Page 22 of Whips and Chains (Saint View Murder Squad #2)

VIOLET

A ll three of them could go to hell.

I watched as they slunk away toward the door, all three looking like misbehaving dogs with their tails between their legs, having just been yelled at by their owner.

And yet I knew they weren’t going to change their minds.

Chauvinistic pigs.

If men could kill, then how fucking hard could it be? Everything inside me blazed with anger and grief and loss. There wasn’t a single muscle in my body that wasn’t currently primed for a fight, for violence, or for blood to spill.

Screw them for thinking I wasn’t up to the challenge.

Screw Bliss for thinking I wasn’t up to working tonight.

Screw everyone. I wasn’t a fucking child who needed coddling. I’d watched my best friend bleed out in my lap last night. I’d fucked three men, and then gone another round in a sex club while people watched. If I wanted to go on a killing spree then I would.

The sensible part of my brain warned that despite everything I’d been through, we both knew I wasn’t going to do that, but I wasn’t in the mood for rational, well-thought-out plans.

I was running on emotion and sadness and anger and I wasn’t in the mood to be told I couldn’t fucking do something.

I grabbed Nyah’s arm as she walked past me with a drink. “Will you come somewhere with me?”

She cocked her head. “Where?”

I screwed up my face then decided to just tell her the truth. “Stalking.”

Her eyes went wide. “Seriously? Like a police stakeout?”

Oh God, she was more innocent than I was. And dragging her into this was probably insane. But following the guys alone felt too dangerous. I needed her. “Yeah, I guess like a stakeout. You in?”

She glanced over at Dax.

The chemistry between them was so palpable I could practically touch it.

I squeezed her arm. “Sorry, no. Never mind. You should go get your freak on with him again. There’s clearly something between you two.”

But Nyah shook her head. “No, he has a line of people to tattoo anyway, and I really don’t want to be a desperate fool.

” She grinned. “Better to leave him wanting more, you know? Then when I casually drop in at the tattoo shop during the week, he can be pleasantly surprised.” She set her drink down.

“Let’s go do some stalking!” She tucked her arm into mine.

“This night is the best night of my life. Have I told you that? You live a wild life, Violet Garrisen. I’m just happy to be invited to tag along. ”

It took me a good long moment to process that. That she thought I, Miss Queen of Spending Weekends on the Couch with Fictional Doctors, lived a wild life was so laughable. I’d spent my whole life being vanilla.

But the girl I’d been before that night I’d met X in the most horrible of situations felt like someone I didn’t even know anymore.

Suddenly, I realized I couldn’t drag Nyah into all of this without explaining to her what she was getting into. I’d been thrown into this world without a choice in it. But it wasn’t fair to do that to her.

With one eye watching the guys talking to Vincent at the door, I pulled Nyah into a corner. “Listen, you need to know something before we go out there. The guys that were following me around at work today? That’s who we’re stalking.”

Her eyes lit up with excitement. “Oooh, eye candy. They were hot.”

A flicker of jealousy lit up inside me at cute, little Nyah thinking my men were attractive.

I had to do a double take at the possessive “my men.” They weren’t mine.

Except they felt like they were. And that was something I was going to have to get over. Because them being mine would make me theirs. And that was a thought I couldn’t comprehend, even though the idea left me warm on the inside.

I couldn’t belong to three men.

I couldn’t belong to three murderers .

What the hell was I doing?

“Don’t be fooled by pretty faces. They aren’t good guys and they are involved with bad people.

Coming with me tonight will be dangerous.

” I blew out a long breath, realizing I’d made a huge mistake in even asking her to come.

“You know what? Just forget I said anything. Stay here with Dax. He’s a good guy. And this club is safe.”

X shook Vincent’s hand, the two of them nodding, and I narrowed my eyes, catching X’s gaze.

He gave me the widest smile and then pointed at Vincent, then shook his finger with an overexaggerated frown.

Nyah squinted at him. “His charades game is weak. I have no idea what he’s trying to say.”

But I did. He was telling me Vincent wasn’t letting me out.

He was telling me I was stuck here for the night.

Un-fucking-believable.

But also stupid, especially of Levi, because I knew where the back door was. I’d seen it when he and I were cleaning.

As if I wasn’t going to use it.

