The Vigilante's Lover #4 (Volume 4)

by Annie Winters

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  1: Jax

  2: Mia

  3: Jax

  4: Mia

  5: Jax

  6: Mia

  7: Jax

  8: Mia

  9: Jax

  10: Mia

  11: Jax

  12: Mia

  13: Jax

  14: Mia

  15: Jax

  16: Mia

  17: Jax

  18: Mia

  19: Jax

  20: Mia

  21: Jax

  22: Mia

  Epilogue

  The Vigilante’s Lover

  Volume 4

  By Annie Winters and Tony West

  www.anniewinters.com

  www.tonywestwrites.com

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  AnnieWinters.com

  Summary:

  A small-town girl teams up with the Vigilante spy who kidnapped her.

  Copyright © 2015 by Annie Winters and Tony West. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  Casey Shay Press

  PO Box 160116

  Austin, TX 78716

  www.caseyshaypress.com

  E-ISBN: 9781938150449

  Also available in paperback: ISBN: 9781938150432

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015934736

  eBook version 0.1

  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 other Vigilantes. 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.

  I’ve cut off contact with Sam and Colette for their safety. Good move, truly. If I’m a dead man, I don’t need to drag them with me. Hopefully they will think to help out Mia. She has nothing now, not even a home. At least there is that neighbor woman.

  We exit to a smaller highway and begin a winding path through the piney woods. I remember this road well from my first Vigilante days. I was an unusual age, starting the program young, the summer I turned twelve. So I was just thirteen when I arrived at this silo for my first mission.

  At the time, my father held a director position, running the Miami syndicate. Even so, he was waiting at this silo with my orders.

  It was a simple job, the sort of thing they asked young Phase Ones to do. I was to infiltrate a gang of petty t
hieves who were eluding the local law enforcement. Normally we’d stay out of small-time stuff like this, but one of them had been stalking a thirteen-year-old girl, and they wanted me to get the boy to make a big enough mistake that he’d be carted off to juvie and out of range of this girl.

  The boys were planning a minor haul at a garage in a suburb of Memphis. They didn’t know it was also a meth lab.

  I hooked up with them by staking out the same garage and acting like it was my turf. This went the predictable way. I had to fight one of their guys, and when I beat him inside six seconds, a knife pressed to his throat, they agreed we could do this job together.

  The mission went perfectly. The bulk of the boys made off with the tools and spare parts they were going for, but I showed the target boy the bigger haul, the meth. I didn’t have to do a thing after that. He returned to the lab on his own and was nabbed by the cops in a sting on the whole operation, one we knew was coming.

  That girl would be in her mid-thirties by now. I hope she’s lived a calm and happy life due to our intervention.

  The entrance of this silo is smaller than the Missouri one, just a metal door. As a Vigilante assigned to it, I would enter by one of the hatches out in the field, going down a long ladder to the tunnel that led to the control room and the silo itself.

  But since I’m a prisoner who must be led in, we take the door instead of a hatch. The driver drops us off, and the woman leads me up to the rusting facade. All the openings to silos look abandoned. This one is particularly convincing, covered in graffiti and laced with vines.

  “Is that asshole always your driver?” I ask her.

  “Unfortunately,” she says.

  “Perfectly legal to break his fingers,” I say.

  She almost cracks a smile as we approach the silo entrance.

  The iron gate swings open, revealing a set of bright steel doors. Two Vigilante guards wait inside. There is no glass data hall like in most silos, but nobody needs any information as we enter. They all know a dead man walking when they see him.

  I’m surprised to see Alan Carter himself as we pass through a series of security checks.

  “Slumming it?” I ask him. “Didn’t want to miss the festivities?”

  His face is poker straight. “Executing a Vigilante is serious business,” he says. “I’m doing everything by the book.”

  “Really?” I ask. “I wasn’t given a snuff dart on sight. That’s by the book.”

  “You were in the presence of a special,” Carter says. “She bought you a little time.”

  I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be grateful.

  “Now that we’re off protocol, what’s it going to be?” I ask him. “Poison? Old-fashioned bullet? Something new and exciting?” My voice is deadpan.

  “Take him to interrogation,” Carter says.

  That’s an odd choice for completing a kill order. When I raise an eyebrow, Carter adds, “We don’t have an execution room.”

  Few silos do. When that sort of mission is called for, it usually happens off site.

  When we enter the small room, I recognize the white walls and table, the black dome recording our every word and movement.

  And Paulson.

  That damn Vigilante is everywhere. He’s probably not too happy I stole his car in New Mexico.

  Or that I’ve creamed his face both times we’ve met.

  I’m only two steps in the room when he leaps forward and takes a potshot, his fist slamming into my jaw. My hands are still locked into the magnetic cuffs, so I just accept the blow without flinching.

  “You’re destroying my pretty face for the casket,” I say.

  In response, his elbow connects with my belly.

  I bend over from the impact but don’t make a sound. When I straighten, I say, “I see you’re a much better fighter when the other guy is restrained.”

  He clocks me one more time on the chin. I spin with it to avoid a concussion. The woman who led me into the room steps back and the door closes between us. Carter stands in the corner, watching.

  “One more,” he tells Paulson.

