Vermilion Mercy (Vermilion #1)

Kiara

Present

The moment I step into my apartment, the weight of the day crashes down on me. My bag lands on the floor, folders spilling everywhere, keys clattering onto the table.

I’m exhausted.

Another day of driving myself crazy chasing this story, and I still have nothing. After the months-long exposé I worked on, it feels like they’ve vanished from the face of the earth.

My friend was right. This obsession will get me killed sooner or later.

But I’m too good at my job to just quit. And I might also be a little obsessed with hunting the truth.

Or him.

Whatever.

I pour myself a glass of red wine and start filling the bathtub. Music starts playing somewhere in the background while I struggle out of my clothes and heels. My feet are sore and a dull ache spreads through my neck. I rub it, considering throwing those heels out of my life for good.

I can’t though. It’s part of the act. Sexy little journalist who’s going to uncover what’s happening in this city. I wouldn’t get access to half the information I get without those heels.

Men are embarrassingly easy to manipulate.

I stare at all the folders on my table, my last article poking out from the pile—When the Protectors of the Law Look Away, Justice Becomes Just Another Business.

When I obtained those emails between the chief of police and someone from the Vermilion Organization, I thought that was it.

I thought I’d find his name in one of those emails.

I was mistaken.

None of the names I researched led me to the Varner family.

I glance at my bulletin board, staring at all my articles. All this work, all the danger I put myself through just to get information.

But he’s like a ghost. Nowhere to be found.

My eyes lock on a six-year-old article, written by some stupid reporter who couldn’t even check their facts.

Deadly Fire at Varner Mansion Wipes Out Entire Family.

Yeah, bullshit.

I know he’s not dead. I refuse to believe that. He wasn’t exactly the type of guy who just dies.

I head toward the bathroom, lower myself into the bathtub, take my glass of wine, and close my eyes.

The air thickens instantly. I feel him again.

Maybe insanity has a scent.

Because that’s what’s happening to me. I’m going insane.

I just know he’s not dead. He can’t be. I feel it. And I’m not going to stop following these tracks until I find evidence. The deeper I dig into the Vermilion Organization, the more certain I am that he’s part of it. And always has been.

My whole life, unfortunately, orbits around the idea of him, even though I haven’t seen him for six long years.

It’s probably getting pathetic, but I don’t care.

Maybe if I wasn’t so consumed by my work, I’d find someone who could make me feel what he once did. But I haven’t even come close to that in all these years.

Unbelievable.

I take a sip of the red wine, and the taste on my tongue makes my stomach shiver. Butterflies shamelessly explode in my core. I can’t even remember the last time someone made me feel like this. Or made me feel anything at all.

So I guess I’m alone in my bathtub, drinking my expensive wine and touching myself.

Again.

Pathetic, but here I am.

I graze my hand between my thighs and down my center.

Heat spills through me as I keep touching myself, letting the images in my head take over.

I place my right leg on the tap to widen my legs and sink lower into the bathtub, keeping the glass in my left hand above the water.

I’ve left the bathroom door open so I can hear the music from the living room.

Precious by Depeche Mode is playing as I slow my breathing and focus on the flashes in my mind.

What does he look like now?

Does he still wear everything black, his messy hair falling over his eyes? Did he finally quit smoking?

Suddenly I hear some noise coming from the living room and my heart seizes, a violent skip, like a tiny heart attack.

I jerk upright in the bathtub, my naked skin squeaking against the surface as I scramble up, water splashing around me, the red wine spilling onto the bathtub corner and the rug beside it.

My heart is hammering so loudly I can hear it in my ears, and the heat in my body is rising fast enough that I need to get out of the water immediately.

I stand there, wrapped in a towel, just waiting for whatever horrific fate is coming for me.

This is becoming my little horror routine.

Since I started digging into the Vermilion Organization two years ago and exposing some of their underground operations, I’ve been having these episodes—moments when I feel the presence of someone in my apartment who’s most likely here to kill me and shut my big journalist mouth for good.

But nothing ever happened. Except for the time I found one of my articles ripped to pieces and covered in something red. It didn’t look like blood, but I sent it in for analysis anyway.

It was red wine. The guys from the lab laughed at me.

Idiots.

I know what I’m getting myself into, and not even those invisible ghosts in my apartment can stop me.

I’m a little delusional too. It comes with the job, same as the drinking.

After a few minutes of silence, I decide no one’s here after all.

I just quickly look around the two-bedroom apartment.

No messages.

No severed heads.

Good.

I guess it was nothing. As usual. Just the old apartment. Panic attack gone.

I dry myself with the towel and put on some sleep shorts with a tank top, admiring myself in the closet mirror and sipping more wine.

I’ve figured out that if someone really came here to kill me, I couldn’t actually do much about it.

