Page 107 of My Vigilante Valentine

The first floor was exactly what I expected—a maze of traps, all designed to slow me down. To force me to move carefully, methodically. The kind of setup that would make a normal person stop and think.

To make them vulnerable.

Instead, I blurred right through, no thinking at all.

Full speed, pushing myself harder than ever before, I navigated the traps. My enhanced reflexes let me adjust mid-stride, changing direction faster than human limits should allow.

Some of the trips triggered anyway—I heard the hiss of gas being released, felt the displacement of air as invisible weapons deployed—but I was already past them before their effects could reach me.

Or, at least, that was what I was hoping for.

“Second floor’s different,” Chris warned. “The thermal imaging is... weird. Like the whole floor is?—”

“Alive,” I finished, taking in the scene before me. Motion sensors covered every surface, their red lights blinking like stars.

One wrong move, one burst of speed...

So I didn’t move at all.

I held perfectly still, letting my enhanced senses map the room. The sensors had to have blind spots. Had to have...

There.

I moved in micro-bursts of speed, freezing between movements. To anyone watching, it would look like I was teleporting across the room. The sensors couldn’t track what they couldn’t process.

“Okay, that’s new,” Chris muttered. “And slightly terrifying. Since when can you do that?”

“Since about five seconds ago.”

“Show-off.”

That jab only served to remind me of Luna, and the gut-punch feeling that came with it?

It was a good thing.

Motivation.

The light at the end of a very dark tunnel, just like she always was.

“Third floor,” he reported after a moment, serious again. “They’re still there. Luna’s vitals are steady. Actually...” A hint of pride crept into his voice. “Her heart rate dropped. She’s calming down. Knowing her, calm means she’s probably planning something.”

Relief flooded through me, followed quickly by determination. She was alive. She was fighting. She was still our Luna, and I was almost there.

The door to the third floor was heavy steel, probably reinforced. A normal person would need explosives or heavy equipment to breach it. It was the kind of door meant to keep normal people out.

But I wasn’t normal.

The steel crumpled for me like it was made of aluminum foil. The sound echoed through the building—a thunderous crash that announced my arrival in a way that probably ruined any element of surprise.

But stealth wasn’t the point anymore.

I burst into the room… and there they were.

Luna, tied to a chair but alert, mouth dropping slightly as she saw me. No obvious injuries, and even like this, a hint of that trademark sparkle remained in her eyes.

And then there washim—The Valentine Villain.

Just… that same average man? The one from the restaurant? It made as much sense as it also didn’t, and that lack of clarity bugged me.

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