Page 18 of Whips and Chains (Saint View Murder Squad #2)

WHIP

Ten minutes earlier…

I couldn’t fucking breathe. My chest felt like it was caving in, each rib cracking painfully, both lungs desperate for air I couldn’t get.

The crowd of people in the club swarmed around me, too hot, too close.

Levi shouted my name behind me, but he was the last fucking person I wanted to see. I pushed my way around people dancing, people kissing, people fucking, just searching for a break in the room where I could get some fucking space.

But I knew in my gut I wasn’t going to find it. Because what I was really searching for was a break in the never-ending grief I kept locked tight, that Levi’s question had set free.

I could look at that photo on my shelf and be okay.

But I couldn’t fucking talk about it.

I needed out. Out of this club, out of this town, out of my fucking head that insisted on playing memories over and over in a never-ending loop I couldn’t hit stop on.

I needed to spill some fucking blood.

It was one of only two things that had ever helped ease the desperate ache inside me that opened up like a gaping, mortal wound, trying to end me whenever I thought about the people in that photo.

I didn’t see anything. Just stumbled blindly, needing to get out and find a knife and someone off that fucking list that I could plunge it into.

Levi’s hand clamped down on my shoulder, and I whipped around, shoving him up against the wall, my forearm across his throat.

His eyes went wide, his hands coming up in surrender.

But he didn’t try to fight me off. Just stood there, gaze connected with mine, taking in the deep heaves of my chest as I fought to get enough air.

People around us gasped and backed away. They reminded me of where I was, and that even though, in that moment, I might have happily taken Levi’s blood to calm the storm inside me, that I couldn’t do it here, in my friends’ club, with a hundred fucking witnesses.

I dropped my arm from his throat, shaking out the fists I’d bunched my fingers into.

Levi took a deep breath now that I wasn’t cutting off his oxygen supply, and I braced myself for him to come at me, fists flying.

But he just eyed me. “You good?”

I was so fucking far from good I couldn’t even comprehend what good was. “No.”

His mouth flattened into a grim line. “Too bad. Because whatever the fuck is going on with you is going to have to wait a minute.”

I shook my head. “Can’t. I can’t be here.” I backed up a couple steps, but that was as far as I got.

Levi grabbed my arm and snapped his fingers in front of my face. “I get you’re having a mental breakdown right now, and I’m sorry I set that off, but can you put a fucking pin in it for a minute? Did you miss the way X just dragged Violet into a private room?”

I blinked. “What?”

He breathed out an exasperated sigh. “You heard me.”

Fear curled in my gut. “And you just let him? He can’t be alone with her, Levi! Jesus fucking Christ. Where are they?”

Levi muttered something that sounded like a “fuck you” but pointed down the darkened hallway I’d just stormed out of.

Un-fuckin’-believable. I hauled ass back in that direction, shooting Levi a dirty look as I went. “Seriously, you didn’t for one second think, oh, there goes Violet with a madman who has a fucking choking kink. Maybe I should stop them?”

Levi glared at me, matching my pace so we were side by side. “Oh, I’m sorry. I was too busy chasing after you, making sure you weren’t going to draw a gun in a crowded club and take out half the room!”

“I wasn’t going to do that!”

“Well, how the fuck was I supposed to know? You were acting like you wanted to murder an entire stadium full of people, and if you’d been anyone else, I would have just let it go, but because it was you, I had to consider you might actually do it!”

I grabbed his arm and hauled him in close. “Would you stop fucking shouting at me? Everyone can hear you yelling about guns and murder! You want all these people panicking and running out of here to call the cops?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Whip! Just say thank you!”

“Thank you? Why would I say thank you to you, of all people? Are you that much of a narcissist?” Was he for fucking real?

“A narciss—” He shook his head. “God, you’re such an asshole. Whatever. Are we going to find X before he murders Violet or what?”

I shot him a dirty look ’cause that was a fucking shitty thing to say, even if he didn’t mean it.

To his credit, he averted his eyes, like maybe he realized he’d gone too far as well.

I stormed down the hallway, moving through the crowd, checking each peephole and glass window to see if Violet and X were behind any of them.

Bliss passed us, coming from the supply room Levi and I had been restocking earlier, and I grabbed her hand. “Have you seen Violet and X?”

She had a small grin on her mouth. “I have. But I think they’re kind of busy.”

“Where are they?”

