Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
I called the target back and sent Abel a smug look when I saw the tight grouping. All fifteen rounds were dead center.
Abel’s brows were damn-near touching his hairline as he studied the paper and Hunter with new eyes.
“Well?” I urged while bouncing on my toes. Vengeance was the fucking truth.
Abel rolled his eyes and sighed. “Are you any good with a rifle?” he asked her in a bored tone.
Hunter turned to face us, her wary gaze moving back and forth between us. I could see the curiosity in her eyes, but she didn’t allow herself to ask what we were up to. “I’m okay.” She gave a dainty shrug as if we hadn’t just watched her shoot better than any mercenary. “I prefer handguns.”
Abel and I looked at each other.
Ten minutes later, we were outside at the rifle range located behind the building. Hunter was clutching a semi-automatic and listening intently to Abel’s instructions on how to operate it.
“You already know how to control your breathing and how to aim, so the key here is keeping the butt of the rifle firmly against your shoulder to brace against the recoil. It takes some getting used to, so don’t feel bad if you need practice.
Everyone does. We can adjust your sights once we see where your grouping is. ”
Hunter nodded, but I could tell under her excitement she was nervous—not just of the weapon, but of me. It was evident by now that I hadn’t simply brought her here for a good time.
She glanced at me before quickly looking away and taking aim once Stoll confirmed the range was hot.
Hunter’s grouping was all over the place this time, but that was to be expected.
Her second attempt wasn’t much better, but instead of becoming discouraged, it only made her more determined as she grew comfortable with the rifle.
Her third attempt was less scattered, but on her fourth try, she went back to shooting like she was aiming with her eyes closed.
Now I see why she went for the automatic when she raided my cache. She didn’t need as much control over her aim in order to kill.
“May I?” I asked after she took aim again, but immediately began fussing with her adjustment.
She licked her dried lips due to the wind and then nodded, so I stood behind her—probably closer than necessary—and brought my fingers to her chin.
“This lovely face has uses beyond dazzling unsuspecting admirers, Hunter.” I gently pushed her face toward the rifle until her right cheek rested against the stock and her dominant eye was properly aligned with the sight.
“Better?” She nodded, so I smiled and kissed her soft but cold cheek, making her lips part on an exhale.
“You’ve been forgetting your cheek weld,” I instructed.
“You won’t get consistent shooting without it. ”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I let my hands rest on her voluptuous hips and kissed the corner of her pretty mouth. “Make me proud, Vengeance.”
I stepped back.
Her fifth attempt to zero the rifle was successful. Hunter practiced for two more hours, switching to kneeling and then lying down with Abel’s instruction before we were satisfied she’d gotten the hang of it.
Abel and I exchanged a look, and at his reluctant nod, I smiled victoriously and led Hunter back toward the building.
She was too excited about her day of shooting and learning a new weapon to notice that we were walking hand in hand.
She even let me help her into the back of the Denali, but we didn’t speak the entire drive.
We were back at the cabin when she stopped before the door and turned to face me. “Thank you for today,” she said sweetly. “I needed that. And I had fun.”
“So did I.”
It felt like the end of a first date—when the guy was standing on the girl’s front porch, hoping she’d invite him in. I knew Hunter wouldn’t, just like Hunter knew she wouldn’t stop me if I asked.
“Did you know I’d enjoy it because you had me followed?”
“Yes,” I confessed. It fired something inside me when Hunter didn’t look away.
There was nothing honorable about my obsession, but Coby and Hunter didn’t run away from it.
Instead, they embraced it on their own terms and brought me to heel with their own desires.
“But I don’t know what made you want to learn in the first place. ”
“You don’t?” she asked me skeptically.
I swallowed, knowing the possible reason was an ugly one. “I have an idea.”
Her father.
She learned how to shoot to protect herself from men like her fucking father. The one man Hunter should have been able to trust unconditionally.
“I’m sure you know I went to juvie, but you don’t know the real reason why.
No one does. Everyone thinks they know, and the ones who doubted didn’t care enough to ask the hard questions.
” Hunter shifted uncomfortably, but she still didn’t look away, letting me see her ugly parts, too.
“Not one person stood up for me. Not even my court-appointed lawyer. My father’s side of the story had more holes than Swiss cheese, but it made better headlines.
Troubled Teen Stabs Father to Avoid Chores.
” She scoffed, and I felt her disgust because it mirrored my own.
“Who cares that the truth rarely fits in one sentence? Lock her away.”
“You pled guilty.”
Hunter nodded, but her gaze was fixed on her hands as if she could see her father’s blood staining them. “I did.”
“Why?”
She squeezed her eyes closed and inhaled deeply.
“Because I didn’t look at those bars as keeping me in.
To me, they were keeping my father out. When I was released, my forgiving father was there, waiting for his delinquent daughter with open arms.” Hunter laughed, but it was a bitter sound.
“So I ran. With the news cameras watching and anyone who bothered to remember my name, I ran from that monster, and I thought that was the end of it, but it wasn’t.
