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MINKA
Tiffany Hewitt, Copeland City’s primetime news anchor, stands on City Hall’s front steps and reports on a killer of killers.
The vigilante. A nameless, faceless murderer of murderers.
The citizens of Copeland live with an odd phenomenon: the brutal reality that they have a killer on their streets. But there’s no panic. No fear. And most surprising of all, no demands to bring the vigilante to justice.
Because up to this point, the only ‘victims’are monsters who’ve hurt others.
It’s two thousand and twenty-two, and sure, most of society has gone to shit. Social media has made us all stupid, and technology hasn’t helped the way our ancestors probably hoped.
But no matter how crooked things have become—politics, religion, war, famine—it all steps to the side, allowing society to stand united in the hope that a man who rapes and murders an innocent child will get his comeuppance.
That’s where the vigilante comes in, providing a beacon of hope among a faulty judicial system.
A shining light in a dark world of prejudice.
To many, the vigilante is a hero. But right now, Tiffany Hewitt stirs her cauldron of drama, fishing for ratings, while Mayor Lawrence stalks out of the building behind her in a perfect three-piece suit, his face hard with anger.
“Mayor!” Tiffany is petite and beautiful, and Lawrence, according to my second-in-charge, is ahot daddywho can do no wrong. They make an odd sight, with her chasing him the way a chihuahua might chase a bulldog. “Mayor Lawrence! We would like a statement on Laramie Fentone’s death. Do you have anything to say?”
Justin Lawrence has salt and pepper hair, and a little scruff on his jaw. Objectively, I guess I can see why Aubree holds a candle for the man easily twice our age. He’s broad across the shoulders, and wears a suit like he was born in one. And he’s a good mayor. Truly, he is. An improvement on the one who came before him.
The vigilante killed that guy too.
It was me.
I’m the vigilante.
“For fuck’s sake.” Archer reaches across the bar—his brother’s bar—and snags the TV remote to change the channel to something less… incriminating. “Turn that shit off. Jesus.” Tossing the remote down, he looks at me and tilts his head to study my eyes.
He’s my husband. My rockhopper penguin. A homicide detective who knows what his wife is.
It’s been a thorn in our marriage, of course. A point of contention. What, with the fact he’s supposed to arrest my ass for the crimes I’ve committed. But love does strange things to a person.
“I wish she’d shut the fuck up.” Grumbling, Archer turns on his stool so his legs hug mine, and his aftershave fills my lungs.
He wears stubble on his jaw, too; has since before I met him. So when he leans in to nuzzle my neck and whisper in my ear, I feel the coarse slide of hair on my flesh.
“She’s stirring things up,” he murmurs.
To everyone else, we look like a couple of lovers making out. In reality, we’re a cop and a killer, discussing our latest homicide and hoping no one overhears us.
“It’s her job.” I drop my head back and let him work his lips over my skin. “She’s a good reporter, Archer. And she doesn’t cause trouble for the sake of drama.”
“She’s sensationalizing the vigilante,” he growls. “Bringing attention to something we’d rather be kept private.”
“It’s gonna happen regardless.” Pulling back, I meet his emerald stare and grin. “Better she sensationalize than condemn.”
“I’d rather she not talk about it at all. I don’t want them to know your name.”
My husband is Archer Malone, of the New York mafia Malones. He was raised on an estate where men hold the power, and women were used and abused—or worse, found themselves in a shallow grave somewhere far from the beaten track. His family often traded sex as currency, and raised their sons to do the same. So Arch’s hand, dropping to my lap while he’s angry, comes as no surprise.
In fact, the longer we’re together, the more I understand how he ticks.
Angry? Sex. Happy? Sex. Frustrated, scared, worried, or stressed? Sex, sex, sex.
Though thankfully, despite his cruel upbringing, he didn’t catch the ‘abuse women and treat them like shit’ bug his father tried so desperately to pass on. If anything, Arch has swung the complete opposite direction.
