Page 40 of Vendetta
Eli stilled.A license plate wouldn’t lead someone to a lake house like that.Not without tracking experience or working knowledge of some things he shouldn’t have known.His stomach turned.Something was deeply fucking off.Peggy’s description of the man circled in his mind like a ghost.The physical appearance she gave sounded familiar.She’d described him as tall and quiet.The only other thing Eli knew about this mystery boyfriend of Dylan’s was that he’d found her fast, without an address.Then he’d proceeded to take down Earle and his armed guards and leave with Dylan.Only a certain type of man could pull something like that off, and he matched her description.
Eli had known a man like that once.
Tank was supposed to be dead.They’d left him swinging from that tree, dead as a hammer.Eli had made sure of it.But the next day, uneasy and itching with something he couldn’t shake, Eli went back to the spot alone, just to be sure.
The body was gone.The rope lay in the dirt, bloodied and frayed next to the crate, but the chains were missing.No Tank.No sign of animals dragging off the remains.Just empty woods and silence.
For weeks, Eli waited.For cops to ask questions.For a body to turn up.For someone to say something.But no word ever came, making the story they made up about him going nomad plausible.
Maybe Tank had died out there and someone stumbled across the body first -- some hunter, maybe, or a local kid sneaking through the woods.And maybe they didn’t want to get dragged into a police investigation, didn’t want to answer questions or explain what they saw.
That’s what he’d told himself on a regular basis.No way Tank survived all that.Not the beatingandthe hanging.
But the longer the silence stretched, the more that seed of doubt in Eli’s gut sank roots.What if he hadn’t died?What if someone had helped him?What if Tank was still out there, hiding and planning?
Eli told himself it wasn’t possible.But he’d checked his locks more often and slept with a gun closer to hand.
If Tank was still alive…
Eli stepped back, exhaling through his nose.“Get her out of my sight.”
Trucker pulled a knife to cut the rope holding Peggy in the chair.She groaned in pain as he hauled her to her feet.
“She needs a hospital,” Trucker muttered, almost reluctantly.
“Then drop her in one and make it look like a mugging,” Eli said, heading back to his desk.
When the door shut behind them, Eli sat.Grabbing his phone, he entered a number.A voice on the other end answered.It was a network contact, mid-tier.
“We got a lead,” Eli said.“One of the warehouse guys working atINeedahere in Oak Grove.‘Jason’ is all we got right now.Dylan Crizer’s been with him this whole time.”
A pause.“You want it quiet?”
“No,” Eli said, his voice ice.“I want itdone.The bounty goes wide; every Cottonmouth, every affiliate.Dead or alive.”
“What about the girl?”
Eli’s hand clenched around his phone.“Bring her back alive and unharmed.She’s mine.”
He hung up.And for a long moment, he just sat there, the pressure in his temples squeezing like a vise.Earle had already called twice, threats hidden in every word the man said.Eli knew what happened to men who failed SS.He’d seen it.Now he lit a cigarette with shaking fingers, pulling in a deep drag and staring at the wall.
The name scratched at the back of his mind like a ghost clawing at a coffin lid.But that was impossible.Tank was dead.
Wasn’t he?
* * *
Vendetta
Vendetta didn’t look up right away when he heard the knock.He was sitting on the bed next to where Dylan slept, her breathing finally even.After everything she’d been through with her uncle, almost being trafficked at the lake house, and then learning the truth about the man she’d slept with and trusted, she must have crashed the minute her head hit the pillow.She looked so small now, vulnerable in a way he’d never seen when she was awake.
He watched her for a moment longer, wishing he could just stay there with her.And he swore to himself that if he failed at everything else, keeping her safe had to be the one thing he got right.
The knock came again, followed by Hero’s voice on the other side of the door.“We’ve got company,” Hero said.“Cottonmouths.They mentionedTank.”
Vendetta froze.Who the fuck could that be?He took one last look at Dylan, brushing a hand lightly over her blanket-covered leg, and rose silently from the bed.Stepping out into the hall, he closed the door behind him with careful quiet.
“Who?”he asked.