I thought I could move on, but I couldn’t. Not while he was alive.”
“That’s when you burned his house down.” She nodded. “But he got out, and you were caught.”
“A month before I got out of juvie for stabbing him, my mother died. The same one who abandoned me when I was just a baby. Luck must have finally been on my side because I somehow got the only attorney in the world who could convince a jury that I actually mourned that bitch. I was sentenced to grief counseling and community service. That’s when I met Coby. ”
“What did your father do to you, Hunter?”
“Nothing.” She shrugged. “Not really. It’s what he tried to make me do.”
I inched closer but stopped just short of touching her. “What did he want you to do?”
“We were on the verge of losing the house because of my father’s gambling habit. He was about to lose his job, so my father promised his boss something besides a good work ethic.”
“What did he—” The answer hit me like a train before I could finish asking the question.
Hunter sighed, looking truly dejected. “I was supposed to fuck my father’s boss, two of his best employees, and three golfing buddies so that my father could keep his minimum-wage job and his spot at his favorite poker table.
Those were the chores the headlines unwittingly wrote about.
I came home from school, and there they were—drinking my father’s beer and waiting for his fourteen-year-old daughter to come home from school.
I begged my dad not to give me to them, but he wouldn’t listen.
He said I would be fucking soon enough anyway, so he might as well get his fair share. ”
Hunter closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, they were brimming with tears. I pulled her into me and wrapped her in my embrace.
“I don’t—” Her voice broke. “I don’t remember picking up the knife.
I could hear the disgusting things those men were saying about me in the other room.
I was so scared of what they’d make me do.
My father grabbed my hair, and I grabbed the knife I’d used to slice my bagel that morning.
And then I stabbed him with it before running away.
” I felt her nails digging into my chest and welcomed the pain if it meant she didn’t feel any.
“I didn’t get far before I was picked up as a runaway. ”
Hunter suddenly pushed away from me, and I gave her the space she needed.
“I tried, you know,” she said as she stared at the ground.
“I tried to tell the cops what happened, but my father got to them first. He had witnesses. Those men he brought home to fuck his underage daughter couldn’t let the truth get out, so they backed the lie.
They told the police that I stabbed my father unprovoked, and it was their word against mine, so I pled down to simple assault and did a year in juvie just to get away from him. ”
“And you’ve been training to protect yourself ever since.”
It wasn’t a question, but Hunter nodded anyway. “As long as my father lives, I will never feel safe. I’m sure he’s forgotten about me by now, but I haven’t forgotten him.”
“Who else knows about this?” I asked while fighting to keep the violence out of my tone.
“Only Coby,” she answered. Our gazes met. “And now you.”
“You may not care to hear it, but I need to say it anyway. Your father is a dead man. I want names. Every single man who was there. I want their names, and if you can’t give them to me, I’ll find them anyway.”
“I don’t need you to protect me,” she said weakly.
Losing my fight to be honorable, I pulled her into me. She didn’t fight me as she stared up at me, looking so innocent and vulnerable. “Someone has to.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can, Vengeance, but I want that honor. Tell me I can have it,” I pleaded.
“You’re marrying my best friend,” she reminded me.
“I am.”
“How can you not see it? What you want will never work? I wouldn’t mean as much to you as Coby.
She would always own more of you than I ever could, and I know it’s not a competition, but it doesn’t seem fair.
I’ve never done anything like this, but shouldn’t there be a balance?
If you tip the scales too much one way, wouldn’t it all topple over?
If I thought for one second that I could be the other woman and not let the jealousy consume me… ”
She didn’t let the rest fall from her lips.
“You would say yes,” I finished for her.
“I would say yes.”
“Hunter…” I felt my frustration bubble and forced it back down. “I have to marry. It has nothing to do with wanting Coby more than you. You wouldn’t be the other woman, and I don’t care what a piece of paper says. You would be my wife as much as Coby.”
“But it’s how I would eventually feel if you married each other. I would still feel on the outside.” I felt her palm on my cheek; it was the first time she willingly touched me, so I closed my eyes to savor the moment. “Promise me you’ll keep Coby safe and make her happy when I’m gone.”
I turned my head to kiss her palm. “You don’t have to leave, Hunter. Even if you don’t stay for me, you can stay for Coby.”
“I doubt Coby wants me to stay anymore. She hates me now.”
“No, she doesn’t. Not yet. But she will if you leave.”
“Ocean, I told you I can’t stay.”
“I don’t mean for that. We both want Coby safe, but as my wife and the woman I love, she’ll be in more danger than ever. You’ve proved capable and willing to keep anything from happening to her. What if I gave you another reason to stay?”
Hunter’s hand dropped from my face as she stared at me in disbelief. “What are you talking about?”
“I want to hire you.”
The furrow in Hunter’s brows deepened, and I forced myself to let her go. “To do what exactly?”
It seemed like the entire world had gone still, waiting for my answer. “I want you to protect my wife.”