Page 67 of Silent Vendetta (Vendetta Duet)

It was like a flood, drowning out the certainty.

My tongue tasted bitter with my impending betrayal, a mixture of guilt and heartbreak.

The words sat heavily on my lips, a confession waiting to spill like an unstoppable tidal wave. Just one whisper. That’s all it would take. One whisper and the man I loved would become a criminal in the eyes of the law—worse, the target of Mayor Kepler’s vendetta. One whisper and I would become his betrayer, sentencing him to prison for the rest of his life.

The thought twisted my heart in knots.

The mayor pressed impatiently. “Who jumps out as a possibility?”

There it was, stuck in my throat like a jagged piece of glass, the words that would cast me into a world of darkness. My heart ached, a burning, wrenching pain. How could love and justice demand such a price? A sacrifice that tasted of ashes, one that felt like the damning winter to forever settle into my soul.

It felt like a death sentence, not for him, but for me. A chasm of darkness that threatened to swallow me whole.

His question hung in the air, and in the silence that followed, the answer that had eluded me became painfully clear.

“After thinking about it some more…” I paused, searching for the right words, my voice cracking slightly as I finally spoke. “I think I was wrong.”

I couldn’t turn Hunter in.

Because not everything in life was black and white—sometimes, we have to navigate through the gray. What Hunter, as the Vigilante, had done was wrong legally, but that law wasn’t always right or just; it was a legal system fraught with inequities, and sometimes innocent people went to jail. Like my dad. Other times, the guilty were free to commit further crimes. As misguided as he was, Hunter stepped in to do what our imperfect legal system failed to do. He no longer straddled the line between right and wrong—he crossed over it into the gray.

He wasn’t a monster; he was a good man with a good heart, who lived to right the wrongs by seeking justice for those who deserved it.

“Yet you felt so sure of this a few days ago that you called a meeting with me,” Mayor Kepler said.

“I shouldn’t have sent that email. I’m sorry.”

The mayor’s chest swelled as he evaluated me. Did he sense I was lying?

“Trust your gut, Luna. Maybe it’s time we take a closer look at the people in your life.”

CHAPTER31

Luna

“You didn’t turn me in.” Hunter’s voice was low with just a hint of hope, quiet despite the partition between us and the driver.

In the sedan, a rich aroma of leather blended with the chill of the air conditioner while our shared secrets seemed to suffocate the space around us, and as we drove closer to Hunter’s mansion, the purr of the engine became a whispered warning that everything was about to change.

“I was going to,” I admitted.

“I know,” he said. “I could see it in your eyes when we parked.”

There was something so intimate about his declaration—that with a simple look, he could see my intentions. Had he also seen the anguish my intention had caused me?

“What changed?” Hunter’s voice skated over my skin, embracing me in a warm hug that only cemented my decision to back out.

A better person would have pushed aside their heartbreak, their love for him, and would have been courageous enough to speak up. Maybe I wasn’t as good of a person as I thought.

“I don’t know what’ll happen to you.” I twisted my fingers in my lap. “But I just couldn’t be the one to turn you in.”

The sedan took a right turn, pulling my body closer to Hunter’s like a devil tempting me.

“Mayor Kepler’s planning to look into everyone in my life,” I said. “Before I knew you were…” I glanced at the driver, then back at Hunter. “I told the mayor I thought thepersonmight be someone I know. I tried to backpedal but…”

Shame froze my words, guilt that I’d had a hand in Hunter’s likely demise. It was one thing if he got caught. It was another if I was the one that pointed the arrow at him.

It would put me in a prison of my own for the rest of my life.

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