Page 151 of The Vigilante's Lover

BOOK FOUR

1: Jax

I’m not sure which I’m more pissed about, getting dragged away from Mia, or this punk driving my car.

I don’t know any of the Vigilantes who collected me from the hotel in Nashville. They’re all southern born and trained, but they must have come through the program after I did.

I am, however, very familiar with the silo we’re heading toward. It’s under the jurisdiction of Alan Carter, who runs the Missouri silo that Mia and I visited last week. He isn’t likely to be at this one, though. The Tennessee silo is a single-missile launcher and primarily serves as a first-stop mission control for Phase One Trainees who have just gotten their first Vigilante orders.

It’s where I got mine.

The Aston Martin roars along the highway at high speed. This guy must be at least a Phase Five Driver. He’s good. We weave through morning rush hour in Nashville like it isn’t even there.

The girl is in the front passenger seat. The other guy who came to the hotel is driving another car, but we’ve left him far behind. He’s not a pro driver like this sleazebag.

He keeps trying to put his hand on the girl’s knee, and she keeps finding ways to knock it off without causing a fuss. I want to break his hands, which is allowed in the Vigilante code. We can reprimand otherVigilantes. Even fight them. Just no murder.

Other than me, of course. I’m under a kill order. Fair game.

“So why aren’t you following Standard Execution Protocol on this?” I ask. On a typical preordered kill, you use a snuff dart and drive the body to the closest crematorium on the Vigilante books. They dispose of the body in a way that nobody ever finds it.

That’s why most funeral homes are so swank. They get a pretty penny for taking care of this bit of dirty work for us.

We’ve got two facilities in Nashville, and yet we’re driving away from the city. They must have some other plan for me first.

The girl turns around in her seat, knocking the asshole’s hand off her leg for the hundredth time. “Just following orders,” she says.

Sutherland’s, I assume. I wonder if Jovana has already made it to Washington. Damn it.

I’m restrained by a device I’ve never seen before. It’s some sort of electromagnetic handcuff. Sam would hate it. It’s inelegant, bulky, and probably requires more power than necessary.

The restraint consists of two metal circles that are magnetically sealed. Between the heavy cuffs is a silver power box. The whole gizmo probably weighs ten pounds.

“Can’t you send someone for my suitcase?” I ask. “Some Phase One?” I frown at my pajama pants and the T-shirt I was handed.

“You aren’t going to need your suitcase,” the driver jerk says. “Everything burns in the end.”

I sit back against the cushion. So they’re going to take me to a crematorium at some point. I still have to wonder what is so threatening about me that they would need to snuff me. Makes no sense. My killing another Vigilante was a violation of the code, and punishment was coming my way. But it wasn’t a hanging offense. Not in our world, where collateral damage is part of the job.

I’m not sure I’ll live long enough to know why I was dangerous to Sutherland. Mia probably won’t ever know of my fate.

I picture her coming out of the bathroom, all fresh and ready for our trip to Washington, and discovering I’m gone. I don’t think she’ll panic. Hopefully she spotted the ring and got the message from the thief knot. Even though there isn’t anything she can do to stop what is happening to me, at least she’ll know I didn’t desert her.

Since I’m stuck for the foreseeable drive, I decide to take the dead man’s path for a moment and think about her. Nothing else in my life deserves my last thoughts.

She’s been different from the first moment I saw her, sleeping in that pristine white nightgown, tucked into a bedroom that looked like it still housed her high school memorabilia.

Now that I’m admitting things to myself, I know she caught my interest from the start. I wanted to push her, see where she would bend, how much it took to break her to my will, my needs.

In the end, she broke me.

The sky is blue and calm. The driver weaves around cars as traffic thins out. I picture the red ropes on Mia’s bare skin, how she shivered in the moonlight in that field when I stripped her. I almost laugh to remember how she called me out on shredding her nightgown when I had a scanning wand.

She was right. I didn’t have to take everything off. I could have detected a recording device without laying a hand on her.

But I hadn’t. And I learned how sharply her mind turned, even under extreme duress. Now that I know how innocent she was, she handled that night with unbelievable poise. I was abominable at the hotel, staring at her like a lecherous beast. The image of her pale luminous body in that room is etched into my memory.

I shift uncomfortably on the seat. I’m not willing to say I’ve given up the fight on this. Of course I haven’t. But an execution in a Vigilante silo isn’t something I could imagine anyone escaping. I for damn sure wouldn’t have allowed it to happen under my jurisdiction.