18. Saint
18
SAINT
I barely slept last night.
My brain wouldn’t shut the fuck up. I resorted to letting myself into Vani’s room, climbing into her bed, and masturbating onto her sheets, inhaling the scent of her on the material, to try to feel closer to her, but even that didn’t work.
I had a couple of missed calls from her, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak to her. I know I’m going to have to tell her about Angelica, and it’s tearing me in two. She thinks Angelica is her friend, but then the little bitch tried to steal me away from Vani. Who the fuck does that?
Angelica also knows more than she’s told us about Reagan’s death. I switch between thinking that even Angelica wouldn’t do something so low as hurt someone she’d called a friend, and the deep uneasy feeling that she surely did. If my suspicions are correct, it’s going to break Vani’s heart.
All of this shit is going to break Vani’s heart.
It’ll be even worse if Angelica tells Vani I kissed her deliberately. I need to get in there first, to make sure Vani hears my version of events. She’s probably still going to be super pissed with me, but I want her to understand I did it for her. Anyway, I didn’t do anything more than a kiss after I’d given Angelica her goodnight meds, and the whole time I thought about Vani. Nothing more happened. I didn’t really do anything wrong, but will Vani see it that way?
I check my watch. It’s almost eight in the morning, which means they should be back soon. I wonder how my twin is doing. I hope he’s not getting himself into trouble, but then I doubt he’s just sitting around quietly.
I wonder if Angelica has woken yet, and, if she has, what she thinks happened. Does she have any idea I drugged her? Will she believe I held up my end of the bargain and we had sex? I wish she hadn’t passed out quite so quickly, as I’d have been able to get more information from her if she’d stayed awake.
She knows something about Reagan’s death; I’m sure of it. The way she spoke about Reagan was with real venom. What had she meant by ‘I took care of the problem?’ Had Reagan been the problem? She’d hated the girl, but had she hated her enough to kill her?
Had Angelica been the one to push Reagan from the tower?
My gut tells me she possibly did, which means she’s a danger to me and the other Vipers, and most of all Vani. One that will need dealing with.
I leave my room and head outside, needing some air. I find myself at Lex’s car. Being near it makes me feel closer to my brother. A smile tweaks at my lips at the mess it was left in. I can’t believe Vani did this to Lex’s car. She destroyed my paintings too. Maybe I should be angry with her, but I kind of admire her balls.
I’m also relieved the fucking Preachers had nothing to do with it. I haven’t seen anything of those weirdo freaks since everything went down, but I still have one of their crucifixes in a drawer at the mansion. They’re going to want it back sometime, but they don’t know I’ve got it, and I’m not going to volunteer it. A part of me doesn’t want it anywhere near my stuff, though, in case they can use it to hex me. It’s probably stupid to believe in that shit, but there are many people back home in Marseille who do, and I’ve heard some crazy stories. No one needs that kind of bad energy against them. Even if magic isn’t real, bad vibes are.
The distant rumble of thunder draws my attention, but then I realize it’s not thunder, it’s the growl of motorcycle engines. Big ones. My heart picks up speed. It’s them; it has to be.
I break into a run, heading away from the building and down the long driveway, toward the gates. The guards are looking curiously at the new arrivals, but they can see Zane and Vani, so they haven’t pulled their weapons. I have no idea who the other two men are, but they’re wearing leather cuts from Vani’s father’s MC.
Vani spots me running toward them. Her beautiful face breaks into a smile, and she climbs off her bike and throws herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck. I lift her so her legs hook around my hips and hold her tight, burying my face in the crook of her neck.
“Fuck, I missed you,” I tell her.
“I missed you, too.”
I kiss her and then realize we’re drawing attention from the two guys they’ve brought with them.
“Hang on a minute,” the smaller, blond one says, “I thought you were with this guy, Vani.” He jabs a thumb in Zane’s direction.
Vani’s cheeks turn prettily pink and she bites her lower lip. “Umm…well…here’s the thing, I’m kind of with both of them…and the one who’s been taken, Lex.” The two men’s mouths drop, and she rushes on. “But you can’t tell my dad. Seriously. You can’t tell anyone else at the club either or it will get back to him.”
“If this is serious, he’s going to find out some time,” the bigger of the two club members adds.
She scuffs the ground with her boot. “Yeah, I know. But just not right now, okay? There’s too much going on. I can’t handle my dad as well, at least not until this is over and everyone is safe.”
