Page 23 of Silent Vendetta (Vendetta Duet)

“A vet.”

Look at me, Dad, because I’m frozen, but there’s a man sneaking up behind you with a knife, and if you look at my face, you’ll see how scared I am, and you’ll look over your shoulder to see why.

The man was only a couple of feet away.

“You love animals, just like Grandpa did,” Dad said.

I tried to scream, but before the sound could escape, the glint of a blade and a swift, chilling motion silenced everything.

Dad’s eyes shot open, staring at me in horror as he grabbed his bleeding throat and spoke his last words in a raspy whisper.

“Run, Hunter.”

And then he fell to the ground, just as the figure ran away.

My voice returned with a heart-wrenching cry.

“Dad!” Dropping to my knees, I cradled him as he struggled for air, his gurgling breaths echoing my terror.

“You saw your dad get murdered.” Luna’s voice softened, taking on a gentle, mournful quality.

Every time I thought about that night, it felt like my ribs cracked in half and punctured both lungs. Sometimes I wish they would, just to end my suffering.

“I didn’t just see him get murdered,” I said. “I allowed it to happen. I saw his killer coming up behind him.” It wasn’t every day that my eyes stung with the threat of tears. “I sat there and watched my dad’s killer close in on him, and I froze.”

I couldn’t even meet Luna’s eyes, more ashamed by this than any act I had ever committed as the Vigilante.

When she spoke, she was kind enough to keep her voice low and compassionate, even though I didn’t deserve it. I deserved to hear the disgust in her words earlier this evening.

“You blame yourself,” she whispered.

“Every night I see his eyes, and all I can think is…if it weren’t for me, he’d still be laughing, still be living.”

I hated feeling vulnerable like this. This was why I didn’t talk about it. I didn’t like feeling so small and helpless as I did that day, even though I wasn’t helpless. I could have done something; I could have saved him.

“Surely, after all of these years, you can’t still think that,” Luna said.

I bit my lip, hard enough to nearly draw blood. “When my dad’s life was in danger, I did nothing to stop it.”

“Hunter…”

“My family knows I witnessed his murder. But they don’t know I saw the man coming and didn’t even try to save him. I’ve been too ashamed to tell them we lost him because of me.”

“Your family wouldn’t blame you,” Luna said.

“That’s easy for you to say. When you thought somebody was in danger, you jumped into action. Look at what you did with Dominic. You grabbed a shard of glass, prepared to fight off a man twice your size to save him. And when you thought Franco was hurting me, you raced through this underground tunnel, not even waiting for the police to arrive.”

I shook my head.

“The weight of that moment presses on me every day. I stood there like a deer in headlights and just…let it happen.”

“You were nine, Hunter. If that man came into your house to murder your dad, there was nothing you could have done to stop it.”

“I don’t know that.”

“If you’d done anything differently, you might’ve been killed, too.”

“I wish I had been.”

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