Page 75 of Vengeance

Vengeance didn't lower his weapon. "That depends on you answering a few questions for me. What’s your name?”

"Gabriel,” the man said.

"How about your last name?” Vengeance asked.

"I stopped using it twenty years ago."

"That's not a good enough answer,” he said.

"It was for Savage,” the man responded. That got his attention. The man reached slowly into his coat, and Chloe stiffened. He produced a faded photograph of Savage, Doc, Elena, and him as a little boy. It was the same picture Dallas had given him. On the back, Savage had written another sentence.

Gabriel is family.

Vengeance finally lowered his pistol. "Why didn’t Bowie know about him? He would have warned us," Chloe insisted.

"Very few people know who I am," the man said. Gabriel looked at Chloe. "You must be Chloe."

"I am,” she admitted.

"I was good friends with your father, Savage. I’m sorry about his passing," Gabriel said.

A lump formed in her throat. "You knew him?"

"I owed him my life." Vengeance was beginning to notice a recurring theme with Savage—he liked to save people. He glanced toward the church. "Come.”

The guy started walking to the church, and Chloe looked at Vengeance. “Should we follow him?” she asked.

Vengeance shrugged. “Do we have another option?” She shook her head and followed Gabriel to the church. Vengeance followed close behind her, keeping an eye out for things to go sideways because they always had a way of doing that.

The sanctuary had long since been abandoned. Broken pews lined the aisle, and moonlight poured through shattered stained glass. The silence felt almost sacred. Gabriel led them beneath the altar and knelt on the cracked stone flooring where a steel door was hidden. He spun the combination lock, and the heavy door hissed open.

"She's waiting,” was all he said, pointing down into the dark tunnel. Vengeance's pulse thundered as he descended the steps. Chloe stayed close behind him. The underground bunker looked nothing like he'd expected. There were computers that lined a wall, and maps hung above them. The walls were covered with photographs, shipping manifests, names and faces. Red string connected hundreds of people. It wasn't a hideout; it was a war room.

A woman stood with her back to them. Her blonde hair was streaked with silver. She turned, and her blue eyes met his. Fora long moment, no one spoke. "I'm sorry." Her voice broke. "I've rehearsed this moment for twenty-six years.” A tear escaped and ran down her cheek. “And those are still the first words that come out."

Vengeance couldn't move. Every question he'd ever asked, every nightmare, every lonely birthday, and every visit to a grave that had never belonged to her—all of it stood between them.

"You let me think you were dead,” he whispered.

"I know,” she said.

"I buried you." He barked out his laugh. “Hell, I hated you for leaving me."

"I know, and you had every right to feel that way,” she said, nodding through her tears.

He wasn’t sure what to say next, but decided to ask the only question that mattered. "Why?"

Elena closed her eyes. "When I found out what Dante really was—” She looked toward one wall and nodded to the photographs of frightened young women that covered it. Some were smiling in school pictures, some were mugshots, and some were surveillance photos. Many had: recovered written beneath them, but too many simply read: missing. "I thought he was smuggling weapons." Her voice shook. "Then I found the girls."

Chloe quietly covered her mouth to hide her gasp. "They were everywhere,” his mother continued as she walked to one photograph. It was of a girl who was no older than sixteen. "Dante wasn't building a criminal empire; he was building a market." She looked back at Vengeance. "I confronted him." His stomach tightened. "He just smiled at me when I told him that I knew everything." Another tear rolled down her cheek. "And he asked me how much I thought a sixteen-year-old virgin sold for." The room fell silent. "I tried going to the FBI."

"No one believed you?" Chloe whispered.

"Oh, they believed me.” Elena laughed bitterly. "They were already being paid by Dante, so they knew about the entire operation." Vengeance's jaw clenched. "So I ran."

"No." A new voice came from behind them. Gabriel stood in the corner of the room. "You didn't run." He looked at Vengeance. "She went to Savage."

Vengeance frowned. "Why him?"