The smaller one snorts. “I’m not going to be the one who tells him. You ever heard the phrase, don’t shoot the messenger? You think he’s going to be happy when he finds out three men are banging his precious princess daughter?”
I glance back at the security guards, but we’re far enough away that they can’t hear. The last thing we need is this going all around the college. Not that it hurt the Devils, though, I must admit. No one seems to give two shits about them and their Duchess now. Then again, they have the dean on their side, and we most definitely do not.
“Oh, my God.” Vani covers her face with both hands, her cheeks glowing red now. “We’re not banging , Zoo. We’re serious about one another.”
“He’s still going to go fucking apeshit,” the bigger one says seriously.
Vani sighs. “That’s why I need to be the one who tells him, Phoenix.”
The bigger biker shrugs, but I can see his disdain at the situation written all over his face. I’ve now got names for the two bikers—Zoo and Phoenix—and Vani introduces me to them formally as well.
I slip my arm around Vani’s waist and draw her close, needing them to see she’s not some cheap lay to us. She fits so perfectly against me. I never want her to be gone from me for that long again.
“Not having you here was torture,” I tell her. “It was like someone cut out my heart and made me spend the night in agony without it.”
She sighs against me, her body melting into mine. Home , I think. This girl is home. She had only one night away, and I felt bereft.
I know it wasn’t the same for her. She had Zane. I turn to him, and he gives me a nod. Vani steps out of my embrace, and I approach the massive, silent man.
Zane shakes my hand, and we pull each other in to smack each other on the back. I speak against Zane’s ear, keeping my voice low.
“Did you find the gift I left you?”
Zane bobs his eyebrows up and down. Yeah, he found it.
Thanks, he signs.
“I hope you made the most of it.”
His grins says he did.
Did Vani take Zane’s monster cock in her ass? Damn, I’m gutted to have missed that. We’ll have to have a repeat show sometime, when we get Lex back, so none of us misses out on the action. Our perfect little ass slut. I picture Vani with her bountiful ass in the air, her hole already stretched and open, and the three of us taking turns fucking her there. I picture us filling her with cum and it dribbling out of her. We’d make her climax so many times that she’d have an out of body experience. Fuck, I'm starting to get hard at the mental image, and I shake it out of my head. Now is not the time. Poor Lex needs help, and, as much as I want to take Vani up to her room and fuck her senseless, we have a call to make.
Plus, the bikers are still looking at me as if they want to murder me, so plowing her ass isn’t in the cards right now.
“We need to call Jarl,” Vani says. “I should do it now. There’s no use in waiting.”
She takes her cell from her pocket and swipes the screen a couple of times. It rings, and a male voice answers.
“I’ve got what you wanted,” she tells Jarl.
She’s put it on speaker so we can all hear.
“Send me a photograph of it in your hand,” he says.
“First, let me speak to Lex.”
“Not happening. I’m the one who controls things around here.”
He sounds strained, and that concerns me.
Vani’s brow wrinkles. “No, Lex first, and then you get a picture.”
“And if I don’t let you speak to your boyfriend, what do you think is going to happen? You have no power here. Just bring me the fucking necklace and then you can see him for yourself.”
Why won’t he take the phone to Lex? Worry twists inside me. He’s not dead. I’d feel it if he were, I’m sure of it. When we were kids, Lex broke his arm falling out of a tree. I hadn’t been with him at the time, or I’d have stopped him, but I remember losing use of that hand before I’d even known what had happened. It had been like my entire right hand suddenly went completely numb and I hadn’t even been able to pick up a pen. It hadn’t lasted for very long—probably only a matter of seconds—but it had been long enough to be frightening. The moment I’d seen Lex with his arm in a cast, I’d known what had happened.
But there must be another reason he’s not letting us speak to Lex now.
Jarl is right, though; what can we do? We’d end up in a stalemate, with us refusing to bring him the necklace and his refusing to let us speak to Lex. All we want is for this to be over so we can all get back to our lives.
Vani takes out the cross, snaps a picture with her phone, and sends it to Jarl. “Did you get it?” she asks.
There’s a pause, and then he says, “Yes. I got it. What about the other shit we talked about?”
He means who really hurt his daughter.
“I have information on that,” I tell him. Vani stares at me, but I ignore her. “I’ll tell you in person only.”
There’s a beat, then, “I’m sending you the coordinates of where to meet now. Come unarmed.”
He doesn’t say, ‘come alone’ because he wants me and Zane there. I suspect that luring us in is what this whole thing is about. I’m hoping, when I share my information, he’ll be more interested in who I believe is the real culprit.
