Chapter Three
Vendetta
The morning light just started to spill through the blinds when Vendetta pulled his hoodie back over his head, careful not to make a sound.
Dylan was still asleep, curled on her side.
She had one arm under the pillow, sleeping peacefully with her blonde hair tangled against her cheek.
Her full figure was wrapped in sheets like she was posing for a boudoir photo shoot. Dylan was beautiful.
He shouldn’t have stayed the night; he knew that, and he sure as hell shouldn’t have touched her.
But the damage was done now, and all he could do was control what happened next.
He moved through the apartment with muscle memory.
Grabbing his jacket and boots in hand, he didn’t look back until he reached the door.
That’s when he saw it. Not that he needed it for verification because he believed her.
A photo on the edge of her small shelf. A handful of people.
Her, a few years younger, smiling widely in front of a birthday cake with candles in the shape of two and one.
The man standing right behind her? None other than Eli Crizer.
The recognition hit like a gut punch. It was true. Same cold stare and crooked smile. The same fucking monster behind the charm. Vendetta’s stomach flipped as he stared at that photo for one long, stunned second before turning the handle and slipping out the door of her apartment.
Outside, the air was cold and sharp in his lungs. Crizer’s fucking niece. The woman he was trying hard not to fall for? She shared blood with the man he came back to destroy. And the worst part was that he couldn’t wait to see her again.
Last night was one of the best nights he’d had in years.
Vendetta knew he should have walked away and never looked back, but he just couldn’t shake her.
The way she looked at him, like she wasn’t afraid, like she saw something in him worth knowing.
She didn’t see the ghosts or the scars and he had plenty. Just him.
Dylan didn’t know who he really was or what happened to him.
Hell, she didn’t even know his real name.
But when she smiled at him, when she touched him, he didn’t feel like Vendetta the ghost. He felt like the man he used to be.
And no one had made him feel like that in a long damn time.
Vendetta knew it was dangerous. That getting close to her could cost them both by the end.
After a quick stop at his motel room, Vendetta showered and changed clothes, making it to work right on time.
He didn’t linger with Alan and Freddie and the other drivers.
They stood around for a good half hour each morning as they drank coffee, shared gossip, and pretended to laugh at Freddie’s lame-ass jokes.
He wouldn’t linger. He needed to get to the heart of the Cottonmouth’s corrupt partnership with the dark crime syndicate.
He wouldn’t drag it out a minute longer than he had to.
Vendetta rolled into the alley behind Ned’s Sundown Lounge around 11:00 that morning, the van tires crunching over gravel and scattered trash in the lot.
The back door of the bar was propped open with a cinder block, the same lazy setup as usual.
No Cottonmouth bikes out front. And Dylan told him she had the day off.
Good. He wasn’t in the mood for pretending. Grabbing the box of medical supplies from the back, he headed for the door. It was basic stuff. Gloves, alcohol wipes, first aid kits. The kind of order that didn’t raise red flags unless you knew who was doing the ordering.
Peggy Campbell met him at the door, arms crossed, sunglasses pushed up on her head like she hadn’t slept much either.
“Didn’t think you’d be doing the drop today,” she muttered, stepping aside.
“Lucky you,” he replied. He was just about to walk in when Peggy spoke again in a low voice, but sharp enough to cut through the air between them.
“I saw you leave with Dylan last night.”
Vendetta paused, hand on the doorframe. He turned just enough to see her expression. It wasn’t smug or curious. It felt like a warning.
He met her gaze. “You see a lot for someone who keeps their head down most of the time.”
Peggy crossed her arms. “I’m not blind. And I’ve been here long enough to know that getting close to anything with the name Crizer stamped on it usually ends bad.”
She had no fucking idea.
“She seems nice,” Peggy added, tone edged. “Does a good job. But she’s almost too nice for this place.”
Vendetta didn’t fire off a quick answer. He needed to be careful, not just for his sake but Dylan’s. He nodded. “She doesn’t belong here,” he said finally.
Peggy watched him, her expression unreadable. “Most don’t. But some figure it out too late.”
Vendetta knew that already. It gave him a lot to think about because he didn’t want Dylan to be a casualty of this place.
