Payback Princess (Lost Daughter of a Serial Killer Book 2) Read online

  Finding out you’re the daughter of a famous serial killer isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

  My father—the Seattle Slayer—is charismatic, intelligent, and charming.

  He’s also trying to teach me to kill people, so … his good qualities don’t seem to matter much.

  He’s kidnapped my boyfriend, a guy that I used to hate but grew to love.

  Parrish, I’m coming for you. I’ll do anything—anything—to keep you safe.

  Starting a new life as the most hated girl in Whitehall Prep was not in my game plan.

  But when I asked my dad what the point of all this was, you know what he said?

  “It’s payback, Princess.”

  The upper crust families in Medina have wrongs to answer for, wrongs that will be paid in blood—by me.

  Justin Prior is back in town, and he’s brimming with secrets.

  The question is: how far will I go to uncover them?

  Parrish is bruised and bleeding; Chasm burns with violent heat; Maxx is a thundercloud waiting in the wings. Lumen lies. Danyella knows. Kimber fights back.

  Welcome to Medina, bitches. Love-hate is in the air, and it isn’t just me that feels it. This town is cursed in blood and diamonds.

  I’ll win this thing, Dad.

  Do your worst.

  Table of Contents Table of Contents

  Front Matter Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Signup for my Newsletter

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

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  Filthy Rich Boys Cover

  Devils Day Party Cover

  Keep Up With The Fun

  More Books By C.M. Stunich

  About the Author

  Payback Princess

  Payback Princess © C.M. Stunich 2021

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  For information address Sarian Royal Indie Publishing, 89365 Old Mohawk Rd, Springfield, OR 97478.

  www.cmstunich.com

  Cover art and design © Amanda Carroll and Sarian Royal

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, businesses, or locales is coincidental and is not intended by the author.

  this book is dedicated to:

  Minh.

  losing you is like losing a limb.

  I’ve never been a grown-up without you.

  let’s pretend you left so I could have more grief and melancholy to write with.

  good art comes from pain; it has to hurt or it’s just product.

  so I’ll hurt and paint with words, just for you.

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  The fifteen-thousand-dollar dress, borrowed sneakers, and pink diamond tiara that I’m wearing don’t change the fact that I’m about to break into a mansion on the shores of Lake Washington.

  The facts are these: I either find a way onto these grounds and into that darkened house or I go back to that horrible party with those horrible people and know that I failed. That, when an infamous acquaintance of mine once said that this town was cursed in blood and diamonds, he was right.

  Because tonight is the night.

  I can feel it.

  Later, when I recall that very moment, there are two things that I’ll remember most of all. Not the imposing metal gate or the harsh panting of our collective breaths, not the brick wall on our right, covered in ivy and casting strange shadows in the moonlight. Mostly, I’ll recall those silver beams of light streaming across Chasm’s blue-black hair and the crisp white of Maxim Wright’s suit jacket.

  Those are the two images that stick, that burn, that even now make me ache in a way that I cannot explain in rational sentences, only flickers of powerful feeling and deep knowledge.

  Gamer Girl, professional sleuth, petty thief, vandal, and most of all: in love.

  That last bit sems to be a recurring theme, one that has—and will continue to—cause me trouble in ways I never could’ve dreamed up. Not even if I were a writer the way my mother is, an expert in crafting words and pretty prose.

  And killers.

  She’s good at making those up, too.

  Only this time, the killer is real, and he’s very much interested in one thing: me.

  The gate, of course, is locked, but that’s never stopped us before.

  “Now what?” I breathe as I look up at it, realizing even as I do that its presence is metaphorical at best. I can get past this gate; we all can. It’s what we’ll find on the other side that scares me.

  Maxim—or Maxx or X, depending on your persuasion—wets his lips and then moves over to the wall, hopping up and grabbing the stone top with his fingers. As muscular as he is, as athletic, it’s an easy feat for him to situate himself astride it.

  He peers down at me, and my entire world shifts. I’m not fully aware of it then, but my life is about to change forever. I’ll soon suffer irreparable damage and perfect joy, all wrapped up in a single moment. I’ll never quite experience duality the way that I will in just a few, short hours.

  Pure happiness and absolute rage—at the same time, and in equal measures.

  Maxx offers out a hand.

  “Boost her up, Chas,” he says to the other boy, knowing that any one of us would sacrifice the world to accomplish our task tonight.

  Chasm kneels down, like a dark knight, like the protector I always knew he was, and allows me to use his leg as a step. My hand reaches up, questing for Maxx’s, and his fingers curl around my wrist, lighting me up on the inside, igniting my soul with brilliant flames.

