Retribution Read online

  “Stop stop stop!”

  Her body teetering on the precipice of climax, Max stopped. He looked up at her and grinned. It seemed a little evil now, the things that mouth could do.

  “Oh my God,” she muttered as her chest heaved.

  “Six minutes and two seconds.”

  “It was not! How would you even know?”

  “I was counting.”

  “Bullshit.” Not even a math prodigy like Max could keep time in his head. Well, maybe he could. In any case, it hadn’t felt like a mere six minutes to her. It had been an eternity, yet also the blink of an eye.

  He rose and embraced her. They kissed under the shower head and gathered their strength, two fighters clinching in the middle of a heated bout. When Val felt ready for another round, she wrapped her leg around his waist. In an instance Max grabbed her other leg and hoisted her up. Val slid down onto him as he pushed into her, fanning her flames again. She clutched his wet hair, arms locked around his neck, desperate to withstand his onslaught. Don’t come, don’t come…

  His breath burned her ear in time with his thrusts, growing hotter and stronger as his hips picked up speed and his muscles tightened. Then all at once he stopped. He threw up an arm and leaned against the wall, chest heaving into hers. His head collapsed onto her shoulder. She almost begged him to continue, but of course they couldn’t here. The shower had too much potential for serious injury if they both passed out, or if he passed out holding her. The only way it worked was if she came first, but he was closer. She’d won this round.

  Suddenly giddy, she buried her head in his neck and laughed like a horny teenager on an X-rated Tilt-A-Whirl ride. She loved this game. “Three minutes,” she said after she’d caught her breath.

  “You just made that up.”

  She had. “Don’t be a sore loser, Max.” She giggled. “A sore, blue-balled loser.”

  He snickered and cut the water. “We’ll see about that.”

  Val yelped when he bear-hugged her legs, scooped her up, and threw her over his shoulder. Both of them still wet and dripping, he marched back to the bedroom and dropped her onto the mattress. He seized her legs and yanked her to the edge of the bed, then slammed into her from where he stood. His eyes were wild and his body hard, thighs and chest clenching and unclenching with each frantic push to be as deep inside her as possible. With every thrust he made her scream. Like a tidal wave he crashed over her, consuming everything in his path, and before she could beg for relief, an orgasm tore her away—

  I’m running down a corridor of concrete inlaid with metal doors. As I reach a corner, I slow and raise my gun. My heart pounds against my rib cage. I wheel around the corner and recognize Lucien’s back in a white lab coat, scrambling away from me. I almost shoot him before I realize he’s dragging someone with him, and that person is Max.

  “Stop!” I say.

  Lucien spins to face me, holding Max in front of him as a human shield. Max thrashes and tries to fight back, but he’s pale and sweaty, his movements weak. He looks like he can barely stand. Lucien holds a gun to Max’s head.

  “You’re going to let me leave,” he says.

  From behind me the sound of police sirens wafts through the corridor, getting louder.

  “Let him go.” My voice quavers. I know this won’t end well.

  “You know, you and he don’t technically need to be alive to make your babies. I have your eggs, I have his sperm. That is all that’s required. They will forgive me eventually.”

  My hands are shaking. He has my eggs?

  “Let me leave now and I will send him back to you when I’m finished with him.”

  I know he’s lying. He won’t let Max go. Even if he’s not, it’s a deal I can’t take. Whatever he plans to do to Max, I’m sure Max would rather be dead. My mind races to think of another option. I can lie, too.

  “Fine,” I say. I lower my gun and pretend to acquiesce. “Leave him at—”

  Lucien shoots me in the chest. I drop to the floor. Blood fills my lungs and I can’t breathe. My vision fades. I hear Max screaming—

  Blur.

  “Get up!” Sten yells in my face as sirens blare all around us. “Goddammit, Shepherd, GET UP!”

  I struggle to stand but my legs won’t hold my weight. Blood trickles down my forehead and into my eyes. I can’t get up.

  Sten is frantic. He pulls on my arm but can’t drag me far. He’s limping. Specs of blood splatter his coat.

