My Vigilante Valentine

Chapter 8

8

not a team-up

From my spot in the shadows, I stared up at the neon sign above Wilde Brew. It flickered like it couldn’t decide if it was committed to being open or closed.

It was a perfect metaphor for me standing here, outside the shop, wondering how I let Luna talk me into this.

Though, really, I didn’t stand a chance after I’d left her in that grocery store. I’d replayed the conversation a hundred times while I worked the streets last night, and when I woke up this morning, the answer was clear.

No. I didn’t want to do this alone anymore.

And yes, since Luna was the only one who knew my secret, that meant she was the one coming along for the ride, whether I was fully ready for it or not.

I had no idea how or why, but Luna discovering my secret had broken down some walls I thought would never come down. Her presence had weakened the mortar, and okay—maybe the walls weren’t completely down. But somehow, she’d forced a crack in them, slipping through before I even realized it.

And then I’d quickly patched it up the second she was clear, determined to maintain some semblance of control.

Just because I let her in didn’t mean I was a different man. It just meant...

Something .

The door creaked open and I looked up just as Luna stepped out, locking the door behind her with a little flourish, like she’d just wrapped up a Broadway performance instead of an exhausting workday.

She juggled her keys, humming softly under her breath. The melody—whatever it was—reached my ears and pulled at me like a siren’s call.

This woman.

She was a force of nature.

It was after nine. How did she still have so much of that light left in her after being on her feet since sunrise? Did she have some internal, endless reservoir of energy? Some kind of bottomless well of sunshine that refused to run dry?

She glanced up, grinning when she saw me. It was a mischievous grin that hinted at knowing things she wasn’t supposed to know.

Which was fitting, since she absolutely did.

“Well, hello,” she said, sliding her keys into her pocket. “Ready for our team-up?”

I crossed my arms, trying to ignore the way her ponytail—and her hips—swayed as she walked toward me. “Not a team-up.”

She stopped a few feet away with a mock-serious expression, nodding once. “Right. Not a team-up. Got it.” She tapped her temple like she was mentally filing that away. “Just one mission. Observe and stay quiet.”

“Exactly.”

“Observe, stay quiet,” she repeated, then added with a bright grin, “and probably save the day.”

I sighed so heavily it felt like it came from the depths of my soul. “That’s not part of the plan tonight.”

“It never is,” she quipped, rocking back on her heels.

Why was I here again?

Oh, right. Because saying no to Luna Wilde was like trying to hold back a tidal wave with a paper towel.

The cheap kind. Not those strong-on-messes Bounty suckers.

“Listen,” I said, shifting into a vain attempt to assert some authority, “tonight, we’ll both be observing. That’s the whole mission.”

“And if things go sideways?”

“They won’t.”

She rolled her eyes. “Humor me.”

“If things go sideways—which they won’t—I don’t need you in the middle of things when my knives come out. It’s not safe.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Was that supposed to make sideways sound less fun? Because if so, fail.”

I ignored that. “What I do need is someone with an eye for detail. Someone who notices things most people don’t. That’s you, from what I’ve seen, and that could come in handy for surveillance.”

Her face lit up like I’d handed her a trophy. “High praise. Kinda like you noticed that Chris was my cousin and not someone you had to be jealous of?”

“Hilarious,” I deadpanned.

“I’m kidding. Sort of. Thank you for the compliment.”

“It was a fact. You’re observant.”

“Fact, then. I won’t let you down.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, realizing with dawning horror that I’d likely made a huge mistake. “You’re gonna drive me nuts tonight, aren’t you?”

“Not intentionally,” she said cheerfully. “But with you…”

Yeah. Definitely a mistake.

“Come on,” I said, jerking my chin down the dark alley where I’d parked.

The street was quiet now that most of the small businesses had closed up for the night, and Slate Harbor’s nightlife scene was a few blocks away.

Luna had to jog to keep up with my much longer strides, so I slowed my pace. We weren’t exactly in a rush.

“Where’s the rest of your costume?” she asked in a whisper-shout as we fell into step.

I slid her a quick look.

“Uniform?” she tried again, undeterred—as usual—by my silence.

I wrinkled my nose.

“What do you call it?”

She was like a dog with a bone, and unable to help myself, I let out a short laugh. “They’re clothes. I don’t call it anything. I just put my clothes on.”

