24. Vani
24
VANI
T he brooding towers of the college loom over us as we approach on the bikes. Lex is riding tandem with Saint, and Zane is on the back of my bike again. The place looks haunted, even on a sunny day.
We stop a ways back from the entrance, so I can speak to Phoenix and Zoo. My clothes had dried out a little on the boat, and the day has been warm, so I’d put them back on and given Saint back his shirt. Riding a bike with nothing protecting the skin is never a good idea.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Zoo asks me as we idle the bikes on the side of the road.
“I’ll be fine,” I tell him. “I promise.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “You sure?”
I kick my stand down and swing my leg over the seat and go up to him.
“Absolutely, and thank you. We couldn’t have done this without you.” I throw my arms around him then repeat the process with Phoenix. “You both need to get back,” I say. “It’s a long drive for you, and while we’re eternally grateful for your help, we’ve got things we need to take care of here.”
Phoenix nods once. They won’t be getting shit from my father, as I spoke to him the minute we got off the boat. I was lucky modern cells are so waterproof these days, or it would have been wrecked after taking a dive off the yacht. Before that, it had been buzzing repeatedly in my pocket, no doubt blowing up with Dad’s calls.
The least I could do is ensure my father won’t make the guys’ lives hell for helping us, so I put my big girl panties on and called him.
He was livid at first, but after I explained to him that we are all okay, and we didn’t bring him because we really didn’t want to start a war, he slowly calmed down.
I also explained gently that I would always be his girl, but I’m also growing into a woman, and he needs to let me make my own decisions at times. He’s still pissed at me, and I’ve promised him I’ll go home this month for a visit so we can talk in person, but for now, he’s at least reassured I’m safe.
I made him promise he won’t take any of this out on Phoenix and Zoo. If they hadn’t been there, things would have gone very differently.
Dad doesn’t know about Apo knocking me off the yacht, and Phoenix and Zoo agreed not to tell him. Probably for the best, because he’d immediately demand I came home, but he’d also kill them both for putting me in that position. Instead, I gave him a very sanitized version of the events. Lies upon lies, but all for the greater good. He’s mollified, for now.
This way, I get to stay here, and the guys get to keep their limbs. Win-win.
“So, we’ll see you soon, huh?” Zoo taps the handlebar as he speaks, and he kicks his boot in the dirt on the roadside.
“Of course. I won’t stay away for long. Anyway, Dad wants me home soon for a full debrief.”
“Ass kicking, more like,” Zoo says with a deep chuckle.
“Don’t you just know it.”
I gesture at the long, open road. “Go on. Best be getting back. I’m okay, honestly, and I’ll see you in a few weeks. And thank you, again.”
“No need for thanks, Ivani,” Phoenix says seriously, palming the back of his neck with one hand. “You’re family.”
I nod and swallow hard, my throat thick with emotion. Their engines growl to life, and then they’re off, rumbling down the road. I watch them go, and part of me wants to be going with them, back to my home. It’s the place I felt safest in the world, but another part of me knows I’ve outgrown the club. It’s time for me to forge my own way in the world. To build my own relationships and connections. While I’ll always be able to rely on my dad and the other club members, I need to be my own person.
I climb back onto my bike, and big arms come around me, reminding me there’s a safety of sorts here, too, in Zane’s arms, at least.
Lex doesn’t look good. His face was pale before we got on our bikes to ride back, and he looks almost collapsed over his brother now. He’s insisted he won’t go to a doctor or the emergency room, though. He says if he does, there will be too many questions, so we’ve agreed to try to fix his hand at the college and get his face checked out. There’s a nurse on site, and I pray she knows enough about breaks to be able to help. If not, I’ll knock Lex out again myself and drive him to the damn hospital.
We park the bikes and head in through a side door. Saint has the backpack with the drone and controls in it, and Zane signs something. Saint shrugs and gives him the pack.
Zane walks off toward the guards’ rooms.
“What was that about?” I ask.
“He’s taking the drone back so I can stay with Lex,” Saint says.
“How’s your pain level?” I ask Lex.
He smiles but it’s wobbly, as if he’s feeling sick. “I can manage.”
“No need to manage, tough guy.” I link my arm through his, taking care not to brush against his hand. “That’s what they have modern medicine for. We can alleviate pain these days.” I bump my head gently against his, and then on a whim, kiss his cheek.
His soft laugh makes my heart ache. What has he been going through? He hasn’t said much so far. I guess there will be time to talk about everything later. Right now, I need a shower, and some time alone to decompress and take a nap, and then I need my men. Not just because I’m aching for them, which I am, always, but because emotionally, I need to feel that connection. Even if it will be in the fucked up, dark way we four come together.
