AllFreeNovel
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“You worried?” There’s a teasing note in her voice, but Luna wraps her arms around my middle, giving me a tight squeeze. The strength in her arms reassures me she’s okay. Standing here unhurt.
“You scared the shit out of me.” This is the part where I should let her go. But I can’t. We stand by her car, arms wrapped around each other. “Did you find everything you needed?”
Her shoulders lift and fall. “Those VINs are pretty much it.”
“Can you use them?”
When she tilts her head back, I allow enough space for us to meet eyes. “I could turn them over to the cops, tell them where I got them. Would it get my uncle out of Leo’s life?” She sighs heavily, her disappointment in the sinking of her body. “Not likely. They’re a decent threat if I’m desperate because the info in the wrong hands would fuck things up for Mike for a while. But then he’d have a vendetta. Like I said, this is just an insurance plan.”
Letting my hands resettle on her shoulders, I give Luna a thorough examination. There’s a tightness to her muscles.
My wife deserves to relax, but I’m not sure yet how to provide her the space to do so.
“But the money should work, right?”
Luna steps out of my hold, heading to the driver’s side of the car. “It worked for Dash. It’s my best bet.”
I slide into the vehicle as she starts the engine. Once we’re far enough from the warehouses that I can’t see them in the side mirror, I give in to my curiosity.
“How’d you learn to break into a building?”
Shit. That sounded judgmental.
“I never worked for my uncle, if that’s what you’re asking.” Her voice cuts the space between us.
So much for giving her space to relax.
“No. No, I swear I’m not judging you. I’m just…impressed, I guess. Even though you scared the hell out of me, I’m still awed. You’re like a badass cat burglar. If I wanted something from inside a building and found out the door was locked, I’d count myself down and out. But that didn’t stop you. I’m curious.”
Luna shifts in her seat, green light tracing over her skin as we pass through an intersection.
“I taught myself how to pick locks when I was younger. I had a few reasons to learn.” From the tick of the muscle in her jaw, my guess is none of them were pleasant. “One was revenge.”
My heart stutters at that. “Did someone hurt you?”
Luna glances over at me, a hard smile in place that makes the night a few degrees colder. “People have been trying to hurt me my whole life.”
Her words dig into my stomach like a sickness. I want to tell her I would never.
But I get the sense the promise wouldn’t mean much.
“So…” I flex my fingers to keep from cracking my knuckles. “How does wanting revenge lead to picking locks?”
Her thumbnail digs into the fake leather covering the steering wheel as she answers. “There was this girl in middle school. She was always coming at me. Not fighting me, which even scrawny as I was, I could’ve taken her.” Luna lets out a sharp exhale. “She would just talk at me. Whisper behind my back. Say things to my face.”
“What kind of things?” I don’t know why I ask. I’m perfectly aware of the shitty things kids will do to break someone down.
“There were the classic insults about being poor and dirty and ugly. And hell, she must’ve Googled all the slurs she could. Never ran out of material.”
Now I’m the one who wants revenge. Against a teenager.
“I learned early on if you take people’s shit, they never stop shoveling it on you. So I told her off one day. A teacher overheard me yelling, and I got detention. And I knew—Iknew—they’d heard at least some of the crap she’d said to me.” If eyes could burn, Luna’s would’ve scorched holes in her windshield. “Next day she started in on me again. We both realized none of the adults were going to help me. If I wanted her to stop, I’d have to do it myself.”
“You beat her up?” I guess.
Luna snorts. “Wanted to. But no. I was not going to get in trouble because of her again. I figured out a different way. You know those cheap locks you’d get in school for your locker?”
“Yeah.”
