Vengeance #2
“I know.” He crossed the room slowly, stopping several feet away from her. “I wanted you before you trusted me.” Her breath caught. “I wanted you when you hated me.”
“That’s not very flattering,” she said.
“It’s the truth.” Despite her tears, the corner of her mouth twitched, and he continued. “I wanted you every night you slept beside me with that pillow between us.”
“I noticed you hated that pillow,” she said.
“I considered burning it.” She released a shaky laugh, and the sound gave him enough courage to step closer. “I don’t want your forgiveness, Chloe.”
“What do you want?” she asked.
“You.” The single word carried everything he had been too afraid to admit, and her smile disappeared. Vengeance reached up but stopped before touching her face. “I want you safe. I want you to be happy. I want you to go home to your family when this is over.”
“And what about you?” she asked.
He swallowed. “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“Think about it now.” He couldn’t because a future with Chloe was too dangerous to imagine.
“I don’t belong in Huntsville,” he insisted.
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m Dante Manzo’s son.”
“What about Savage?” she asked. “You meant something to him, too.” Vengeance froze, and Chloe’s eyes widened as though she hadn’t meant to say it, but she didn’t take it back.
“He wasn’t my father,” Vengeance said.
“He checked on you for six months. He taught you how to fix a motorcycle. He left you his gun and wrote you a letter.” Her voice softened.
“Maybe you didn’t have his blood running through his veins, but he was like a father to you, Vengeance.
” Emotion tightened around his throat. Savage had said the same thing to him once—that family was a choice.
Vengeance had never believed that choice included him.
Chloe stepped forward and placed his hand against his cheek. “Last night was real.”
He traced his thumb beneath her eye, catching a tear. “I know.”
“And I don’t regret it,” she admitted.
“Neither do I,” he said.
“Good, but I need you to stop deciding what I can handle,” she said.
“That might take some work,” he teased.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not fragile.”
“I know.”
“You keep treating me like I am,” she said.
“I treat you like you’re the most important person in my life,” he said. The words escaped before he could stop them. Chloe stared at him, and Vengeance’s heart pounded. He had survived bullets with less fear than he felt standing in front of her.
“The most important?” she whispered. He nodded. “That sounds a lot like love.”
“It probably is,” he said. “But then, I’ve already told you that I love you, honey. I’ve never done this before.”
“Love someone?” she asked.
“Have someone love me back.” Her expression broke. Before he could say anything else, she closed the remaining distance and wrapped her arms around him. Vengeance held her tightly. He buried his face against her hair and allowed himself one dangerous moment to believe he could keep her.
The radio crackled in the kitchen, and they both froze. Three short bursts of static followed by two. It was Bowie’s signal. Chloe pulled away first. “He’s early.” His messages came every fourteen days, and the last one had arrived only four days ago.
Vengeance grabbed his jeans and pulled them on before retrieving his pistol from the nightstand. Chloe followed him into the kitchen. The old handheld radio sat on the counter beside the sink, its green light blinking. Another burst of static sounded, and Vengeance picked up the receiver.
“Go.” For several seconds, there was nothing but interference, and then Bowie’s distorted voice came through.
“Package located.” Vengeance glanced at Chloe. Bowie had to be talking about the evidence beneath Doc’s clinic.
“Condition?” he asked.
“Compromised,” Bowie said.
His grip tightened around the radio. “Explain.”
“We were late,” Bowie said.
Damn it. “Dante?”
“His men cleared most of the room before we arrived,” Bowie grumbled.
“Most?”
A pause. “We found a steel box beneath the foundation. They missed it.”
“What was inside?” Vengeance asked.
“Files, photographs, and account numbers.” Bowie’s voice broke through another wave of static. “And a recording.”
Vengeance’s pulse quickened. “What kind of recording?”
“Savage interviewing a woman,” Bowie said.
Chloe moved closer. Vengeance already knew the answer before he asked. “Who?” Static swallowed Bowie’s first response. “Repeat.”
The signal cleared. “Elena Manzo.”
The cabin seemed to tilt beneath Vengeance’s feet. It couldn’t be his mother, because she was dead. “What did you say?”
“Savage recorded her twenty-one years ago,” Bowie said.
“That’s impossible,” Vengeance insisted.
“That’s what the tape says.” Vengeance gripped the edge of the counter. Dante had told him Elena died when he was only six. He had shown Vengeance a grave and forced him to stand beside it while dirt covered an empty coffin—or what Vengeance now suspected had been an empty coffin.
“What was on the recording?” he asked.
“She was giving Savage information about Dante’s trafficking network.” His chest stopped moving, and Chloe touched his back.
Bowie continued. “She gave him names, locations, payment records. Everything he needed to build the Lazarus file.”
“Why didn’t Savage use it?” Vengeance asked.
“Because Elena disappeared before she could testify.” Vengeance stared out the kitchen window. The forest beyond the glass blurred.
“Dante killed her,” he whispered.
“We don’t know that,” Chloe insisted.
“He told me she was dead.”
“Dante lies,” Bowie said.
“Bowie—” Vengeance started.
“Listen to me, kid,” Bowie said, interrupting him. The urgency in his voice silenced Vengeance. “The recording ends with Savage asking Elena where she planned to go.” Vengeance waited. “She said she had family in Chicago.”
Vengeance had heard rumors about a woman working for the Black Veil. She was supposedly paying strangers to find Chloe. Ice spread through his veins. “No.”
Chloe moved in front of him. “What is it?”
He couldn’t answer, but Bowie did it for him. “We traced one of the accounts attached to the bounty.”
Vengeance closed his eyes. “What did you find?”
“The money came from a trust created under Elena Manzo’s maiden name.” Chloe covered her mouth, and Vengeance couldn’t feel his hands. His mother was alive, and she was helping Dante hunt Chloe. Or perhaps she was the one controlling the hunt.
Bowie’s voice crackled through the radio. “You need to leave the safe house.”
Vengeance looked toward the windows. “Has the location been compromised?”
“I don’t know,” Bowie said.
“That isn’t good enough,” Vengeance growled.
“It’s all I have.” Vengeance released the receiver and began checking the ammunition in his pistol.
Chloe stayed beside him. “Where do we go?” He looked at her. Two months ago, he would have ordered her to pack. He would have decided the route, the destination, and exactly how much truth she could handle, but not anymore.
“We have two choices,” he said.
She waited. “We run before they get close.”
“Or?” she asked.
“We stop hiding and find out why my mother wants you.”
Chloe’s face paled. “Do you think that she could be working with Dante?”
“She could be running the Black Veil,” he said.
“You think she’s behind all of this?” Chloe asked.
“I think Dante was terrified when he saw her name in Savage’s journal.” That fear finally made sense now. Dante hadn’t been afraid Savage had evidence against him. He had been afraid Savage knew Elena was alive.
Chloe reached for his hand. “What do you want to do?” Vengeance looked around the safe house.
Their coffee mugs sat beside the sink, and her boots rested beside his near the door.
One of her books lay face down on the table.
For two months, this place had become something dangerously close to a home.
Dante and Elena had already stolen enough from both of them. He wouldn’t let them steal this too.
“I want to end it,” he admitted.
Chloe nodded. “Then we end it together.” Vengeance tightened his fingers around hers. The peaceful part of their lives was over, but this time, they weren’t running as protector and an obligation. They were facing the war as something far more dangerous—a man and woman with everything to lose.