She raised an eyebrow. “When I say busy, Whip, I mean they’re in a private room.”

My stomach churned with the knowledge of what X could be doing to her right now behind a closed door. “But which one?”

She glanced between me and Levi, both of us towering over her, both of us desperate for her to tell us where Violet was. She finally registered our serious expressions, and her smile slipped away. “They’re in the camera room.”

Levi barely waited until she had the words out. He charged down the hallway, and I had to run to keep up with him.

At the door marked cam room, he turned the knob, but unsurprisingly, X had locked it.

He reared back, lifting his leg, one heavy, booted foot aiming for the door.

“Stop,” I hissed at him. “You can’t kick it down.”

He put his foot down but spun to glare at me. “You’re the one who said he could be killing her in there!”

Jesus, Levi had no control on his volume. I gave the couple next to me a reassuring smile and dragged Levi in closer. “It’s a camera room. He’s not going to fucking kill her while there’s a live feed rolling. He’s impulsive—”

“And completely insane, Whip!”

I continued like he hadn’t spoken. “But he’s not stupid.

He hasn’t gone this long without getting caught, just to do something rash in the middle of a club full of people with cameras watching him.

” I eyed the rise and fall of Levi’s chest that was so rapid he might have been verging on a panic attack.

I glared at him. “Take a fucking breath.”

He did.

But it didn’t settle him much. His gaze flicked to the next door that had a plaque marking it as a viewing room.

Both of us moved toward it in unison, and I found myself in a darkened room full of people, some sitting, some standing, all of them touching themselves or each other.

A big screen TV on the opposite wall.

On it was an image of Violet in nothing but a corset and panties, X kissing her senseless. When he pulled away from her mouth, his voice was clear as day when he said, “You have no idea what you’re doing to me right now, Violet. No fucking idea how bad I want my dick inside you.”

“Get out,” Levi and I said in unison.

I glanced over at him, surprised but the deeply guttural, demanding tone in his voice, all while knowing it matched mine.

The people in the room all stopped what they were doing and swiveled in our direction.

One couple stood, picking up the clothes they’d taken off, and scurried out.

But the remaining men, three of them who’d had their cocks out, jerking off while watching the free show X and Violet were putting on, turned and scowled at us.

Levi glared at them. “I said, get out.”

One guy frowned in our direction, only half giving us his attention, the rest of it on Violet’s body, tits perfectly spilling out over the top of that corset in a way that had me instantly hard. Again.

“It’s a cam room,” the man complained. “You don’t fucking own it.”

Levi opened his mouth, but I was just as done as he was. These assholes with their dicks out, getting off watching Violet was sending a rage through me I couldn’t control. “He said, get. The fuck. Out. Go find somewhere else to jack off. This room isn’t for you.”

The warning in my tone wasn’t missed this time. The guy who was drunk enough to want to pick a fight finally thought better of it. He shoved to his feet, dick still half out of his pants, and stumbled toward us. “Whatever. She’s a fat bitch anyway.”

I moved so fast the guy didn’t even see me coming. Within an instant, I had him by the throat, slammed up against the wall, his head bouncing off the plasterboard. “What did you say?”

It wasn’t that he’d called her fat. Violet wasn’t a tiny woman. She wasn’t slim. By anyone’s definition, she would be classified as fat.

That was just a statement of fact.

But it was the fucking disrespect this prick had said it with that had me wanting to strangle him until his eyes rolled back. It was the way he’d used it as a slur, to put her down, just to make himself feel big.

Rage coursed through me.

That woman had been through hell and back and had still somehow managed to remain beautiful, both inside and out.

That was what I’d seen, watching her in bed with the three of us. That was what I saw now, staring at her image on the screen, her curvy body not seen as beautiful by that man.

It was to me.

And it clearly was to Levi and X too.

“Let him go,” Levi said quietly in my ear. “He’s not worth it.”

It was only his voice that cut through the red haze in my head that begged to be sated with a life. It calmed something inside me, just enough for me to uncurl my fingers from the man’s throat.

He slumped back against the wall, coughing painfully, his eyes now wide with the fear he should have had all along. “You’re fucking crazy!” he shouted, staggering away, his friends by his side. “You could have killed me!”

“Could have,” I agreed. “But I didn’t. So get the fuck out of this club before I change my mind.”

His eyes were filled with fear and the men disappeared out of the room.