25. Michael
CHAPTER 25
Being unable to get to the gym has been one of the downsides of having to stay hidden. It’s been a solid week of staying at the Redding’s place, and although I can’t even begin to describe the joy I feel at seeing Reyna every day, I’m desperate for my heavy bag. My weights. For something to work out all of this frustration at having to stay put.
Lance and Elijah are digging as best they can into Zeke’s history, while Sheriff Vick and Carter attempt to get the guys who attacked us outside the banquet to crack. They’re maintaining their story, though.
According to them, they don’t work for anyone.
Apparently, going to prison on attempted kidnapping and assault charges is better than risking the wrath of Zeke Phillips.
Even with the skills Elijah possesses for getting his hands on information otherwise undiscoverable by the most talented investigators in the world, he’s struggled to get anything on Zeke.
The guy is squeaky clean.
Reyna laughs, so I glance up from the laptop I’m using for my own research to watch her eat a ball of uncooked cookie dough. She and Kyra have spent a lot of time in the kitchen, ‘baking their troubles away’—as the pastor’s wife calls it.
When he’s not at the church, Pastor’s helping me rehab, and I’m beyond grateful for the help, given I’m finally able to remove the sling and start moving my arm around. The bullet went into my pectoral muscle and embedded itself, so the damage to the surrounding tissue was substantial.
Nothing that can’t be healed with time and exercise, but it’ll likely cause me aches for years to come—if my prior bullet holes are any indication, anyway.
Someone knocks.
“I’ll grab it.”
As we usually do, Reyna and I move out of sight—just in case. Kyra looks through the peephole, and the confused expression on her face has me drawing my firearm out from its holster, and lining up right behind the door.
It could just be that she’s surprised to see who’s on the other side, but when she meets my gaze and shakes her head, I know she has no idea who the knocker is.
“Do I answer it?” she whispers.
Another knock.
I nod, then remain just out of sight, but close enough that I can pull her out of danger if necessary.
She plasters a smile on her face, then pulls it open. “Hi, can I help you?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m looking for Pastor Redding. Is he by chance here?”
“No,” she replies. “I’m sorry, but he’s not in right now. Can I ask what this is about?”
“He knows a good friend of mine—Michael Anderson? And I’m just trying to get a message to him.”
“Oh, I’m afraid Michael is missing. But I can let my husband know you’re looking for him. What’s your name?”
“No need for names. I think this message will come through clear enough.”
I rip her out of the way, throwing her behind me and rushing around the door as the man raises his gun.
There’s no hesitation as I aim mine—and squeeze the trigger.
The echoing boom of a gunshot is not an unfamiliar sound for me.
But I’d hoped to never hear it in my hometown.
I stand on the lawn of Pastor Redding’s house, watching as Sheriff Vick talks to the coroner. Pastor Redding is holding his wife, and they’re lingering near the door where Reyna, Eliza, and Andie stand.
I’m by myself. Hating the fact that danger followed me here because some egotistical psycho wanted to send a message.
Well, message received.
But the response is not going to be what he hoped.
I start toward Lance’s truck, which is parked just down the street a ways, as he speaks with one of the deputies.
“Michael!” Reyna calls after me, but I keep walking.
I can’t look back. Because if I do, I might not want to leave.
“Wait!” Reyna catches up to me and grabs my uninjured arm, turning me to face her. “Where are you going?”
“To handle this.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What I should have done in the first place. Confront him on his own turf.”
“Michael, you can’t do that. We still don’t have any proof?—”
“Proof?” I yell as I point back toward the front of Pastor Redding’s house. “He nearly killed her, Reyna! We’ve been looking for a legal way to take this guy down, and we haven’t found one. Well, I can solve that right now.” Rage envelops me like a welcoming blanket, urging me to do its bidding.
“You can’t do this, Michael,” Reyna insists, reaching up to cup my face.
“She’s right.”
I glance over my shoulder, surprised that Lance, Silas, Elijah, and Jaxson have all formed a half circle at my back while my focus has been on Reyna. “We can’t let this violence come here.”
“No, but there is a better way. There has to be.”
I shift my gaze to Lance. “Then tell me what it is, and I will happily go that route. But he knew Reyna and I were there. He knew we were alive, and instead of coming for us himself, he sent a hit man after Pastor Redding’s wife.” Fear mingles with the rage, churning my stomach. Why did I let her open the door?
If I’d been one heartbeat slower she would have been killed.
Kyra Redding would have died right in front of me. Her only crime? Being there for us.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
“Hey, I got here as soon as I could.” Carter’s voice has me opening my eyes again. He’s wearing casual clothes—dark jeans and a black T-shirt—and when he comes to stand beside us, I have to fight the urge to slam my fist into his face.
More anger.
More temper.
The enemy is having a field day with me.
“Michael.”
I turn and see Pastor Redding standing right behind me. His gaze is hard, his jaw set. “I’m sorry,” is all I manage.
“You saved her.”
“I put her in danger.”
“We put her in danger,” Reyna corrects.
But really, it’s me. I did it. Because I let her open that door. I gave her the go-ahead, knowing that she didn’t recognize who was on the other side. “I let her open it,” I tell him. “I told her it was okay.”
“Had you not, he would have come through anyway, and then my Kyra might have been in the way.” He glances back at her, then reaches out and pulls me in for a hug. “You saved my wife, Michael.”
“If I’d been one second later.” I picture her falling back, blood pooling on her chest, while I watched her die just as I watched Private Andrews take his final breath.
“But you weren’t, son,” he says. “You saved her life because God put you exactly where you needed to be at the precise moment you needed to be there. Just as he did when Reyna was attacked in that parking lot.”
“I keep being in the right place at the right time, yet nothing gets solved.” I glance back at Lance and try to keep my tone level even though all I want to do is yell. “Let me go, and I’ll solve this right now. He’ll never hurt another person again.”
“You can’t go after Zeke, Michael. It’s suicide. Or at the very least, a prison sentence. He’s connected and well protected.”
“Then I’ll happily rot in a cell knowing everyone I love is safe.”
“Vengeance is not yours, Michael,” Pastor Redding reminds me. “It’s not mine. It’s not anyone’s, no matter how badly we want it to be.” He clenches his hands into fists, and for the first time in my entire life, I see his anger. “Vengeance belongs to God. Do this the right way. Don’t sacrifice your soul for it.”
“I killed a man today, Pastor.”
“You stopped a man who was bent on hurting innocent people.”
“Is there a difference?”
“I believe so, yes.” He reaches out and places a hand on my shoulder. “You reacted in the moment, but this—going after him this way—is not in the moment. It’s planned.”
Desperation takes many forms.
It can make us do foolish things.
It was desperation for a life that was my own, for the ability to prove myself to Reyna, that drove me out of Hope Springs.
And it was desperation for the love I walked away from that brought me back.
But allowing my desperation for justice to drive me to take vengeance into my own hands is not the way I’m supposed to handle things. I know that. Truly, I do. But I’m so afraid that every moment we do nothing is another inch he gains in getting closer to us and everyone we love.
It has to stop. One way or another. I turn to Carter. “You’re going to get me in with the men who attacked us outside of that banquet.”
“Michael, I?—”
“No. No excuses. He knows we’re alive now, so pretending otherwise is a foolish move. I want to see them. I want to look them in the eyes and get them to admit they weren’t working alone.”
“I’ve tried,” he insists.
“You have,” I agree. “But I haven’t. And I can be quite persuasive if necessary.”