Page 2 of His Wicked Revenge

“For sure.” He hands me his cell phone, and I dial a number that I memorized when I had first entered it into my phone.

It rings a few times, and then he answers despite the time of night. “Hello?”

“Hey. It’s…” I peek over at the driver to make sure he isn’t listening. I lower my voice and say, “It’s Veronica. I’m gonna need that favor now.”

CHAPTER 1

Leo

Death is peaceful.

I had always been afraid of the concept when I was growing up. Loved ones dying and never being able to see them again. My dying and going to eternal darkness.

But right now?

I feel more peaceful than I ever have before. It’s dark for a moment, terrifying and cold, until I see the light. The one that everyone talks about—the light you are supposed to walk toward, and that’s what I do.

Every step is slow, like my feet are acting as magnets against the ground. When I finally approach the end of the tunnel, and the light grows bigger, I see my mother’s face—a wide, beautiful smile paired with loving eyes, as if she is unaware of what I’ve just done.

I tried to help Veronica escape.

She betrayed me.

She stabbed me.

All the emotions come swirling back like a storm, and they hit me incredibly hard—so hard that they push me away from the light and my mother. Her face drops only slightly, but not out of confusion. There is a calmness to her expression.

It is the face that is telling me it isn’t my time. I reach out to her, but I’m too far away.

Being forced backward by these emotions happens too quickly, and as the light shrinks and the darkness consumes me again, my entire body buzzes. A shockwave rolls through my system, then a pause before another one seizes me.

After the third, I’m staring at a light again, except this light is closer and way too bright. Multiple eyes stare down at me instead of my mother’s blue ones. My chest starts moving, and that’s when I realize that I’m breathing.

I’m alive.

CHAPTER 2

Leo

I jolt awake, blinking rapidly as the panic sets in. Four pairs of eyes stare at me with curiosity, and I feel like an insect being inspected under a microscope. It makes me feel small, vulnerable, and scared because I have no idea who these people are.

My chest moves quickly as I attempt to catch my breath from the abruptness of my waking up, but something on my face provides me with the oxygen that I wasn’t able to breathe on my own a few seconds ago.

My hand lifts, a pain shooting up my side, but I power through the throbbing and push the contraption away, making one of the pair of eyes that are staring at me fall from my face to the mask I hold.

“Where am I?”

“You are at the hospital, Mr. Madden,” someone says to my right. The lights in the room make it hard to see the features of the person speaking. From the voice, I can assume it is an older man. “You suffered from a stab wound.”

“I know,” I mumble quietly under my breath. “I thought it killed me.”

The same doctor says, “Let’s wait until you are more stable before discussing everything.”

“Tell me now,” I insist.

The doctor and nurse surrounding me become clearer, making the hesitation obvious on their faces. Neither one of them wants to speak, but eventually, someone does.

“Well, when you were brought in here, you were rushed into surgery. It was a pretty bad stab wound. Once we took the knife out and controlled the bleeding, we realized you had some internal bleeding. The knife had nicked an organ, but luckily, it did not puncture it.”