“Right, but it’s a very specific set of clothes. From your hood to your boots, I know for a fact you only wear those clothes when you’re fighting crime. That feels like a uniform.”

Her logic was annoyingly sound, but I hadn’t worn a uniform in years, and the thought made me twitchy.

Tonight, even while sticking to the shadows like I usually did, I’d chosen to wear my hoodie—hood down, for now—utility pants and boots. My back scabbard and the jacket where I stored my blades weren’t exactly necessary just to walk her to my truck from the shop.

Hopefully, they wouldn’t be necessary for our stakeout tonight, either.

“Ah, wait, I get it,” she said.

“What?”

“You don’t call it anything because you don’t talk about it with anyone.”

She had a point. It wasn’t like I told my reflection in the mirror to “suit up!” when it was time to take down a lowlife in my hood.

“See why it’s so good that you have a team now? You get to talk about it.”

We made it to my truck, and I opened the passenger door for her. “I don’t have a team.”

“You have a me, and you plus me equals team. ”

“You have a thing for words, don’t you?” I asked, inhaling sharply as she stepped closer to get in. Her scent wrapped around me, fogging my mind.

“Like, saying a lot of them… or choosing the right ones?”

I tilted my head. “Both?”

“True. Partnership? Is that a better word than team?”

“Get in the truck, Luna.” But because I wasn’t a monster, I held out my hand to help boost her up.

And when she took it?

That simple touch made it hard to breathe. Her skin was soft against my calloused palm, causing sparks to shoot through me like a live wire.

I closed her in, exhaling deeply as I rounded the hood, climbed in on my side, and then did a quick scan. The interior was clean, but not the kind that screamed neat freak. More like functional necessity .

Various tools were stored in practical places. There was a duffel bag in the back seat, half-zipped for easy access to the gear I’d tucked inside. And the glove compartment was organized within an inch of its life, because disarray wasn’t in the vocabulary of most Marines.

And the rest of my “uniform,” as she called it, was in a bag of its own behind my seat.

Everything in its place, ready at a moment’s notice.

Luna buckled herself in, and then she patted her thighs and glanced around, taking in the minimalistic interior of my truck.

“Wow,” she said, dragging out the word. “This is... very you .”

“It’s just my ride,” I replied, starting the engine.

“Yeah, but gold star for matching it so perfectly to your aesthetic.”

I didn’t bother responding. She wasn’t wrong, and I didn’t want to laugh again. It seemed like a bad idea to acknowledge this strange power she seemed to have over me.

As I pulled out onto the street, the city lights flickered against the windshield and threw fleeting patterns across the dashboard.

Luna fiddled with the air vent, then turned to me. “So, what’s the plan, boss?”

“We’re surveilling a guy named Marco. Mid-level criminal with ties to recent break-ins. I think he might be connected to The Valentine Villain.”

Her eyes lit up like I’d just handed her front-row tickets to a sold-out concert. “The Valentine Villain? Seriously? I thought we’d do something boring and basic. This is juicy .”

“He kills people,” I said flatly.

My grip tightened on the wheel as images of The Villain’s victims flashed through my mind. There was no question he was sick—and very dangerous.

Why did I agree to let Luna anywhere near this case? Couldn’t I have started her off with something minor, like a jewelry store robbery or stopping a basic drug deal?

Her smiling expression slid into one of stern focus, probably a poor imitation of mine. “Right. Super serious. Got it.” She leaned back, crossing her arms. “How do you even know about Marco’s connections? Is there some vigilante newsletter I don’t know about?”

I kept my eyes on the road. “I spend a lot of time with my ear to the streets—including the virtual ones.”

“Virtual streets,” she mused, snorting. “Facebook? IG?”

“Encrypted Discord servers. Idiot criminals think they’re safe to chat there. Maybe from the cops… not from me.”

She laughed, the sound filling the car in a way that was both irritating and… decidedly not .

“Okay, but, important question,” she said, leaning forward. “Do we get code names? Because I feel like that’s standard vigilante protocol. In the movies, anyway. Also, should we have a secret handshake?”

I gritted my teeth and kept my gaze locked ahead.

I’d crack if I looked at her.

“No code names. No handshakes.”

She sniffed. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the parapet this morning.”