  “Get up—” Sten’s head jerks sideways as a bullet strikes his temple.

  Blur.

  I’m standing on the balcony of Max’s house, the balcony where he threw his father to his death. The sky is overcast, the water is black. All the glass is cracked and trash is strewn everywhere. At my feet I see a weathered newspaper with a headline that reads: “President Barrister Declares War.” Before I can check the date or read the article, the brightest light I’ve ever seen bursts in the sky and mushrooms upward. I hear and feel a rumbling that grows louder, shattering the glass around me, until a shock wave hits and I’m engulfed in flames—

  Blur.

  “Nah, I don’t eat leftovers.” Sten tosses the doggie bag of food in the trash next to our opulent hotel bed.

  I pop off my shoes. My feet ache. “Then why’d you even ask to have it bagged?”

  “Because kids in Africa are starving, Shepherd.” He takes off his gun holster and drops it on the dresser. I take mine off and set it next to his, eyeing the old wedding ring I still wear for some reason. A deep, crushing sadness pulses through me before I’m able to suppress it. He’s gone.

  Poking a spot on my chest, I flinch when I touch a bruise. I prefer physical pain to the pain of memories.

  He notices my grimace. “What?”

  I strip off my shirt, revealing a fresh patch of black and blue on my rib cage. “One of the bodyguards kicked me.”

  Sten gathers a handful of ice from a bucket next to the minibar. He holds it out like he’s going to give it to me, but instead drops it into a glass, uncaps a tiny bottle of whiskey, and dumps the liquor on top.

  “Don’t be a baby,” he says and takes a sip.

  I roll my eyes and turn to walk away. He grabs my arm and yanks me flush against him, his lips a couple of inches from mine. Now I’m hot.

  He holds the glass out to me. “Drink this. Booze always helps.”

  I take the whiskey and gulp it down. His eyes don’t leave mine. “Sex helps, too.”

  “Fuck you, Sten.”

  “Anytime.” He seizes my lips with his, and I wonder if we’ll get noise complaints again. The glass drops from my hand and onto the carpet with a dull clink.

  Like smoke the vision evaporated, leaving Val’s ceiling in its wake. She remembered why she usually tried to concentrate on something specific right before climax; if she didn’t, a random jumble of death and mayhem filled the void. A collection of things she didn’t want to see—like Max’s death, Delilah destroying the world, and a potential future with Sten.

  Beside her, Max breathed like he’d just finished a sprint. Sweat and shower water dibbled down his skin, his still-erect penis glistening in the sun’s waning light.

  “I win,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Max always won. They played the game for nearly three days straight, stopping only when they were too exhausted or hungry to continue, or when Toby howled for want of something. Val usually didn’t like playing games she couldn’t win, but this one was an exception. The control Max wielded over his body was incredible, wrought from decades of managing his ability in a way Val had never needed to. She tried a wide variety of positions to coax him into coming first, but a flick of his wrist, a slide down his shaft, or a touch of his tongue was all it took for her to explode in his arms. It wasn’t fair.

  She didn’t talk about her visions, and he didn’t ask. He knew they were generally awful, and instead of inquiring about what she’d seen, he would hold her and stroke her hair if she looked u
pset, and she loved him more for it. She tried focusing as she’d done with Sten, but she couldn’t concentrate on anything but Max and what she felt for him. Their emotional connection was too strong. Could be that was how Sten could work his magic—maybe the disconnection was key. Unfortunately, her intimate time with him had knocked loose a slew of possible futures with the dirty cop, none of which she would accept. Not to mention Max’s death, or her death, or their stolen child…

  I can change the things I see, she had to remind herself.

  Val tried to call Stacey half a dozen times during short breaks in their game, but could only get her friend’s voice mail. She understood Stacey’s annoyance at bringing a third person into the house, but it was Val’s house. And it was only temporary. Soon Max would move back into his own condo, she’d move in with him, and Stacey would have the whole house to herself. It didn’t mean they weren’t friends anymore or that Max had somehow replaced her. She had to know that. They could talk it out if Stacey would just return her damn phone calls.

