Chapter 9: Rebel Revenge: Chapter 9

I left the police station a trembling, shaking mess. The moment I was out of sight of the horrid, squat building, I doubled over, sucking deep breaths in so I didn’t vomit.

Liam patted my shoulder awkwardly. “I’m going to call Bliss for you, okay?”

I covered my mouth with the back of my hand. “Please don’t. I’ll be fine. I just…”

Liam gave me a sympathetic smile. “Didn’t expect them to loosely accuse you of murdering your mother and her fiancé?”

Yeah. That.

“I swear, Liam. I didn’t do it.”

“I know. Don’t worry, we’ll sort it all out. You’re just an easy target. The poor bartender who wanted her stepdaddy’s money. The woman jealous of her mother’s rich partner. The mother-daughter duo who worked together to scam a rich businessman out of his life savings, only to have the entire thing go horribly wrong at the last moment when the mother eats the poisoned apple. There’s a million different, very creative ways they can spin this, and the Providence police do this all the time. Half the force is corrupt. The other half is lazy as hell, so they go after the easiest target to pin it on. But they don’t have anything concrete on you or you’d be in a holding cell right now, waiting for a bail hearing.”

I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and stood up straight. “Okay. But everything they said in there…”

“Was designed to scare you into confessing. You don’t talk to them without me. Ever. Okay?”

I nodded. “Thanks, Liam.”

“I’ll drive you home.”

I followed him to his car and sat quietly in the passenger seat while he chatted about his partners and their boys and his job at the law firm. Clearly, he didn’t like awkward silences, and I was grateful for his ongoing commentary because neither did I. I just didn’t have the energy to fill it myself.

I directed him to my apartment, a bit embarrassed by how shabby it was compared to his expensive car. But Liam didn’t comment or even seem to notice.

He put the car in park and took his seat belt off. “I’ll walk you in.”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that.”

“Mae would have my head, and then she’d tell Bliss, and Bliss would set Vincent on me, and as much as I love that little psychopath…”

“You don’t want to be on his bad side?”

“Not even for a second.”

I could understand that. Vincent’s alter ego, Scythe, was a scary motherfucker. Funny as hell, but scary, nonetheless.

I let Liam walk me across the apartment complex and inside the building. He frowned at the lack of security on the door but kept moving, sticking close behind me. So close, he ran smack into my back when I stopped abruptly on the last flight of stairs to my floor.

“Hey, Roach.”

Vaughn slumped on the floor of my hallway, clutching my gold purse in one hand and a mostly drank bottle of bourbon in the other.

I shoved my hands on my hips “What the hell are you doing here? Are you drunk?”

Liam cleared his throat. “You know this guy?”

I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Yeah. He’s my…” I trailed off, not knowing exactly what he was. “He’s Vaughn.”

“I’m her brother,” Vaughn slurred. “Big brother.”

I frowned at his handsome, barely lined face. “Don’t know about that. You look about twenty-five.”

“I’m thirty-one, thank you very much. But I’ll let my Botox doc know you said he does good work.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re so vain.”

“There’s a song about that.”

Liam’s confused gaze bounced between us. “You don’t know how old your brother is?”

“We’ve only been siblings for a hot minute.”

Understanding dawned in Liam’s blue eyes. “Ah. The dead fiancé’s son, then?”

“That’s the one.”

“Husband,” Vaughn chipped in. “The judge had pronounced them husband and wife when they…” He made a tree tipping noise then an exploding action with his fingers. “Boom! Dead on the floor.” He laughed, then shook his head, thick eyebrows furrowing together. “It was really not funny though.”

Liam nudged me. “Do you want me to get him out of here? I can drive him home.”

“Ain’t got no home. Kian’s there, taking up all the room with his stupid, attractive face.”

“Who’s Kian?” Liam whispered.

I shrugged. “No idea. But leave him. I’ll take care of it.”

Liam didn’t seem happy about that idea. “You sure? You don’t seem to know this guy very well…”

He was right. I didn’t. But Vaughn was barely conscious, and I didn’t want him puking in Liam’s car on the drive home. Plus, my gun was inside. If he so much as looked in my direction wrong, I’d use it.

A little trickle of empowerment straightened my spine. A small reminder of the woman I’d been before the attack. I liked it.

“Truly,” I told Liam. “I’ll take him inside, get him some coffee, then call him an Uber. We’ll be fine.”

“Thanks, Sis.” Vaughn blew me a sloppy kiss.

I crinkled my nose but crouched to retrieve my purse from his clutches and fished out my keys from inside. At least now I could give Bliss back the spare.

I opened the door, hastily pushing aside a pile of clothes I’d tried on and discarded before I’d decided on the gold dress for the wedding. “Sorry it’s messy. I wasn’t expecting company.” That, and I’d been nursing some pretty violent injuries for the last few days, and cleaning had been the last thing on my mind.

Vaughn didn’t make a move to come inside. Just took another slug from his bottle and laid himself out on the floor, like it was a good spot to sleep it off.

I sighed and reached both hands out for him. “Come on. Give me your hands. I’ll help you up.”

