Page 89 of Sweet Venom
“For the record,” Julian says, pulling out his phone and tapping a few times before angling the screen toward me. “This is how Jude takes care of his targets. You made a lucky escape.”
My stomach twists before I even see it, and then bile surges up my throat.
On the screen is a grainy surveillance image—a man torn apart, his body sliced open with brutal precision. One eye isgouged out, the other still impaled with a knife that’s buried to the hilt.
Standing in front of the scene is Jude.
I’d recognize that stance anywhere—rigid, menacing. His hand grips the blood-coated knife, his expression unreadable except for the fury burning in his eyes. Another man is beside him, turned away from the camera, but I barely notice him. All I see is Jude. And what he’s capable of.
The room tilts. I turn my face sharply, swallowing down the nausea crawling up my throat.
I’m going to be sick.
“Listen, Violet.” Julian pockets his phone. “You and your sister will never be safe as long as you’re in Jude’s orbit. If you help me test out this drug for three months, I’ll effectively remove you from that orbit.”
“Remove me how?”
“I’ll arrange new identities for you and Dahlia, give you a house and a new life on the West Coast. I’ll fund your education and your sister’s at top universities and even pay you for the experiment. In the meantime, while you’re in a coma, Jude won’t have access to you, and I’ll protect your sister until you wake up. How does that sound?”
“Too good to be true.”
“Not really. You have to know that there’s a fifty percent chance you’ll never wake up from this coma. But even if you don’t, I’ll honor my promise about Dahlia and give her the life I just pledged.”
“I’ll need a contract and a financial advance so that your promises don’t sound empty.”
He smiles. “Fine.”
“Can I talk to Dahlia?”
“No. She has to believe you were attacked and broughtto the hospital, which is the reason for the coma. Otherwise, this won’t work.”
God. She’ll be so worried.
I don’t want to stress her out when she just started her new journey at GU, but I also know that if I don’t take care of the Jude problem, she and I will never be safe.
It’s just for three months.
Three months, and then we’ll reunite and have our new beginning.
My eyes stray to Julian, who’s watching me intently. “Do you not care?”
“About?”
“Susie…your stepmother who I couldn’t help?”
“Doesn’t matter when you have the perfect profile to test my drugs.” He stands up and places the book in my lap. “Besides, you wouldn’t have been able to help Susie even if you had intervened.”
19
JUDE
Ifound Violet at the bottom of a bridge.
Unconscious, but not dead.
The only reason I found her was because my hacker managed to install a tracking device on her phone.
She was bleeding from her head, rivulets of red trickling down her neck, and from rips all over her hoodie and jeans.