  Even if Stacey didn’t want to talk about their living arrangement, they needed to talk about what they’d do with the business while Val was in Fiji with Max. If she wanted, Stacey could work cases and keep the full fee while Val was gone. She could even take over the business indefinitely. Frankly, Val’s epic fail with the Margaret Monroe case had burned her out. She needed a break from dealing with other people’s problems so she could get her own fucked-up life in order. As Max’s wife, Val didn’t need the money anyway…wouldn’t need the money. They weren’t quite married yet.

  As Max’s wife. Even when she’d been Robby’s fiancée, marriage had always been an idea to her, something other people did for tax reasons or to fulfill obligations. She could never fully picture herself as someone else’s wife. Val hadn’t thought she was capable of completely giving herself to someone else, to be legally and spiritually bound to another person for life, until she met Max and experienced firsthand the devastation of trying to live without the person she loved most in the world.

  After three days of frantic lovemaking, they took an extended break for Max to call Michael and set up a time to retrieve his passport from his condo.

  “Abby agreed to this evening,” Max said when he got off his cell phone. Clad only in his boxers, he lounged on the couch and tossed his phone on the coffee table. He picked at a pint of ice cream while Toby lay at his feet, then frowned and stared into space for a moment. Val recognized the look—guilt. He made it a lot.

  Val plopped down next to him, took the spoon from his hand, and ate a mouthful of fudge ripple. “She could be sleeping with her brother.”

  He shook his head and paired it with a slight roll of his eyes. “The whole world isn’t all incest, rape, and murder, though it seems that way sometimes.” He sighed. “I should give her the condo.”

  “People break up all the time, Max. It’s never easy. Sometimes it’s straight-up ugly. At least she wasn’t hit by a car and left for dead.”

  By the way he flinched, Val could tell he hadn’t considered the possibility that being with him had put Abby in danger. If the people who wanted Max and Val to have a child were willing to kill Val’s fiancé to further that goal, there was no reason they wouldn’t do the same to Abby. In fact, now that Val thought about it, she was surprised they hadn’t killed Max’s ex-fiancée already. Maybe they’d decided to play the waiting game instead, betting the bond between Max and Val would eventually pull them back together. If so, they’d bet right.

  “And don’t just give her your condo,” Val said. “That’s weird.”

  “I can always buy another one.”

  “That’s not the point. Money isn’t the only way to make people happy. It’s not all you have to give.”

  His eyes softened as he considered her words. The green in them seemed to sparkle, and he smiled. “Did you get psychiatric training just for me?” He kissed her. “How much do you charge by the hour?”

  “You can’t afford it.”

  Max pulled her into his lap, dislodging the carton of ice cream onto the ground; a sinful treat for Toby now. She laughed as he leaned down and kissed her, her torso cradled in his arms while her legs kicked the air, and tried not to think of the last time she’d had sex in the living room—with Sten.

  Before they could begin another round of their favorite game, someone knocked at the door. They weren’t expecting anyone, though reporters still lurked in the area.

  Val sighed. “I’d better see who it is.” She pushed herself off his lap and walked to the door. When she looked through the peephole, she gasped. It was Jo. Shit. She hadn’t told Max yet about her last conversation with his half sister. Val glanced at Max; he was shooing Toby away from the ice cream carton, oblivious to the bomb about to be dropped on him. She bit her lip and poked her head out, staying behind the door to hide her flimsy T-shirt and underwear, the only things she wore.

  “Hello, Val.” Jo spoke with a cordialness missing from their last meeting. Her eyes were wide yet tight at the corners, as if her lids struggled to keep her nervousness from seeping out the sides.

  “Hi, Jo.”

  After a moment where they stared at each other, she said, “So I heard…um, I heard Max was here.”

  Heard it from the news, no doubt. Damn reporters. “Yeah, he’s here.”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “Uh…” Val looked behind her at Max. He cocked his head trying to see around her, mildly interested in their mystery visitor, likely wondering why Val hadn’t sent the person away yet. “Can you wait here for a minute?”

