Page 25 of Silent Vendetta (Vendetta Duet)

I hesitated before revealing something that had changed my life forever.

“Luna, I didn’t sleep peacefully until you slept next to me.”

Luna’s eyes widened, and each blink slowed.

“Anyway, I became a prosecutor, hoping locking up criminals would give me purpose and closure. But it didn’t.”

“So, you became a vigilante,” she said.

“Not exactly.” I cleared my throat. “A while back, I lost a case against a man who had killed a young mother. The DNA evidence had a technical issue with the chain of custody that deemed it inadmissible, but the guy was guilty, and he got off. That case haunted me because there was a three-year-old little boy out there without a mother who would never get justice. And worse, the guy was a suspect in multiple other murder cases, and yet we had no choice but to wait until he killed again so that we could build a solid case that would put him behind bars for good. But only after someone died. It felt…wrong to just let that happen.”

The orange gave me a hard time when I peeled off this segment.

“I followed him around every spare moment I had, and I even stayed up all night doing it sometimes, hoping that I’d be able to intercept his next killing. Eventually, the guy attacked another woman, and thank hell I was there to stop it and save her, but, he fought back. And I killed him.”

I put the delicate piece of fruit through my Little Leopard’s lips and watched her tongue glide over it. Even in the darkness, that image had the power to make me hurt less.

“I thought killing him would feel terrible. I assumed I would get caught, but neither of those two things happened. I felt alive for the first time in my life, like I had saved that woman and saved countless others from being killed, and I’d protected all those children from growing up without a parent who would’ve been his victims.”

I pulled apart another segment of the orange, my fingers growing sticky.

“As the weeks passed, I felt like I was drowning in the ocean again. It made me realize that I’d been drowning since I was nine, and the only time I’d felt like I could breathe was when I’d killed that murderer.”

Luna parted her lips for me, waiting as I fed her the piece of food, and this time, I allowed myself to believe she wasn’t repulsed by my touch.

“Sadly, there are plenty of people like that man out there, falling through the cracks, and I realized taking the time to stalk them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week was not only impossible—it was also too risky, waiting for them to attack another victim before I would act. That’s when I realized I needed to be proactive, not reactive.”

One of the hardest but most liberating decisions of my life.

“So, I got a knife just like the one the killer had used on my father, and I hunted those men down and slit their throats.”

The empathetic glimmer in Luna’s eyes began to fade, gradually overtaken by a hint of trepidation.

“For the first time, I felt alive and like I had purpose.” I paused as pain charged through my veins all the way to my fingertips and toes. “I didn’t save my father, but I could save other people from being killed.”

When I fed my Little Leopard the last two pieces of fruit—discarding the pile of orange peels on the floor—I noticed tears shimmering in her eyes as she stared at me.

“Until then, I felt like the only thing my existence had done was cause an immeasurable amount of pain and suffering. Ending the lives of killers who slipped through the justice system, saving other parents from being murdered…” I licked my lips. “I guess maybe I felt like I could do some good in this world. That my life would mean something.”

Luna studied me. “That’s why you became the Windy City Vigilante. Every time you took the life of a killer, it was your desperate attempt to undo the tragic moment your father was killed. The Vigilante represents the hero you wanted to be in that moment, but you don’t need to kill people to be a hero, Hunter. You don’t need to lock up bad guys by day and kill them by night to be a hero. What you need to do is forgive yourself. Until you do, you won’t feel worthy of being loved.”

My ribs ached, but I kept my voice steady.

“I failed my father,” I said. “And if I’m being honest, my darkest fear is that if you ever found it in your heart to give me a second chance, I would fail you, too.”

CHAPTER14

Luna

Hunter cast his eyes downward as if the floor was a more comforting place. His hands clenched tight. “Is there any way you can still love someone like me?”

I shifted, feeling trapped by the weight of his words. Nearby, Franco’s shallow breaths provided a muted rhythm, punctuated by the distant sound of water dripping, reverberating gently throughout the chamber that smelled subtly of moss.

“I still have questions.” My voice was a whisper. Questions that thrummed through my head like a broken record and refused to be silenced.

“That day at the courthouse when you killed Dominic…” I started.

I wasn’t supposed to be there. I’d told Hunter I’d be out in front with reporters, but, “Why kill him there?” It was such a risky move. “Why didn’t you kill him somewhere less conspicuous?” Somebody could’ve recognized him, or he could have been caught.

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