She didn’t know it, but the fact that she was Eli’s niece wouldn’t help her.
The man killed his own son a couple of years back in some bad blood with the Hounds in Mercy.
In the right circumstances, Eli wouldn’t hesitate to kill her either.
And Vendetta would be damned if he let that happen.
When all this went down, he had no intention of leaving her behind.
With that, he walked into the back as he normally did.
“Put it near the back fridge,” Peggy called. “Outta the way.”
He started toward the hallway, passing the kitchen and bar storage before reaching the cooler room. As instructed, he set the box down and turned to leave. But then he heard a low, male voice coming from the other side of the wall.
“They’re moving two more tonight… Eli… van leaves after midnight.”
Vendetta froze, eyes narrowing. The voice was muffled so he had no chance of identifying the speaker or making out all the words, but he got the gist of it.
“Girl last week put up a fight… drop point. Tell ‘em… dose ‘em fucking earlier.”
Another voice laughed. “Hell, let ‘em fight. Makes the payout better… sickos down the line.”
With his pulse pounding in his ears, his hands clenched at his sides.
He’d known the bar had a basement, but he didn’t realize that they were using it for their trafficking activities.
Was this a hub for their activities? Vendetta didn’t think for a single minute that it was the only hub. Eli was smarter than that.
Moving quietly, he traced the edge of the wall toward a half-open door leading down to a narrow flight of stairs. A customer wouldn’t notice it unless they were looking for it. Vendetta couldn’t go down, not without revealing himself. But he stayed, watching and listening.
From what he could tell there were two of them.
Cottonmouth jackets tossed over chairs and there was a packing case next to those.
He also saw a clipboard with neat columns.
He was too far to see exactly what was written on the paper it held.
But if he had to guess, there were names, drop points, and dollar amounts.
He could make out dollar signs. Trafficking manifests?
There was more laughter as the conversation turned into something crude. Disgusting.
The sight of the clipboard turned his blood to ice.
He’d seen lists like that overseas, different language but with the same intent.
Humans mercilessly turned into inventory.
Numbers attached to young people’s lives.
Fury coiled tight in his chest, and he had to control it until he was ready.
It was like drinking battery acid and hoping you didn’t die.
But at that moment, any lingering doubt he had about what had to be done burned away. This wasn’t just revenge anymore. It was justice. And when he was done, there wouldn’t be enough left of Eli Crizer’s operation to sweep under the rug.
Going back the way he came, he kept his footsteps silent, trying to contain the storm of emotions that just hit him. When he returned to the hallway, Peggy was waiting. She gave him a hard look.
“What took you so long?” she asked, trying to sound like she wasn’t interested in the answer. The wariness in the woman’s eyes suggested otherwise.
“My boss called.” As a lie it worked because if she thought he was on the phone, she would think he didn’t hear anything he wasn’t supposed to hear.
“Have a good one,” she said, tone flat.
“You too,” he muttered, walking toward his van.
Yes, he knew what they were doing. But now, he needed to figure out where their other hot spots were and get his hands on solid proof.
Once he had it all plotted out, he’d dismantle the whole fucking operation from the inside and then, and only then, he’d let them know who destroyed them.
A man they thought long dead, risen from the ashes.
* * *
Dylan
The bar was quiet at her next shift a couple of days later. For now.
Dylan wiped down the counter for the second time, more out of nerves than necessity. Her phone buzzed in her apron pocket. Just a quick check-in from Jason. While it was nothing heavy or flirtatious, it had her heart skipping a beat.
Jason hadn’t ghosted her. When she woke up alone in bed the next morning, she assumed he had. There was no note or text. Nothing. It would have ruined her entire day except for the text he sent her around lunchtime while she was in the grocery store.
Hope you slept well, beautiful.
More texts arrived after that. Always short, because Jason wasn’t a big talker, and he absolutely didn’t do emojis.
She’d thought about him too much since that night they spent together.
It felt good to breathe next to someone who didn’t expect anything from her for once.
Someone who looked at her like he actually saw her.
He hadn’t asked about seeing her again, which gave her a few doubts, but she kept hearing from him so there was hope.