Page 17 of Savage Secrets (Vigilante Kings)

“She’ll enjoy hearing about it.” Dad tapped the top of the table. “I hope you’ve been making time for things other than work, though. You should have the full college experience, fit some fun into that busy schedule of yours.”

Oh, I did… if you could consider chatting up criminals, interrupting gang operations, and investigating thefts “fun.” Sometimes it kind of was.

“Don’t worry, Dad,” I said. “I’m doing a lot more than just studying.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I’m impressed that I raised such a smart one. Your mother would have been so proud of you too, you know.”

I nodded, my throat tightening a little. Dad could talk about Mom without getting emotional these days, and generally I could too. But when I thought about the two of them…

After I’d gotten sick, even after the transplant that’d ultimately saved my life, things between them had seemed increasingly strained. I couldn’t help thinking the stress of my treatments had fractured their marriage. I couldn’t say I was sure they’d have stayed together much longer if we hadn’t lost Mom to that accident when I was ten.

“Anyway, my point is just that it’s important to remember balance.” Dad reached across the table to pat my arm. “You have your studies and your friends and your health and whatever you do to relax and enjoy yourself—and of course family.”

He shot me one of those warm grins, and my returning smile got stiffer. That was another hint, one even easier to ignore but that jabbed me all the same.

“That’s why I’m glad we have these lunches every month,” I said in my best enthusiastic tone.

“Speaking of family…” Dad paused when the waitress came over with our orders: burgers and fries, mine with pickles and raw onions, Dad’s slathered in cheese and mayo. My heart had started to sink at his words, and the interruption wasn’t enough to get me out of the new turn in the conversation. Dad popped a fry into his mouth, gave a happy sigh, and fixed his attention on me again. “Have you seen Maddie around campus much since she transferred over?”

I shrugged and bit into my burger to buy myself some time while I rode out the surge of emotions that came up at the mention of the girl—no, thewomannow—who’d been way too present in my mind for the past couple of days. The meaty juices mingled with the tang of the onion and pickles, but I couldn’t take much enjoyment from the meal.

“You know, we’re in pretty different fields,” I said. “It’s a big campus. I’d never see Slade or Dexter there if I didn’t arrange to meet up with them.”

I knew as soon as the words came out of my mouth that I’d made a misstep. Dad waved a fry at me. “You should get in touch with her—text her or video chat or whatever you kids do instead of calling people like a normal human being these days—and offer to show her around. You’ve got to know the campus a lot better than she does.”

I raised my eyebrows at him, pretending amusement. “Dad, she’s been at the school for what? Three months? I think she’s figured out her way around by now.”

“Still, I’m sure it’d be nice for you two to reconnect. You were friendly back in school before Lindsay and I ever got together, weren’t you? And you always got along well after too.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. Until I’d had to retreat from every part of my old life that I didn’t want to put under threat.

What would he say if he knew just how thoroughly we’d “reconnected.” I was handling a fucking case for her. I’d seen more of her yesterday than I had in the entire three years since I’d moved out of her mom’s house. Way too much for comfort…

And also nowhere near as much as a different part of myself wished it’d been. But that was the biggest problem right there.

I couldn’t act on those urges. I’d already screwed things up enough once, getting caught up in the moment and then having to cut her out again cold turkey. I could only imagine how hurt and angry she’d been… I’d seen those emotions simmering behind her eyes every time she’d looked at me when we’d been talking about nothing but her stupid car.

The memory made me wince inwardly, a sharp ache lancing through my chest. I’d hurt her badly. After she’d patched me up, touched me so tenderly, opened herself up to me…

But she could get hurt so much worse if she got tangled up in the life I had now. We’d find her car, figure out if there was anything significant about the box, and then fade right back off her radar as if she and I had never spoken.

I wouldn’t bring her anything but trouble if I stuck around, which she should have figured out in spades after our last collision.

“I did give her a few tips when she first arrived,” I said, just to get Dad off the subject.

It was a bald lie, but he took it as the truth without hesitation. As easily as I’d told the lie in the first place.

It was awful, wasn’t it, how easy and even automatic bullshitting the man who’d raised me had become? That I’d become the kind of guy who lied to his loving dad?

But that was the trade-off I’d taken. I’d gotten a lot more of a childhood than I’d been meant to after I got sick; I’d gotten to live, period. Now I was paying back the second chance I’d been granted thanks to someone else’s death by helping people in ways even the cops couldn’t.

I should be grateful for as much normalcy as I’d gotten before the path I’d started down had turned dangerous. Now all that mattered was protecting the people I cared about, and if that meant keeping them as far away from me as possible, so be it.

If only doing that had stayed simpler to accomplish when it came to Madelyn.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Dad said. “That girl’s got one of the biggest hearts out there.” As if I didn’t already know that. But thankfully, he shifted to a different topic. “Hey, are you still following the Red Sox these days? Quite the game on Saturday.”

“Yeah,” I said, though I’d only caught the highlights, and slid back into the meaningless chatter that couldn’t hurt anyone or anything. Beneath my offhand remarks, a sense of resolve had solidified in my gut.

We needed to get that car theft solvedyesterdayso I could shove Madelyn as far away from me as I could—and make sure she stayed away this time.

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