of food in front of him. With a fake smile plastered to his face, he winked as she walked off.

  “We’re already investigating Hawkins,” Burke said.

  “I’m not talking about an arrest. I’m talking about handing him over. To them.” His stare leveled on Burke’s. “Son of a cop killer, remember?”

  Burke pushed away from the table and rubbed a hand down his face, his anger toward the Hawkins kid paling in comparison to the threat he’d just been fed. “For what? The murders?”

  “They said he stole eight mil. That chick that’s with him? She ain’t no victim. She’s with him. Willingly. And we get to her, we get to him.”

  “And just how the fuck do you plan to do that?”

  “Already working on it.” Anderson’s mouth stretched into a wide grin. “It just so happens, I’m fucking her best friend.”

  51

  Lucy

  In a tangle of sheets, I lay beside Jase, listening to his heartbeat. Slow. Hypnotic.

  All while a cold realization kept me from falling asleep myself.

  I had only a few hours to turn him over to whoever sent the email, or Jolana would be brutally and savagely murdered like those women in the videos.

  Part of me selfishly wanted to pretend I hadn’t gotten the email. That it was nothing but a prank, and Jolana was somewhere safe. Maybe she’d reconciled with her mom and decided to get away to the family cabin she’d told me so much about.

  The truth was, I’d never trusted Viktor, and after what he’d done to Jolana, what she’d said about him looking for me, I had every reason to believe that he’d sent the email. Either way, Jolana remained missing, and I still had to decide what to do.

  Denying that I’d fallen in love with Jase was futile. I had, and nothing would make me turn him over. Nothing.

  “What’s troubling you?” His deep, resonating voice broke me from my thoughts, and those green eyes peered into mine. “You’ve got those worry lines going on.”

  Do I tell him? Not telling him felt like a lie. Unfair. Like I was a traitor in his bed.

  Telling him meant certain death for Jolana.

  “Just thinking. Nothing, really.”

  “Bullshit.” As he called my bluff, I closed my eyes and allowed him to guide my face to his. “Tell me.”

  “Promise me you’ll trust me.”

  His brow furrowed, kicking my pulse rate up a notch. “Okay.”

  “I received an email.” I swallowed a harsh gulp. “Someone’s going to kill Jolana, if I don’t turn you over.”

  “Turn me over … to whom?”

  “No sender. It’s encrypted.” I nabbed my phone beside the bed and scrolled through until I landed on the email I’d been sent, the sight of which still turned my stomach. “I’m convinced it’s Viktor. He beat the shit out of Jolana. He’s the only one I can think of who’d do something like this.”

  His chest rose and fell as he read the message, and when his gaze shot away from mine, desperation swam through my veins.

  “Jase, I had no intentions of betraying you. I’ve spent the last few hours trying to figure out a way.” I directed my stare at his chest, and the tattoo to the right of his heart that read ‘Vae Victis’. “It all seems to boil down to one solution. You need to leave Detroit. Get as far away as you can. Don’t tell anyone where you go.” I stared up at him through a blur of tears. “Including me.”

  “No. They’ll hurt you. They’ll hurt your friend.” He shook his head and gripped the back of my neck. “That’s not an option.”

  “It has to be Viktor.” Nibbling my lip, I recalled the last time I’d seen Jolana, bruised and beaten by the asshole. “I called the manager of Jolana’s apartment. He confirmed she hasn’t been around the last couple of days, but her car’s still parked in front. Viktor knows something, Jase. On the surface, he wears a mask, but behind that mask is pure evil.”

  The way his eyes shifted back and forth, brow tight, had knots twisting in my stomach. “Then, I’m going after Viktor.”

  The knot tightened, damn near severing my breath. “You can’t. Jolana told me he has connections.” I placed my hands at either side of his face, to draw his eyes back to mine. “It’s suicide, Jase. It would be suicide to go after him.”

  The tension in Jase’s jaw pulled taut, his lips forming a hard line, until his shoulders fell and his muscles softened. Perhaps I’d broken through. “If I leave, you’re coming with me,” he said.

  Tears fell down my cheeks at the thought. The relief of leaving the place, severing the anchor and sailing off with him to happiness.

  I knew better, though. I’d been cursed with the burden of responsibility since I first watched my mother fall into a drunken coma at the age of twelve, and I knew I wouldn’t just start shirking them, or dump them on Jase.

  Still, to keep him placated, I forced a smile. “Where would you take me?”

  His thumb swiped across my cheek, wiping a tear away. “Paradise. A place they’ll never find us. We can go anywhere in the world, baby.”

  “What about … finding Pasák? Killing him?”

  “To hell with it all. Fuck all of them.” He kissed my lips in a way that felt like a lie—either I was lying to him, or he was lying to me. I couldn’t tell anymore. The lines had blurred into an exhausting haze of confusion. “You’re in my blood, infecting every dark part of my soul, Lucy. Nothing else matters to me.”

  Climbing over my body, he straddled me, pushing my arms above my head, trapping them beneath his, and kissed the edge of my throat. “It’s just you and me now. We’ll fuck all night, and sleep all day. To hell with everyone else.”

  “And Jolana?”

  “You told me yourself. You can’t always be the hero.” They weren’t his words, and the alarms blared inside my head. Much as I wanted to believe him, to do exactly that—tell the world to fuck off and run—I knew I couldn’t.

  “I won’t let her die.” I pushed against him and caught a spark of fire in his eyes.

  “Neither will I.” A cold band slid across my wrist, and at the ticking sound, I snapped my head toward the headboard.

  “No!” Bucking beneath him, I twisted my wrist, to keep him from tying my other arm to the bed. “Please! Please don’t do this, Jase! Please!” My too little effort, and he had both wrists locked around the bar of the headboard, in those fucking zip ties. My heart thrummed in my chest, as he backed himse
lf off me, desperation burning in my blood. “Okay, okay, listen. I’ll go with you. We’ll run away. Untie me, and I’ll go anywhere. You’re right, baby. Fuck them all.”

  “I’m sorry, mia Luce. I’d already planned to go after Viktor. I have every reason to believe he’s Pasák. And now, you’ve only given me more reason.”

  Viktor was Pasák? I stuffed the sickening thought, that I’d been working for a murdering rapist for the last few years, aside and focused on Jase. “You might die. What if you die?”

  “If I don’t do this, you might die. Your friend might die. Lots of people might die.”

  “Just … just wait a minute. Let’s just … we’ll figure out a plan. You and me. Or just you. Whatever makes sense. I won’t interfere, Jase. I won’t get in your way—” The threat of a sob choked off my words.

  “At midnight, Rhys will be here to release you. He’ll take you somewhere safe.”

  My body shook with panic. “I won’t go with him! I’ll go after Viktor.” My words flew out of my mouth like those of an insolent child.

  “Your father will see to it that you don’t.”

  Muscles shocked into stiffness, I blinked away tears, trying to process what he’d just said. “My father is dead.”

  “Your stepfather is dead. Your real father is alive.”

  Staring back at him, I focused on his words, letting them swirl with the tornado of thoughts already spinning in my mind. “What?”

  “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know if I could trust him.”

  A cold and bitter punch hit my gut, but even if my father was alive, he was the bastard who’d abandoned me. “You can’t. He’s a liar. A thief.”

  “And a killer. Which is why he had to leave you behind. He didn’t want you to get hurt.”