Quiver (Revenge Book 1) (2 page)

She moaned. Not her finest hour. Not by a long shot. How had she not thought to, at the very least, look up a photo of the bride and groom? She’d been sloppy. So wrapped up in her thirst for revenge that she’d failed to tie up every loose end.

She’d relied too heavily on her old memories of Gage, a short, overweight, pimply faced teenager. But, like her, Gage had done a phenomenal growing up. To the naked eye, he was a completely different person from that boy ten years ago. It would’ve been impossible for her to look at him and know who he was.

Just like none of her targets could ever look at her and know who she was. Ten years ago, her hair had been relaxed and died shock red. Insecure to the core, she’d never let a day go by without piling on enough makeup to transform herself completely.

Now, with her big natural hair, minimal makeup, and a more svelte figure thanks to her dedicated gym regimen, she was just as unrecognizable as Gage had been that night.

Plus, these were the type of rich white people who couldn’t tell one black person from another. Not even if you had a gun to their head. She knew none of them would look at her and make the connection.

It had still been a mistake not to look deeper into Gage. After all, this all began in
his
family’s white stone mansion, at
his
house party—which she’d also crashed—ten years ago. It had been in
his
mother’s empty bedroom that Veda had been violated from inside out.

She huffed.

Best-case scenario, Gage had returned to his engagement party and already forgotten about her. Worst case scenario, she’d already blown her cover.

She slammed her eyes closed.

Sure, she’d been caught red-handed, but she hadn’t been the only terrible person in that tent tonight. Gage had been flirting with her
shamelessly.
Waxing on about the queens of the African diaspora while his dog eyes traveled across her curves, soft and supple under her slinky black dress, leaving no question to the fact that he already had her naked in his mind.

She huffed again. He was the one who should be embarrassed. How disrespectful could he be to his lovely future wife, hitting on another woman at the bar of his own engagement party?

Veda couldn’t even pretend to be surprised. Just more proof that all men were animals. Dogs. Terrible fucking people.

Just in time to verify the thoughts in her mind, a giggle rang in from the other end of the beach. Veda’s eyes flew in the direction of the sound, just in time to catch sight of Todd Lockwood.

Todd.
He even had a frat-boy, douchebag name.

A slim brunette with breasts bigger than her own head stumbled through the sand under his muscled arm. Todd’s spiky blond hair didn’t move with the wind, gelled within an inch of its life. A bottle of champagne hung from his fingers, his arm tight around the brunette’s neck.

Stumbling over her own feet, the woman tripped and tumbled into the sand.

Todd watched her fall, solid as a rock on steady legs, not a hint of a wobble in his stance.

Veda wondered if he’d taken a single swig from that bottle in his hand, but she knew he hadn’t. Just like he hadn’t the night he’d offered her the first swallow ten years ago.

Before she could stop herself, she was stomping through the sand toward them.

She made it to them just as Todd was offering the brunette his hand, pulling her back onto her wobbly legs, letting her collapse in to his chest.

“Hey!” Veda cried.

Todd and the woman both looked at her, the smiles vanishing from their faces at the unexpected voice.

The words caught in Veda’s throat the moment Todd’s blue eyes hit hers. Her heart plummeted to her feet as her breathing halted abruptly. Her own knees started to wobble as badly as the drunken girl before her, even though she’d only had one glass of champagne.

“Hey,” she said again, her voice shaking along with her fingers as she reached out to the brunette. “You don’t have to go with him. I can drive you home.”

The woman looked up at Todd, still giving him all of her weight, saw his horrified face, and then looked at Veda in disgust as well.

Oh, joy. A follower.

“You’re clearly intoxicated. Not in your right mind. This guy… He could do anything to you.”
He will
, Veda wanted to say. “I don’t want you to get taken advantage of.”

Todd erased the disgust from his eyes, but not quickly enough. Another spoiled rich boy who’d been trained to maintain a game face, but he wasn’t as skilled an actor as the handsome groom from earlier, and she hadn’t missed his disdain. His dimples came center stage as he gave her a dazzling smile, planting his feet when the brunette began to go weak at the knees. Veda’s eyes fell to the bottle in his hand, wondering what he put in it.

“Everything’s fine here,” Todd said, motioning to the brunette. He looked down at her, poking out his lips. “She likes me. Don’t you?”

Veda’s wide eyes examined the woman. “If you’re not okay, I’ll take you home. You don’t have to feel pressured to go anywhere with him.”

“She likes it.” The hand Todd had around the brunette’s neck tightened. “Don’t you?”

She nearly purred up at him, digging her nails into the opening of his button-down shirt, accepting his tongue-fueled kiss.

Veda looked away.

“I like it, Todd…,” her baby voice slurred. “I really, really like it. A lot
.
”

“You see?” He shot Veda another blinding smile. “She likes it. A lot.”

Veda slammed her eyes closed.

He fisted her hair, pulling so hard she was sure he drew blood. She gagged, but that only made him push harder. Deeper.

“Damn, go easy, bro,” a voice laughed from the distance. “I think she’s choking on it.”

“Nah,” Todd whispered. “She likes it.”

Veda’s nostrils flared. By the time she’d escaped the visions that had poisoned her mind for so long and opened her eyes, they were already moving away.

She watched them go, the brunette still stumbling even under Todd’s strong hold, giving him all of her bumbling weight while looking up at him with glassy eyes. “Do you know that black girl?”

Todd looked over his shoulder and locked eyes with Veda, smirking. “Never seen her before in my life.”

He winked.

And Veda nearly emptied her stomach in the sand.

