Page 2 of The Vigilante's Lover
Chicago, Illinois.
This is his latest reply. It arrived this morning, the only break in my long, strange days puttering around this empty house, unsure of what to do now that my last surviving family member has left me.
My finger traces the edges of the stamp. The postmark is a week ago. It took a while to arrive. Probably someone in the prison had to read it and approve the contents. I wonder what they thought of it.
My eyes graze another line.
The stopper knot thrusts against you, eliciting another impassioned cry.
Must. Stop.
I stand up, fanning my face with the envelope. When the first letter turned up a few months ago, I assumed it was sent to the wrong address.Aunt Bea didn’t seem the type to correspond with someone in prison.
But she was unable to speak by the time I arrived to help. The last stroke had been too much, stealing her speech and most of her motor functions. The neighbors who had been watching out for her could no longer manage, and she was about to be forced to live out her days in an eldercare facility twenty miles away. Our small Tennessee town has no nursing homes. Families are expected to take care of their own.
So I did. I dropped out of community college and moved back into the rambling old Victorian on the outskirts of town.
Of course, my arrival created a little rally in her health. Her happy eyes followed me whenever I came into her room to spoon her a little broth or adjust her pillows.
She had no way to communicate other than through hand squeezes and slight nods of her head. The letters weren’t a priority in our limited conversations, which centered around hunger and comfort and big decisions about her house and accounts.
But now that she is gone, the letters are one of my few links to the outside world.
Of course the writerwouldhave to be a prisoner. I glance at his name. I wonder if he is as sexy as he sounds.
Jax De Luca.
3: Jax
Five minutes to prison break.
I resist the urge to pace my cell. I’m at the mercy of two friends and comrades, Sam and Colette. I have only a meager handful of contacts I still trust.
We have a painfully short window to get me out of Ridley Prison before the other Vigilantes are alerted to my escape. I gave Sam and Colette every detail of the security and routine, picked up during the past year in this hellhole.
We’re breaking out months ahead of schedule and without all the planning in place, but I feel I must. Something has happened to my closest comrade, Klaus. The letters coming from his safe house are garbled and out of code. This can only mean he has been compromised, captured, or worse.
Normally, breaking out of an ordinary prison is child’s play. I’ve done it without assistance on more than one occasion. The difference this time is my fall from grace within the Vigilante network itself.
Work with them and anything is possible. Laws don’t apply to you. Presidents and prime ministers answer your calls. You have no need totake theirs.
But cross the Vigilantes and you might as well be dead. Their reach is unsurpassed. They are part of every government, every agency, every group of mercenaries, every band of killers.
I know this well. I once was in line to become the head of it all.
Now they want me out of their way.
I pace in my cell and wait for the bell that signals the doors will open. I run through the plan again, over and over, until I can imagine every footfall. My mind’s eye travels the halls and corridors, past suspicious guards with narrowed eyes and hands on weapons. It sees my fellow inmates, the nods of recognition and respect, the glowers of hate. Lots of enemies in here. I don’t care. At least with adversaries, you know where you stand.
Unlike lovers. A lover is what got me here.
Jovana.
I shake my head. I can’t get distracted now. Revenge will come when I’m out.
The alarm signaling the start of our workday echoes through the cell block. A second later my door rumbles open. I begin a mental countdown, honed to precision through years of training. Despite my preparation, I still have to force my breathing into a steady rhythm.
Relax, Jax.
