Vengeance (Master's Protege 1)

She shrugs and gets a little haughty. “It’s just that they’re not all men anymore.”

I look at her full breasts, her petite little body, and those pursed lips I want to kiss. “They’re definitely not.”

I pull up onto the highway, twenty minutes out from the restaurant we need to investigate. A car whizzes past us so closely, Violet screams. It hits my left tire, ricochets forward, and I have to slam on my brakes to keep it steady.

Violet gasps. “What was that?” I’m already accelerating, following the small black Mazda.

“Are you road raging after them?”

“Me? Road rage? What makes you think I have road rage?”

I’ll fucking kill them.

“That was not an accident,” Violet says. She’s sitting straight up next to me, hands on the dash. “They so did that on purpose.”

I’m gaining on them, as they take a sharp right and exit the highway.

“Uh yeah, no reason,” she says with a grimace as I follow them off the highway. Horns blare as the light turns red and I plow through it, gaining on them. Someone flips me the bird. The truck’s too big to chase them too closely.

“Get the plate,” I tell her.

“On it.”

The car zigzags in and out of traffic, way too quickly for my huge truck to follow them. I curse under my breath.

“This is not a good getaway car,” she mutters.

“No, but it off-roads like a motherfucker and there isn’t a better place to be when the shit hits the fan.” The glass is shatterproof, the wheels reinforced and nearly invincible. I could mow down a goddamn semi if I had to.

“You can’t chase them now, though.” She mumbles something under her breath.

“What was that?”

“I said, ‘thank God,’” she says loudly. “Not sure what you’d do to them in your present state of mind.”

“You work for me now. That means accepting anything and everything that working with me entails. Under any and all circumstances. Understood?”

She nods. “Yes, of course. Why do you think they would hit us?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“It is, but I want your take. No stone unturned and all that.”

“They hit us because they have something to hide. They don’t want us on this case. It was a stupid, pussy threat.”

I hate that someone basically assaulted us and got away with it.

I call Joe. “Run this plate.” I repeat the plate number Violet gives me.

We’re going to get answers, and we’re going to get them now.

Chapter 6

Violet

* * *

Something’s definitely not right here, I know it in my gut. My mind wanders to the flowers squished against my breast, the phone and cats left unattended in Skylar’s room, and the little car that just tried to run us off the road.

“Please tell me the truth,” I say to Cain. “Is it more likely that someone has a beef with Skylar or with you?”

He clenches his jaw. “Me.”

“Thought so. And do you think there’s a chance they’d come after her to get back at you?”

He curses again. “Yeah.”

I pull up my phone to Google some facts when I remember something. “It’s a full moon tonight.”

“And?”

I remember Skylar’s fascination with moons. I take her phone and type in full moon. Nothing.

“Can you name the phases of the moon?”

He gives me a quizzical look, but nods. “Full moon. Waxing crescent. Waning crescent. Waning gibbous… waxing gibbous…” He strokes his chin, a surprisingly masculine move that makes me look away because he’s my boss—correction, no he is not, we work professionally with each other—and I will not look at how sexy those fingers are rasping against the stubble on his jaw goddammit.

I type waxing crescent. Nothing. With a sigh, convinced this isn’t going to work, I type in waning crescent.

Her phone unlocks. I pump the air.

“Got into her phone.”

The streets are quiet, the oppressive heat and humidity of late August making the air around us shimmer with haze. Cain guns the engine, as if reminding the universe that he’s coming for his sister. “Good work.”

I suspect it isn’t often that he commends someone who works for him, and his praise sends a warm flicker of pleasure through me. I ignore it. I don’t like that I want his praise.

I focus on scrolling through her phone for some clues. I’m violating her privacy, I know I am, but we have to find something that can help us. If we let the police department take their time, it could be too late. I feel sick.

“So, your sister only has like twenty contacts.”

“And?”

“Well, it’s pretty unusual. The average person has… I don’t know, I’d guess hundreds. Huh.” I shrug. “That’ll make it easier to go through.”

“Okay, good.”

“But… well, that’s not a lot. Is she sort of a loner?”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

Bingo. I read a text on her screen that pings my attention.

“She has a text from a guy she’s named ‘Cowboy.’”

“Cowboy.” He frowns. “That’s not usually her scene.”