If he saw the disgust on her face, he didn’t show it. In fact, judging by the smirk on his lips, if he saw, he actually enjoyed it.

Veda cringed after them, waiting until they’d both stumbled into his black Aston Martin, parked atop a short hill along the beachside road.

She tightened her fingers around the bronze coin that hadn’t left her hand all night. Rolling it, pushing it, trying to bend it under her trembling fingers. It didn’t give. It never had.

The car raced away.

After the roar of the engine, and the headlights, disappeared into the night, Veda finally allowed a smirk to spread over her own lips.

She hoped Todd Lockwood got all those stomach-turning winks out of his system now because he was her number one, and she couldn’t wait for the day when she wiped them clear off his face forever.

—

Gage Blackwater and Scarlett Covington took their time climbing the white marble stairs of their Shadow Rock mansion. Their arms brushed but their fingers didn’t clasp, and they allowed their palms to stoke the black metal railing as they ascended the steps. Hours of schmoozing at their engagement party had left them happy to wade in sweet silence.

The grand chandelier overhead made the subtle details of Scarlett’s flowy white dress twinkle. When she turned and caught Gage’s eye, he smiled.

Her blue eyes fell, heat climbing to her cheeks.

They faced one another at the top of the staircase. The black, rocky cliffs of Shadow Rock Island beckoned from the domed window. Behind each of them, the mansion split in two, leading one path to the east wing, and another to the west.

They shared tight smiles.

A red bang fell into Scarlett’s eyes as she looked down at her clasped hands, the delicate fabric of her dress blowing with the breeze sneaking through the open window.

“Our parents seemed happy tonight,” she whispered.

He watched her hair fall deeper into her eyes, hiding her face. The wind worked to destroy it. He waited for the urge to push it back.

“I’ve never seen my father so over the moon,” he responded, hearing the void in his voice.

She shook her hair away from her lowered eyes, inhaling. “If you’d like to come to bed with me tonight—”

Sensing the shake in her voice, the narrowing of her eyes, and the tightness of her lips, Gage held up a calm hand.

Her words came faster, shakier, eyes still down. “It’s not as if we can put it off forever.”

“Scarlett….” He smiled at her. “It’s okay.”

Her blue eyes rose to claim his brown. They grew wide, reminding him of a cartoon character. She wrung her hands so tightly it was a wonder she didn’t tear the skin clear from her body. She trapped her bottom lip between her teeth.

“Thank you.” The words barely left her lips.

He gave a soft nod, turned away, and then threw her a look over his shoulder. “Good night.”

Still standing in front of the open widow, the breeze assaulting her bangs, Scarlett watched as Gage entered the hallway that led to the east wing.

As she whispered back, “Good night,” she turned on her heel and began toward the west.

—

Gage entered his bedroom with a sigh. Simple, modern, clean, mostly white with dashes of silver, his bedroom always helped calm him. He undressed to his black slacks and red button-down, undoing the top buttons while making his way onto his private balcony.

He clutched the black metal railings once he was outside, taking in the magnificent view of Shadow Rock Island, breathing in the ocean mist. A mile across the rocky sands of the beach below, atop the highest cliff in the city, sat the home he’d grown up in. He allowed his eyes to travel along the white stone mansion in the distance. Small waterfalls gushed from the jagged rocks of the cliff, splurging out at all angles, splashing into the ocean water below.

He smiled when he saw her. Tall, pale, and willowy, with silky black hair that brushed her behind and moved like a waterfall, she stepped out onto her own balcony, gripping the white stone railing and gazing out onto the water.

As if she could see him too, watching her across the way, the cell phone in Gage’s pocket buzzed to life.

He answered without looking at the display. “Hello, Mother.”

“Darling….” Celeste Blackwater’s smooth, feminine voice purred in the way it only did for him. “Do you live to torture me?”

Gage smirked.

“How is it possible you’ve yet share a bed with your future wife?”

“The same way it’s possible that you’re keeping tabs on who I am, or am not, sharing a bed with.” He chuckled. “Which is highly intrusive and incredibly weird, by the way.”

A long pause. He knew she was smiling too, because he heard it lighting up her next words. “Perhaps if you just got it out of the way….”

“Still weird, Mother.” He gripped the balcony railing.

“Why do I have the feeling you wouldn’t hesitate to share a bedroom with the young lady you were enjoying at the bar this evening?”

Gage’s stomach did a somersault. “She was just some woman who happened to be at the bar at the same time I was. A crasher.”

“And yet you declined to have her removed.” He heard it in her voice when her smile grew. “How charitable of you.”

“She removed herself once she realized I’d caught her in a lie.”

“Thank goodness for that, since you certainly had no plans on taking the initiative.” A soft sigh. “I saw the way you looked at her.”

“Mother, that’s enough.”

“Why do I feel as if I’m on a constant mission to remind you how vital it is to—”

“Keep up appearances,” he finished. “I understand.”

“Thank goodness Scarlett’s father didn’t see you dishonoring her so blatantly. God only knows what kind of damage it would’ve done. You’re so adamant about being fully vested in your father’s company, yet so unwilling to do what it takes to earn it.”

“Who said I was unwilling?”

“Your eyes said it, dear son, while you were amusing yourself with that woman tonight.”

A new feeling blasted to life in Gage’s stomach. It wasn’t the lull of complacency, the agonizing roll of dread, or even the subtle pang of surrender that he’d grown used to encroaching on his gut.

No. This feeling was more like honey. Hot, searing honey, injected straight into the vein, just sticky enough to hang around until it became completely unbearable.

“I’m tired, Mother.” He pressed two fingers into the corners of his eyes.

“Get some rest. I love you.”