Page 9 of Silent Vendetta (Vendetta Duet)

Alive and well. My new favorite words in the English dictionary. Did that mean I had six more minutes to find a way to save myself?

Better yet, did that mean what I think it did?

Hunter grabbed the mask he’d discarded on the ground and used it to wipe away the remnants of blood on his chest—spitting on the fabric to get the last stubborn parts off. He did the same to his dirty feet.

“I’m going to get you a clean shirt,” he said. “Yours probably got blood on the back when you fell on me.”

Fell? He grabbed me and yanked me off the stairwell, but that wasn’t the headline here.

“You want me to go up there and send them away,” I realized.

“You and I are going to walk up there together. You’re going to answer the door with me, show them that you’re fine. We’ll explain the screaming that you heard, and we’ll convince them to leave.”

This was a good thing. Not only would I live for a few more minutes, but if he would put me in front of the officers, I could scream and run out of this building and into their arms.

“How?” I asked, pretending to be interested in his plan instead of pointing out that the cops would never buy any story he came up with, not when I’d called Detective Rinaldi in such a panic. Not when I didn’t answer her call just now.

“I have a plan,” he said. “I promise you, Luna. I will explain everything to you. I haven’t told you everything about my father’s death. If you understood that, you’d understand why I became the Vigilante.”

Sean’s words swirled in my head about the awful rumor that Hunter had been the one to kill his father—Hunter, a killer? As a boy? Hunter’s dark tone made me question everything about that night.

There was another reason Hunter being the killer didn’t make sense, though. Hunter said he was trying to find the man who killed his father.

Or maybe that was a lie, too. Maybe he was manipulating me from the beginning.

I shook these thoughts out of my head and snapped myself out of it.

This was exactly what he wanted—to distract me into wondering what in the hell happened to him when he was a kid, who had killed his father, and why Hunter had turned into the Vigilante.

To throw me off my game.

Screw him.

How dare he look at me with that tenderness, like he was still my boyfriend? Like I was still his girlfriend and that I would have any interest in understanding why he was doing this.

It didn’t matter why he was doing this. There was nothing he could say, ever, to get me on his side.

“But first,” Hunter continued, “I need you to do this for me. Help me convince them to leave. If, after you listen to everything I have to say, you still want to turn me in, I will let you go.”

I pretended to mull this over, looking forlorn and scared. I even managed to keep my voice meek when I said, “You’ll really let me go?”

Hunter hesitated for a second before nodding.

A silent lie with a loud betrayal.

As I locked eyes with Hunter, memories flooded back—the care, the warmth, the love. But it had been nothing more than a cruel mirage.

It was like a person who was wandering around a boiling desert, not realizing how close they were to succumbing to dehydration until they saw a lake. They dove in and swam in the cold water that washed away the burning heat that had threatened to end them. They smiled and laughed, splashing the water and drinking it, overjoyed and never wanting to leave.

But with a secret, lethal identity, the person took that lake away and made me realize it was never real—my eyes welling with tears as I watched it vanish.

“I’m willing to send them away, but only if you give me some answers first,” I stipulated, hoping to make it sound believable. If I agreed with no conditions, he’d know I was lying, so I could play the role of the desperate girlfriend who needed closure here.

“Why?”

“I just found out the man I love is the serial killer who I’m working with the mayor to hunt down. I saw you kill multiple people, and we’ve had mysterious encounters when you claimed to be the Vigilante, but all along were you.” I nodded my chin toward him. “I have questions. If you answer them, I’ll help you get rid of them.”

Hunter stared at me, his gaze seeming to bore into the back of my soul as if sifting through my words, trying to decipher their true meaning.

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