We knock on the door of the nurse’s room, and she answers in less than a minute, drying her hands on a paper towel. She regards Saint and Lex, and her brow wrinkles. “Don’t tell me you boys have been fighting again.”
With a pretty face and brown hair threaded with silver, she could be anywhere between fifty-five and sixty-five. She has that nurturing aura of someone’s mom, and that makes me feel all tearful again. I miss my own so damn much.
“No, ma’am,” Lex says. “I… erm… I got my hand trapped, and I broke my thumb trying to get it free.”
“Trapped? In what? Good Lord in heaven, come in, come in. Did you smack your head on the wall too?” She narrows her eyes. “This has to go in the report book.”
Saint takes out his wallet and counts out a few hundred-dollar bills as I watch, shocked. He’s not going to try to bribe this sweet nurse, is he?
“For the shelter,” he says. “With our gratitude, for keeping this between us. We’ll never tell anyone you fixed it, and we can’t have it in the book. We also really don’t want to go to the emergency room. It’s been a long day.”
The exhaustion in Saint’s voice as he says that last sentence is so very real.
The nurse purses her lips but nods. “I suppose that is a generous offer, and in thanks, I’ll keep this between us.” She gently takes Lex’s hand, examining it. “I think this might need an x-ray to be sure it’s a simple break and won’t need surgery.” She presses his face gently, and Lex winces. Then she shines a bright light in his eyes. “Really, a bang to the head needs a scan.”
Lex gazes up at her with his pretty blue eyes and flutters his lashes. “Please, Miss Greene, can you just splint my hand for me? As for my head, it will be fine. You know we experience worse in the fights here. It’s my hand that needs attention. It just needs to be splinted. It’s a straightforward break. Trust me.”
“Trust me. From a Viper boy.” She laughs under her breath, but she eyes the money again. “Okay. Let me fix it as best as I can. But if you get pain that carries on for longer than the next few days, or you feel sick or dizzy, you need to get checked out. I’ll splint it in the correct position, so it should heal the right way.”
She gets to work and, when she’s finished, I see she’s given him a splint with a bandage attached, which wraps around his wrist too. She opens a cabinet and takes out a bottle, shaking four pills into her hand. “Take two now, and two before bed. If you need more in the morning, come to see me, but Tylenol should be adequate by then.”
We leave the room, the twins thanking her again, and I turn to Saint. “She shouldn’t have done that without reporting it, but I guess it is for a good cause, for the animals.”
“Animals?” He frowns.
“At the shelter,” I say.
He laughs. “Oh, yeah, no, that’s just our code because Ms. Greene likes to think she’s a good person. She’ll spend it at the casino. She’s a gambling addict.”
“But she can’t be,” I blurt. “She’s so sweet, and she’s got to be sixty.”
Saint looks at me as if I’m idiotic. “Being older doesn’t automatically make you a good person, Vani.”
My cheeks warm. “No, I guess you’re right. I can’t imagine you changing your spots. You’ll still be a corrupt bastard when you’re eighty.”
“Now, now, children,” Lex interrupts. “I need to lie down. You should come with us to the mansion, Vani.”
I shake my head. “No, I want some time to myself. I need to decompress.”
“And you can’t do that with us?” Saint says angrily.
“I just want a bit of time to myself.” I glance at my phone. “I’ll come to the mansion in a couple of hours. I just want to freshen up and take a nap, okay? I’ll be there soon, I promise.”
Lex nods wearily, but Saint scowls at me. God, he’s a clingy one when you get right down to it.
“Ninety minutes,” I bargain. I should be able to get an hour’s sleep then.
He nods and pivots on his heel to stalk off in the opposite direction. I roll my eyes at Lex, who smiles then turns and follows his twin.
I take the stairs to my room, aching all over and needing the time to myself.
After a long shower, I dress in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt then curl up on my side on the bed. I close my eyes and will myself to sleep, but the darkness reminds me of being under the water, and my eyes fly open again. I lie there, my heart racing, staring at the wall, trying to process everything that’s happened. It doesn’t help, and panic starts to build the longer I dwell on things.
Needing to move, I stand and check my reflection in the mirror. I look pretty good for a girl who almost drowned. No, nope, can’t go there . I close my eyes as the terror grips me again. That feeling, that awful, terrible feeling of nothing but crushing water all around me, and the dark depths below.
For those long, drawn-out seconds of my life, I’d thought I was going to die. Been absolutely certain of it, in fact, until he came. Again. My savior. Zane is making a habit of it. The silent, massive man is my protector. Lex is my comforter, and Saint … he’s my dark soul twin because he might be fucked up, but he matches something equally depraved in myself.
I suck in a breath and open my eyes again.