I moved through the club, beelining for that back door, hoping it didn’t have an alarm on it.

Nyah jogged along beside me in her glittery heels, taking two steps to match each of my longer strides. “Wait for me. I’m coming.”

“You shouldn’t. It’s dangerous.”

Her dark brows furrowed. “All the more reason for me to come. You need someone to have your back.”

I sighed at the couple fucking standing up against the emergency exit. How was I supposed to get out now? They were fully into it, eyes closed, tongues and lips and hands all over each other, slow pumps into the woman’s body while her head hit the door.

I couldn’t just tap her on the shoulder and ask her to delay her orgasm so I could get by.

“Excuse us,” Nyah announced. “We need to get by, please. You’re blocking the exit.”

The couple didn’t pay us any attention. They were too lost in grinding on each other, the scent of alcohol and sweat and sex wafting off them, wrinkling my nose.

Nyah reached around me pushed down on the handle, sending it flying open.

Without the door to lean on, the couple staggered out into the dark parking lot, completely naked, his dick still buried deep inside the woman.

That got their attention. He shouted at us, and my immediate reaction was to start apologizing, but Nyah grabbed my arm and dragged me past them, her middle finger up.

“We asked you politely!”

Vincent turned our way, his attention caught by the commotion.

Ah shit, my babysitter was on to us.

“Run,” I said, grabbing Nyah’s arm. “We’re about to get busted.”

My heart pounded, even though I knew Vincent wouldn’t hurt me. But the thought of him forcing me to stay here was just as bad. Getting locked in Psychos suddenly felt as claustrophobic as the warehouse a madman had locked me in. My skin crawled at the thought of it, my chest tightening like a vise.

Nobody was locking me in anywhere.

I scanned the parking lot, noting X’s van and Levi’s bike, but Whip’s car was noticeably missing. I caught a glimpse of taillights turning out onto the road and the silver sedan he drove. “Shit! They’ve already left.”

“We can catch them. My car is right here.”

And that’s when I realized that Nyah was wearing nothing more than her tiny skirt and barely-there top. We hadn’t stopped to get her coat or her purse.

“Your keys…” I watched, frustrated, as Whip’s car disappeared around the corner.

Nyah opened the door of her car. “Girl, please. I’m from farming country where everyone leaves their doors unlocked and their keys inside.” She flipped down the visor, and the keys dropped into her open palm.

I winced. “You know, around here, that’s a recipe to get your car stolen, right?” But I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I slid into the passenger seat and Nyah got in behind the steering wheel.

She grinned, her eyes flashing with excitement. “From what I hear, if someone wants to steal your car in Saint View, they’ll do it with or without the keys.”

She had a point. A locked car had never been a deterrent in this town.

Nyah gunned the engine like she was an F1 driver on the starting line and then slammed her foot down on the accelerator. Vincent, halfway across the lot to where we were, had to jump out of the way to avoid getting mowed down.

“Yeah!” Nyah fist pumped the air. “Ain’t nobody holding us down! Not even you, scary, brooding, bouncer dude!”

I cringed and waved an apologetic hand in Vincent’s direction.

Seemed smart to be polite to the psychopath.

But Nyah was hopped up on an adrenaline high and took the corner out of the lot in a screech of tires. I gripped the holy shit bar so tightly my knuckles went white and fought to keep my head from smashing into the window with the g-force she was creating.

“Don’t worry, Vi. I’m an awesome driver. I’ll catch up in no time.”

I widened my eyes at the speedometer, clicking up to the speed limit in seconds, until we were flying down the main strip of Saint View at about twenty over.

“Oh, I’m going to die,” I muttered, bracing myself against the dashboard.

Honestly, dying in a flipped car or one that had crashed into a pole had not been on my bingo card for the week.

How on earth could I have survived the warehouse, and the psychopaths who had all come out of the woodwork, only to be killed by the cute little brunette who looked like she should have been a school teacher?

Nyah ran a red light, and I squeezed my eyes shut, praying not to hear a horn blast or the wail of police sirens.

But neither happened. We straightened up after taking a corner at a pace that rolled my stomach, and I finally dared to peel open my eyes.

Nyah backed right off the pace and pointed at the car ahead of us. “Found them.”

I breathed out a sigh of relief. Then glanced over at her. “Where the hell did you learn to drive like that?”

