Page 29 of Man of Lies (Vendetta Kings #2)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

SILAS

The red blur hit the turn too fast, back tire fishtailing through mud before vanishing into the trees. Mason. Goddamn it, and I was too late to stop him. Just in time to watch him make another mistake at ninety miles an hour.

Rain pounded me, drumming on my helmet as I killed the throttle and coasted up the rutted drive. I was late. I knew it before I even pulled up to the house listing sideways in the rain.

I’d been elbow-deep in fresh gauze and blood when the call from Sylvia came through. Her cynical, streetwise shell had been shot full of holes, and she was hysterical, barely able to choke out a string of words between gasps. All I picked up was that Gator was dead and Dominic was already there.

I was standing in the bathroom, one foot braced on the tub, making a sloppy attempt to tape up my side while wearing a pair of pants I’d stolen from Dominic’s closet once I realized all my clothes were trashed.

Mason had left me with no ride and no way to contact my backup. My gun was still locked in Dominic’s safe. I had nothing but a seeping wound and a borrowed button-down.

By the time I’d cabbed it back to the bar to get my bike and punched the throttle hard enough to make my wound scream, too much time had passed. I pulled up just in time to watch Mason tear off down the highway.

He hadn’t learned a damn thing—he’d kill himself at those speeds.

I didn’t have time to chase him. Not yet.

I swung the Scout off the drive, tires crunching through broken beer bottles and half-buried junk as I circled toward the north side of the yard—toward the hiding place Sylvia had gasped out between sobs. The gutted remains of a storage shed sat half-collapsed against the tree line, its rusted tin roof peeled back like a busted jaw. I killed the engine and dismounted hard, boots slipping in the churned mud as I ran the last few steps.

She was crouched in the shadows, knees tucked to her chest, soaked clean through. Pajamas clung to her like wet tissue, printed with faded stars that looked like they belonged to a child, not a grown woman living with a man like Gator. Her mascara had run in thick black streaks down her face, smeared by rain and panic, and she looked up at me with wide, glassy eyes—like a sad fucking clown left behind after the circus packed up and burned down.

I dropped to a crouch and grabbed her by the shoulders. Not gentle. I didn’t have the luxury. “Sylvia. Look at me.”

She blinked like she didn’t understand English anymore. Her teeth were chattering hard enough that I could hear the clatter.

“Talk to me,” I snapped, giving her a hard shake. “What the hell happened?”

“I—I didn’t see,” she stammered. “I was inside. I heard them arguing—two men, maybe three—I don’t know. The voices were angry, and I just got this… this f-feeling.”

“What kind of feeling?”

Her voice cracked. “Like I needed to run.”

I exhaled through my nose, still holding her steady. “So you ran.”

“Out the back.” She nodded frantically. “Through the kitchen and past the fence. I didn’t see who fired. I just heard it—two, maybe three shots. Then nothing.”

I squinted through the sheets of rain, scanning the trees, but there were no signs of life besides us.

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, leaving a black smear across her cheekbone. “I w-waited. I waited until I saw someone pull up on a m-motorcycle. Your friend—that pretty Beaufort lawyer.”

“Did you see anyone leave? The shooter?”

She shook her head hard, water flying from her hair. “That’s the thing—I didn’t. I never saw anyone leave.”

“Shit.” I let go of her and stood, my side burning like it wanted to tear open again. Either she was too scared to look, or whoever pulled the trigger was still on the property when Dominic and Mason arrived.

And that meant we had a bigger goddamn problem.

I left Sylvia trembling in the dark and jogged toward the house, boots sliding across the saturated yard. The porch groaned under my weight—soggy wood, soft in the middle from termites. One hard stomp and I could probably punch right through it. I shoved open the door with my shoulder, leading the rain inside.

The stench hit first: blood, mildew, and something sour underneath. A swamp of bad decisions and old crime. I’d been in shitholes like this before. They were all the same: sagging floorboards, torn linoleum, and furniture coated in the same grime as the men who used it. A busted ceiling fan hung limp from the living room ceiling, blades swollen with humidity and dust.