  While Paulson seems to ponder his next strike, Carter takes a skeleton key like the one I used to escape his silo and sticks it to the face of the table. He punches a button right as Paulson slams his knee into my gut.

  With a sizzle and a spark, the electronics in the room go out. Carter tosses his own jacket over the dome. “That was a nice trick you pulled back in Missouri,” he says to me. “And the perfect scenario for what we’re about to do.”

  I wonder darkly if they are going to torture me, something not ordinarily sanctioned by Vigilantes.

  But he says to Paulson, “That’s enough. You can go.”

  Paulson scowls but walks up to the scanner to pass through the door.

  I shake off the blows. I’m apparently going to live to see another five minutes. And with the tech down in the room, we can talk freely.

  “He could use another round of fight training,” I tell Carter.

  “You’re exceptionally tough,” Carter says. “He works well enough for regular humans.” He motions to a chair. “Sit, before I have to explain to someone upstairs why my tech team is so slow at restoring the eyes and ears of the Vigilante network to this room.”

  I drop into a chair. I have no idea what to expect now.

  2: Mia

  Obviously Jax’s ex-lover isn’t going to underestimate me this time.

  I wake up from what I assume was some drug, unable to move. The city flies by. We’re still in the blue Acura, and Jovana is driving.

  She has me tied with six different ropes and at least ten knots. I recognize all the ones that I can see, but I have no hope of escaping from them. My fingers are literally tied down, then my wrists, then the ropes crisscross all over the place, lashing me to the seat.

  “You’re awake,” she says, her “w” more like a “v.” The accent is strong. It makes her seem more exotic and sexy. Her black hair is shiny and sleek, tied up in a loose French twist. Her cheekbones are straight from a magazine, and the black dress she’s wearing looks like it just strutted down a runway.

  Jealousy spikes through me. So this is the woman who was Jax’s undoing.

  Jovana drives the Acura like a demon from hell, cornering the curves so hard that my head, the only free part of my body, snaps from side to side.

  “Stupid civilian vehicle,” she says, then lapses into a stream of what I assume is Russian.

  “You don’t have a fancy Vigilante car?” I ask, then lean my head away at her withering glare.

  “Shut up,” she says. “It’s bad enough I have to endure your presence. I don’t want to hear your yapping mouth.”

  All jealousy evaporates. Jax chose a real peach. Maybe she’s mad that I’m not quaking in my ankle boots.

  I look down at my trussed-up body. I swear I’m tied up more often than I’m loose these days. What a crazy life.

  I don’t care a whit that she just told me to shut up. If I offend or annoy her, all the better. “Where are we going?” I ask. I shake my head, trying to clear the fuzziness, probably left over from whatever she gave me to make it easier to tie me up. I guess I should be glad it wasn’t a snuff dart.

  She ignores me, punching her finger on the screen. When she finds nothing but the original owner’s data, she taps her phone against it like Colt did. Then she hits a name I’m very familiar with.

  Klaus.

  I can’t picture him clearly, having only encountered him in the dark, his cigarette a small glow of light. But Jax did show me his picture as we prepared to encounter them after the MMA fight. The screen gives nothing away, though, as it links through. Only his name is visible.

  The number rings and rings, but does not answer or go to voice mail. Jovana’s eyes narrow and she mutters more Russian.

  “Not answering your calls? Men are crappy like that,” I say.

  “Shut up or I’ll cut your face,” she snaps.

  Whoa-kay. I pre
ss my lips together. I’ll just have to gather information by observing. I look out the windows. We’re out of the piney woods. The sun is still in the east and rising. So I wasn’t out long and we’re driving northeast. I almost ask if we’re headed to Washington to meet Sutherland, but then I remember she wants to cut my face.

  We can’t make it in time for the evening meeting by car. It must be ten hours at normal speeds. Maybe we’re heading for an airport. Of course, she can’t really risk that with a captive. Jax might have been able to sneak a tied-up girl into the back of a hotel, but they won’t ignore me trying to board a plane.

  Jovana stabs at the screen again. This time it’s a name I don’t know. Kovitch.

  “What is the nature of this call?” A dark-haired man scowls from the screen, then relaxes. “Jovana? Why are you calling unencrypted on this channel?”

  “I’ve run into a snag,” she says. She glances over at me and starts speaking in Russian. Despite not knowing a word of it, I pick out a few names. Sutherland. De Luca. Klaus. And some cities. Knoxville. Washington.

  So we’re still going that way. I’ve told Jax about Jovana’s meeting, so if he’s able to get out of whatever jam he’s in, maybe we’ll meet up. My heart soars at the thought that we can continue to fight this thing, maybe win it. Clear his name. Get this woman and that Klaus guy—wherever he is now—off our backs.

  I try to think about what I’ll do if I’m faced with having to kill someone. Can I do it?

  Jovana disconnects the call and turns to glare at me. “I can’t wait to cut that smirk right off your beastly face,” she says.

  Yeah, I could kill her.

  “Sutherland blowing you off too?” I ask, then wonder why I’m antagonizing her, as her fist connects with my chin. The blow hurts more than it should, and I realize I must be bruised. She hit me some other time. Maybe when I was drugged.