“The para- what? ”

“Don’t worry about it.”

I shot her a look. She grinned wider, like whatever she’d said was a joke she refused to let me in on.

Her energy was infectious.

It was like a song you didn’t want to like—especially when it got stuck in your head—and then you found yourself humming it all day because it really was kinda catchy.

I hated it.

Mostly.

Because deep down, some traitorous part of me craved the way she made me feel.

Alive. Connected.

And there was nothing I could do about it.

* * *

The truck hummed softly as it idled. We were parked across from a warehouse that looked like it had been abandoned sometime around the dawn of time, with rust creeping up its metal siding and paint flaking off the signage.

The crumbling exterior was practically a neon sign on its own, calling to all of the dumb crooks in this city that it would be the perfect place for their secret bad-guy meetings.

I adjusted my night vision binoculars, scanning the perimeter.

Nothing, yet, but this was the part I liked—the quiet before the storm. It gave me time to focus on my target, quiet my mind, and make plans.

Except, of course, with Luna taking up more space than just the passenger seat. She was in my head, too, and her coffee and vanilla scent was firmly in my nose.

And now, I realized, it’d be embedded in my leather seats.

Perfect .

She shifted for the third time in as many minutes, the crinkle of a snack wrapper breaking through the silence.

I shot her a look without lowering the binoculars.

She froze mid-crinkle, her hand buried in a bag of what looked like pretzel sticks. “Want one?”

I sighed, returning my attention to the warehouse. “We are observing. Quietly.”

She popped a pretzel into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. After a beat, she used another one to point at a crow lurking on the top of the warehouse’s slanted roof.

“And here we have the elusive, wild pigeon,” she whispered—with a terrible accent—as if narrating for National Geographic. “Observe as he tries to blend in with the shadows in his black disguise, likely part of a criminal seed-smuggling ring.”

I lowered the binoculars, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I will eject you from this truck.”

She grinned, completely unbothered. “Pretty sure that violates some kind of vigilante code of ethics.”

“There is no code.”

“ Ruh-roh .”

I didn’t respond, mostly because I didn’t trust myself not to sound like I wasn’t enjoying this banter-filled stakeout as much as she was.

Which I wasn’t. Obviously.

She settled back, her leopard-spotted sneakers propped on the dash like she was on a summer road trip. The casual gesture spoke of ease and comfort—a lightness that I couldn’t believe she felt in my presence.

I opened my mouth to tell her to put them down, then snapped it closed and faced forward again. If she wanted to settle in, fine.

But then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught her watching me, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“You know,” she said, voice softer now, “you’re kind of intense when you’re in mission mode.”

“It’s called focus. You should try it.”

“I’m allergic.”

This time, she got me. I turned her way, a small smile appearing as I rested my elbow on the large center console between us. “Not true.”

She blinked.

“I’ve seen you focus,” I went on. “Sometimes, at the coffee shop, you’re so into whatever you’re doing that a bomb could go off across the street, and I have a feeling you wouldn’t even look up.”

Her mouth opened slightly, then she frowned. “I thought you said I’m observant.”

“I’m not saying you’re not… I’m saying that when you want to focus, you do it hard. Sometimes, you’re focused on observing. Think you can do that, I don’t know, right now?”

She giggled. Actually giggled , and the sound of it did the kind of damage in my chest that I imagined a coronary would.

“Were you in the military?” she asked out of nowhere. “You have that vibe, but maybe it’s something you picked up in vigilante boot camp?”

“Marines,” I admitted.

“Ah, that tracks. Marines are the best. So I’ve heard. And hey—now, I’ve got another piece to the puzzle that is Jax Thorne. That wasn’t too painful, was it?”

I didn’t dignify that with a response, though my grip on the binoculars tightened just slightly as I turned back to the warehouse.

Silence fell again, save for the occasional soft crunch of Luna’s pretzels. I watched the door to the building that loomed ahead, trying to ignore the magnetic pull of her presence.

But just as I’d started to relax into the quiet, she leaned over and whispered, “Do you think the pigeon knows anything about our target?”

I groaned softly, shaking my head and refusing to let my mouth twitch.

She was doing this on purpose.

And worse? It was working.

This was going to be a long night—one I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t enjoy a little, and that was what made it scary.