Page 98 of The Vigilante's Lover

I don’t care that they will lay a trap for us at Mia’s house. I don’t care that they will predict our arrival.

I just want my hands on both of them.

“Will you kill them?” Mia asks, so softly that I can barely make out her words.

“Who? Klaus and Jovana?”

“Is that her name? Jovana? Your old girlfriend?”

It sounds so quaint when she says it. Girlfriend.

“Yes, that’s her name. And no, I won’t necessarily kill them. But when you’re in combat, you do what you have to do.”

She puts Klaus’s shoes back on, and we walk out to the car. “We’re going to move the car I drove into town with to a secure location,” I tell her.

“I could drive it back for you,” she says.

“It’s better if we stash it somewhere that we can access it.”

Her head drops again. I guess she’s expecting me to say something about last night, to act a certain way. But I don’t do that. I’m not trying to start a relationship with her. There’s no way that can work. I’m a fugitive, and this situation I’m in goes all the way to the top.

There’s no way this can end well.

So I just walk out to the car and let her follow. We ride in silence through the community. When we’ve moved the stolen Vigilante car, I head out on the highway. I scan our route for law enforcement and impediments.

When all seems clear enough, I inject the accelerant, pleased at thepowerful rumble of my own car as we shoot down the highway at four hundred miles per hour. For a short while, it’s almost as if the terrible last year never happened.

Mia sits in silence, looking out the window at the blaze of passing trees and houses. “Life in the fast lane,” she says softly.

“Surely makes you lose your mind,” I add.

She watches me with those big green eyes. It’s another moment that I could say something comforting about what happened between us. But I don’t do it. I focus back on the road.

When we’re about a mile from Mia’s house, I tell her, “I’d feel better if you let me drop you off a good distance away. There will be traps set.”

“No!” she insists. “It’s my house. I know it better than anyone.”

“I can’t put you in that danger,” I say, gripping the steering wheel.

“The danger came to me!” Her voice is high and firm. “You won’t keep me out of my own home!”

“It’s a safe house, Mia. Full of traps and monitors and equipment stashes.”

“I know!” she says. “I found the one under the pantry.” Her voice gets quiet. “It had guns in it.”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about.” The pine trees whiz by.

“What?” she asks.

“If you can’t even look at a gun, how are you ever going to use one?”

We approach her drive. It’s empty. Not even her old Ford is there. “Where is your car?” I ask.

“Up the road. Where I found this one.”

I pass her house, then turn on the same dirt road I used when I parked in the field behind her property on that first night.

“I’m going to cross the fields and approach the house. You have to stay in the car. I will lock you in.”