My life feels pretty hollow anyway. All I care about is my job at the paper. I don’t have any significant other or at least a situationship to care about. My mother is so lost in her own head she probably wouldn’t even realize I’m gone.

I should get a cat, so she can cry over my dead body and let my neighbors know there’s a dead woman who didn’t feed her cat for days.

Ew.

I don’t want to be found rotting and hideous.

I need to get a date.

Maybe I’ll call that guy from the police department who I slept with over two months ago. He was sweet, although I flirted with him only to see the file from that botched operation—seven men probably working for the organization, dead on site.

Pieces of skin were cut out of them. One of the bodies was missing a head. The photos were disgusting.

Well, the police officer whose name I sadly don’t remember didn’t call me. Not that I’d want him to, but I’m offended, I guess.

I go back to the bathroom to do my skincare, standing in front of the mirror as I search for the right serum, when I feel it again.

The presence, the rush of what might be my final moment, hits me.

I stop and freeze, sweat breaking on my neck because I just know. I’m sure. I’m not alone.

Fuck. This is it.

This time it’s real.

I grab the first thing I see lying on the counter—my hairbrush. It’s long and narrow and has a sharp tip. I can at least put up a fight and not die as a pathetic loser.

I look up at the mirror in front of me, and there he is.

A huge figure in the corner of the bathroom right behind me, maybe four feet away and at least a foot taller than me.

He just stands there, hood pulled up, shadowing his face.

In the dim bathroom light, I can see a strand of black hair, slightly wavy at the end, hanging by the side of his eye.

He knows I see him and he’s not doing anything. As if he was waiting.

I’m frozen.

I imagined this moment since I started writing about the criminal underworld of this city and I always imagined myself braver.

But here we are.

I am frozen and scared to death. I don’t think I’m breathing, and the suffocation sends a blanket of sweat across my forehead and neck.

Why is he not doing anything?

Is it him?

Do I even want it to be him?

Suddenly, I smell it. Goosebumps rush all over my body, and I think I’m going to faint any second now.

Someone is standing in my bathroom ready to kill me, and my mind must be playing tricks on me—probably just letting me smell him one last time before I go.

Leather, musk, cardamom, and cigarettes.

My legs start to tremble, and just like that, I know that if I try to run, I’ll probably trip over the first step. He tilts his head subtly to the side and just stands there, his hands in his pockets.

He looks so… unbothered?

Is he fucking enjoying this?

What the hell is he waiting for?

Stop being pathetic, Kiara. Do something.

I urge myself and grab the hairbrush in my palm so hard my nails dig into my skin.

Before I can turn around and attack him, he’s already behind me, his chest pressing into my back and his right hand wrapped around my hand holding the brush, our fingers lacing together. His left arm wraps around my torso so tight that if I was breathing before, I’m definitely not breathing now.

His scent coils around me like a blanket, and I know this isn’t in my head.

He is here.

I knew it.

The final realization hits when I see the skin on his hands.

I know those scars. Pale and rough, crawling from his fingertips to his wrists.

The flesh is uneven, glossy in the dim light, laced with veins and a bit of ink. Old burns—healed, but not forgotten. Burns twisted into patterns time never smoothed out. The scars look like melted lace.

I remember his touch. The way his hands used to graze my skin, before they turned into weapons. The ragged scars I felt on my body six years ago are now just covered in more veins and ink.

I knew it.

A wave of relief hits me, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

I knew he was alive.

The confusing rush disappears instantly when I realize he’s probably here to kill me.

I feel my body already giving up, my legs losing their hold beneath me, but he somehow keeps me upright, pressed to his chest. His grip on my hand tightens until I drop the brush into the sink, and he snaps my hand to my belly, pressing me to his body so tightly that I start feeling dizzy.

I’m not sure if this is really happening or if the insanity finally took over.

He gave me something.

He drugged me. He fucking drugged me.

I can’t hold on.

I manage to blurt out words, but I’m not sure they’re even audible. “You.”

Heaviness settles in my head. I think I’m going to faint.

Hold on, Kiara, just fucking do something.

“I knew it,” I mumble, barely audible.

I feel my body completely shutting down, my legs no longer holding me, my hands limp. I’m just frozen in his hold. His broad chest is right behind my back, and my head falls backward, no longer able to hold itself, landing on his shoulder.

My eyes are closing, but I fight it. I don’t want to go like this.

I open my eyes, but my vision is so blurred I think it’s already a dream when I look up and finally see his eyes.

Green, but so dark they look black, framed by long, thick lashes. But I can see the forest green. It was always there, like a glimpse of light.

Is it pain I see in his eyes?

His jaw tightens as he keeps looking at me.

As much as I want to, I can’t keep my eyes open, and I fall into the darkness.

It’s peaceful.

This is actually the best kind of death that could come for me. But I have a feeling that’s not the case.

What could I expect, when I fell in love with a murderer six years ago and never got over him.