Vani is still watching me, and I don’t want to be interrogated right now, but then her phone pings with the coordinates, and she frowns down at them. “It looks like they’re on a lake.”
“Seriously?”
I take the phone from her and check. “Well, that’s going to make things a hell of a lot harder. How the fuck are we supposed to sneak up on them in the middle of the water?”
“Anyone know how to scuba dive?” Zoo raises his eyebrows as he looks around us.
The phone pings again, and this time it’s with another message. A boat will be waiting for you at the jetty to bring you to the yacht.
A second set of coordinates is included in the message. They’re needed, too. The lake is huge, with over one hundred miles of shoreline, and it would be impossible for us to find one single boat without it, even if it is a yacht.
I turn to Zane, and we both frown. “Well? How the fuck do we sneak up on them on a damn boat?”
“We don’t need to be the ones to sneak up on them,” Vani says. “Jarl is expecting us. It’s only Phoenix and Zoo they’re not expecting. If it’s a tender they’ve left, or a small boat, can’t we hide Phoenix and Zoo on it somehow?”
“It depends how small it is,” I say.
“Why don’t we head to the coordinates and see if there’s room on the boat for us to hide?” Phoenix says.
I consider his idea. “They’ll still see you once we pull up alongside.”
I observe Phoenix with a little more consideration. I don’t like the idea of putting our lives into the hands of complete strangers, but I guess if Vani vouches for him, I’ll have to. He’s a little older than us—late twenties, at a guess. His voice is deep, and he’s got a hard looking face, as though he’s not had it easy in life. Just like most of these MC guys, he’s covered in tattoos.
I glance over at Zane. Yeah, I can see why Vani took him along. I have plenty of tats, but not to their level. Zane fits right in.
Zoo grins. “I can swim well enough to slide over the side of the boat before you reach the yacht and then swim around to the other side of the yacht and climb aboard.”
“Can you?” I ask Phoenix.
He puts his shoulders back and lifts his chin. “Yes, I was in the US Navy.”
Well, then . I stare at him and grin. He’s going to be useful.
“Do we know how many men he has?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No fucking clue.”
“Is there any way we can find out? I don’t like the idea of going in blind.”
“Drone?” Zoo points to the sky above the college, where the whir of the drones is a constant background hum.
Phoenix narrows his eyes and follows Zoo’s line of sight. “You think we could borrow one?”
Zane signs at me. The dean will go nuts, but I bet we could get the security guard we know to give us one if he’s on duty … for some money .
“I might be able to,” I say. “If you guys can give me ten minutes, I’ll see what I can do.”
In the end, it took me twenty minutes, a lot of begging, and a shit ton of cash, but I jog back down the drive, a backpack stuffed with one of the smaller security drones and the remote control, as well as the app on my phone that I need to access the footage.
“You got it?” Phoenix asks when I reach them.
“Yeah, it’s in my bag. Not sure how good I’ll be at flying it.”
“Leave that to me,” he says. “It would be a good idea if we stop before we reach where the tender is and use the drone. Take a good look around, see if we can recon the boat? If that’s okay with you guys?”
I like the fact that he defers to me and Zane. He’s probably a lot more qualified about this situation than we are, but he isn’t throwing his weight around and being a dick. I respect that.
I duck my head in a nod. “That sounds like a plan. Merci .”
“Hey.” He gives a shrug. “They’ve got your brother, and you want him back. This is your mission. We’re just back up, but it’s a good idea to check things out before we rush in.”
“It does make sense.” Vani nibbles at her lower lip “I wish we could figure out where Jarl got the boat, and if it’s his or leased. Then we’d be able to get a layout of the yacht. If I had more time, I might be able to hack into some of his information and find out, but it would take days. Without an email or physical access, it will take far too long.”
She’s right. We don’t have that kind of time to spare.
“So, shall we get going?” I ask.
They all nod and some grunt agreement.
Vani jerks her head toward her bike. “You can ride with me.”
I smile. I like that idea. Pressed up close behind Vani will be fun. Zoo takes a spare helmet from the back of his bike and hands it to me.
“This should fit you.”
I put it on, and it does fit. It’s kind of claustrophobic, and as I get on behind Vani, I decide I’m not that crazy about the feeling of wearing a helmet. Plus, it’s going to mess up my hair.
We set off, and the roar of the engines and scent of the fuel has my adrenaline kicking in. We’re going to get my brother back, and those motherfuckers will regret the day they took him.