He set the bottle down and put his hands in mine.

Warm. Strong. He gazed up at me with warm brown eyes that suddenly didn’t seem quite so intoxicated.

Panicked, I tried to jerk away, but his fingers were already wrapped around mine.

“Pull,” he instructed.

I pulled.

I should have known my tiny self had zero chance of moving a big guy like Vaughn. My upward momentum didn’t budge him at all.

His downward pressure sent me careening right down onto the floor with him, smack against his too-solid chest.

For a moment, I stayed there in complete shock, trying to work out what had just happened.

The second moment was because I’d noticed how cut his abs were. I could feel them through his shirt.

Deep-brown eyes. Muscles. Tanned skin and a cocky attitude, even when he was plastered…

Oh no. Hell, no. I was not attracted to him. I put my hands on his pecs, trying really hard not to notice how perfect they were, and used them to propel myself away from him.

Vaughn chuckled. “Falling for me already, Roach?”

Liam cleared his throat. “Do you want a hand?”

I spun, big-eyed because Vaughn had made me forget Liam was even still there. As much as I wanted to be a strong, independent woman once more, I also really did not want to touch Vaughn and feel whatever the hell it was I’d just felt. “Yes, please, actually. If you can just get him inside, I’ll put coffee on.”

Liam came up the last couple of stairs and crouched low, slinging one of Vaughn’s arms over his shoulders. “Come on, big guy. Let’s get you up so you don’t pass out here in the hall.”

He got Vaughn on his feet, and he staggered inside.

I pointed to the kitchen counter and the stools behind it. “Just put him on one of those…”

Vaughn crashed down onto my bed, the mattress squeaking and complaining beneath him.

“…or just there will do.”

Vaughn fumbled around my bed and picked up one of my lacy bralettes. It was one I used to enjoy wearing at Psychos, whenever we held one of the sex parties and lingerie was my outfit of the day.

“What is this, little sis?” Vaughn groaned. “Fuck me.”

I snatched it from his fingers, balling it up and shoving it into a drawer. “Nothing for you to see, big brother. Also, for the record, you’re barely older than me, and we are not related, so stop calling me that.”

“Do you prefer Roach?”

I glared at him.

Liam chuckled. “Okay, so I see you already have the brother-sister vibe down. Rebel, if you’re sure you don’t want me to take him, I’ll get going.”

I eyed Vaughn warily, not at all sure that Liam was reading the vibe between us right, but Vaughn had his eyes closed and clearly wasn’t moving anytime soon. Even still, I wanted him to know I could protect myself if I had to. “Go. You have a family to get home to. I’m sorry for keeping you out late. I’ll be fine. I have a gun if my brother here decides to do anything remotely unbrotherly. Hear that, Vaughn?”

He didn’t open his eyes, but he did flip me the bird, so I assumed he had the message. Liam left, and I closed the door softly behind him, leaning back on it while I studied the big man in my bed.

He went to take another swallow from the bottle of bourbon, but I caught it before he could get his lips to it. “Nope. That’s about enough for you. Next thing you put in your mouth is going to be coffee.”

He cracked an eye open. “I’m on your bed, Roach. Next thing I put in my mouth could be your pussy if you play your cards right.”

I widened my eyes at him. “Did you seriously just say that to your sister.”

He waved his hand around dismissively. “Stepsister.”

“Oh, so when you want to lick my pussy, I’m your stepsister?”

“When I want to lick your pussy, you’re my woman.”

I squinted at him. “You’re plastered. I’m making coffee. And for the record, I’m no one’s woman.”

“Coffee is good, then.”

I hid a laugh at his drunkenness, but at least he was a respectful drunk. I doubted he even knew where a clit was though, with half a bottle of bourbon in his system.

I waited for the coffee to be ready, even though it was verging on dinnertime and really getting too late for me to drink the stuff if I wanted to sleep tonight. But Vaughn needed it. I brought a steaming mug to the bedside, and he managed to shift into a sitting position, his back and shoulders against the headboard. He sipped his coffee slowly.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I don’t normally get this drunk.”

I stood away from him, leaning on a wall with my own mug in my hands. “It’s fine. Thank you for bringing my purse back. I had my friend’s guys searching for it.”

“Thought you might need it. I didn’t steal anything from it, but I did open your purse to find some ID with your address on it.”

“Good of you not to take the three dollars and seventy-five cents I keep in there.”

“Did think about taking the condoms though. Glow-in-the-dark ones are cool. Kinda makes your junk look like a lightsaber.”

I sniggered. “If you were gay, you could both wear them and have lightsaber fights in the dark.”

Vaughn winked. “If I were gay, I wouldn’t get to lick pussy though.”

I cocked my head to one side. “You’re really into that, huh?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Giving or receiving?”

He groaned. “Please tell me you do both.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

He sipped his coffee again. “This is really good.”

“I work at a bar. I’m well used to making coffee to sober people up. Don’t like just kicking them out at closing time.”

“That’s nice of you.”