I have a feeling that, tonight, they’ll all be going easy on me, and I categorically don’t want that. I need them to destroy me then rebuild me from the ground up. I need Saint’s sneers and harsh words, and Zane’s terrifying presence, and then after we’ve indulged in epic debauchery, while the other two play video games, Lex can clean me up and put me back together again.
What the Vipers give me is my own dark, twisted fantasy reflected at me, and tonight I want it as fucked up as only they can give it.
I can’t sleep, and I don’t think I’ll be able to until they’ve used me to the point I’ll be so exhausted I won’t even be able to think about what’s happened or how much we almost lost.
Deciding to make myself pretty for the Vipers, I change from my sweatpants into a red dress that buttons up at the front and clings to all my curves. The black lace of my bra peeps from the top, and I make sure I have matching lacy panties beneath it. Because I’m still me, and I can’t do full-on girly, I add my biker boots to the outfit.
I check myself out in the mirror and try to decide if I look cool, or just a little slutty, but then shrug at my image. I think the guys will be happy either way.
I apply my lipstick, spray a blast of cherry and smoke scented perfume, and then make my way out of the door.
From various rooms comes the sound of laughter and voices. I’m part of this place, and yet I feel so separate from it, divided from normality by all I’ve been through. The twins, and Zane, too, carry scars from their past, some physical, and some hidden but still very real. It means we’re always on the outside. Unlike the Devils and their Duchess, who are feared but seem popular, my men and I like to lurk in the shadows.
If we became an official foursome, it would make things hard for us here. I doubt we’d ever be accepted in the same way those three men and Mackenzie are.
I don’t know her well, but Mackenzie is a perfect, pretty princess, and I’m anything but. I laugh out loud at the idea of me being a perfect princess, and flush as a couple of men walking by shoot me puzzled glances. I’m really getting ahead of myself. Here I am, wondering if we’d be accepted as a foursome, and none of the guys, not even Zane, who has said he loves me, have shown any interest in taking things farther than this dangerous game we play.
Do I even want them to take things farther? I consider the question as I leave the building and head through the woods, toward the mansion. I’d like them in my life on a more permanent basis, but I’m not sure how or in what way because I sure as hell don’t want to be pregnant and having their kid the way Mackenzie did. No judgement for her, but after what I’ve seen women in the club go through, I want to live my life while I’m young, and maybe, big maybe , have kids later.
The evening is well and truly setting in, and the sun is losing its battle to stay in the sky. As it sets, the clouds become pink tipped at the edges, and I pause for a moment to breathe in the blessed air and enjoy the beauty of this moment. I might have lost it all if it weren’t for Zane. Instead of looking at these clouds, I might have been in a watery grave, sucked under the silt and debris at the bottom of the lake.
For a horrifying moment, I see myself, long hair fanned out, floating in the water, and the image sends ice crawling up my spine. I shake it off and head purposefully toward the mansion.
When I arrive, I knock once then enter. Zane and Lex are on the sofa, playing a violent game on the huge TV on the far wall. Lex is playing despite his thumb, and he appears to be losing, badly, no surprise.
He glances over at me and gives a low whistle. “Jesus Christ, Venom. You look good enough to fuck.”
Zane’s eyes widen as he stares at me, and his fingers freeze on the control pad. He gives a slow but definite nod of agreement.
A smile teases my lips. “I should hope so.”
I give my hips an extra wiggle as I head across the room, toward the kitchen where Saint is cooking.
Onscreen, both men die in their game, and I can’t help but giggle that my arrival distracted them so much.
As I get closer, the most amazing aroma hits me. Herbs, wine, meat. It smells delicious, and despite my still lurching stomach, a tiny pang of hunger makes itself known. We’d stopped off at a roadside pitstop on the way from the club and eaten then, but that was hours ago, and I’m starved.
“What are you making?” I ask.
He turns to me and grins. “ Coq au vin, cherie .”
“It smells amazing.” I worry that after all I’ve been through, I won’t have an appetite, but as if on cue, my stomach gives a loud rumble.
I laugh and pat my belly.
“I think she’s hungry,” Lex calls over his shoulder, the noise distracting him momentarily from his game.
Saint turns to me, and his blue eyes almost look as if lit from within. His gaze roams down my body, lingering on my tits, which are barely covered in this dress, the buttons straining. “We’re all hungry, ma belle , but food first, and then we can satiate the real hunger, non ?”
I shiver at his words and his intense scrutiny. “Yes, um, yes, of course. I mean, that sounds nice.”
Nice? What the fuck is wrong with me? Whenever Saint speaks French, it does things to me. I lose the ability to be cool and controlled. He moves closer to me, his hand finding my hip to yank me into him, and then he leans in and licks my neck. It’s an odd and yet intimate thing to do.
“It will be nice, cherie , for once. I promise.”