Gator’s body was crumpled just inside the main room, legs twisted awkwardly, arm flung out like he’d been trying to crawl away before he went still. Blood had pooled beneath his skull, thick and already drying at the edges. Eyes wide. Jaw slack. Uglier in death than he’d ever been in life. Now the package finally matched the soul inside: warped and dead.

I stepped around the body and cleared the kitchen fast. Nothing but roaches, mold, and the shattered remains of a dish rack that had lost the fight against gravity. The back hall, closets, and bedrooms turned up nothing. No movement. No shooter. No sound beyond the storm beating the roof to hell.

Whoever had done it was long gone.

I doubled back, shoved through the front door, and took the porch steps two at a time.

Sylvia flinched as I passed. I didn’t stop.

“It’s clear,” I shouted over the rain. “Call 911. Tell them it’s a homicide scene. Say you didn’t see a goddamn thing!”

Her mouth moved, but I didn’t wait for the reply. I was already mounting the Scout, kicking it to life with a roar loud enough to cut through the growing storm. The engine throbbed beneath me as I peeled out of the yard, chasing the one man I couldn’t afford to lose.

Again.

I didn’t know where he was headed. Hell, he probably didn’t either. But this stretch of highway didn’t leave many options. No turns. No cutoffs. Just twenty miles of narrow, uneven blacktop cutting through the backwoods like a scar, choked on both sides by wild scrub and moss-draped cypress. Mist rose in patches off the asphalt, curling around the road's edges like smoke. Rain had turned the world gray and shifting, and the air smelled like standing water, ozone, and churned-up earth.

It wasn’t a road built for speed. It was built to swallow mistakes.

But if he stayed on it, and I pushed hard enough, I still had time to catch him.

Mason rode his Ducati like the laws of physics were a suggestion. Lightweight, twitchy, all throttle and ego. It’d outrun the Scout on a track every time.

But this wasn’t a track. It was real pavement, slick with runoff, littered with loose gravel tossed by the storm. The ditches on either side were swollen and choked with water, waiting for someone to miss their line.

Out here, power counted more than polish. My Scout was heavier, built for pull, with torque like a battering ram. She didn’t dance, but she sure as hell didn’t slip either. And I had years in this seat. I knew how to read the road; that mattered more than topping out the speedometer.

I leaned forward and opened the throttle wide, letting the engine snarl beneath me as the Scout ate up the distance. I hadn’t had time to mess with riding gear beyond a helmet. Rain was soaking through my cotton shirt and plastering it to my chest. But I kept my eyes locked ahead, every nerve wired to the road.

He was fast.

But this road was long.

And I knew how to ride hungry.

Nothing mattered to me more than catching up to him. That badge I’d bled for? Years of fieldwork, asset building, and case strategy—gone. No reassignments would be waiting. No more handshakes or citations tucked in some quiet file in Quantico. The mission was already compromised, and I’d put the final nail in its coffin when I turned it over to Dominic.

I’d spent months threading the needle, trying to find a version of the ending where I saved the girls, got Gator and his cronies behind bars, and came out the other side with something left of my name. And somehow…still kept Mason. But it never penciled out.

No man could walk both sides forever. Eventually, he had to choose.

Now that I’d made my choice, it didn’t feel anything like I’d expected. My career was the only stable thing in my life. Losing it should have gutted me, but no matter how closely I searched, I couldn’t find any fury or panic to grab on to. No hollow drop in my gut. Just a powerful quiet clarity that felt like…peace.

I wasn’t mourning the job.

I was chasing the only thing that still mattered.

Mason.

He’d walked out of that apartment like he wasn’t breaking—but I’d seen it. I’d felt it. His whole body had gone still when I told him who I really was. Like I’d pulled a wire loose and cut the power behind his eyes.

He’d said he needed to clear his head, and I’d let him go, because I knew what I’d done to him and that it meant I had no right to try to keep him.

Stupid.

I should’ve known he’d run straight to Dominic. That damn brother complex of his, always trying to manage threats and build a bulwark against the unexpected. He couldn’t help it. When it came to his family, Mason Beaufort would never turn his back on danger. He ran into it, chest bared, ready to take the hit for someone else.

I couldn’t take back what I’d done.

Couldn’t make him trust me again.

