Page 28 of Bride of Vengeance

"I believed in the system."

"The system failed you."

"So what's the alternative? Become like you? Kill people who get in my way?"

"I kill people who hurt innocents." His voice hardens. "People who profit from others' pain. People who use positions of trust to destroy lives."

People like Harrison.

"That's not justice. That's vigilantism."

"Justice is a luxury for people who can afford to wait for it." He steps back, giving me space to breathe. "Tell me, Agent Castillo, how many witnesses died while you were building your case the proper way? How many families were destroyed while you followed protocol?"

The questions hit like physical blows because I don't have good answers. Because maybe he's right. Maybe sometimes justice requires getting your hands dirty.

Stop. Don't go down that path.

"I'm not a killer."

"No," he agrees. "But that doesn't always make you innocent by default.."

The words hang between us, loaded with implications I'm not ready to examine. Before I can respond, he's already moving toward the kitchen.

"You should eat something. Then we need to plan our next move."

Our next move.Like we're partners. Like I've already agreed to work with him.

I follow him to the kitchen, where he's already pulling ingredients from the refrigerator. Eggs, cheese, vegetables that look fresher than anything I've managed to keep in my own fridge. His movements are efficient, practiced, revealing that he actually knows how to cook.

Another surprise.

"You cook?"

"Enough to survive." He glances at me over his shoulder. "Fifteen years of living alone teaches you practical skills."

"Fifteen years?"

"Since I became Ghost."

Since his family died.Since Mikhail Kozlov disappeared and something harder, colder, more dangerous took his place. Fifteen years of isolation, of being feared and hunted and completely alone.

No wonder he knows how to cook, and how to treat a wound. No wonder his house feels more like a museum than a home. When you can't trust anyone, you learn to do everything yourself.

"That sounds lonely."

"It was." He cracks eggs into a bowl with mechanical precision. "Until recently."

Until recently.The implication makes heat unfurl in my chest that I absolutely cannot afford.

Don't read too much into it. You're useful to him. That's all.

But the way he looked at me when he said it suggests something deeper. Something personal that has nothing to do with usefulness and everything to do with the connection that's been building between us since that first moment in the burning warehouse.

He makes omelets that rival anything I've had in expensive restaurants, serving them with fruit and toast on plates that probably cost more than my monthly grocery budget. We eat in comfortable silence, as if we were suspended in time, or in another world.

I really wish that were the case..

"I have a scar," I say suddenly, the words emerging without permission.