I lifted one shoulder. “I just prefer not to have to clean vomit in the parking lot.”

He screwed his face up. “Your job sounds horrible.”

I shook my head. “It’s not. I love it. The owners are my best friends. The guys who hang out there respect me. Those people have my back.”

It was when I’d left the bar that things had gone wrong. Psychos was my home. My family. I wouldn’t let Caleb ruin that for me. “There’s also a sex club behind a secret door.”

Vaughn suddenly seemed a whole lot more sober. “No fucking way.”

“Way. You should come sometime. Many a pussy just begging to be licked at that place.”

“Don’t tempt me with a good time, Roach. I might just take you up on it.”

Heat flushed through me at the thought of watching Vaughn on his knees, face pressed between some woman’s thighs.

I went hotter again imagining it was my thighs.

“Why are your cheeks pink?”

“That’s just the light from outside.” I turned my back and went into the kitchenette and busied myself by rifling through my purse. I pulled out my phone and connected it to the charger, then scrolled through the list of notifications.

“Pink looks good on you, Roach. Much better than those bruises.” His voice dropped an octave. “Who did that to you? That asshole with the motorcycle?”

I blinked. “Fang? Fuck, no. He would never lay a finger on me.”

“He your boyfriend?”

“No.”

“He wants to be though.”

“Maybe.”

“He kill the guy who hit you?”

“He would if I told him who it was.”

“Why aren’t you?”

I put my coffee mug down hard on the countertop. “Because it’s not his fight. It’s mine.”

“You’re flea-sized.”

I glared at him, pissed off. “So? You think that’s going to stop me walking up to him and putting a bullet through his brain?”

Vaughn eyed me over his mug. “Good for you. Not letting you do that, of course. But I like the spunk.”

“Like you have a say in who I do or do not shoot.”

The words came out of my mouth and hung in the air between us before I really heard them. I stifled a laugh. “Not a sentence I ever thought I’d say, to be honest.”

Vaughn wasn’t laughing, but I ignored him. He sounded too much like Fang.

Being told I couldn’t do something was the best damn way to get me to prove I could.

I went back to my phone and hovered over an email preview from an attorney in Providence. The email was titled, Last Will and Testament of Bartholomew Weston. I glanced at Vaughn. “There’s an email here. It’s a copy of your dad’s will.”

He cocked his head to one side. “Why would you be getting that?”

“I’ve no idea.” I tapped on the attached document, skimming the paragraphs of tiny writing. I paused mid page, when my name appeared.

“What is it?” Vaughn asked.

I read the words out slowly. “In the event of both my and my future wife, Miranda Kemp’s, deaths, the entirety of our estate will be split equally between Mr. Vaughn Eugene Weston and Miss Rebel Rose Kemp. This includes my business, any cash in my bank accounts, and the property I own at three hundred and five, Smeeton Range Road…”

“What?” Vaughn growled. “Our parents weren’t even properly married, and you get half his estate?”

Shock punched through me. “I…I didn’t know. It’s dated months ago. They must have had it drawn up when they got engaged…”

Vaughn got off the bed, wobbling once, but the coffee and maybe his anger had helped sober him. “Do you have any idea how much my father’s estate is worth?”

I frowned at him. “No?”

He laughed bitterly. “Yes, you do. Was this your plan all along?”

I frowned, not sure if he was still talking gibberish because he was drunk or if he was honestly serious. “Plan? What are you talking about?”

He stalked across the room to me, fury in his eyes. “Where did you go after I saw you at the hotel bar the night before their wedding?”

Anger flamed through me at his tone and the unspoken implication behind it. “What exactly are you accusing me of?”

He kept coming, his big steps eating up the distance between us. “Did you do it?”

Fear flickered through me. I put the bed between us, my fingers hovering over the drawer with my gun in it. “Do what? Kill my own mother?”

“You clearly have it in you. You just told me you were planning a second murder. Third, I guess, since you already took out two people.”

I gaped at him. “You’re drunk. And insane. I never hurt my mother!”

“Then where were you that night?”

I yanked the drawer open and pulled out the gun, pointing it at him. “Get out.”

He ignored the gun and stared me in the eye. “Did you kill my father?”

“I already told you, no! Now get out!”

He shook his head and backed toward the door. “You aren’t getting half my father’s assets, Roach. Over my dead body.”

I waved the gun in his direction. “That can be arranged!”

His jaw hardened. “This isn’t done.”

“No shit, Sherlock. I’ll be seeing you when I move into my fancy new house.” It was a dig purely to get at him, because this was what I always did. Ran my damn mouth until it got me in trouble.

But this time, it succeeded. Vaughn backed out of the apartment, and I rushed to lock the door behind him.

Trembling with adrenaline, I perched on the edge of my bed, shakily putting the gun down next to me.

I’d had no idea about Mom’s and Bart’s will. No idea I’d been named one of the two beneficiaries of a multi-million-dollar estate.

I laughed, a giddy smile breaking on my face.

Only for it to fall just as quick.

Because that would have just given the cops all the probable motive they needed to pin a double homicide squarely on my shoulders.