Page 53 of Vengeance

“The clinic is three states away,” Vengeance said.

“Then we better get on the road,” Bowie said.

Vengeance pushed unsteadily to his feet. “No, I’ll go alone.”

“You can barely stand by yourself,” Bowie pointed out.

He pressed his palm against his wound and winced. “I know where Doc hid things.”

“So do I,” Bowie said. Vengeance looked at him, and Bowie’s expression hardened. “Savage trusted me too. I was his husband.” The reminder landed like a blow. Vengeance had spent years believing he stood outside Savage’s family, looking in, but Bowie wasn’t treating him like an outsider. He was speaking to him as an equal—like a man who had lost the same people.

Smoke thickened behind them and flames crawled along the cabin roof. Vengeance turned toward the porch. “The letter.”

“It’s gone,” Chloe said softly.

“Savage’s journal—” Vengeance said. “Dante tore out several pages before the fire started. He took them.”

“What was on them?” Bowie asked.

“I only saw part of one page,” Vengeance admitted.

“What did it say?” Vengeance tried to remember through the pain. Dante was standing beside him, and Marcus was holding his arms. The journal was open in Dante’s hands, and a list of names was written in Savage’s block lettering—dates, payments, and one address was circled repeatedly. He remembered how Dante’s expression changed when he read the final paragraph.

“There was a reference to something called the Lazarus file,” Vengeance said. “You ever heard of it?”

“No,” Bowie breathed, “But it must have meant something to Dante.”

He believed that Dante knew exactly what the Lazarus file was. “He looked afraid,” Vengeance said. “Not angry, but afraid.”

Chloe stood beside him. “What else?”

“There was a name,” he said.

“Whose?” Bowie asked. Vengeance hesitated, and the memory sharpened. Savage had written it beneath the circled address.

Elena Manzo

His mother. Vengeance’s stomach tightened. “My mother’s name.”

Chloe touched his arm. “What did it say?”

“I didn’t see anything else,” he said. Dante had slammed the journal closed the instant Vengeance leaned close enough to read it, and then he’d ordered Marcus to burn the cabin. Whatever Savage had discovered involved Elena, and Dante would kill anyone who learned the truth.

“I thought that Dante said she died,” Chloe whispered.

“He said a lot of things,” Vengeance breathed.

“You don’t believe him?” she asked.

Vengeance looked toward the burning cabin. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.” The roof groaned, and Ryder shouted for everyone to move back. The center of the cabin collapsed in a shower of sparks, and heat rolled across the clearing. Vengeance watched the place burn. It was Doc’s home, and it had been reduced to ash. Chloe slipped her hand into his, and he looked down. She didn’t release him.

“We need to go,” Bowie said.

Vengeance nodded toward Doc. “We’re not leaving him.”

“No,” Bowie agreed. “We aren’t.” They wrapped Doc in a blanket and carried him away from the cabin. Vengeance tookone corner despite Bowie ordering him not to. Ryder took another, while Spider and Blade carried the opposite end. Chloe walked beside them. The Royal Bastards formed a silent procession through the trees, and no one spoke until they reached the motorcycles and trucks hidden farther down the mountain.

Bowie opened the back of a dark SUV. “We’ll take him home.”