But I could find him. Ride this road until I saw that red machine ahead of me. Put my body between him and whatever waited at the end of the line. I could show up.

And maybe— maybe —that would be enough.

The trees opened up just long enough for me to glimpse him, a flash of red and white slicing through the mist like a flare. He was leaning hard, tucking low against the tank, his back curved like a bow drawn too tight.

My stomach turned to lead.

He’d always ridden the edge. It was part of him, something in his blood that needed to test the boundary between skill and surrender. I’d seen it in him from the start: how he handled that Ducati like it was something he needed to outrun and tame simultaneously. He didn’t ride like it was a machine. He rode like it was a weapon.

But this? This wasn’t edge work.

This was suicide.

He took the next corner too low, his knee damn near grazing the asphalt as he cut through the turn. On a dry day, it would’ve been stupid. Out here, with the highway slick as black glass and runoff pooling in the dips, a wreck wasn’t a matter of if. Just when.

I cracked the throttle harder, pushing the Scout to its edge, every part of me screaming against it—my ribs, stitched-up side, and common sense—but I didn’t back off. Couldn’t. The engine surged, torque dragging me forward, tires hugging the line like it was the only thing keeping me tethered to the earth.

“Mason!” I roared into the wind. “ Goddamn it, Mason, slow down! ”

But the words were whipped away before they ever reached him. If he heard, he showed no sign. He took the next curve full-tilt, like he was trying to outrun the storm itself.

Maybe he was.

He tore down the highway like he was invincible, but he was smart enough to know better. It wasn’t that he thought he could escape pain. He just didn’t care. He wanted the noise and the speed and the chance to feel something other than whatever was crawling around inside him.

Fear jabbed beneath my ribs, twisting my heart in an angry fist that refused to let go.

Because Mason Beaufort rode like he didn’t care if he walked away from it. I couldn’t let that happen. Not when I’d already chosen my side. Chosen him.

The Ducati’s rear tire started a death wobble, threatening to come loose in the next turn. He was pushing too far past the edge—no margin for error. One twitch. One patch of oil or gravel or standing water, and he was done.

Then it happened.

The road dipped slightly, but he didn’t see it in time. His back tire hit the water hard and fast, fishtailed once, then again—more violently the second time. His body jolted left, instinct trying to correct, but it was already too late.

The bike skidded sideways, wheels screaming over the slick asphalt, and Mason went with it.

Everything in me locked up.

There was no time to think. I jerked my handlebars hard left, gunning the Scout forward into the arc of his fall. My front tire caught the road where his had started to give, and I rode into the wreck like a battering ram—cutting his path, putting myself between his body and the hard, wet blacktop.

The Ducati slammed down first, metal shrieking, sparks flying out from under the exhaust as it skated across the pavement. Mason was still attached—legs thrown wide, his helmet bouncing once, hard. He was sliding fast, deadweight on a death track.

I hit the brakes just enough to let the Scout drop with him—angled it, leaned in, let gravity drag me down, metal first. My bike slammed into the road sideways, rear wheel lifting just enough to buck me left, and then the world turned to impact.

The Scout hit the ground and threw sparks, momentum dragging us forward in a grinding howl of steel, rain, and adrenaline.

I felt the first impact on my shoulder. The second with my hip. The third was Mason.

My arms caught him as the bikes tangled, momentum spinning us into a heap of heat and metal and flesh. My body wrapped around his instinctively, years of training overtaken by something more profound—raw and personal and full of goddamn purpose.

I let the Scout take the brunt, shielding us both with the cage of the engine, but there was nothing to do about the asphalt shredding my back like a blowtorch.

Pain bloomed bright across my ribs, sharp and full of heat, then gave way to something deeper—something cold. I couldn’t move. My body wouldn’t obey me, not even help when Mason struggled against me, rearing up on his knees to remove my helmet.

“Silas,” he rasped, and his frantic breathing ripped through me.

I thought I replied, but maybe not, because he repeated it. Louder, and thick with fear.

“ Silas— ”

His hands were on me, frantic now. I wanted to speak, to reassure him that I was fine. All I needed was a smile and a smartass remark, then the terror in expression would ease.

But I couldn’t.

The light bled out of the sky.

And then I let go.