  He yanks me up to join him, and it feels like I’m flying, pink tulle skirts fluttering around me in the darkness. Once I’m seated beside X, he does the same for Chasm, hauling him up to sit beside us. The boys very easily hop down on the other side, but I’m left to sit there in my expensive dress, staring into the woods and wondering.

  What will happen once we’re inside? How will things change? There’s a joy to this night, but there’s a sadness, too. I can feel it when I look down to find them both waiting for me. A seismic shift is about to take place in
my relationship with both guys, and I’m not the only one who’s dreading it.

  “Here,” Maxx says, holding up his arms. “Jump to me. I’ll catch you, Kota.”

  “You’ve got this, Little Sister,” Chasm agrees, but as much as I appreciate their encouragement, I’ve never needed it less.

  I can do this; I want to do this.

  I jump into Maxx’s arms, ignoring the chemistry between us as he catches me and then, very purposefully, reaches up to adjust the tiara for me. When he puts his hands on my hips, well, that has nothing to do with our little murder mystery party.

  Come on, Gamer Girl. If you’re half as clever as you wish you were, this could be it.

  There’s also an equal chance we’ll be arrested—or hunted—tonight.

  But sometimes, assumptions must be made in order to solve difficult puzzles.

  As we approach the grand staircase of the house, the temptation is there to let my imagination run wild. I’ve seen bodies. I’ve seen blood. I’ve done terrible things. But, as the world’s most famous murder mystery writer, Agatha Christie, once wrote: “You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.”

  And the simplest explanation is this: The Seattle Slayer led me to this spot for a reason.

  So in this spot, it truly begins.

  A broken window, a disabled alarm, a very creepy painting, and the flashing blue and red lights of a cop car.

  Yep. Love has made me crazy.

  Not once, not twice, but three times over.

  Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?

  Guess we’re about to find out how true that really is.

  “Who wants to help me catch a serial killer?”

  It’s a bold move, announcing to the world that I’m on the hunt for the Seattle Slayer.

  It certainly catches Justin’s attention. He texts me within thirty seconds of ending the live video, my phone buzzing as I slip Chasm’s headset off and leave it to rest against the back of my neck.

  Well-played, daughter of mine. As I said before: choose your pawns wisely. You have a lot of them.

  I stare at the message before handing the phone over to Chasm.

  “Fuck,” he murmurs, ruffling up his wet hair with his fingers. I’m reminded briefly that we just showered together, that we saw each other naked, and also that I had absolutely zero capacity to process any of it. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I do,” I respond, feeling this strange, cool calmness wash over me. Closing my eyes, I do my best to channel some of Maxx’s self-assuredness, that cocky confidence that lets him breeze through the world like he’s got an instruction manual. “Nothing that I said tonight is news to anyone.”

  In my mind, I run over everything I said, checking for inconsistencies, for any slip that might put Parrish in danger. If I find anything, I’m hopping back online and making an excuse.

  “As I’m sure you’ve heard on the news, my stepbrother’s gone missing. As I’m sure you’ve also heard, there’s a serial killer known as the Seattle Slayer. There’s a possibility, however slim, that Parrish Vanguard was taken by the Slayer.

  Here’s why I think that:

  The Slayer only kidnaps people between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one

  All of his (known) victims are from the Seattle metro area

  All of the bodies were discovered on or after the fourteenth day since they went missing

  Parrish has only been gone for eight days. That means if he really is with the Slayer, we have six days to find him. So, will you help me?”

  I open my eyes again, watching the comment section explode with speculation. I gave every detail that I could—including some that the police would be unlikely to release—so long as those clues didn’t seem to violate the rules Justin laid out for me. I mentioned the security system and the fact that it never went off, that the cameras had not been recording, the time when I last saw Parrish, the number of people who have access to the house on a regular basis along with their occupations, and the time that I woke up and realized he was gone.

  To anyone watching, I probably seem desperate. That, or they think I’m chasing clout on the coattails of my missing stepbrother. Either way, it isn’t enough to arouse suspicion in the authorities. What it will do is get people thinking, looking for clues, putting together theories. I’m not stupid: it isn’t like the FBI is just sitting around and twiddling their thumbs over this. But they’re also not going to share what they know with some random teenager.

  But the internet will. The internet will sleuth the shit out of whatever facts they can find. That’s what I’m trying to do here, gather my own research, put boots on the ground so to speak.

  “I guess so,” Chasm hazards, and I wonder then, as I lean back in his computer chair, if we aren’t going to have a conversation about the dead guy with the pale blue eyes. What was his name again? Mr. Fosser? I do a quick search of the name on Chas’ laptop, but as per usual, nothing of interest comes up.

