Quiver (Revenge Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

she’d been convinced would be frozen forever.
    The parts of her that still fantasized about Todd Lockwood dead. The parts of her that yearned to give the other nine the same fate. The parts of her that she’d been convinced weren’t capable of melting anymore….
    She needed air. She needed to think. She needed to mentally prepare herself for if and when she ran into Gage.
    She turned a corner in the bustling corridor—doctors napping on gurneys, residents filling out paperwork, nurses zooming patients by in wheel chairs and gurneys—and came to an immediate stop.
    There he was, Gage Blackwater, leaning on the large circular welcome desk that faced the floor-to-ceiling windows of the hospital entryway, wearing a flawless navy suit and black tie. Patients and doctors entered and exited the building and the breeze from outside whooshed in, making his hair dance. Somehow his jet-black hair remained perfect, even as it moved. She stabbed her nails into her palms when her fingers itched to touch the silky strands.
    Oblivious to her stare, Gage smiled at the woman behind the welcome desk, the head nurse, while turning his head in Veda’s direction.
    Veda’s heart leapt and so did her feet, taking her so high off the shiny floors that her head nearly hit the ceiling. She turned away from Gage just before their eyes met, cursing under her breath and hurrying around the corner and out of sight.
    “God, Veda, how old are you?” Had she really just run away from a man because he’d thrown her a passing glance? She ran her hand over her tightly pulled bun, stunned that her hairline was sweating a little.
    She moved through the hallways at top speed in her quest to get as far away from those brown eyes, that tawny skin, those big arms pushing against the fabric of his expensive navy suit as humanly possible.
    Attempting to distract herself, she peeked into the open door of each hospital room as she moved, trying to remind herself that she was there to do a job. In less than an hour, she’d have to prep another patient for her third surgery of the day, number three of five, and she needed to pull herself together before that time came.
    As she passed another room, Veda tripped over her feet at what she saw, reversing quickly, sure her eyes had deceived her.
    Sitting on the edge of a hospital bed, bare legs swinging back and forth under a paper gown, was the brunette from the night before. The woman who’d declined to go with Veda when she’d offered to drive her home. Who’d barely been able to stand on her own two legs as Todd Lockwood dragged her through the sand and eventually put her in his car, racing away.
    Veda’s heart leapt up to her throat, and she didn’t even have to read the patient’s chart to know what was going on.
    She knew Todd Lockwood.
    And that was all the information she needed.
    Still, she snatched the woman’s file from the acrylic chart holder bolted next to the door, flipping through it. A quick cursory glance of the doctor’s scribbled handwriting split Veda’s heart in two.
    Her name was Sarah Adams, and she’d been admitted early that morning for tears in her anal and vaginal cavities. The tears had been caused by a lack of lubrication during sexual intercourse.
    Holding the chart to her thundering chest, Veda snuck into the room, hiding behind a blue curtain and peeking around.
    Sarah Adams’s blue eyes were no longer filled with the drunken jolly they had been the night before, when she’d been giggling under Todd Lockwood’s arm on the beach. No, now her eyes remained wide as saucers, as if they were being held open by two invisible strings in the ceiling. Those eyes were filled with tears, the left one black as night and swollen to the size of her hand as she spoke to the broad-backed man standing in front of her. He had his back turned to Veda.
    The man was tall, at least six-five, and wide. Definitely over two hundred pounds. He wore street clothes, jeans and a black T-shirt, and