“Uh, Oklahoma?”

“Why did you say that like it was a question?”

She sighed. “Fine! You busted me. I didn’t grow up in the country. I grew up in New York.”

I had no idea how that related to the way she’d just driven the car.

She glanced over at me. “I might have spent my teens stealing cars and running from the police. It’s no big deal.”

I widened my eyes at her, remembering something she’d said at work earlier that day. “You said you didn’t have a car…”

She gave me a sheepish smile. “I don’t.”

I gazed around the interior of the car like maybe I’d dreamed it. But no, we were very definitely in one. “Then what the hell are we driving?”

She gave a laugh that clearly told me she was on a high she couldn’t get down from. “I saw this couple park their car and put the keys in the visor while I was standing in line.”

“You’re driving a stolen car?”

She shrugged. “Only until we ditch it.”

I stared at her. “Is it me? Am I just the magnet for all people with no respect for the law?”

She laughed. “It’s fine, Vi. Seriously. The people who own this car will be in the club for hours yet, getting their freak on. You wanted to stalk, let’s stalk.”

I didn’t have it in me to argue. At this point, I’d been exposed to so many illegal things that stealing a crappy old car and taking it on a joyride through town seemed almost innocent.

She peeped little looks at me as we followed Whip’s car from a distance, letting several other cars sit between ours and his. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

I sighed. “I wish I could. But honestly, all of it is insane and illegal, and I’ve already implicated you in too much of it just by bringing you tonight. I don’t want to make it worse.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “I can guarantee that whatever it is, I’ve been there, done or seen that.

” She gave me a half-smile. “Let’s just say my parents aren’t very nice people, and I grew up surrounded by their friends, who are also not very nice people.

So there’s really nothing you can tell me that is going to shock me.

I’ve seen it all before, and probably worse. ”

I bit my tongue, knowing that stealing a few cars had nothing on murdering a few people.

Was “few” even accurate? How many people had the three of them taken out between them? Five? Ten? A hundred?

I was suddenly reminded that getting involved with any of them was completely insane.

And yet here I was, chasing them around town, because I couldn’t fucking quit any of them.

Nyah tapped the brakes, slowing us down for a red light, and we both ducked in our seats, closer to Whip’s car than we’d been yet. I could see X’s head through the back window, him sitting in the center of the back seat while Levi and Whip rode up front.

Nyah swiveled to face me. “My dad is in the Mafia. He kills people with a click of his fingers. And so do my brothers and my uncles and my cousins, and pretty much everyone I know.”

My mouth dropped open. “Holy shit.” I blinked at her. “You’re an honest-to-God Mafia princess? Do they actually exist outside of TV shows and books?”

She shrugged. “I’ve been trying to get out of that life for years.

I’ve been lucky so far. My dad hasn’t tried to marry me off to anyone.

But I know he’s been saving that drawcard for when it best suits him.

That’s all I’m good for to him. I’m just a bargaining piece to play when he needs a new alliance. ”

“That’s…a lot.” I didn’t know what else to say.

She nodded. “But I’m out, at least for now.

They’ll come after me eventually, I’m not stupid enough to think otherwise, but right now I’m free.

” She raised a shoulder. “But whatever your guys are into, whatever you’ve found yourself in, I’ve probably seen and done worse.

” Her laughter filled the car. “I just need a friend. I don’t know anyone here, and I’ve never been alone in my whole life.

” She sniffed. “Wow. Sorry. I just really dumped all that in your lap, and now you probably think I’m a desperate loser who needs therapy for her family issues. ”

I shook my head. “I could really use a friend too.” I took a deep breath then let out the words in a rush. “I watched a man get decapitated, and then I watched my best friend bleed out in front of me, and those three guys we’re following? They all murder people ’cause they like it.”

I waited for Nyah to admit my story was worse than hers. For her to be shocked or worse, fearful. I waited for her to slam her foot down on the brakes and demand I get out of her car.

Her stolen car, but I guessed it was still hers more than mine.

But she just gripped the wheel tighter. “Sorry about your friend.”

Out of everything she could have said, that was probably the most normal response I could have imagined.

I burst out into uncontrollable laughter.

Nyah’s expression morphed to concern, but just as quickly turned into laughter of her own. “Did we just become best friends?”

I was pretty sure we had.