Page 94 of The Vigilante's Lover

In the hall outside the War Room, I don’t want to let go of Jax’s hand. I’m still shaking from what happened. My throat is raw from the chemical smoke.

Several of the committee members have been laid out on stretchers and are being wheeled to the elevator.

“How do we find Colette and Sam?” I ask Jax.

“They’ll find their way out. When a committee member dies, all kill orders and jurisdiction changes are put on hold.” He strokes my hair. “We may be getting doughnuts after all.”

The one poised lady leans against the wall close by. A medic gives her a mask for oxygen, and she breathes from it steadily, watching me with kind, sharp eyes beneath a curly mass of white hair.

She gestures for me to come near.

I release Jax and go over to her. “You okay?” I ask.

She hands the oxygen mask back to the medic. “Mia Morrow,” she says. “I know who you are.”

“You do?” I ask. “Nobody seems to know me at all!”

She smiles, pushing a curl back from her forehead. She has a cut on the back of her hand, and the medic reaches for it. She waves him away. “I’m fine,” she says.

She threads her arm through mine. “I had hoped to meet you one day. I knew your great-grandfather, Prescott. He was about to retire, and I was just a young Phase Two. Your mother was about three years old. She was a cute little thing, tearing through the silos. I think she was the reason he left the service.”

My voice is barely audible. “You — you met my mother?”

“She was just a toddler then. I didn’t know her as a young woman. I was in an entirely different syndicate.”

My heart hammers. This is someone who knows who I am! “Was my mother a Vigilante, then?”

“She was.”

“My parents died in a boating accident.”

Her eyes flash with remorse. “I’m not aware of the circumstances of their death.

I just know that I signed the papers naming you a special.

And that you were to be protected at all cost. It required a rather unusual arrangement, but no one wanted Prescott’s last surviving family member to be lost to us. ”

“Who was my Aunt Bea?”

“Georgiana Powers was a faithful, long-serving Vigilante. When her husband was killed in action, she holed herself up in that safe house. We gave you to her in hopes that you would give her some purpose again. I’d say we succeeded in that.”

My stomach turns. “She wasn’t my aunt, then?”

The woman shakes her head. “Your mother was an only child. Vigilantes do not often have many children. It’s a hard life.”

My knees feel weak. I hold a hand out to steady myself against the wall, but Jax is there, hanging on to me. I sink against him.

The woman squeezes my arm. “We’ll take care of the matter of the committee. This was just a temporary assignment. We have members-in-waiting who will take the place of Duran. He was a fine man.” She shakes her head. “Such a pity Sutherland put any trust in that horrid woman.”

“You ready, Ms. Young?” a medic asks. “We’ll take you topside now.”

She nods.

“Wait,” I call out.

She turns back to me.

“Can I be a Vigilante, then?” I ask.

She smiles. “Of course. You are all that is left of the original line. You only need to ask.”

The medic leads her away.

Jax’s strong arms come around me. He kisses the top of my head. “So is that what you plan to do?” he asks. “Start your Phase One training?”

I turn around in his embrace and look up at him.

Beautiful, sleek, perfectly dressed Jax.

You’d never tell from the look of him that he’d been executed that morning, run miles in pajama pants, nearly suffocated in an elevator, and survived a chemical explosion.

I could never make Vigilantism look as good as he did.

“Can I just get the shoes?” I ask. “Somebody blew up my first pair.”

His megawatt smile is like a room lighting up. “Perhaps, if it’s the only thing you wear.”

And he kisses me, the currents of air still blowing around us, the medics carting people to the elevator, and guards clearing out the War Room.

I will go wherever he does. Vigilante. Civilian. Dart guns or ropes.

I’m his.