Start a War (Saint View Psychos #1)(90)

Caleb stalked me, advancing on me like a demon in the night. “I was going to make you my wife, Bethany-Melissa!” his shout pierced through the buffeting wind. “I gave you a ring. A house. Everything you wanted. All you had to do was be good.”

“Vincent!” I screamed. “Vincent!”

Caleb’s fingers were around my neck in a second, the force pushing me up against the side of my car. My spine thudded on the cold, slick metal with a bone-jarring thud that rattled my teeth. “Vincent!” My screams turned to sobs.

“Who the fuck is that?” Caleb snarled.

I tried to recoil from the stench of alcohol on his breath. Up close, he didn’t look well. His normally clean-shaven jaw was dark with several days’ worth of stubble, and even in the dim light, his eyes were clearly bloodshot.

“Is he your lover, Bethany-Melissa? Is that who he is? Do you scream his name like that when he’s fucking you?” He laughed. “I know all about the men you’ve been fucking behind my back. Sandra told me everything. How many men have you let into your pussy? More than just one. Three? Five? You filthy slut.”

He let go of my throat and grabbed my breast roughly, squeezing it so hard I yelped.

“You like that? You like it rough? Is that how they give it to you?”

I shook my head. “Caleb, please. You’re hurting me!”

“I thought you liked it like that?” He slammed his lips down on mine, hateful and hard.

I tried to scream again, but that was a mistake. Caleb took the opportunity to plunge his tongue into my mouth, disgusting and thick and slimy with the taste of scotch.

I scratched and tore and slapped at his face, but the man was stronger and bigger than me and wouldn’t be swayed. He attacked my mouth before dragging his lips across my cheek, his sharp stubble scraping along my skin. “Scream my name like you scream his, whore.”

“Vincent!”

His hand cracked across my cheek. “Say my name!”

“Vincent!”

He shoved his hand down the front of my pants, savagely prodding and grabbing between my legs. “Say it! Say it! Say it, bitch, or I will shove my dick so far up your cunt you’ll fucking taste it.”

Tears streamed down my face. But I couldn’t let Caleb rape me. Not again. The first time had made me want to die.

I needed help. Vincent had said he’d be here, but there was no one. My sobs got lost into the dark night, each of them sounding like Vincent’s name and the heartbroken realization he wasn’t coming.





33





VINCENT





Sitting low behind the wheel of my car, my black ball cap pulled down on my forehead, I watched Bliss toss the money onto the passenger seat of her car and drive out of the Psychos parking lot.

Like a shadow, I followed smoothly behind her, keeping an eye on her taillights as I trailed her through Saint View.

Every muscle in my body hurt. From my toes to my fingers. Every muscle in my back and in my gut.

I’d been fighting an internal battle all week. Ever since I’d dragged War off Bliss at the club, he’d been in my ear. While I was at work, surrounded by noise, it was easier to drown him out. But now, in the silence of the car, his taunts started again.

You let another man touch her?

“She said she wanted him to,” I muttered.

Jealous?

I refused to listen. Bliss and I had talked. She liked War. He was allowed to touch her like that. Her screams hadn’t meant he was hurting her. But seeing them like that. Thinking she was being hurt, had opened up something inside me. It had given Scythe room to move around, and I’d been paying for it ever since.

War wasn’t going to hurt her. And neither was Nash. Neither of them were threats to her.

Scythe was.

His laughter mocked me.

I focused on the road ahead. The rain was worsening, bucketing down now in heavy sheets that seemed to only get worse the higher up the cliff face we went. I could barely see Bliss’s taillights through the onslaught.

I needed to be closer.

I accelerated, ignoring the slippery roads and lack of visibility. I couldn’t lose her.

She flashed through a green light, but by the time I got there, it had turned red.

You know you’re going to lose her, Vinnie boy.

I wasn’t. And I fucking hated when he called me that. I put my foot down harder.

The truck hit the back end of my car with a sickening screech of metal against metal.

It spun me around the slippery road in dizzying circles. My head bounced off the window, a sharp pain splintering through my brain while black flickered at the edges of my vision. Around and around the car spun, sliding through the intersection, finally coming to a stop on the other side, facing in the wrong direction.

Things moved slowly. Outside, the dark was pierced with lights and horns.

None of them were Bliss’s.

The pain in my head only added to the rest of the pain in my body.

“Bro! Are you okay?”

The rapping of knuckles across the glass window to my left jolted me, and I twisted my neck to see who it was. An unfamiliar face peered through, his eyes big with worry.

“Can you move? You need to get out of the car! There’s gas leaking everywhere!”

Well, that wasn’t ideal. The moment he mentioned it, the toxic tang seared my nostrils.