Page 51 of Vengeance

“About what?”

“He gets to choose who he becomes.” Doc’s eyes drifted toward the cabin. “And tell him the rest is beneath the floor.”

“The rest of what?”

“The proof,” Doc said.

“Where?” Bowie asked.

“At the old clinic,” Doc whispered. His voice weakened, and he coughed up more blood. “Room seven. Beneath the floor.”

Chloe leaned closer. “What’s beneath the floor?”

“The end of Dante Manzo.” A motorcycle engine roared suddenly from the far side of the cabin, and one of the SUVs started.

Bowie looked toward the clearing. “They’re pulling out.”

Chloe’s head snapped up. “What about Vengeance?” The cabin door burst open, and Vengeance stumbled onto the ruined porch with blood covering one side of his face. His hands were bound in front of him, and Dante stood behind him with a pistol pressed to Vengeance’s ribs. Dante’s gaze moved across the tree line before settling on Chloe. Even from that distance, she felt him recognize her, and his smile turned mean.

“There she is.” Vengeance followed his stare, and the instant he saw Chloe, something changed in him. Relief—or maybe itwas fear that she saw in his eyes- but it was all followed by fury when he noticed Doc bleeding at her feet.

“Doc?” His voice broke.

Doc’s eyes opened one last time, and he looked toward Vengeance and smiled. “You did good, kid.” The words were barely audible beneath the gunfire, but Vengeance heard them. Chloe saw it on his face.

Doc’s body went still beneath her hands. “No,” she sobbed. Vengeance stared at him and then lifted his head and drove it backward into Dante’s face as the clearing exploded into chaos.

Vengeance

The back of Vengeance’s skull connected with Dante’s nose, and he heard bones crunch. Dante cursed and stumbled, loosening the pistol pressed against Vengeance’s ribs, and that was all Vengeance needed. He twisted, caught his father’s wrist between his bound hands, and drove Dante’s arm against the porch post. The pistol fired, and the bullet tore into the roof. Dante struck him in the kidney and pain exploded through Vengeance’s injured side, nearly dropping him to his knees, but he held on—not because he believed he could win, but because Doc was lying motionless beneath the trees and because Chloe was kneeling in his blood. But mainly because Dante Manzo had taken one more person who had given Vengeance a reason to live.

“You killed him,” Vengeance snarled.

Dante’s bloodied smile appeared inches from his face. “Technically, Marcus did.” Vengeance slammed his forehead into Dante’s mouth, and he could feel teeth cut through his skin. Dante grunted and drove his knee into Vengeance’s stomach, and the healing wound in his side tore open. Warm blood soaked his shirt, and his grip weakened. Dante wrenched free and struck him across the face with the pistol, and Vengeance hit the porch floor as his world tilted.

Gunfire ripped through the clearing as the Royal Bastards advanced. Dante grabbed the back of Vengeance’s shirt and dragged him upright. “You’ve become inconvenient.”

Vengeance spat blood onto his boots. “Then kill me.”

Dante pressed the barrel beneath his chin. “Oh, I will.” His gaze shifted toward Chloe. “But not before you watch me take everything Savage tried to protect.” Vengeance lunged at Dante and the gun fired beside his ear. The sound was deafening and vanished beneath a high, piercing ring. They crashed through the broken porch railing and hit the ground together, and Vengeance landed on top of his father. His bound fists came down across Dante’s face once, and then again. Dante blocked the third strike and rolled from underneath Vengeance. He was older, but not weak or slow.

He had trained Vengeance to fight without mercy because he believed mercy was a flaw. For years, Vengeance had feared that every skill Dante gave him was another chain tying them together, but now, he used those lessons against his father. He hooked one leg around Dante’s ankle, shifted his hips, and reversed their positions.

Dante smiled through the blood covering his mouth. “That a boy,” he said, sounding smugly proud. Vengeance struck him again. “My son.” He hit Dante again. “My blood.”

Vengeance wrapped his bound hands around Dante’s throat. “I’m nothing like you.”

“You’re trying to choke your father to death,” Dante pointed out.

“I’m trying to stop a monster,” Vengeance corrected.

Dante’s eyes gleamed. “And you think that makes us different?” The question found the darkest part of Vengeance. It was the part Dante had spent years building, and for one dangerous second, his hands tightened. He wanted to feel the life leave his father’s body. He needed Dante to understand whathelplessness felt like. He wanted revenge for his mother, for Savage, and Doc and every child who had ever trembled when Dante Manzo entered a room.

Then Chloe screamed his name. “Vengeance!” Her voice pulled him back. Dante heard it too, and his smile widened.

“There’s your weakness,” Dante spat as he drove his thumb into Vengeance’s open wound. Agony ripped through him, and Vengeance rolled away, gasping for breath. Dante climbed to his feet and whistled sharply. The remaining Black Veil soldiers and Dragon members began retreating toward the vehicles. Marcus emerged from behind the SUV, with one hand clamped over his shoulder where a bullet had torn through him.

“Boss, we need to move.” Dante wiped blood from beneath his nose—his gaze fixed on Vengeance.