Page 67 of Bombshell

“Latin what?” he asks.

“For the tattoo. Instead of Hell’s Bastards, we do the Latin translation.”

It’s Luca’s idea that we need to permanently cement our brotherhood with inked forearms.

“Great,” Luca agrees. “Who knows Latin?”

“I do.”

We all turn to Jack in surprise.

“What?” he asks with a wide grin. “I’m not just a pretty face.”

“Still blasphemous,” Noah says.

“Why don’t you sit this one out? Or get something else?” Jack suggests, not unkindly.

Noah turns to me obviously looking for support, and that’s when I spot the fear behind his eyes. “You really going to do this?”

I’m about to ask him if he’s afraid of needles when a Bentley pulls by, parking just across the street. I can’t help admiring its classic, elegant lines. There’s something so British about it. A driver pops out, opens an umbrella against the falling snow, and hurries around to open the door for the back passenger. A long black cane appears first and catches my attention, and I stop. I have no idea why until the man emerges, standing with bitter resolve. He pushes away the umbrella like it’s offensive to him, and as he does, I catch a glimpse of his face under the streetlamp. I’m a thousand miles away from Valmont, but somehow it’s caught up with me.

I don’t notice that the others have continued until Luca’s voice slices through the night. “Ford!”

It happens in an instant. Angus MacLaine’s dark head turns toward the sound, his gaze sweeping across the street and landing on me. He pauses as our eyes lock.

I take one step off the sidewalk, my hand curling into a fist, before my brain has caught up with me. Before I take another, a strong hand closes over my shoulder.

“You coming?” Noah asks in a low voice.

We’ve been training for moments like this. I’ve spent the last few months studying how to react when caught off-guard and what to do when you face the threat of a deadly enemy. MacLaine’s driver turns, surveilling me in a way that tells me he’s here to provide more than car service. But he’s old, and I doubt he’s got as little as I do to lose. It would be so easy to cross that street and take them both down. I could probably count on Luca to join me. He doesn’t need a reason to start a fight.

And then Angus MacLaine makes the decision for me. He places one hand on his bodyguard’s arm and turns away, walking with a limp toward the gated building behind him without so much as one final glance.

“Come on,” Noah urges.

I shake it off, or I try to, but adrenaline hums through me from the encounter. We catch up with Luca and Jack, who’d stopped fifty paces away. Luca’s eyes glint with whatever wicked thoughts are currently dominating his brain, but Jack’s are furrowed with concern.

“What was that about?” he asks.

I may as well be honest, because I finally know what I need to do—and I’m going to need them to help me figure out how to do it. “That’s the man who ruined my life,” I tell them, “and someday I’m going to destroy him.”

“That’s when you came up with your plan,” she says softly as the memory fades.

“I was so consumed with hating him, I never stopped to consider…”

“If I was in the building…” trails Adair.

Realizing how close we came to finding each other—on a different continent and without knowing we were in the same city—just makes it more painful for her.

For both of us.

“I could have done something. I could have checked. Before you had to go through everything you did. But all I could see was revenge.” I realize my hands are still fisted and force myself to relax them. “But looking back—it was like I could feel you were there somehow. Like I knew Angus MacLaine would get out of the Bentley. My body stopped to wait before my eyes understood what I was seeing. Probably sounds crazy.”

“If you didn’t know I was there, what could you have done?” Adair says, apparently determined not to pass the buck of self-loathing.

“I don’t want to keep dragging us back into the past. I want us to move on, but I have to know why,” I say.

“Why?” she repeats.