  “We saw a guy die today.” I spin the chair around so I can look at Chasm. He’s already watching me with those gorgeous amber eyes of his, like two polished stones in a handsome face. The yellow lightning bolt at the front of his hair is disheveled, yellow strands draped haphazardly across the black. I’m used to that: when you’ve got dual colored hair, the bits and pieces get tangled up on occasion.

  “Not a guy, just a rapist,” Chasm says, but then he’s scrubbing at his face with both hands. “Little Sister, this shit has amped up quick.” He drops his hands to his lap and gives me a long, studying sort of look. “Today, we shot a dead body. What if he asks us tomorrow to shoot a person?”

  I don’t know how to respond to that, so I don’t.

  It occurs to me then that I’ve left the phone Tess gave me back at Whitehall Prep. It also occurs to me that it’s been about … I check the time on the laptop and feel the blood drain from my face … five hours since I last texted Tess.

  “Shit.” My stomach twists with nerves as I give Chasm a pleading look. “I haven’t texted Tess in hours. Has she messaged you?”

  Chasm pauses and picks up his phone, glancing at the messages and going just as pale as I must be. He looks like a ghost. Not a good sign.

  “Dakota,” he starts, which is an even worse sign. He’s not calling me ‘Little Sister’ so it must be serious. Chas hands over the phone so I can look for myself.

  I know that you have my daughter, Kwang-seon McKenna. I can’t begin to say how disgusted I am with the both of you. Call me. Now.

  I wet my suddenly dry lips, flicking my eyes to the side like I’m searching for an escape. Only … there’s no escape from this, is there? And it’s intentional. It’s all intentional. This is what Parrish’s kidnapper—whoever he is—wants. Could he really be Mr. Volli? It seems way too obvious. Like, this guy is confident enough to video chat and not worry about getting caught.

  Considering that even Chasm—a seventeen-year-old boy—could figure out how to run the audio from that video through voice recognition software, that means that Mr. Volli must be a patsy. He must be.

  Anyway, I have—weirdly enough—a more pressing matter to worry about.

  My bio mom, the queen of true crime and suspense thrillers: Tess motherfucking Vanguard.

  Who’s scarier? The Slayer or Tess? I’ll leave that up to debate.

  “You know Tess better than I do,” I admit, scooting the chair closer to Chasm. He watches me in a way that I can’t describe. If I were Tess, I might say … Oh, fuck it. I’m using my own words. Chasm looks at me like I’m something he wants more than anything in the world but won’t allow himself to have. The expression on his face, it kills me. “How do you think I should handle this?”

  “If she hasn’t seen the video you just posted, she will soon,” Chasm begins, letting out a long exhale. He’s wearing black joggers and no shirt, as per usual. I do my best not to look at hi
s tattoos. It’s too painful right now, thinking of Parrish tied to a chair and suffering. That’s his art, carved into his friend’s flesh by his own hands. He did tell me that some of his own ink was done by Chasm, but I haven’t exactly had a good chance to ask about that. “We tell her we’re working on our own investigation. It sounds stupid as hell, but maybe it’ll make us look like dumb teenagers or something?”

  I sit there for a moment, tapping my fingers on the edge of the chair. I shot a dead body today. Like, I actually picked up a fucking gun and fired shots into someone’s corpse. That’s … that’s a lot to think about. He was a rapist, Dakota, just a rapist. Rapists don’t matter.

  Still, I’m going to need mad therapy after this.

  A strange sound, like the chiming of a bell, rings throughout the room and Chasm frowns.

  “What was that?” I ask as he grits his teeth and stands up, scooting my chair out of the way so he can access his laptop. He punches in a bunch of keys and then squints at a collage of squares, each one showing what must be a part of the house. Security cameras.

  There’s someone in the house, storming through the front door and taking the main steps two at a time.

  Uh-oh.

  It’s Maxx—and he looks pissed.

  I stand up suddenly, turning to face the door. Without even realizing what I’m doing, I’m backing away while Chasm steels himself, rising up to his full height with his hands clenched into fists by his sides. I have no problem standing up to bullies or assholes or online trolls, but … someone that I like or care about? I hate it—especially when I know I’m in the wrong.

  Maxx throws the door to Chasm’s room open so hard that it knocks a picture off the wall, cracking the glass. It’s a picture of nothing, really, just some generic floral design that I highly doubt Chas chose. But still, holy crap.

  “What the actual fuck is going on?” X demands, so angry that he’s sweating, his dark hair stuck to his forehead. He looks to Chasm first, as if he suspects him of being the ringleader in all of this. “Are you two insane? Tess is panicking. Her son is missing—after she just got her daughter back after fourteen fucking years—and now that same daughter is missing again?” He whips that sharp emerald gaze of his over to me, and I cringe.