Page 124 of Silent Vendetta (Vendetta Duet)

“Did you guys hit the kid on purpose?” I pressed.

“Course not.” His head pulled back in offense. “We were driving home after a work thing, stopped for dinner before we hit that kid onaccidenton the way home. He’s the one that ran into the road.”

How vile to blame the victim, and he still didn’t explain, as he put it, “what really happened.”

“You went to a lot of trouble to move him and leave him.” For dead.

“It’s not like we could unhit him with the car.” He glared at me like I was too stupid to follow along. “And as I pointed out to my brother, the cops would likely do a breathalyzer.”

“You were drunk driving?”

“He was driving,” Alexander chided. “And two glasses of wine with dinner didn’t make him drunk, but the appearance of hitting a kid after drinking alcohol would prove quite unfortunate for us both.”

That poor kid.

And my poor father.

“You sat there and allowed my father’s life to be taken from him. He missed out on my childhood! He missed so many milestones, sitting in prison for twenty years for a crime he didn’t commit.”

The fact that Alexander looked unbothered by this stabbed a dagger through my gut. I don’t know what I expected, but I suppose a bit of remorse was the bare minimum, and yet he was void of any compassion.

Of course he was, because, “You killed my father,” I repeated.

The sinking reality of it weighed on my shoulders.

“He saw you that night, didn’t he?” I choked over a sob.

That’s another reason he let my father go to prison. To silence the one person who could pin that kid’s death on him.

My father gave a rough sketch to the police, but it had been dark, so it was pretty generic. He couldn’t pick any photos out of a lineup, and that amplified police suspicion that my father was lying.

Chances were, my father would never have been able to point out Alexander, but Alexander wouldn’t take that gamble, I guess.

Especially if my father was free and coming around Hunter and his family living in that cottage.

Just as the twenty years of my father’s freedom were an acceptable sacrifice, so was my father’s life.

“You killed that kid,” I said. Now he planned to kill me, because I’d never stop hunting my dad’s murderer. And he’d kill Hunter, too. How many people would he kill just to protect his own ass?

“My brother was driving, not me,” he said with ambivalence.

The remaining puzzle pieces fell into place.

“You’re the one that killed Hunter’s dad,” I said. “Aren’t you?”

“He should be here any minute,” Alexander reasoned, ignoring me, and looking up at the ceiling. “The security team would’ve called him by now.”

“He’s never stopped hunting for his dad’s killer,” I said. So, Hunter was a threat to Alexander. Especially if I’d wound up dead, too. Hunter would never believe I’d committed suicide.

He’d hunt to the ends of the earth to find the person responsible for my death.

“And he’d have never stopped hunting for mine,” I whispered.

CHAPTER61

Luna

The sound of the door opening at the top of the spiral staircase was a soft creak as if someone was entering it with caution. Now, my mouth was sealed with duct tape, making me powerless to warn Hunter.

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