Page 42 of Vow of Silence

I exhale a weighted breath and pace to the driver’s door, then climb in behind the wheel. Fingers tight on the leather, I force my grip as tight as possible before peeling one hand away to start the engine. Murder paces my veins, frustration hot beneath. The need to exorcise this energy fogs my thinking and clouds myvision. But there’s no way to get the rush free without scaring the woman I want to shield from this base depravity.

Lives are lost daily in our world, and not a single one of us gives a fuck about that fact. Death is as promised as new life. As revered and feared. Each has the power to shift the very fabric of our organization, but at least with birth, it’s often expected.

Death doesn’t give a fuck about common decency or social convention. The reaper will steal in unannounced during the night and throw chaos to the wind without a second thought. It’s that sudden shift in the world we know—the life we understand—that often throws us off balance.

We spiral down, unsure where or when the journey will end.

I hate not knowing how things will end. And this is one destiny I’m fucking determined to be in control of—unlike my own.

Stas will get her revenge, and I’ll be the man who stands by her side in awe of the woman she is. Her rock. The single fucking thing she can depend on when everything else in the world seems hell-bent on fucking her over.

It’s how it always should have been.

She sighs when I pull onto the road, sliding down the seat a little as we head toward the secluded community. The paranoid fuckers who buy into these over-planned suburbs are the type to have security at the forefront of their mind. Before driving the first street, I could guarantee that we’ve passed at least a dozen home monitoring systems that would have caught the car in question.

We pull up to the gate, and I lower the window before looking at my soon-to-be wife. My heart jumps at the word.Wife.

“Six-seven-eight-two-two,” she recites, unaware of the excitement warming my veins.

I punch the code in with a shaky hand, intrigued to find Caroline’s code still works.

A sign Nastasya’s family hasn’t completed the cover-up yet.

Interesting.

The streetlights pass across Nastasya’s face, highlighting her concern while I drive slowly along the perfectly maintained avenue.Focus, you fool.When I send Dion here to collect intel, the trees that stand proudly in the center of the road will present a problem for obtaining a clear view of the car. But the open front yards are what I’d hoped for. No plants to obscure the plates, no trees to shield the men’s faces.

“She lived three blocks in,” Stas murmurs. “Near the middle.”

My wife.I shake my head clear and frown at the darkened properties spaced down the wide road. We could drive the streets and look for the perpetrator’s car. But I’m equally as sure that the fuckers don’t live here as I am that we wouldn’t find the vehicle if they did; people around these parts keep their cars locked away in spacious garages. You don’t often see a car left on the driveway to muddy the image when the covenants likely extend to how many windows the fucking houses have.

When the street ends in parkland, I pull to the side of the road and stretch my arms over my head, fingers knitted against my scalp as I sigh.

“What are you thinking?” Stas twists in the seat, her closest leg propped higher with a bent knee.

I reach where my phone sits in the cradle and tap my reply.

That I want to kill someone.

She chuckles. “You and me both.”

I let my head fall back on the seat, rolling it to face her. She holds my inquisitive stare, fearlessly allowing me to search the depths of her soul.Thought so.

The difference is, you’d just shoot the fucker and be done with it,

I explain on the small screen.

“Perhaps. What would you do?”

Pull them apart piece by piece until I found the part responsible for their shitty decision.

She meets my impassive gaze, eyes widening when she finds nothing but sincerity.

I snort in amusement and add,

Told you I’m not the same anymore.

Stas pulls her full bottom lip between perfectly straight teeth. The movement sucks her cheeks in, accentuating those high cheekbones of hers. She stares for longer than what’s comfortable before letting her gaze drag down the length of me. “I think you’re just the same.” She lifts one hand to still me when I reach to type a reply. “Underneath, that is.” Stas extends an arm across the space between us and runs her fingertips in a caress along the line of my jaw. “You’ve simply added layers since I knew you last.”

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