Page 28 of Rebel Revenge

“I think I’m going to go stay at Dad’s place. I’m sure there’s probably things there that need taking care of.”

My mom slid her hand into mine and squeezed it. “You’re right. That’s a great idea. That big old house has plenty of room just waiting to be utilized.”

I walked them to their car and accepted their offer of a lift to the hotel so I could pick up my bag and my bike. I’d left it in the hotel parking lot because I’d wanted to have a few drinks with my old man to celebrate his wedding.

Now I’d never get to do that again.

It was a shit feeling. One that had me considering stopping in the hotel bar and writing myself off. But that was better done at my father’s house where I wouldn’t have to drive anywhere afterward. His place had a bed waiting that I wouldn’t have to pay for with an already overdrawn credit card. And the bonus of a bar full of expensive whiskeys and vodkas I could drown my sorrows in for free.

I retrieved my bag from my room and checked out, grateful when the woman said my father had prepaid. On the way out to the parking lot, I shoved Rebel’s glittery gold purse into my duffel bag and stowed the entire thing in the bike’s large saddlebag.

Nothing much had changed in Providence in the decade I’d been gone. The streets were the same, houses familiar because I’d been to parties at dozens of them in high school. They grew bigger and bigger the deeper in I got, with my father’s house being right in the center. “Guess who’s back,” I mumbled as I steered my bike into the driveway.

I tapped the code into the pad by the door, not surprised when it opened. My father had always been a creature of habit. The code hadn’t changed since I was a kid. I stuck my head through the doorway. “Hello?”

Not a sound echoed back.

I didn’t know why I was still hoping my father would appear at the top of the stairs, take them two at a time to get to the bottom, and engulf me in a hug. I’d seen them take away his body.

I dumped my helmet and my bag in the entrance and closed the door quietly behind me. A wave of exhaustion swamped me, my emotions raw and sharp. I headed straight for the den, which was the last place I’d seen my father’s alcohol stash before I’d moved out at twenty-one.

A scraping noise stopped me in my tracks, and I swiveled on my heel, trying to source it. When nothing happened, I shook my head, assuming I was hearing things.

The second squeak was definitely not in my imagination. It screeched down my spine like nails on a chalkboard. “Who’s there?” I called. “O’Malley? That you?”

O’Malley was my father’s right-hand man, his driver, gardener, butler, and maintenance guy all rolled into one. But I’d assumed he’d be at the wedding reception. Which I guess now was more of a pre-funeral party. That was if anyone had even told the people who had congregated there, waiting for a happy, newly married couple to arrive. How fucking depressing.

The elderly man didn’t call out, but the scraping, scratching noise didn’t quit. It could be an animal, trapped somewhere in the house, but what the hell kind of animal made that noise?

Footsteps echoed back, and I froze. Fuck. There seriously was someone in the house. My father didn’t believe in gun ownership. Neither did I, but now I was cursing us both. On instinct, I opened the nearest closet and grabbed the closest thing that could resemble a weapon.

A stick vacuum cleaner.

I had no idea what I was going to do with the awkwardly shaped thing, but it made me feel better than having nothing in my hands at all. I was reasonably strong, and hopefully adrenaline would help me out there too. I could swing the thing like a giant baseball bat if I had to.

“Who’s there?” I called again.

Still no answer.

A chill raced down my spine. “Please don’t be armed with anything more deadly than my Hoover.” I crept along the hall toward the sounds, wishing my phone was in my pocket instead of back at the doorway. Fuck. I should stop and go back for it. Just call the cops.

The utility room door flung open, and a man stepped out.

I swung the vacuum.

“Jesus, fuck!” the man bellowed, ducking to avoid the flying floor cleaner.

The cleaner hit the wall and kept going. Right through the plaster.

Vibrations shot painfully through my arms at the impact, and I let go on instinct, jumping back from the gaping hole I’d just put in my father’s wall.

“Vaughn?” the other man questioned.

I snapped my head around at his familiar voice and did a double take at the face of the man beneath a Saint View Scorers baseball cap. There was only one person I knew who’d ever played baseball for Saint View, and sure enough, his familiar green eyes stared back at me. “Kian?”

Instantly, his expression hardened. “Fuck. It is you. What the hell are you doing here?”

I raised an eyebrow at his hostile tone. “Excuse me? This is my father’s house. What the hell are you doing here?”

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