  Jo nodded.

  Val shut the door and turned to Max. She took a deep breath. “Josephine is here.”

  He shot up from the couch. “Why?”

  “She wants to talk to you.”

  His eyes narrowed at Val. “Why?”

  “I sort of told her you were her brother.”

  “Val!”

  “She came to me and demanded to know why you kept trying to give her money. She thought you were paying her off for killing Dean! What was I supposed to do, let her believe that?”

  “It wasn’t your choice to make.”

  “I know, okay? I know. I’m sorry.”

  He seethed at her for a couple of seconds—though nothing near his anger at the Mountain Lodge, thank God—before his gaze cut to the door and softened. “She wants to talk?”

  Val nodded. “If that’s what you want, now’s your chance.”

  Max opened his mouth to say something, then stopped, then did it again, then folded his arms and drummed his fingers on his biceps. He looked down at his boxers as if noticing them for the first time. “I have to get dressed.” He turned and jogged up the stairs. Val assumed that meant “yes.”

  She called from the first floor, “Can you throw me down some pants?”

  A pair of jeans soared through the air and landed at her feet. She slipped them on and realized they were his—too long and too loose—but they’d do for the short term. She pulled on her sneakers and a light coat, then opened the door again.

  “You can come in,” she told Jo. “He’s getting dressed.”

  Jo walked into the living room and stood there awkwardly. She scanned the area around her, maybe looking for signs of Robby. Val hadn’t changed much since his death. She’d given some of his things away as personal mementos to close friends and family, and Stacey had moved her few belongings in—mostly tie-dyed flair—but the house was by and large the same. Toby trotted over and barked at Jo, his hair raised and bobbed tail stiff in the air.

  “Toby, stop it,” Max said from the stair’s landing. He’d thrown on a clean dress shirt and khaki pants, brushed his hair and probably his teeth, too, Val guessed. Trying to look respectable. Toby met Max at the base of the stairs. Max knelt and scratched the dog’s forehead. Neither Max nor Jo said anything, and Val realized neither knew where to begin.

  Jo cleared her throat. With shaking hands, she reached into her purse and
pulled out a clutch of old papers. “I found these in my father’s things last year. Stuff he kept in the back of his closet. They’re love letters from someone. I knew it wasn’t my mom because it wasn’t her handwriting, so I guess”—she swallowed hard—“they must be from your mom.”

  Max took the letters, his own hands trembling slightly, and flipped through them. “It’s my mother’s handwriting. She liked to write letters.” He looked at Jo. “Do you want coffee or something?”

  Jo nodded and sat at the dining room table. Max walked into the kitchen, turned on the coffeemaker, and pulled three mugs from the cabinet.

  “You know what, I think I’ll pass,” Val said. “I need to pick up a few things from the grocery store. I’ll be back in a little bit.” She walked to Max and whispered in his ear, “Text me if you need me to come back, or stay gone.” Despite the audience, Val kissed him. She couldn’t help herself. He smelled good. She loved his dirty, marinated-in-sex smell, but his freshened-up scent wasn’t too shabby, either.

  Val left them alone to have what she guessed would be one of the most awkward conversations of their lives. They were the closest either of them had for family—pretty powerful motivation for learning to get along. She wanted to be there for Max, but connecting with his sister was something he could only do on his own.

  It’d been a while since Val made a trip to the grocery store. Stacey did most of the food shopping, while Val kept their alcohol supply stocked. She poked through the aisles, loading up on junk food Stacey wouldn’t approve of, and avoiding the beer. She hadn’t had a drink since she and Max reunited, and she wanted to keep it that way until she knew she could control herself again.

  As she was weighing which flavor of Hot Pocket that Max might prefer, her cell phone rang—Zach.

  “What do you got for me?” she asked. Too late to save Margaret, but maybe he’d recovered a clue to Lucien’s whereabouts off the hard drive she’d swiped from the Mountain Lodge.