I grab the lapels of his fancy shirt, my nerves suddenly gone because I do not want nice. “Oh, no, you don’t, Saint. I want you . The real, authentic, fucked up you. I didn’t nearly die to be given an anemic version of you, of this .” I gesture between me and him, and the two men on the sofa.
His eyes flash then he nods once, quick and sure. “ Bien .”
“Oh,” I add. “And we will talk about what went down here while Zane and I were gone, but not tonight. Tonight is for us to find each other again.”
I walk away and can feel his gaze on me. My back is straight, and I’m proud of myself because I finally feel as if I’ve found my spine with these men. I glance at Lex and Zane on the sofa, and Zane’s eyes lift from the TV screen to look at me. For a moment, we simply hold one another’s gaze, until I break the spell.
He told me he loved me. He said it in the most beautiful way, using his sign language to show me I mean something to him. Zane has done some crazy shit, and there have been times with him when I’ve felt extremely unsure as to the ground beneath my feet, but he’s saved my life, twice. I feel as if I have finally found someone solid to hold on to.
As for Lex and Saint, things aren’t quite as simple there. We need to talk for sure. I wrecked their shit. I tore up Saint’s paintings and damaged Lex’s car. His baby. His pride and joy.
They deserved it, though, and maybe it was wrong, but hell, they’ve been tormenting me ever since I got here.
Lex glances at me, too, and his expression is much harder to read than Zane’s. Does he trust me? Or is that destroyed now?
I again break the eye contact first and head over to the big chair in the far corner of the living space. I watch Saint in the kitchen as he prepares the food.
When we finally sit and have our talk, I need to discuss with Saint just why he felt it was remotely okay to come into my room at night and watch me sleeping. Touch me while I was sleeping, for God’s sake. That’s not normal. Even for how fucked up these guys are, that takes things to a whole other level. Once more, though, I get the same aching in my core I always experience when I think about what he did.
On the one hand, it’s depraved, but on the other, he’s so into me he broke into my room and watched me sleep. Any normal girl would be calling the police. Me? I’m thinking how romantic it is. I’m so effed up in the head.
It would help to have a girlfriend to talk it over with. It would never have been Angelica and her little gang, though. Even without the information Saint has dropped on me like a nuclear bomb, I’d never have felt able to discuss this stuff with them, because I know they’d judge me.
Angelica. Shit. I’ve barely even given her any thought. My near-death experience blocked that part of what had happened out of my mind. Is there any way Saint is mistaken about what he believes happened between Reagan and Angelica? Why would Angelica even tell Saint something like that? I’m not sure how I feel about it all. Confused, mostly, and hurt. I’d wanted to find out the truth about what happened to my sister, but now it lurks within reach, I find myself not wanting to think about it.
Saint finally calls us to come eat, and we file to the table. Saint fusses around us, pouring us wine and then plating up our food. I didn’t think I’d be able to manage much of it. I still feel sick from what happened on the lake. My lungs still hurt a little from holding my breath for so long, and my stomach is churned up. The food is delicious, however, and once I start eating, it’s as if my body realizes how in need of the sustenance it is, and I want more.
The wine is gorgeous too, and soon I’m sated, and more than a little tipsy as I take a second glass.
“I told Vani we’d go easy on her tonight,” Saint says suddenly. “But our special little whore said she doesn’t want that.” He turns his cool gaze on me. “Isn’t that right, Venom?”
I swallow the wine and hold the eye contact. “That’s right,” I say. “I don’t want to be treated any differently than usual.” Then I smirk. “And frankly, I don’t think some of you are capable of it. You’d just fuck it up and make things awkward.”
My words hit him like a slap. His jaw flexes and his lips tighten. You’re not the only one who can dish out shit, Saint .
Zane signs something.
Lex huffs out an annoyed breath. “Great, so you got to fuck her up the ass, while I was being beaten?”
Zane signs again, and Lex smirks. “He says he did it for us and now you’re nicely loosened up so I can plow your ass good and hard.”
I blush deeply, if my hot cheeks are any indicator.
“I’m going to use some of the new toys I bought,” Saint says.
“What toys?” I demand.
“Wouldn’t you like to know? I have so many that I’ve bought, just for you. New ropes.” Lex’s face lights up as he speaks.
“Vibrators.” Saint smiles darkly. “So many things, but tonight, I think we’ll be using something of my choosing, and you can just wait and see.” His gaze is almost angry as he looks at me. “You set the parameters for tonight, darling. ” He says the darling sarcastically on a fake drawl. “I offered to be nice, but according to you, I’m not capable. So, we will be calling the shots. Our rules. Our way. You’re just the plaything. And toys don’t talk back.”
I swallow hard. Shit, he’s genuinely pissed, and I only have myself to blame.