Page 187 of The Vigilante's Lover

Colette presses a button and a panel slides open to reveal a roof window. “I’m cloaking it because this tech will give us away,” she says.

“It’s just until he’s in,” Jax says. He keeps an eye on the helicopters above.

Sam himself appears, taking jaunty steps in a crosswalk ahead with a stream of pedestrians. He lingers near the back of the group, falling behind. When he spots the BMW, he cuts around a taxi and jumps into the front of the car.

“Nobody’s homing in,” Jax says. “Welcome back, Sam.”

He turns in his seat. “Good to see you in one piece, sir.” He elbows Colette. “Don’t open that roof hatch or he might go jumping off the flyover.”

“Hey, Sam,” I say.

“Lookin’ good, Mia,” he says. “Let’s bail on this traffic.”

“You got something I can use for navigation?” Colette asks. “We’ve been dark since West Virginia.” She buzzes the roof closed.

“I made a stop by one of my hacker networks,” Sam says. “I have an off-grid hookup to the Identipad system, plus we can tap into all the V-cars in this jurisdiction who are Phase One to Four. Then we’ll know who’s around us.”

“Young Vigilantes are heavily monitored,” Jax explains. “There’s a whole channel devoted to chatter about their progress.”

“Easy hack,” Sam says.

“That’s a decent start,” Colette says.

“Yeah, the real danger is in the Phase Tens on the prowl,” Sam says. “They are going to be like silent ghosts.”

“Any kill orders go out other than yours?” Jax asks.

“Not in the U.S. syndicates,” Sam says. “We’re still part of the alleged cleanup from your indiscretion. But they are putting marks on the Vigilantes taking the fall for the murders overseas.”

“How do we know those murders aren’t faked?” Colette asks. “They broadcasted Jax’s and his wasn’t real.”

“We don’t know it,” Sam says. “Nobody can trust anybody for anything.”

“Maybe I’m dead right now,” Colette says with a laugh. “I don’t even know who I work for anymore.”

“Me,” Jax says authoritatively. “You work for me. And nobody’s going to die today. Real or imagined.”

Sam shakes his head. “I hope so. I really do.”

“So let me get this straight,” Colette says. We’re stopped again. “Sutherland recruits the foreign Phase Tens, has them do their dirty business in their homelands, and then uses this to fuel a network-wide panic so he can come in and fix it all?”

“He’s already been granted access to five other networks,” Sam says.

“Why is that a big deal?” I ask. I don’t understand why Sutherland is doing this or why anybody cares.

“One of the beauties of the network has always been its syndicate autonomy,” Jax says. “We aren’t affiliated with any country or government. And each part of the network has its own rules, based on where they live.”

“Things that won’t fly here might be the norm in Syria or with an African tribe,” Sam says. “And others are far more stringent. Most of them aren’t nearly as lenient about gunplay as the U.S. is.”

“And that’s the way it should be,” Jax says. “There is no one-size-fits-all justice. And nobody needs to have all the information in one place.It isn’t necessary or wise.”

Sam pulls a panel off Colette’s dash and cuts a couple wires. “Sutherland is gunning for a global network. And now it’s starting to look like a good idea, thanks to his own sabotage.”

“Where is Carter?” Colette asks.

“Picked up ten minutes ago,” Sam says. “Paulson too. They should have had a body ready to cremate. Easy to figure out Jax wasn’t disposed of. Sloppy, sloppy.”

He twists a new set of wires in and the dash lights up. The map glows red.