Vengeance #3
"It was for Savage,” the man responded. That got his attention. The man reached slowly into his coat, and Chloe stiffened. He produced a faded photograph of Savage, Doc, Elena, and him as a little boy. It was the same picture Dallas had given him. On the back, Savage had written another sentence.
Gabriel is family.
Vengeance finally lowered his pistol. "Why didn’t Bowie know about him? He would have warned us," Chloe insisted.
"Very few people know who I am," the man said. Gabriel looked at Chloe. "You must be Chloe."
"I am,” she admitted.
"I was good friends with your father, Savage. I’m sorry about his passing," Gabriel said.
A lump formed in her throat. "You knew him?"
"I owed him my life." Vengeance was beginning to notice a recurring theme with Savage—he liked to save people. He glanced toward the church. "Come.”
The guy started walking to the church, and Chloe looked at Vengeance. “Should we follow him?” she asked.
Vengeance shrugged. “Do we have another option?” She shook her head and followed Gabriel to the church. Vengeance followed close behind her, keeping an eye out for things to go sideways because they always had a way of doing that.
The sanctuary had long since been abandoned.
Broken pews lined the aisle, and moonlight poured through shattered stained glass.
The silence felt almost sacred. Gabriel led them beneath the altar and knelt on the cracked stone flooring where a steel door was hidden.
He spun the combination lock, and the heavy door hissed open.
"She's waiting,” was all he said, pointing down into the dark tunnel.
Vengeance's pulse thundered as he descended the steps.
Chloe stayed close behind him. The underground bunker looked nothing like he'd expected.
There were computers that lined a wall, and maps hung above them.
The walls were covered with photographs, shipping manifests, names and faces.
Red string connected hundreds of people. It wasn't a hideout; it was a war room.
A woman stood with her back to them. Her blonde hair was streaked with silver.
She turned, and her blue eyes met his. For a long moment, no one spoke.
"I'm sorry." Her voice broke. "I've rehearsed this moment for twenty-six years.” A tear escaped and ran down her cheek.
“And those are still the first words that come out. "
Vengeance couldn't move. Every question he'd ever asked, every nightmare, every lonely birthday, and every visit to a grave that had never belonged to her—all of it stood between them.
"You let me think you were dead,” he whispered.
"I know,” she said.
"I buried you." He barked out his laugh. “Hell, I hated you for leaving me."
"I know, and you had every right to feel that way,” she said, nodding through her tears.
He wasn’t sure what to say next, but decided to ask the only question that mattered. "Why?"
Elena closed her eyes. "When I found out what Dante really was—” She looked toward one wall and nodded to the photographs of frightened young women that covered it.
Some were smiling in school pictures, some were mugshots, and some were surveillance photos.
Many had: recovered written beneath them, but too many simply read: missing.
"I thought he was smuggling weapons." Her voice shook. "Then I found the girls."
Chloe quietly covered her mouth to hide her gasp.
"They were everywhere,” his mother continued as she walked to one photograph.
It was of a girl who was no older than sixteen.
"Dante wasn't building a criminal empire; he was building a market.
" She looked back at Vengeance. "I confronted him.
" His stomach tightened. "He just smiled at me when I told him that I knew everything.
" Another tear rolled down her cheek. "And he asked me how much I thought a sixteen-year-old virgin sold for.
" The room fell silent. "I tried going to the FBI. "
"No one believed you?" Chloe whispered.
"Oh, they believed me.” Elena laughed bitterly. "They were already being paid by Dante, so they knew about the entire operation." Vengeance's jaw clenched. "So I ran."
"No." A new voice came from behind them. Gabriel stood in the corner of the room. "You didn't run." He looked at Vengeance. "She went to Savage."
Vengeance frowned. "Why him?"
Gabriel smiled sadly. "The Royal Bastards had already lost people trying to stop Dante."
Elena nodded. "Your father, Savage, was the first honest man I'd met in years.
" She smiled at Chloe. "He told me something I'll never forget—dead women don't stop monsters.
" Vengeance could almost hear Savage saying it.
"Dante wouldn’t see me as a threat anymore if I was dead, so we staged my murder. "
Gabriel continued. "Doc falsified dental records, and Bowie helped move the supposed body,” he said.
"Savage personally buried an empty coffin,” Elena said.
Chloe's eyes widened. "My dads both knew?"
Elena nodded. "They hated lying to you, but if Dante suspected, he would've killed all of you." She walked toward Vengeance. "I watched you grow up."
He frowned. “That doesn’t make any of this better.”
She opened an old file, and inside were hundreds of photographs of him—in school plays, having birthdays, and even playing flag football as a kid. "I never stopped being your mother."
His knees nearly buckled. "You weren’t there for any of it,” he insisted.
"No, I wasn’t. I couldn't hold you when you fell or hurt yourself.
" She broke completely. "I couldn't tell you I loved you.
" She pressed trembling fingers against one photograph of him at fifteen. "But every birthday, I celebrated.” She smiled sadly. He had no idea that she was watching him grow up. She had been there for it all—every Christmas, every accomplishment, every scar that he got from a lesson learned. She knew all of it, but that didn’t change the fact that he had to grow up without a mother.
He had to grow up with a father who was a monster.
"I wanted to come home,” she insisted.
"Why didn't you?" he asked.
"Because Dante wasn't the real enemy." The room fell silent, and Vengeance stared at her.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
Elena crossed to the largest map, and at its center was a photograph—not of Dante, but of another man. He was a familiar face from television, and Chloe gasped. "Senator Charles Whitmore,” she said.
Vengeance's stomach dropped. "He created Black Veil,” Elena said. "Dante only managed the operations."
Gabriel spoke quietly. "But Whitmore built the network.
He had all the power—the politicians, judges, buyers, and enough money to run the whole thing.
Dante answered to him." Every piece suddenly fit into place.
The judges who'd ignored evidence, and the FBI agents who'd disappeared. They'd been chasing the wrong king.
"Dante was never the head,” Vengeance breathed.
"No." Elena looked directly at Vengeance. "He was the sword, but Whitmore was the hand holding it."
Before anyone could speak, one of the computer monitors beeped, and Gabriel rushed over to it. His face drained of color. "No.”
Elena was already moving. "What is it?"
"Our surveillance camera picked up something,” Gabriel said.
The screen displayed security footage from outside the church.
A black SUV had just stopped in front of the building, and about six men poured out of it and into the street.
They were armed, and from the look of them, they weren’t Dragons.
They wore black tactical gear and no patches except for one—a black veil wrapped around a skull.
Elena closed her eyes. "They found us."
Gabriel looked at her. "How?" She stared at the monitor and then slowly looked at Vengeance.
"The drone,” Vengeance whispered as his blood turned cold. It was the one that he noticed above the burning cabin. It hadn't been Dante watching, but someone higher up in the Black Veil’s ranks.
A phone rang on the operations table, and no one moved. The caller ID displayed only one word.
DANTE
Elena answered, and Vengeance felt like he couldn’t even breathe. She put the call on speaker, and Dante’s laughter filled the room. The sound was calm, almost affectionate. "You know—” His voice echoed through the bunker. "I always wondered when you'd finally choose him over me."
Elena said nothing. "I suppose I should thank you for making our family reunion possible."
Another quiet laugh filled the room. "You've saved me weeks of searching."
Vengeance stepped forward. "Dante."
The laughter stopped. "So.” His voice became ice.
"My son finally found his mother," Dante said the words that chilled every person in the bunker.
"I've already told Senator Whitmore where you are.
" The call disconnected, and above them, the first explosion shook the foundation of the church.
The war had finally come to them, and Vengeance was ready for it.